Mrs. Pollifax Pursued

by Dorothy Gilman

  The girl flushed. "You're going to a great deal of trouble for me. I'm sorry. But how can you know if they've searched the house when we get back?"

  There was a twinkle in Mrs. Pollifax's eye. "You might say that I am not a stranger to the criminal mind," she told her. "Just leave it to me. Now go and wash your face, you must already know there's a bathroom next to this closet. Wait for me in the hall."

  While the girl was in the bathroom, Mrs. Pollifax busied herself inserting tiny slips of sticky tape to the door frames of the front and patio doors, after which she moved vases and pots of flowers to each windowsill downstairs, marking with a pencil precisely where she had placed them. They moved into the garage where Mrs. Pollifax arranged her on the floor of the car with a blanket over her, and then artfully tossed a few empty cardboard cartons on top of her. Backing out of the garage she drove around to the front driveway and stopped by the front door. From this vantage point she made a great show of bringing out her grocery cart and inserting it into the back. She then locked the front door and drove up Maple Lane

  , where one quick glance told her the white van was parked on the woods road. From here she drove into town to the grocery store.

  She was not followed. Parking at the supermarket she said over her shoulder, "No Chigi Scap Metal behind us, I'm locking the car, are you all right?" Hearing a muffled affirmative she added, "I won't be long."

  She had shopped only two days ago and needed very little, but at the delicatessen counter she purchased several sandwiches and a bag of cookies for the girl. She was gone only ten minutes, scarcely long enough for a thorough search of her house, and so she continued on to the bank where she cashed a check. Following this she estimated that by the time she reached home she would have given Chigi Scap Metal thirty minutes and she saw no point in lingering. She realized, with some amusement, that anyone else would be appalled at her believing what a nameless girl had told her; anyone else would delight in pointing out to her that the child might be a front for an organized gang of thieves and that she would arrive home to find the house robbed of everything valuable. Anyone else would ...

  Mrs. Pollifax, however, was trusting her instincts, and since they had kept her alive in many a dangerous situation in some very exotic countries, she was not about to abandon them on home territory. Something was wrong and she was determined to find out what it was and who Sammy might be. After all, it had proven a rather dull winter, and a girl in trouble appealed far more to her sense of adventure than a Garden Club meeting.

  The garage door opened soundlessly, she drove in, and the door closed behind them. "Wait here—don't move!" she told the girl, and entered the house with a feeling of intense curiosity and a great deal of hope that her scheme had worked.

  She was pleased to find the cellophane strips at the front door broken, and proceeded to search the house again. Nothing had been taken. When she returned to the garage she said in a low voice, "You can come out now, they've been in the house and satisfied their curiosity."

  "They actually came in?" gasped the girl, pushing aside blankets and cartons and climbing out. "Just as you predicted?"

  "Yes, and now I think it's time you introduce yourself. After that I'll scramble some eggs for you and you can tell me where to drive you once it's dark. Where you live."

  "The scrambled eggs sound lovely. My name is Kadi Hopkirk, and—"

  "Katie?"

  She shook her head. "No, K-a-d-i—and I have a room at the YWCA in Manhattan where I go to art school."

  "I see . ., and I'm Emily Pollifax. I suggest you crawl under the windows, and sit on the floor in the kitchen, keeping well out of sight, while I scramble the eggs ... Chigi Scap Metal must have given up by now, but I feel it unwise to assume anything."

  "Oh you do understand," the girl said eagerly. "Thank you."

  Once ensconced in the kitchen Mrs. Pollifax pursued her inquiries as tactfully as possible. Breaking eggs into a bowl and whipping them she asked, "Were you followed out of New York City on Monday, or did this happen after you reached Connecticut?"

  "I was in New Haven," explained Kadi. "I heard through the grapevine at school the New Haven police were looking for a quick-sketch artist, and I'm awfully good at remembering faces and drawing likenesses fast. It seems to be what I do best. And I need money. But they thought I was too young," she said with a sigh. "They said I might have to draw corpses—as if I haven't seen enough of them already."

  "Oh?" said Mrs. Pollifax with interest, turning to look at her. "Many corpses?"

  The girl said without expression, "Where I come from there have been—well, massacres, really, so I know what killed people look like."

  "I see," said Mrs. Pollifax, and presented her with a platter of eggs. She did not ask the obvious question as to where that might be but she was determined to find out; there would be the long drive into Manhattan, and once the girl felt safer she would be less tense and guarded.

  As she turned away from the girl, however, tray in hand, she glanced through the open greenhouse door and saw the white van pass the house again. Blast them, she thought indignantly, they've searched the house, why are they still haunting Maple Lane1.

  She did not mention the reappearance of the van but looked instead at her wrist watch; it was two hours until darkness. Leaving the girl to her lunch she went off to hunt out her road maps and to trace the fastest route into Manhattan.

  They left at seven, with Kadi in the back, but unblanketed, lying instead across the rear seat, her head cushioned and low. Mrs. Pollifax took care not to turn on the car's headlights until she had left the driveway behind, and turning left to avoid the woods road she took the shortcut to 1-95 south. Traffic was surprisingly light at this hour. Once on the turnpike, aware that Chigi Scap Metal had not yet abandoned Maple Lane

  , she checked her rearview mirror occasionally while she considered how best to wring from her companion an explanation of what terrified her.

  She had driven only seven or eight miles when it became impossible to overlook a dull green sedan at some distance behind them. She noticed it because no matter how many trucks or cars passed her, the sedan remained steadily there, keeping to the same 50 m.p.h, which she was driving. Coincidence, she told herself—after all, it was not a white van— but to reassure herself she lightened her foot on the accelerator and gradually slowed until the speedometer needle hovered around 30 m.p.h.

  The driver of the green sedan did not pass, however; he, too, slowed to 30 m.p.h.

  I don't believe this, thought Mrs. Pollifax in astonishment, this is not only incredible but very tiresome. Worse, she realized this implied Chigi Scap Metal's having more resources than expected if they could also produce a green sedan. If, of course, it was following them. Seeing an exit sign ahead, and determined to find out, she turned off 1-95 and drove down the exit ramp onto a secondary road illumined by the lights of a gas station. She headed into its bright lights and stopped, waiting, her eyes on the rear-view mirror.

  "What's wrong?" called Kadi from the rear.

  "What's wrong," said Mrs. Pollifax grimly, "is that I slowed to a miserable thirty miles per hour and the car behind us still didn't pass, except now it's a green sedan, in which case—" She nodded as the dark green car drove down the exit ramp, and pressing her foot hard on the accelerator, tires screaming in outrage, she swerved out of the gas station and headed for the 1-95 north ramp, reversing their direction.

  "In which case what?" called Kadi.

  "In which case we're being followed and I'm heading back north to try and lose them." And to her companion, "Why, Kadi? Who are these people?"

  "I don't know, I don't know," cried Kadi. "You have to believe me, I don't know."

  3

  Carstairs was experiencing an unusually busy Wednesday when Bishop walked into his office and interrupted him. Carstairs gave him a baleful glance and growled, "Now what?"

  "Mornajay's called from Upstairs," Bishop told him. "It's about the Bidwell abduction, t
he FBI's asked our help in a small matter."

  "Like what?"

  "Bidwell traveled abroad so often on business that for the moment they're working on the theory that some terrorist group or other in one of those countries might be involved in the kidnapping." He handed Carstairs two sheets of paper and a leather notebook. "He could have made enemies."

  Carstairs leaned back in his chair. "They've had a ransom note?"

  Bishop nodded. "Yes, but they're keeping it under wraps. It included a rather dim photo of a man bound and gagged whom they've identified as Bidwell, even with his face partially covered."

  "Where was the ransom note posted?"

  "Manhattan. A postbox near where they seized him but postmarked three days later."

  "So what does the FBI want from us they don't already have?"

  Bishop said dryly, "The security of certainty, I'd guess . ., the odd chance that we might have one of these names in our files. Bidwell's company supplied the dates of each trip he made to Europe. It was Bidwell's secretary who proved a godsend; when they interviewed her she wondered if his personal engagement calendar might still be locked in the drawer of his desk. They picked the lock and have a record in detail of his appointments in Europe. Jed Addams at the FBI is asking us to run these names through our cross-reference files and see if we've picked up any information they don't have."

  Carstairs shrugged. "Fair enough." He placed the package to one side with his other paperwork, at which point Bishop said tactfully, "They want it today."

  Carstairs groaned. "Then preserve my sanity by bringing me a fresh cup of coffee, will you?"

  "Coffee and a hair shirt coming up," said Bishop cheerfully, and presently placed a cup of steaming coffee on the desk.

  Coffee in hand, Carstairs glanced quickly over the dates of travel supplied by Claiborne-Osborne International, and then turned to the more interesting private engagement book that had been locked in the man's desk. Making a note of the many dates when Bidwell had left for Europe, Carstairs turned to those pages in the engagement book to check the people he might have seen, and what projects he'd inspected.

  This was now late April. In December Bidwell had flown to Paris and met with a Yule Romanovitch and an Achille Lecler, after which the three had joined a group from the Abercrombie Tin Company and spent the evening at a nightclub. There were various phone numbers scribbled on the pages but Carstairs assumed these had already been checked by the FBI. On Bidwell's second day in Paris he'd had an appointment with Lecler but also with a Rogere Desforges, followed by phone numbers and "flight 1192." The next three pages were blank. On the sixth day he was back in Paris to return to New York on the Concorde.

  Three weeks later, still in December, he'd made another trip abroad, this time for a brief stop in Switzerland and then on to Paris for a number of appointments, and on the fifth day the scribbled numbers 1192 appeared again. Curious, Carstairs skipped ahead to the next trip abroad; this had occurred in mid-January, a flight to Paris and again the notation "flight 1192" followed by four blank pages. On March 3rd he'd flown to Paris, and again in early April, and on each of these trips his calendar included "flight 1192," with pages left blank for several days, before appointments resumed in Paris until his return to the United States. And of course he'd been abducted two weeks later.

  The FBI, however, wanted names checked, and these Carstairs proceeded to list: Achille Lecler, Rogere Desforges, Yule Romanovitch, E. Buttersworth, J. Kriveleva, M. Teek Soo ... He ran these through both computers and then their cross-reference files on terrorist groups, and came up with nothing suspicious about any of the men; they simply weren't listed as dangerous in any respect. They weren't listed at all. Straightforward businessmen, he guessed, and put in a call to Jed Addams at the FBI. "We've nothing on any of them," he told him.

  "Damn," said Addams.

  "Since we're on the subject of Bidwell," put in Carstairs pleasantly, "what personal life did he happen to have? His marriage? Children?"

  Addams said wearily, "No real personal life. His marriage? Seems to have been money marrying money. So-so, if you know what I mean. Two children in Ivy League colleges. His wife plays bridge and gives dinner parties. All image, you know how it is. Affairs? Not Bidwell, he's all business. Only recreation golf."

  "You'd say his life is an open book then," concluded Carstairs.

  "Well, if you insist on clichés, old chap, yes."

  Carstairs frowned as he ended the phone call. They seemed to have missed or ignored the references to a flight 1192, it was names they were interested in. ... People. As Bishop walked into his office he said absently, "I've reported to the FBI that we've nothing on any of Bidwell's acquaintances in Paris, apparently they all have clean hands and a clean heart."

  Bishop nodded. "Sounded a bit crazy to me, anyway. Or desperate."

  "But thorough," Carstairs reminded him. "There's one inquiry I'd like you to make for me personally, however, strictly private."

  "What's that?"

  Carstairs sighed. "My insatiable curiosity, Bishop. On each trip Bidwell made abroad there's a scribbled notation in his engagement book that reads 'flight 1192,' followed by three or four blank pages. See if you can find out from Paris where flight 1192 goes, will you?"

  "Right. What airline?"

  Carstairs said sheepishly, "None listed."

  Startled, Bishop said, "Good God, that's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Two airports in Paris, and how many flights a day?"

  "Hundreds. But how many flights 1192?"

  Bishop sighed. "Could take a couple of days."

  "I'm not only curious, Bishop, but I'm patient. See what you can do."

  Bishop said suspiciously, "Does this have anything to do with Bidwell's abduction?"

  "Absolutely nothing at all," Carstairs assured him cheerfully.

  The inquiry did not take days, however; by early evening Bishop was in his office beaming triumphantly. "Got it! Thank God for computers, Paris has found the needle in the haystack for you."

  By now Carstairs had almost forgotten the attack of curiosity that had overtaken him in an earlier season of the day, but the word Paris rallied his memory. "Flight 1192?"

  Bishop nodded. "Flight 1192 leaves Paris twice a week for Africa. To Ubangiba, to be exact. Leaves at 8 a.m, for the capital city of Languka."

  Startled, Carstairs said, "Africa . . , what the hell was he doing there1. And where on earth is Ubangiba? Have we any information on it?"

  "Somewhere," said Bishop. "Actually I seem to remember it being in the newspapers recently but I can't recall why or when. Will the Department's abridged Africa notes do?"

  "Anything," said Carstairs.

  The file on Ubangiba, once on his desk, did not have much to say about the country. In the past two decades it had possessed two other names and seemed to be mostly known for its recurring coups. Otherwise it was just another small sub-Saharan country, half of its land fertile enough to grow crops, the rest sand, desert, and goat-herding nomads. Its exports were animal hides, sunflower seeds, and groundnuts. It had gained its independence in 1981; the first elected President had been assassinated; the second President had been ousted in a 1989 coup by a Daniel Simoko, who had proclaimed himself President-for-Life.

  No industry, no oil, mused Carstairs. No terrorist groups either. Still, he couldn't help but wonder what had drawn Henry Bidwell to such a desolate country five times in the past four and a half months.

  Unless Paris had been careless and there was another flight 1192 they'd missed.

  With a sigh he returned to his paperwork, wished Bidwell a happy return from whatever nightmares he must be enduring in captivity, and promptly forgot about him.

  4

  "Sardines!" cried Mrs. Pollifax suddenly as they headed north on 1-95, still followed by the green sedan.

  "I beg your pardon?" said Kadi. She was seated boldly in the front seat now, but keeping a low profile.

  "Sardines," repeated Mrs. Pollifax. "I've be
en trying and trying to puzzle out why these people searched the house and found nothing, but still seem to think you were hiding there." She added grimly, "Four empty sardine tins in the storage closet, two empty cola cans and no doubt bread crumbs as well. Idiotic of me to forget that, we never removed them."

  "I forgot them, too," said Kadi sadly. "I can be quite intelligent when I'm not frightened but I never thought of them either. And I suspect you were quite distracted by finding me in your house. You really think they saw the empty tins and guessed?"

  "In any thorough search they would definitely see them," said Mrs. Pollifax. "They're what I noticed in the closet even before I saw you and I can think of no other reason why they're still following us. Kadi, I think it's time you tell ma what this is all about, and why I shouldn't take you to the nearest police station where you'd be safe."

  "I'm not sure that I would be safe," said Kadi soberly. "And I don't really know what it's all about except that Sammy's in trouble. Real trouble, I think, but I can't prove it and nobody would believe me."

  "Try me," said Mrs. Pollifax, giving her a quick glance. "Who is Sammy?"

  She said cautiously, "A boy I grew up with. In another country, which is why nobody here would find it important. I forgot Yale is in New Haven, and anyway I hadn't heard from Sammy since he came to the United States nearly four years ago, but suddenly there he was, walking toward me on the street in New Haven, and his eyes lighted up and he raced toward me and we hugged. And he was glad to see me. Glad," she repeated.

  "Of course," murmured Mrs. Pollifax.

  "But then the young man with him joined us, and Sammy changed," Kadi said. "Sammy introduced him as his roommate, Clarence Mulimo, and suddenly he was very formal. I said why didn't we have a cup of coffee and talk, because we were standing right next to a coffee shop. His roommate shook his head and said something to Sammy that I didn't hear, but Sammy insisted. And that's when it all happened."