Take the Bait

by S. W. Hubbard

  Meyerson scowled. “Fine.”

  “Thanks, Lew. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “How did Lambert lose his sight?” Frank asked Earl as they drove back to the office.

  “Mr. Lambert worked for years at Stevenson’s Lumberyard. One day some kid operating a crane with a load of these twenty-foot pine beams swung it around too fast, and a beam hit Mr. Lambert in the head. He was in a coma for like, a week, and when he woke up he couldn’t see.”

  “Even though his eyes themselves weren’t hurt,” Frank clarified.

  “Yeah, ’cause the problem was in his brain or something.”

  “So then what?”

  “It’s been ten or twelve years—I was just a kid. I think Clyde said he’d give Mr. Lambert early retirement and some extra money to help him out, and Mr. Lambert was all set to do that, when somehow this lawyer got mixed up in it and he told Mr. Lambert to sue. In the end, Mr. Lambert got a whole pile of money and he bought that house. And some people said it wasn’t right, but others said it all came from the insurance company so why not—”

  They rounded a sharp bend, and a flash of red appeared on the side of the road. A little boy shot out of the hedges, directly into the path of the patrol car.

  “Look out! That’s Jeffrey Maguire!” Earl shouted.

  Frank slammed on his brakes and swerved, missing the child by inches, and skidded to a stop.

  The squeal of tires was loud enough to bring the boy’s father, Mac, running down the driveway. Taking in the scene at a glance, he ran to his son, but as soon as he determined that the child was unhurt, set about doing his own damage.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he shouted, shaking the boy hard enough to make his head flop. “You know better than to run out in the road like that!”

  “I thought I saw Benjamin.” Jeffrey, about eight years old, pointed to a patch of tall weeds across the road and began to pull away from his father.

  “It’s not bad enough that rabbit’s gone; do you think I want to lose you, too?”

  Mac looked at Frank and explained, “Jeff woke up this morning to feed his new pet rabbit and the thing was gone. He must’ve left the damn hutch unlatched. That’s why he’s carrying on so much.”

  Jeffrey spun around and stomped his small sneakered foot on the pavement. “I did not leave his cage open!” he screamed.

  “That bunny didn’t just reach his paw out and open the door himself,” Mac countered.

  “I think someone stole him!”

  Father and son had clearly been through this discussion before. Jeffrey took off into the scrub-covered empty lot across the street, calling “Benjamin” and peering under bushes.

  “Well, good luck finding the little fellow,” Frank said, putting the car in gear.

  “At least Benjamin’s only a rabbit. Jeffrey’ll get over it before long.” Mac looked down the road toward town. “Not like Jack.”

  “Messages, Doris?” Frank demanded as they entered the office.

  “Let’s see. Oh, yes. Mrs. Gadschaltz called and asked could Craig come in to talk to you and Lew tomorrow instead of today, because he has to study for a big test he has tomorrow in math, or did she say Spanish? Anyway, she doesn’t want him getting all upset before it. He’s got to keep his grades up to stay on the baseball team. So I said tomorrow would be fine. I told her it’s not that important, they’re just wanting to talk to all Janelle’s friends, not to worry ab—”

  “Doris! I wish you’d let me decide what’s important and what’s not,” Frank said. Doris had insisted on working on Sunday during this crisis, but if this was all the help she was going to be, he might just as well send her home.

  “Well, excuse me. You’re always telling me to just make a decision, so I do, and look at the thanks I get. I’ll just call up Mrs. G. and tell her my boss says I over-stepped my authority.”

  “Never mind. That’s it for messages?”

  “Yes, except Clyde was in here looking for you.”

  “Great,” Frank muttered as Earl trailed him into the office.

  “How come you didn’t make Doris call Craig’s mother back and make him come in today?” Earl asked. “You would’ve made me do it.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Earl. The interesting thing is, why is Craig more worried about his Spanish test than his girlfriend? Isn’t that a little odd?”

  “You think Craig knows something he’s not telling?”

  “No!” Frank regretted his tendency to think aloud in front of Earl. “Look, you’d better get this straight right from the start. We’re going to be following up on hundreds of leads, and ninety-nine percent of them aren’t going to amount to anything. So I don’t want you shootin’ your mouth off that we suspect this or we suspect that. Everything we talk about in this office is strictly confidential, you understand?”

  “You don’t have to tell me that,” Earl sulked.

  Unable to bear Earl’s presence after this dressing-down, Frank abruptly changed his tone.

  “Say, I have an important job for you. Go over to Stony Brook Road and talk to the neighbors again. See if they saw anything going on at Lambert’s house this morning. A car going in or out of the driveway, shouting, anyone walking along the road. Take down everything they tell you—don’t judge what’s important and what’s not. I want to see everything, okay?”

  Earl nodded. Frank could practically see the “why?” forming on his lips, but the boy bit it back. He was learning.

  With Earl and Lew both gone and the phone mercifully silent, Frank finally had some time to collect his thoughts.

  If whoever had been involved in Janelle’s disappearance had really come back and pushed Dell Lambert down that hill, then it meant he wasn’t afraid to kill. Janelle was in great danger, if she wasn’t already dead. But people in town were hysterical enough already—he didn’t want them to think there was a murderer in their midst until he was absolutely sure.

  Who had Janelle ridden off with? Jack might believe that it wasn’t anyone she knew, but fathers of teenage girls are all clueless. Her girlfriends—that’s who he needed to talk to again. Janelle’s two best friends, Kim Sorenson and Melanie Powers, had been scheduled to come in right after Craig. He hoped Doris hadn’t taken it upon herself to reschedule them, too. Just as he reached for the phone to check, the intercom squawked. “Kim and Melanie are here,” Doris announced.

  He went to the outer office, where two girls stood, shifting their feet. Dressed almost identically in jeans and thin sweaters, they couldn’t have been more unalike. A pixieish tomboy with short, dark hair, Kim had the physique of an Olympic gymnast, but certainly not the dazzling smile. Her frown seemed permanent, not inspired by the circumstances. Melanie, on the other hand, was the stuff of which X-rated cheerleader fantasy movies were made. There was something almost awe-inspiring in watching her impossibly high, round breasts straining against a sweater that, on Kim, was quite shapeless.

  “Thanks for coming in, girls.” Frank ushered them into his office. “Have a seat.”

  Kim stood behind one of the straight-backed visitor chairs, clutching it tightly. “We already told you everything on Saturday.”

  “I just need your help on a few more things.”

  Kim perched on the edge of her chair, as if it were hot. Melanie plopped down and looked around with unabashed curiosity at the drab little office with its institutional green walls and worn linoleum floor. “I’ve never been in here before. Cool—are those the wanted posters?” she asked, pointing to the bulletin board.

  Frank smiled. “Yep. Any reason I should put your picture up there?”

  “Nah, I’d be too nervous to rob a bank or anything. I’d probably—”

  “What was it you wanted to ask us?” Kim interrupted.

  Well, she’s all business—the other one’s the talker. He turned to Melanie. “It must’ve been hard for Janelle not to have a mom to confide in. Someone to talk to about boys, that sort of thing.”

  “I guess
. Well, I mean, it was sad her mom died, but then, I don’t really talk to my mom about boys, so…”

  Melanie’s voice trailed off and Kim jumped in to fill the void. “She got along great with her dad.”

  “What about Tommy? How did she get along with him?”

  Melanie and Kim exchanged glances. “Tommy’s a little weird,” Melanie said. “But, you know, you could never say that to Janelle. Like sometimes she’d complain about him, but then, if you agreed, even, she’d get mad.”

  Frank crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. “What sort of things did she complain about?”

  Kim picked up on his interest and tried to quash it. “Nothing, just little stuff. You know how it is with families. I can call my brother a dork, but no one else better.”

  Frank nodded and turned the conversation back to Jack. “So even though Janelle and her father were close, she probably didn’t tell him everything. Like maybe she had a friend who wasn’t a school friend that she didn’t want him to know about.”

  “Janelle didn’t know anyone who would kidnap her,” Kim said.

  “That’s not what I’m asking.” Frank kept a patient smile on his face and focused his eyes on Melanie. “Did she have any friends other than school friends, someone a little older maybe, who she found interesting, someone who might, uh, influence her?”

  “No, except for Pastor Bob,” Melanie said with a gleeful giggle.

  “Melanie!” Kim barked. “That’s a horrible thing to say, and you know it.”

  “You mean Bob Rush at the Presbyterian church?” Frank asked.

  “He’s a very fine man,” Kim answered hotly.

  “I’ll say,” said Melanie with a leer. “Ver-r-ry fine. It’s a shame such great looks are wasted on a minister.”

  “You know, just because you’re an atheist doesn’t give you the right to insult other people’s religion, “Kim said, turning on her friend.

  “I was just joking, really.” Melanie turned to Frank, confusion etched on her good-natured face.

  “How well did Janelle know Pastor Bob?” he asked.

  “We were both in the youth group that he leads. That’s all,” Kim spat out. “Come on, Mel, let’s go.”

  Frank watched through the window as the unlikely friends made their way across the green.

  5

  FRANK SURVEYED HIS PANTRY with satisfaction: cream of celery soup, tuna, egg noodles—all there. The milk and Velveeta were in the fridge. Though he didn’t enjoy cooking or solitary dining, tonight he almost looked forward to spending an evening alone and going to bed early—although sleep was problematic.

  He was about to start buzzing open the cans when the phone rang.

  “Hello, Frank. I’m glad I caught you. It’s Edwin.” Edwin Bates and his wife, Lucy, were the first people Frank had met in Trout Run. They had left Manhattan to run the Iron Eagle Inn, a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse in a perpetual state of disrepair. Caroline had booked Frank into the Iron Eagle for the fishing trip in the Adirondacks she had planned to rejuvenate him after Estelle’s death and the thinly disguised firing from his job in Kansas City. Left to his own devices, Frank would have stayed at the Trim ’n Tidy motel in Verona—real sportsmen did not stay in bed-and-breakfasts. But Caroline’s insistence on overpriced quaintness had paid off in the long run.

  Frank had been unable to resist giving Edwin advice on the restoration of the inn. And Edwin had persuaded Frank to apply for the police chief’s job in Trout Run as an alternative to spending the rest of his life wallowing in self-pity.

  They had nothing in common except that they’d both been thrown out of jobs that they loved—Edwin had been an English professor at NYU before he lost his tenure bid. Being an innkeeper had brought Edwin out of his funk, and with the fervor of a convert, he’d been determined to rescue Frank. An unlikely friendship had been born.

  “We were wondering if you’d like to join us for dinner tonight. Are you free?” Edwin asked.

  Frank’s face lit up. “You caught me just in time.”

  A quick shave, a clean shirt, and Frank was on his way to the Iron Eagle. He got all the way out to the car when a thought occurred to him, and he doubled back to the house. Edwin could probably offer some insights on the books Janelle had been reading. He picked up the stack of five novels and the magazines and set off again for his dinner date.

  Frank surveyed his plate with caution. It contained a piece of pink fish in a big puddle of green sauce, what appeared to be two withered brownies, and a heap of miniature purple and green vegetables that could have passed for refrigerator magnets.

  “Poached salmon in a coulis of basil and yellow pepper, grilled buckwheat polenta with shitake mushrooms, and steamed baby eggplant and pattypan squash,” Edwin announced with a flourish.

  “It looks marvelous, darling,” Lucy gushed.

  “It certainly is colorful,” Frank offered. He reminded himself before picking up his fork that any meal eaten with friends had to be better than a meal eaten at home alone.

  “Hey, this is good,” Frank declared after two bites of salmon and a tentative stab at the polenta.

  “You needn’t sound so surprised,” Edwin responded.

  Frank grinned sheepishly and changed the subject. “I was over at the Harveys’ house this afternoon and I brought back some books I found in Janelle’s room. If you could give me an idea what they’re about, it might help me get more of a feel for the kind of girl Janelle was. Is,” he corrected himself.

  This was met with silence. Suddenly Lucy and Edwin seemed inordinately preoccupied with eating.

  “Edwin?” Frank prompted.

  Edwin took a large swig of wine from his glass before answering. “Sure, anything I can do to help. But, you know, I was in the Store today and I overheard some talk.”

  “I know, I know. Everyone in town thinks I’m mishandling the case.” With a show of unconcern, Frank speared a pattypan squash and popped it in his mouth whole. The effort of choking it down nearly brought tears to his eyes. “What were they saying?”

  “Well, they seemed to think you should be focusing more on tracking down strangers seen in town.”

  Frank banged his water glass down, precipitating a shower of forsythia petals from Lucy’s centerpiece. “Let me tell you about the strangers who were lurking in Trout Run yesterday. First, three people called to report a Peeping Tom looking in the windows of the Seavers’ house—turns out it’s Mr. Seaver’s nephew, come over from Saranac Lake to help take down their storm windows. Then about fifty people called to report three black men—if you can imagine that—were seen having lunch at the Mountainside. Seems they’re a group of investors from Boston thinking of opening a fast-food franchise outside of Lake Placid. Then—”

  “Calm down. You asked what they said and I told you.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess this has me a little touchy.”

  “What’s this I hear about Mr. Lambert falling—did he really die?” Lucy asked in an obvious bid to change the subject.

  “I’m afraid so. Stepped off the edge of his little lawn area and tumbled down the hill.” Frank had no intention of confiding his suspicions even to Lucy and Edwin.

  Edwin shook his head. “Poor old guy. I used to run into him at the Feast and Fancy sometimes. What a character—he had an opinion on everything under the sun.”

  “The Feast and Fancy?” Frank said. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, sort of a cross between a health food store and a gourmet shop outside of Lake Placid. I get my French roast beans there, in bulk.”

  “And what was Lambert doing there?” Frank couldn’t resist probing. “Was he alone?”

  “No, of course not. Always with Celia.”

  When he got a free moment, he might go over there. The store was far enough away from Trout Run that the old man might have let his guard down about his vision in front of the clerks.

  “So whatever happened with your taxes?” he asked instead. “Did you get an extension?”<
br />
  “Yep, and I called in Bertha Calloway. Since the Stevensons got rid of her, she’s being doing taxes for people. The way she figures it, we’re getting seven hundred dollars back.”

  “Sounds too good to be true,” Frank said. “Maybe Bertha can’t handle such complicated work anymore. You know Clyde never gets rid of anything before it’s totally worn out.”

  “Bertha knows the tax code like I know Dickens,” Edwin said. “It wasn’t Clyde who got rid of her. Ned computerized everything at the lumberyard when he joined the business. Since Bertha does all her calculating on an old adding machine, Ned said she had to go. I think that stinks.”

  “Oh, you can’t blame Ned for wanting to modernize that place.” Frank found himself in the unaccustomed position of defending one of the Stevensons. “Before Ned computerized the inventory, Clyde and Randall Bixley were the only ones who ever knew what was in stock and how much things cost.”

  “I suppose. But you know me, I like everything old and falling apart.”

  “Guess that explains why you like me,” Frank said.

  Afterward, in the parlor with coffee and triple fudge cake, Frank produced the stack of novels. “What would you say about a girl who was reading these books?”

  “I’d say she was a pretty serious seventeen-year-old, especially for Trout Run. This is tough sledding for your average high-school senior. Especially Portrait of a Lady. Hell, I taught with people who wouldn’t touch Henry James.”

  While Edwin was examining the books, Lucy had been leafing through the magazines. “Say, look at this!” she interrupted, shoving one of the magazines in front of Frank. “These fashion magazines always have quizzes. This one’s called ‘Is Your Relationship Too Hot to Handle?’ and it looks like Janelle has circled some answers.”

  Frank picked up the magazine and held it at arm’s length, squinting. “Here, Lucy, you read it to me. I don’t have my glasses.”

  “Okay. Question number one, ‘What do you think is most important to a successful relationship: (a) great sex or (b) great conversation.’ Janelle has circled (b).