Was he trying to get me to hit him? So he could show how strong and fast he was in front of Katie?
I certainly wanted to vault out of that damn hardwood office chair of his and hit something. “So you’re going to do nothing, is that it, Sheriff?”
Cormac sat back, swivel chair protesting, and pulled his antique rotary desk phone over leisurely by its cord. “Where’d she stay the one night she was in town?”
I told him the name of Rita’s motel.
Cormac smirked, receiver to ear. “That’s Pop Johnson’s place. He’s eighty-six and uses a cane, Mr. B--not exactly good kidnapper material. “–Hello? Pop? Sheriff Cormac calling. Oh, I’m just fine, thanks. Did I wake you? Sorry, Pop. Listen, we got troubles here. Uh-huh. One of your customers. A Miss—“ He looked up at me.
“Blaine.”
“Blaine. Rita Blaine. Uh-huh. Pretty young woman. Yeah,” smiling over at me, “very nice figure. Drove a Lexus, that’s right. It certainly is a nice car, yes. Well, maybe someday when they give me a raise. Uh-huh. Right. Okay, then. Sorry again to wake you, Pop. Sleep tight.”
The sheriff hung up, sat back, looked over at me, fingers laced behind his head. “Checked out two days ago with her luggage and her silver-colored Lexus.”
I sat there impotently.
Finally, I turned and glanced over at Deputy Olson regarding us with a vaguely uncomfortable aspect from behind his computer.
“You like to weigh in on this, deputy?” I asked.
“I agree with the Sheriff and Miss Bracken. I think it’s a prank.”
I turned and stared tightly at the antique wooden bookcase against the wall.
“Want that FBI number now?” from Cormac.
“If it happens she was kidnapped,” Katie said to my surprise, “her captives might not like the idea of the feds descending on them, guns blazing. They might even panic, do something stupid, put Miss Blaine in harm’s way.” Was she coming to my defense now?
Cormac shrugged behind his massive desk. “Anything’s possible, I suppose. If you can think it, it can be done. Can’t recall who said that.”
The room was silent for a time.
Cormac cleared his throat once.
Finally he tried to put on a subjective face. “Ask you a personal question, Elliot? Off the record?”
“Fire away.”
Cleared his throat again. “You and Katie have a little tiff tonight?”
Yes, he had to be goading me.
My only defense was to remain frosty, not give him the satisfaction. I put on an innocent face to match his supposedly subjective one. “A tiff?”
I turned to give Katie a clueless look, as if requesting a response. I didn’t get one.
“No,” I replied calmly, “I wouldn’t say that exactly.”
Cormac grinned. “Not exactly. Same way I don’t exactly fight with my wife!”
He leaned forward finally, big elbows on the desk, friendly but authoritative. “She ain’t missin,’ Elliot. She’s just pissed. Getting’ back at you the way a woman will. No offense, Katie.”
Katie rolled her eyes.
Cormac gave her an appraising look, another in what was becoming a long line of them. “Why don’t you two go back to your…rooms? Get some sleep. Your fiancée will turn up when she’s good and ready. Tomorrow you’ll be laughing at this whole thing.”
I couldn’t look him in the eye so I smiled companionably at the bridge of his nose. Rita wasn’t just ‘any’ woman. She’d know I’d worry even if she thought I was having a fling, and she’d stay in contact with me. Rita was pragmatic. Even more than I.
But I kept smiling. “’Laughing at it tomorrow’! Maybe you’re right, Sheriff!”
He smiled back unwaveringly.
The desk phone rang. My heart leapt.
Cormac snagged it, muttered into it, nodded, hung up. Grabbed his cap unhurriedly and turned to the door. “Sorry, folks. Old Lady Perkins’ cat is missing again…”
For a cat you get off your butt? I thought. But said nothing.
“…which means the cat’s either under the bed and Miz Perkins forgotten to look again, or the old lady just can’t sleep again tonight.” He shook his handsome head, donned his rakish cap. “Don’t know which is worse, Alzheimer’s or just plain loneliness. God, I hope I never get that old.”
“You want me to take it, Sheriff?” from Deputy Olson.
“Nah, my behind’s getting wide from that chair anyway. You folks are welcome to stick around a spell, have some coffee, talk to Jimmy. See you in thirty or so.”
I stood up after he left, turned to Katie.
She blew weary breath and reached for Garbanzo.
We were halfway to the door when the deputy said, “Hey.”
We turned around.
“Hold on a sec, will you?”
He came to the office window, watched Cormac’s taillights disappear down the street, then motioned us over to his desk. “I know it’s late, but have a seat. Please.”
When we came around his desk on either side he already had his PC screen lit. The display held a green-colored grid, flanked on either side by rows of scrolling numbers and icons I’d never encountered on a computer, even the most expensive ones.
“What’s this?” from Katie, scooting her chair closer with interest.
“What brand of cellphone does your finance have?” Olson said, not looking up from the screen.
“Um…an i-Phone, I think,” I told him.
Jimmy typed. A new parade of numbers appeared at screen right, red against the green graph lines.
“How old?”
“Almost new.”
“Good. What’s her phone number?”
“What are we doing, Jimmy?”
Katie looked abruptly wide-awake. “He’s tracking Rita’s cellphone.” Then to Jimmy with less assurance. “Aren’t you--?”
Jimmy nodded. “With any luck…”
I gave him Rita’s number. “You can do that? On that little computer?”
Jimmy typed. “The cell towers around here are pretty cruddy, but yes, I’ve have some success with this. Usually when Sheriff Cormac’s not around.”
I traded looks with Katie.
“Not saying I can get an exact location fix, but this might tell us whether your fiancée’s out of the state at least, or still here in the vicinity…”
Jimmy typed.
“Bingo.”
I crowded closer. “Which?”
“Still in town. According to this, at least.”
My fist hit his desk. “I knew it!”
“Doesn’t mean she’s been kidnapped, Elliot,” Katie warned.
Jimmy typed faster. Then sat back while his computer buzzed and blinked.
While we waited he turned to me. “Elliot, have you considered…I mean, forgive me, but you don’t think there’s any way Rita could have written that note herself.”
“No. Absolutely not!”
He nodded. “No offense, just checking every possibility.”
The computer stopped blinking. Jimmy typed. A map rolled up on the screen: Manchac, LS.
A red dot began blinking near the center of the screen. Then slowly moving across the map.
Jimmy rolled his mouse around carefully. Slowly. More slowly. Slower. Stopped. “Shit!”
“What?”
He shook his head, bewildered. “I don’t get it…”
“What?”
He turned from the screen, looked at both of us. “As I said, this thing’s not a hundred percent accurate…”
“Jimmy,” Katie insisted, “what?”
Jimmy looked back at the screen. “According to the reading’s here, Miss Blaine is somewhere in the vicinity of the Robichou place.”
* * *
We took Jimmy’s patrol car, but I drove.
Jimmy sat shotgun, laptop in his lap, fingers flying over the keys, the mouse. Katie, cat beside her, leaned forward in the back seat. She looked wide awake.
“You r
ealize how completely illegal this is,” the deputy told me, eyes on the glowing screen, “you driving and all.”
“I appreciate it, Jimmy.”
He shrugged. “What the hell, just a job. I was going nowhere in this burg anyway. Make a right at the next side road.”
I turned, recognized the battered road sign: Onfle. But at one time: Moonfleet.
“This is the Robichou’s street,” I said.
Jimmy nodded. “That’s what the tracker says…”
I glimpsed Katie’s uneasy expression in the rearview.
Five minutes later we pulled into a familiar, debris-strewn front yard.
“Kill the engine,” Jimmy ordered, “and the lights.”
I killed them.
We sat in the dark.
“What are you doing? Katie whispered.
Jimmy had his own cellular out, braced on one leg while he typed on the PC with the other. “Think I’ve got a hot spot!” he whispered back excitedly.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means the tracer stopped here. Dead still.”
I glanced at the screen, saw the pulsing red dot holding steady on the green grid.
I looked up anxiously. “Rita’s in the Robichou house, that what you’re saying?”
Jimmy was looking out his side window at the Robichou place, a single light burning in the kitchen window. He chewed his bottom lip tensely, eyes bright. “In the immediate area, anyway.”
He looked over at me quickly. “Her phone, Elliot! That doesn’t necessarily mean your fiancée’s still with it.”
“I know,” I said thickly. “What do we do now?”
Without looking, Jimmy reached down and unsnapped the holster on his .45. “I can tell you what I’d like to do…I’d like to call in back-up. But this is Manchac, not Mannix, so I think we better make this look like just a late evening call from your friendly neighborhood sheriff’s office.”
“In the middle of the morning?” from Katie behind us.
Jimmy reached for the door handle.
I touched his shoulder. “If someone’s holding Rita hostage in there, you’ll be all alone…”
Olson nodded. “Exactly how I want it to look.” He turned to me, looked steadily into my eyes. “If I sense trouble I’ll try to back off--duck back here where maybe we can figure another plan. If I do get into trouble in there, I’ll try to fire a warning shot. If you hear one, get the hell out of here. No hero stuff, no showboating. Just get back to the station fast and contact Cormac.”
“Jimmy, we can’t leave you all—“ from Katie.
“Back to the station!” he ordered. “If you two charge in after me they’ll hold all the cards! Maybe end up with two more hostages to ransom! Don’t give them that chance! Understood?”
Olson got out. Shut the door gently. Began walking toward the single lit kitchen window.
Halfway there he slowed…then stopped in deep shadow, looking down at his glowing cellphone.
“What’s he doing?” Katie whispered anxiously.
“He’s got the cellphone connected to the laptop somehow—reading that green grid off the phone’s screen.
“Is that possible?”
“It is if he’s doing it.”
Olson turned abruptly and walked halfway back to the squad car, eyes on his phone. Stopped again. Turned or pushed something on the phone. Looked up to his right a moment, frowning.
Finally hurried back to the patrol car.
He bent down to my window, held up the phone. “Signal’s moving again!” He nodded, “that way, north of the house!”
I pushed out of the car, craned around. “Which way?”
When he didn’t answer, I turned to him. Jimmy stared at me a silent moment.
Then pointed toward the backyard.
At the swamp.
TWENTY-SEVEN
We picked our way down the Robichous’ backyard three abreast; me, Deputy Olson and Katie holding the cat. All eyes but the feline’s were glued to the face of Jimmy’s cellphone and the steadily blipping red dot moving more or less in a straight line up the green grid.
It was early dawn by the time we came to the end of the yard and the beginning of the dark marsh. An early dawn you could scarcely discern; a thick layer of ground fog had settled over the water and hummocks before first light.
Jimmy whipped out his MagLite, shone it ahead of us into the swamp; it illuminted little good past more than six feet or so, quickly swallowed by roiling mist, the beam bouncing back to us off invisible water particles. What marsh you could see ahead looked flat, black and ominous.
“What now?” from Katie.
Jimmy looked at the red blip, looked up at the gray blanket hanging over the black water. “Signals still moving…very slowly…” he looked up ominously. “…out there somewhere…”
His voice was nearly drowned under the steady, arrhythmic croaking around us. “Damn bullfrogs,” he muttered.
Olson walked his way parallel to the swamp, paused over his phone, walked back to us, studying the green grid. “Huh. Doesn’t appear to be coming north or south.”
He stretched arm and phone toward the dark water. “Due east. That is, if this thing’s working properly.”
“How do we get out there?” I asked, voice hoarse. I was cut off by a loud, distant bellow.
Katie’s eyes went wide. “Was that--?”
“Bull gator,” Jimmy replied indifferently.
Another, shorter grunt echoed to us. “And his possible mate.”
The swamp went silent awhile. Then the frogs started in tentatively again.
I stared at the black water. “So how do we get out there?”
“We don’t.” Jimmy lowered his light with conviction. “Not without a boat or dinghy of some kind.”
I began craning around in the dark desperately. “Maybe Dean’s got one!”
“No.”
I clenched my fists impotently. “Are you sure?”
“Been out here a million times, Elliot, I’m sure.”
I made an effort to slow my frustrated breathing. “What about the Robichous’ scow! The big one they troll for antiques with!”
Jimmy shook his head. “It takes two experienced men to man that thing even without this pea soup. Besides, the motor bellows louder than forty gators--any kidnappers would hear us coming for miles.”
“Well, hell,” I kept craning around in desperation, “they’ll see your flashlight too, won’t they? And anyway, what if Rita’s gotten free of her captors somehow? What if she’s stumbling around lost out there now in those glades, water up to her hips, praying for rescue!”
“Then why doesn’t she try to call you?” Olson said calmly, professionally.
I clenched my jaws till they ached, scrabbled out my phone. Jimmy’s hand clamped over my wrist. “I wouldn’t do that. If she’s gotten free she’d call you—if not, her captors will hear her phone go off, know someone’s tracking her.”
“Not if she’s got it on vibration.”
“And if she doesn’t? How’s she going to answer you anyway, Mr. Bledsoe, in front of them? No, it’s too dangerous. I mean, it’s your choice, but I’d vote no.”
I glanced at Katie, whose eyes agreed with Olson. I thought about it a moment, then jammed the phone back in my pocket. “Well, we can’t just stand her doing nothing! We’ve got a strong signal on her, for chrissake!”
“Out in the swamp.” Jimmy looked down at his tracker. “Starting to fade, in fact…”
“Elliot--?” from Katie.
“Goddamnit!” I spit. “Are we just giving up then?”
“Elliot--?”
I turned impatiently to her.
“Where’s the cat?”
Her arms were empty.
“I thought you—“
“I did have him! He jumped down just a minute ago to stretch!”
“Goddamnit, Katie, can’t you even watch the damn cat?”
“He was right here!”
�
�Well, he isn’t here now!”
“Take it easy, folks,” Olson said patting the air, meaning: lower your voices.
“We’ve got to find him!” from a frantic Katie.
I was close to losing it. “Katie, to hell with the goddamn cat!”
“Hey…” from Jimmy, point his MagLite right in my face. I craned away, squinting irritation, then realized he was pointing the beam past my shoulder,”…look.”
The big flashlights beam barely picked out the cat some distance from us near the water, tawny paws stepping gingerly over a fat tree root. His head was low, nose sniffing, whiskers twitching luminously in the fog.
“Damnit!” I started after him. “Garbanzo!”
I was almost to him, his sleek form indifferent to my calls, his tiny nose to the thick saw grass, when I heard Katie crunching up behind me. “Elliot, wait!”
I frowned at her. “For what?”
“His tail’s up!”
“Yeah, so? He has to pee!”
“He’s tracking something, can’t you see?”
I watched the cat sniff his way over another mushroom-freckled log.
I glanced at the deputy, who shrugged, clueless; cats clearly were not his area of expertise.
“Katie,” I said patiently, “he’s a cat. A feline. Not a bloodhound!”
I turned again to reach for Garbanzo.
“What if he smells Rita?” Katie insisted. “Rita’s his mistress! He knows her scent! Elliot, what if it’s Rita he’s following?”
I hesitated. No. No way. Any cat but doggedly independent Garbanzo.
Turned to look at Jimmy again. Jimmy shrugged, still clueless.
I looked back at Garbanzo. He did seem to know where he was going.
We followed the cat.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, our pants soaked past our knees, we were still following him.
“He certainly seems determined!” said Katie, cheerleading.
To catch a rat, I thought glumly.
Sluge-squish….sluge-squish…sluge-squish…
Then: “Hey! I got a hot spot!”
Katie and I scrambled to the deputy’s side. “Where?”
FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 27