by Arthur Day
I returned the smile. “I’m looking for a Paul Coloni. My Name is Michael McCaal.”
“Oh Hi. I’m Paul. Nice to meet you. Come on in please. Sorry to keep you standing out there but this camp is pretty much wide open so anyone can come in if they want to. The door is seldom locked and easily picked if it is. Had to do that a few times I gotta tell you. Not that we mind that of course. This place was built to be open to friends and family whenever they show up, but we don’t see too many strangers ‘cause it’s kinda off the beaten path.”
“That’s okay,” I looked around. We were in the long hall made of wood with the joists showing and the long yellow strings of electrical wiring running between them. On my left were rows of bookshelves and to my right a small den-like space with a couch and a fireplace. The couch was covered by a sparkly bluish material that dated back to the 1950’s Pam had told me. The hallway extended all the way through the house to the far wall where doors were open to a back porch. “Seems like only yesterday,” I commented looking up at the beams running across the ceiling.
Coloni walked down the hall and turned left into a large living room. “Have a seat. May I get you coffee or tea or a beer?”
I shook my head as much in amazement as to refuse a beverage. I had not been to the camp for many years. On one side of the room was a huge granite fireplace that could have held whole logs. The other side was all windows looking out at the woods beyond the house.
“When you called you said that Pam had disappeared. What makes you think that?” I asked.
It had all seemed so surreal. I had woken up in a pissy mood that had only gotten worse. Even exercise had failed to work its usual magic. I thought about walking into town but decided against it. I thought about going back to bed but I wasn’t tired. I was standing by one of my front windows looking out at the small patch of scrub grass and brush that was my front yard when my pocket started playing the fourth part of the William Tell Overture by Rossini. I had forgotten that I had put my cell phone in my pants.
I hadn’t recognized the number. “Yes?” I thought it was probably another junk call either from some brainless idiot in a distant boiler room reading off a script he or she had soon memorized and wanting a donation for their particular charity or from a computer somewhere in the world in a server farm that was programmed to dial a thousand numbers and, if a human answered, to play a recording asking for money. I had long ago learned to hang up or click off such garbage, but I had to listen to a few seconds to make sure the call was not junk but someone trying to reach me for a legitimate reason. In my present mood I was about to click OFF regardless. I was, in fact, so pissed off at the world in general and myself in particular that I didn’t want to speak to anyone about anything.
“Hi. My name is Paul Coloni. Pam has disappeared.”
It was about the only thing a person could say that would bring me out of my funk. I stared down at my phone as if I had just ordered Scottie to beam me up and he had replied with a dirty joke. “Where are you?” I hadn’t heard from my ex in years and had not even thought about her in that time. Suddenly my mind was flooded with images of the years we’d spent together, her smile, her ability to empathize with those around her, her exercise-hardened thighs wrapped around me while urging me on as one might a prize stallion. “Who are you?” I thought to ask while trying to figure out what was happening. It occurred to me that my own stupidity was making an unwanted appearance. If the caller was for real, then I would get the details later but for now I needed to get off my ass. I somehow managed not to say something idiotic like “what do you mean she’s disappeared?’
“At her cabin at the lake. Pam and I are friends.” He hung up. I had stared at my phone in amazement, my bad mood forgotten. I gulped the rest of my coffee, picked up my bug-out pack from its place to the right of the front door underneath the pegs for coats and hats and headed out for Lake Compton
Coloni shrugged. “It’s a little complex. If you prefer to stand that’s okay but I’m a little tired from dealing with this. The sheriff just left a little while ago and I told him everything I knew. He didn’t seem overly impressed with how critical this situation is. Pam once told me if there was ever a problem I need help with to give you a call.” Coloni sat down in a beige and brown armchair and sighed. “I’m not sure you can do anything but I told her that I would and so here you are.” He looked up at me. “Sure I can’t offer something?”
“Thank you but I’m fine.” I sat down on a pale blue sofa whose springs had known better days and looked across the room at Coloni. “So?”
He raised an eyebrow quizzically “First of all, we are not married. I think you’ve figured that out already, but we have known each other for five years. We met after your divorce and I suppose you can say we fell in love, but we are old enough to know that love is not what the poets would have us believe. I had been married a long time ago and had no intention of marrying again. Pam was fresh off her divorce with you and was hesitant to get involved in a relationship so quickly. We sort of walked around each other for several months. Both of us were afraid of commitment for different reasons.”
Coloni went silent and looked very uncomfortable. I could empathize. It would be hard for the man to describe his relationship with Pam’s ex. I tried to put Paul more at ease. “You and Pam were fairly happy then,” I tossed out as a pacifier and an attempt to get at the core issue.
“I think so. We had disagreements, but everyone does at one time or another, and we stayed good friends. I got a call from her yesterday. She wanted to know if I could take a long weekend and join her here. She sounded calm even happy as if she was looking forward to my company. I said I could and drove up from Massachusetts yesterday. When I got here the place was deserted. That was weird. Pam has always been here or at her apartment to greet me, to greet anyone she was expecting for that matter. She was good that way. She didn’t like people coming to an empty place.” Coloni stopped and looked out the side window at the lake beyond. MJ let the silence hang like a blanket between them. “but I figured that she had been held up shopping or some other chore and would be back shortly.”
Coloni rose and walked out into the hall. I heard the clink of a glass. Coloni reappeared a moment later holding a glass of whiskey. He held it up towards me. “Sure you won’t have a nip?” I shook my head as Coloni settled back in his chair and took a sip. “By last night Pam was still not here and I knew something was wrong. If she had been called away for some reason she would have called. She always does. She has impeccable manners as I’m sure you know.” I nodded and Coloni continued. “Still no sign of her this morning. I spent the night in this chair and woke up when the sun came up over the lake. The house was dead still and empty except for me. I waited a few more hours and then called the police. Then I remembered what she had said about you so I called the number she’d written on a sales slip from the local store. I wasn’t sure I’d get anyone. Cell phone numbers do change from time to time but here you are.”
“Here I am,” I agreed. “What did Sheriff Buckmaster have to say?”
“Not much. I gave him a photo of Pam and told him pretty much what I told you. He told me to call him immediately if I got a ransom call or note. He will start a general search of the area for her. I am to let him know if I can think of anyone or any reason that she might have been taken.”
“Do you think she may have been kidnapped for ransom?”
“It’s a possibility. She is part of a moneyed family. I believe the term is trust fund baby.”
I had to admit the truth of that. My ex was, by most standards, wealthy but that begged the question of who knew that? The camp was low key, but it was in a wealthy section of the state. Someone could have simply seen her at the local store, followed her to the cabin and taken a chance. “Did she have any enemies or people that she argued with recently?”
“The sheriff asked the same question. I wasn’t h
ere all the time so I have no way of knowing if she argued with someone locally. She was pretty much a loner. She didn’t give parties. She didn’t have any ambitions politically. I guess she was a moderate Republican by nature. She never spoke of anyone who would want to hurt her for any reason. You probably knew her better than I.”
Coloni was right. I did know her but for all of that there could have been something in her life that I didn’t know about. When you get right down to it, we never really know another person completely. I knew Pam’s habits, her likes and dislikes, some of her wants and needs but there is always part of a person that you can’t know because it is deeply personal, and they don’t talk about it with you or anyone or it is so intimate that they would be embarrassed to talk about it. “If this happened yesterday and no one has contacted you then it is probably not a kidnapping. If money is out of the equation that leaves the nastier human emotions such as, jealousy, hate or revenge.” I thought about that for a moment. “Does she still like her books and her exercise? When we were together she took a long walk every morning without fail. If it was raining she just put on a slicker and went out anyway. Even in the winter she would bundle up and go.”
Coloni smiled and nodded. “Yep. Right after she wakes up she goes for her walk. People can set their clocks by her.” Then his expression turned somber once again. “Do you think someone could have used that against her?”
“It’s another possibility. Is she still walking around the lake?”
Coloni shrugged. “I don’t know but I think so. When I’m here I like to sleep in. Sometimes I’ll hear her get up, get dressed and the sound of the door opening but I would have no way of knowing what route she takes.”
Who might have seen her the morning of the day before? Who had we known that had summer camps on the lake? More important who had we known whose camp fronted the lake road? Not too many. There were the Andersons on the other side of the lake and the Burtons on the north shore. The trouble with that line of logic was the timing. Pam was up and out by six thirty or so and that meant that whoever might have seen her would have to be early risers as well. I pulled out my iPhone and found Glenn Burton’s number. Something was tickling my memory.
“Hi Jenna. It’s Mike McCaal…Yes…I’m sorry too…She was…Listen have you seen Pam recently maybe out walking? I remember you get up fairly early. Probably would have been around quarter to seven or so. No?…No. Nothing’s wrong. Just curious and asking around. Well I thought she’d be here at the camp but there is not sign of her so I thought maybe you had seen her. Okay. No problem. Thanks Jenna. We’ll talk soon.” I clicked off the call and looked across at Coloni. “That would have been too easy. I thought maybe she might have been spotted or even stopped by a friend’s house for some reason.” I had never known Pam to do that, but it had been worth a phone call. “Did you try her cell? I think she changed the number and I don’t have the new one.”
“Sure. It has been going straight to voice mail.”
“Okay Paul. Don’t know that there’s anything I can do that the sheriff hasn’t already done or will soon do, but I’ll do my best.” I stood up.
“Thanks Mike. I appreciate anything you can do to find her. She is a very special person to me.”
“To both of us. Right. I’ll be in touch.” I walked out of the house and down the front yard to the driveway. This is where she would have started, lacing up her cross trainers and adjusting her shades. I could picture her standing there in the dawn, but I had a nasty feeling that I would never see Pam Pease McCaal again alive.
McCAAL
Okay, I thought, so if I wanted to make Pam disappear where would be the best place to do that? The road wound around the lake for about seven miles. It was a dirt road for six of them. The rest was the paved road leading to the town. The paved part of the road was fairly straight and ran about fifty yards east of the lake at most of its points. There were fields and the occasional house on both sides of it and traffic was light but steady. Not good for doing something you did not want anyone to see. The dirt road, though, twisted and turned, sometimes a few yards from the water and maybe a quarter mile in other parts. Not only that but the dirt part of the road was tree lined on about ninety percent of its length. If someone had taken Pan it would have to be on that part of the road.
Would the kidnappers be on foot? Possibly. Pam had been on foot and there were few places to park a car that someone would either not notice or it would be blocking the road and run the risk of being struck by another car. I walked down the slope from the camp to my old Toyota Land Cruiser and drove slowly around the lake looking for likely spots. At these I would stop and note the location on a rough map of the lake and vicinity for sale at Goodall’s Store. There were probably other spots, but I thought he had the easiest ones for yanking someone off the road and into a car, or perhaps a house. Many of the houses around the lake were rented out in an effort to pay the punitive taxes levied by the state of Connecticut and the morons elected to the state legislature. That was an added complication that was almost impossible to eliminate short of going door to door and hoping to get lucky.
I drove slowly back towards Mays Corners thinking of the people Pam and I had known and whom I might contact to ask if they had seen her. Even if they had simply seen her jogging past their camp that would put her at a certain position on the lake road and eliminate the road behind that point.
By the time I got back to my cabin in the woods I felt emotionally exhausted. I tossed the map and my notepad on the kitchen table, poured myself a Jack Daniels, took my glass and collapsed into the worn out brown leather recliner that faced the fieldstone fireplace. So now what I murmured to myself? I couldn’t do more than the sheriff was probably already doing and with more resources and manpower. I was just one man, but I still loved Pam, if truth be told, and I couldn’t just sit in my living room staring at a dammed stone fireplace. With a silent curse I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Dianne. I felt trapped and smothered by the walls around me. C’mon, Dianne. Pick up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hi. It’s me.”
“Hi me. “Sooooo what’s up Doc?” She parroted Bugs Bunny.
I grinned in spite of myself. Suddenly my dark study of the past few minutes disappeared. Dianne had that effect on me. “It’s been a long day at this end. How ‘bout you?”
“They’re all long until a seller agrees to an offer and then suddenly it is all worth it. You wouldn’t be calling with a winning Lotto ticket by any chance. We could go share’s. How ‘bout it?”
“So sorry. We’re still part of that massive part of society known as the middle class, the part that all politicians say they know and whose side they are on when most of them are talking up their asses.”
“I might be. I’m not sure about you mister early retirement.” I heard the throaty bar-room chuckle of hers. It got to me every time.
“How ‘bout dinner tonight? We could bitch about our respective days over a bottle of red or we could have a sandwich and a drink here if you prefer.” I paused trying to think what supper ingredients I might have in my fridge. I thought there was some deli turkey in there, but it was pretty old. TV dinners in the freezer. No good for a romantic dinner for two. On the other hand, neither were old turkey sandwiches.
“If you’re paying hotshot I’ll meet you at the Cote D’Or and I get to pick the red.”
Cheap at the price, I thought. “It’s a deal. Six o’clock too early?”
“Nope. I got another long day tomorrow.”
I clicked off the call and stood for a moment gazing sightlessly out my front window. It was a Dickensian ‘best of times worst of times’ moment for I was delighted that I would have a friend for company that evening but I could not escape the thought that Pam might be captive somewhere or possibly worse. I felt a sense of betrayal and the fact that there was nothing I could do for her that evening on
ly increased my frustration. I was happy that Dianne would be meeting me; she had toughness and instinct that paralleled my own and she might come up with a solution or at least a next step that had not yet occurred to me. Though I could not say how she regarded me, I considered her a friend and I might even have been in love with her but I was afraid to admit more than that to either Dianne or myself. As I stood there in the moment I was unable to say just how I felt except miserable.
It was full daylight when I arrived at the restaurant, but it did not seem so. The sky was gray and sitting down on the world so that everything nearby seemed muted and everything in the middle distance was smeared as a boy might wipe gray paint across his shirt obscuring his mother’s efforts of just a few minutes past. I parked in the back of the restaurant and walked around to the front. Dianne was standing in front of the reservations table looking very elegant in a teal green sheath with a cream jacket. She was looking to her right into the dining area as the Maitre D’ gathered the thick burgundy-leather jacketed menus. She had the gaze of a falcon spotting its prey. I thought she had never looked more beautiful. Truthfully, she lacked the bone structure of classic beauty. Her face was a bit too square, almost mannish, with a strong jaw, a jutting chin and a nose that bent slightly to the left, but she had huge dark almost purple eyes that brought it all together and a mouth that tilted up into a cheerful grin at the least opportunity. She had charmed me when she had first met me as she showed me my present house and that effect remained over the ensuing months.
“You look lovely,” I said to her back.
Dianne whirled around smiling. “There you are. I was afraid you’d been put to work washing dishes to pay the tab. That certainly would have put a few wrinkles in that nice charcoal pinstripe you have on.”