“Look at this place, Mickey, it’s a mess,” I cried, picking up a couch cushion from the floor. “Jane’s purse is on the kitchen counter, but she’s gone. Oh, if I hadn’t gone up to the Passion Peak to be with Stiletto Wednesday, this wouldn’t have happened.” The Lithuanian came out in me. I beat my chest like a crazed peasant. “What a lousy, selfish mother I am.”
“You’re a kind and loving mother, Bubbles,” Mickey said calmly. “A selfish mother is one who abandons her children to seek a life without responsibility.”
Lehigh Police Detective Mickey Sinkler spoke from experience. His wife had left him with a passel of kids, including a five-year-old still in diapers and a juvenile delinquent. But he had managed okay, transforming his string-bean body into a figure of steel and ordering his wife home to take care of the brood. Strutting around my wrecked living room, his leather belt crackling as he walked, Mickey was the model of leadership.
“Everything will work out just fine,” he said. “Leave it to local law enforcement. We’ll find her.”
“I can’t sit around twiddling my thumbs, Mickey. I’ve already called all her friends, the university, the high school, the ice cream shop, the library, even her boyfriend’s father. Not a word,” I said. “And my house . . .” Chairs were overturned. Paper was strewn about. There was even a rip in the plastic couch covering.
“Definitely not a break-in. Looks like the morning after your typical teenage party to me,” Mickey said. “Take it from the father of a kid in juvie hall.”
Juvie hall. That was reassuring. “Jane doesn’t throw parties like these. At Jane’s parties kids sit around playing these mathematical card games.” I began to cry. “Something bad has happened. She’s been kidnapped. Maybe the person who tried to kill me Wednesday took her.”
“Who tried to kill you?” Mickey asked, alarmed. “I thought you said you were with Stiletto Wednesday at the Passion Peak.”
“Didn’t you read this morning’s News-Times?” I asked.
“You know I only read sports.”
I ignored the insult and told him the whole story of the fax, Price’s body and the explosion. That Stinky’s car was at the Number Nine mine during Price’s murder and that Stinky was supposed to meet me here, at my home, this morning when Jane went missing, were not suspicious coincidences lost on me. I considered mentioning this to Mickey, but decided not to. Not just yet.
Mickey pulled me to him. “Jane’s a smart cookie,” he said, stroking my hair. “I’ll call the department and spread the word. We’ll have her back by lunch. Promise.”
The door burst open and my ex, Dan the Man, entered in his usual morning golf attire—baby blue polo shirt, plaid pants and white shoes. Wendy, his cheeseball heiress wife, trotted in right behind him, her white tennis outfit hanging off her pretzel-stick body.
“Oh great. Super.” Dan threw up his hands. “My daughter’s missing and Bubbles is making out with Boy Wonder.”
Mickey broke away from me to stand up to Dan. “Who you calling Boy Wonder?”
“Take it easy, Sinkler,” Dan said, holding up his hands. “I don’t want to have to file a police brutality action against you.”
“Now, Chip,” Wendy said, “let’s focus on why we’re here. Oh my.” She lifted a T-shirt that had been slung over a mirror. “Looks like it was quite a night.”
“What the hell happened?” Dan paced through the living room. “Jane hold a kegger or what?”
“I’m guessing Jane’s been kidnapped after leaving your place,” I said. “She must have put up quite a fight.”
“Kidnapped!” Wendy gasped and Dan went pale.
“This is your fault,” he said, pointing at me. “You and your stupid, worthless reporting. I read those stories you wrote this morning. They were crap. Crap stories that got our daughter snatched.”
My cheeks burned. This was not what I needed right now. Mickey put a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“What if the kidnapper is after our money?” Wendy exclaimed. “What’ll we do?”
“I don’t have money to burn,” Dan said. “Wendy’s got all the money. It’s not fair if the kidnappers hit her up just because they think I’m rich.”
I was appalled. “Daniel Ritter. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Chip! The name’s Chip! How many gosh darn times do I have to remind you?” Dan, ahem, Chip’s face was turning bright red. “Chip. Chip. Chip.”
“That’s even worse!” I screamed. “First you whine about paying a ransom, then you throw a temper tantrum because I didn’t call you by your fake name.”
Mickey stepped between us. “Cool it, you two. You’re not helping matters by getting angry. This is your daughter we’re talking about.”
Exactly. I threw a dirty look at Wendy, who appeared to be calculating how much she could spare for the kidnappers and still afford a weekly facial at Helene’s.
“My experience as a police officer is that it’s never quite what it appears,” Mickey said. “Frankly, the parents often imagine the worst. Forget that the house is torn apart, Bubbles. If you had come home and found everything in order and Jane gone, where would you have assumed she went?”
I studied my purple nails and recalled my last conversation with her. Before she mentioned Stinky she spoke about going back to the dig.
“The dig,” I said, snapping to. “It’s a university class project at this farm in Emmaus. Maybe she got a ride.”
“Digging for what?”
“Celtic rocks,” I said, adding Jane’s explainer, “like Stonehenge.”
“Hippie love fest is what it is,” Dan said. “Unwashed pagan punks staying up all night getting high and howling at the moon.”
For the first time ever, Wendy leaped to Jane’s defense. “Don’t dismiss the rocks offhand, Chip. My crystal instructor is a staunch believer in the Celtic origins of this area. Do you know that those stones are aligned to the winter and summer solstices?”
Dan jerked a thumb at his wife. “Crystal instructor. Charges my wife fifty bucks a week to look through a piece of glass. I’ll tell that instructor where he can shove his—”
Mickey opened the door. “Why don’t we all go out to the dig. We’ll find Jane and then everybody can relax.”
“You can relax,” Dan said. “I’ve got a tee time in thirty minutes with Fast Putt Herrick. How’d you like to be up against a two handicap in my state of mind?”
If Jane hadn’t been kidnapped, she’d have vanished from pure mortification when she saw our caravan enter the farmer’s field where the dig was underway. I led the pack in my rusted, two-toned Camaro, followed by Dan in Wendy’s expensive midlife crisis special—an apple red BMW roadster—and Mickey in his Lehigh PD cruiser.
The cruiser caused an especially big stir among the muddy and energetic college students who were digging deep trenches in the field with shovels and picks. I assumed they were taking advantage of the morning’s cooler hours to do the hard labor. From the quick way the fog was burning off, it was shaping up to be another bright blue Indian summer day.
Neither Jane nor her boyfriend, G, was anywhere in sight.
“The fuzz!” shouted one kid, bare-chested except for a white line of puka beads around his neck. “Don’t tell me it’s a permit issue again.”
Mickey slammed the door of his cruiser and strutted over to the edge of the pit. He stared down at the young, sweaty faces, dewy with the excitement of finding the past beneath their feet. “You guys see Jane Ritter today?”
“That high school girl?” Puka grinned at his partner, a woman in braids and a brown tank top. “I’m not sure you wanna know.”
I did not like the sound of that.
“Let me handle this.” Dan hitched up his plaid golf pants. “Now see here, junior, I’ve come for my daughter, Jane. If you potheads have absconded with her, I’ll sue your parents for every dime of your absurdly inflated tuition. Where is she?”
Puka leaned on his shovel and regarded Dan with open distaste. “Okay, old man. If you really want to know, your daughter’s in the woods with Professor Tallow. She follows him around like a puppy. If you ask me, she’s got a crush and after meeting her father, I can understand why.”
My poor, poor Jane. A crush on a professor. And she was just a baby. So vulnerable.
“A crush on a professor, eh? That’s my girl,” Dan said, beaming. “She knows how to suck up for an A. Connections, connections, connections. Get you there in half the time with half the effort.” He winked at Wendy, who rolled her eyes and went off to examine a mound of grass.
Puka shook his head and returned to shoveling.
“Remarkable!” exclaimed Wendy, who was standing on top of a large mound where the field met the woods, her white pleated tennis skirt fluttering in the morning breeze. “Chip, come here.”
The three of us trekked through the long, damp green grass over to Wendy. “It’s an ancient Celtic burial tomb. You can tell because the door is positioned east.” She pointed to a hole at the side of the mound. “And check out this monolith.” She hopped off the mound and ran to a tall pointed stone on which various indentations and lines were carved. “See the ancient ogam script? You can even make out the Eye of Bel.”
We looked at the ancient ogam script.
“This site should definitely be designated an archaeological treasure,” she said in a sort of bossy fifth-grader way. “I’ll have to mention it to my historical society group.”
“Too bad that rock’s been marked up by plows, say?” Mickey squinted at what was supposed to be the Eye of Bel. “Now, where’s this ogam you’re talking about?”
Wendy ignored him. “Put your hand on this monolith, Chip. Can’t you just feel the surge of energy?”
Dan put his hand on it and nodded dutifully.
“You know what it’s supposed to be, don’t you?” Wendy asked.
Dan blinked.
“A big stone penis.”
He yanked off his hand and wiped it on his pants.
“I bet if I put a dowsing rod on top of this thing it would spin so fast it’d make you dizzy,” Wendy said.
“Something’s made you dizzy,” Dan mumbled.
Mickey knelt by the hole in the mound. “I don’t mean disrespect, but, gosh, this looks a heck of a lot like grandma’s root cellar. Used to store pickles and moonshine during the summer months. Potatoes in the winter.”
“Oh, you sound just like the state archaeologist,” Wendy said. “Those academics refuse to accept the evidence that ancient Celts fished the Delaware and then journeyed northward to the Lehigh River around 300 B.C. . . .”
“And up the Monocacy where they sought refuge during a particularly harsh winter,” added a man in a waxed green Barbour coat who was trudging out of the woods. Two college girls accompanied him, listening in rapt attention. Neither of them was Jane. “You have a better than average grasp of local Celtic history, madam.”
“Professor Fallow! I’ve seen your picture in the paper,” cried Wendy.
“The name is Tallow,” he corrected. “Although perhaps I’ve been in the dirt so long, Fallow might be a more appropriate surname.”
The girls giggled.
Tallow had worked hard to perfect his Mick Jagger imitation. He was of slim build, medium height, in his late forties with shoulder-length, shagged brown hair that was unkempt enough to make him acceptable to younger generations. His khakis were slightly wrinkled and stuffed into black Wellingtons and the collar of his canvas shirt was unbuttoned to permit a glimpse of chest. He was the perfect English sportsman, rustic and effete at the same time. The type to cause the kind of crush a woman cherishes late at night, years after she’s left his classroom.
“My crystal instructor has all your books.” Wendy was getting giddy. “He’s gonna die when he hears we met, Professor Tallow. He says you’re a genius.”
“Really?” Tallow’s eyes dropped to Wendy’s massive sapphire and diamond engagement ring that Dan had squandered Jane’s college fund to buy. “I’m always open to private instruction for obviously intelligent students such as yourself. Why don’t we meet for coffee sometime and, you know, I’ll elucidate you?”
I wasn’t exactly sure of the precise definition for elucidate, but in this case I think it meant, “Take you to bed and spend all your inheritance.”
“Ooooh, I’d like that,” Wendy gushed.
“Jesus Christmas,” grumbled Dan, no fan of academics to begin with.
Enough of this. “Have you seen Jane?” I asked Professor Tallow.
“Come again?” Tallow put his hand to his ear.
“What in God’s name have you done with my little girl?” Dan demanded.
“I apologize for my husband,” Wendy said. “He’s just concerned about his daughter, Jane Ritter. She’s been—”
“Jane Ritter!” Professor Tallow’s eyes brightened. “Of course, she’s auditing my Local Celtic History course at Lehigh. A terribly bright student.” He regarded Wendy warmly. “Don’t tell me you’re Bubbles. Jane talks about you all the time.”
“Bubbles!” Wendy screeched as though a rat had run over her toes. “I should say not. That’s Bubbles.” She wagged a limp finger toward me.
“Brilliant,” said Tallow, stepping away from Wendy and taking both of my hands in his soft ones. “Your daughter has been regaling us with stories of your adventures up in Slagville. What a nasty experience that must have been, although worse by far for Mrs. Price. How awful to wake up and find out that your very successful, very wealthy husband has been shot in a coal mine.”
“Yes,” I said, eager to get back to the topic of Jane. No point in “elucidating” him about how I had been a murder target, too.
“I want to know every detail of that incident. You must tell me. I have quite a connection to that area. As is widely known, I was the first to discover dolmens similar to those of Syrian design in Columbia County near Limbo, where I maintain a family getaway. My discovery was written up in Modern Archaeologist. Volume twenty. Perhaps you read it?”
“Sorry. Missed that issue,” I said. “About Jane—”
“Yes, as Jane and I have discussed, I am very concerned about the plans for a casino there. That so-called Dead Zone is a gold mine of Celtic stone structures. My theory is that, later, Irish and Welsh immigrants were attracted to the anthracite region specifically because of the similarities in topography to their native—”
“We’re very worried about Jane,” I interrupted. “Please, if you know where she is, tell us.”
“Haven’t seen her at all this morning.” Tallow seemed confused. “But you didn’t let me finish—”
“Listen, Indiana Jones.” Dan tapped him on the shoulder. “I happen to be a lawyer with some pretty influential connections at my alma mater, which is your place of employment. If I find you . . .”
The police scanner on Mickey’s belt went off. All conversation stopped as Mickey listened to numbers and words that made no sense except for “teenage runaway . . . short royal-blue hair . . . black vest . . . numerous earrings . . . army boots.” Last I recalled, Jane’s hair was raspberry red and she’d tossed those Doc Martens months ago. But it was close enough.
“She’s at the corner of Linden and Mulberry,” Mickey said. “Hitching.”
“I’m going with you,” I said. “Jane’s never hitchhiked before.”
“Mothers.” Mickey hooked the scanner back on his belt. “They’re so naïve.”
“I’ll stay here and cross examine Doctor Crackpot,” Dan said, pulling out his business card like it was a loaded gun.
We said goodbye to Tallow and company. I tagged after Mickey, the heels of my boots getting caught in the uncut hay and clumpy dirt. We skirted past the pits and budding archaeologists and made our way to the cruiser. Mickey got in and I had opened the passenger-side door when what should appear at the road into the field but my daughter stepping out of a truck.
Jane waved merrily at the driver and then proceeded to plow through the tall grass. What about all those lectures about not accepting rides from strangers? Hadn’t she been listening?
Mickey surveyed the scene in the rearview. “I could bust her for that, you know. It’s freaking insane of her to hitchhike. She could end up with her throat slit.”
“Hey, Mom.” She waved. “What’re you doing here?” Not a care in the world.
“I had to find you. You were kidnapped.”
Her brown Lehigh University backpack slid off her shoulder. She was wearing low-rider jeans and a white shirt that said HOT STUFF in pink glitter under her zippered black sweatshirt. What a combination.
“Kidnapped? What’re you talking about?”
I took her by the elbow and escorted her over to the Camaro, so we could speak in private. “The house was torn apart when I came home. And the car was there and your purse. I figured Stinky grabbed you and you two were halfway to Canada.”
“You have to be the most hysterical mother ever.” Jane shifted her feet. “Stinky did stop by about an hour ago and stayed for a few minutes. When you didn’t show, he gave me a message. He said it’s important.”
“What is it?” I asked eagerly.
But Jane’s gaze had fallen on Wendy’s apple red midlife-crisis special. “Oh, no. You didn’t. Dad and Wendy are here?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Your father loves you, too, you know.”
Jane hid her face in her hands. “This is so embarrassing.”
Embarrassing? Wait until she saw Dan’s pants. Now that was embarrassing.
She ducked behind my Camaro. “Ohmigod. There’s Thea Pippis. She’s never gonna let me hear the end of this.”
“I wouldn’t have worried if I hadn’t come home and found the place trashed.”
Jane flinched. “Trashed? It was neater than when you’d left it. G found a pair of your underwear in the upstairs bathroom, by the way.”
I looked down at my pierced and honest daughter. Most parents of teenagers might have rightly judged that their precious pumpkin was lying to cover up the previous night’s bash. But Jane didn’t lie. This was because I had adopted a “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy about her extracurricular activities. Like the hitchhiking, for example. Better not to ask.
“If what you’re saying is true,” I said, “then we need to get home, fast.”
“Why? I just got here.” Jane was about to argue further, but something behind me had caught her attention. She quickly stood, slipped her hands out her pockets and, I couldn’t believe it, patted down her blue hair. She had gone all pink, staring in awe at Professor Tallow, who had mysteriously popped up by my side.
“Excuse me for eavesdropping,” Tallow said. “I was drawn, intrigued actually, by the intense mother–adolescent daughter repartee. The natural maturation process as the offspring separates herself from the authority figure of a corresponding gender. So Reviving Ophelia. Did you know that in some African cultures it is common for teenage daughters to kill their mothers—at least in a simulated ritual?”
Creep, I thought.
“Wow,” said Jane.
“You found the kid!” Dan jogged up to us, out of breath, his pot belly flopping under the baby blue polo shirt. He exhaled a sigh of relief when he saw Jane. “Great. Remind me to ground you later.”
Jane gave a salute. “I’m already grounded, Dad, though shouldn’t you be grounded for wearing those pants?”
“What’s wrong with these?” Dan examined his pants. “Tiger Woods wears pants like these.”
Really? I doubted that. Tiger Woods was a stud.
Dan checked his watch. “Let’s get to the club, Wendy. I can make tee time if you speed.”
Wendy stomped her foot. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here. These stones need to be declared historical monuments and this is a project I’m interested in backing. Financially, that is.”
Tallow blew her a kiss. “You’re a lovely woman, Mrs. Ritter. Simply gorgeous.”
“Aw, get off it, Wendy,” Dan said, wedging himself between Tallow and his wife. “Come with me and we’ll buy you your own ogam stone. For the garden. Bigger than the neighbors’ even.”
She folded her arms and shook her head. “I want an authentic specimen dug with my own two hands.”
“What will the tennis girls do without you?”
“Canadian doubles. And leave the car. It’s mine.”
Dan scratched the bald spot on his head. “Now what am I gonna do?”
“I can give you a ride to the country club, Dan,” Mickey offered. “On Fridays I do a patrol near there.”
“All right,” Dan said with resignation. “But I’m playing all nineteen holes, Wendy. So who knows when I’ll be home.”
Wendy waved. When he was gone I said, “I thought there were eighteen holes in golf.”
“Oh, Bubbles. Silly old Bubbles.” Wendy patted my arm. “You really have been deprived, haven’t you?”