The recording she’d left on her answering machine confirmed his suspicions. It said, “I’m shooting bats in Bolivia. What are you doing?”
He rang off without leaving a message. What could Karen do from a cave in South America?
“Greer,” he called as he put on a jacket.
“Sir?”
“I need your cell phone.”
Without comment, Greer pulled the slim black phone from his breast pocket and handed it to Jeff.
“If you hear anything, you call me.”
“Yes, sir. Should I know where you’re going, sir?”
He paused for a moment. “The waterfront.”
Greer smiled timidly. “I hope he’s down there tonight.”
“He will be.” Jeff’s confidence turned to determination. “He has to be.”
The waterfront was either vacant or bustling by turns, depending upon which ferries were docking and unloading and which were only string-light skeletons moving across the dark waters of the bay. It was too late in the year for the usual outdoor concerts, and fewer couples strolled arm-in-arm along the boardwalk. Ferry passengers rushed to get onboard and head home to Bremerton or Vashon Island, until the next morning when they would commute to the Emerald City and repeat the workweek process.
Jeff cruised slowly down Alaskan Way, peering into shadows, studying outlines of the occasional dark figures sitting on benches or leaning on dock moorings, searching for the one man who might help him scour the underbelly of the city for any thread of a lead on his wife.
Driving the woodie had its advantages. When Jeff wanted to be seen, the car was like a neon billboard. When he didn’t, he used the SUV that he furnished Greer with for shopping and errands. Tonight, he needed neon. Lanny knew this about Jeff, knew the rarity of Jeff’s night trips to the waterfront. If Lanny was down here, he’d make himself known. Or die trying.
This Jeff could count on, even though he had never known anyone for so long and at the same time known so little. The man had never given his last name, and Jeff had never entertained the notion of tracking it down. If nothing else, his FBI training had taught him that information was his best weapon, and he wasn’t so stupid as to jeopardize his relationship with the best street informant he’d ever worked with — and that included his years with the Bureau.
Lanny was a picker. A real picker, some would say, not like Talbot the former agent who had come to the trade later in life with an inherited house full of inherited antiques and an uncanny knack for turning up good merchandise.
Lanny wasn’t judgmental, and Jeff accredited this to his ability to recognize that at the core the two men were the same. They both loved their work and were passionate about preserving the past.
All similarity stopped there. While it was typically part of the picker personality to become so fascinated by stuff that he might very well forget about people, Lanny was both a picker and an observer. People and objects held equal value in his regard.
Jeff never knew whether he’d find Lanny driving the rust-eaten Ford, with its oxidized paint of a color and drabness similar to mud, or on foot combing through trash and acting more like a homeless bum than those who actually were.
Jeff studied an approaching vehicle with one of its two headlights hanging loose from the socket, like a naked bulb on a long cord. He wondered if its driver had still managed to avoid a traffic ticket, or whether he just paid them when they were delivered much like utility bills and tax statements.
As they passed on the street, the two drivers locked eyes for a split second, then drove on. Jeff kept an eye on his rearview mirror, watched the truck turn and make its way north through the rows of parking spaces under the viaduct. Jeff pulled up to the warehouse where he’d spent the day, and positioned the woodie so that he could keep the pickup in his sights. He killed the lights and waited.
Lanny parked the truck diagonally among a group of cars, then jogged toward the woodie. He was rail thin, and his clothes hung loosely on a frame perpetually slouched. If Jeff didn’t know better, he’d think the man never got enough to eat. As he always did when he saw Lanny, he wondered how old the guy was. Upon first glance, the man looked to be Jeff’s age or a few years older, say forty, forty-two. But the eyes betrayed this when one got past the bearded face, the ancient soul that emanated from those chilling blue eyes. Lanny might be as young as twenty-four, twenty-five.
Lanny climbed inside the woodie, rubbing his arms against the chill.
Jeff smelled an amalgam, not altogether unpleasant, that reminded him of the market: iced-down fish, cured tobacco, fried-doughnut grease, garden loam, and vintage clothing.
“Talbot.” Lanny nodded. “Ain’t seen you around in awhile.”
“You know how it is. Have to go farther and farther to scare up anything worthwhile.”
“True enough.”
“I’ve got a situation.”
“Figured as much.”
“Have I told you about my wife?”
“No, but figured there was one. You’ve been domesticated by somebody.”
Jeff’s smile was brief. “She’s agoraphobic. You know much about that?”
“Enough.”
Jeff looked at him, wide-eyed. He was always surprised to learn that people were basically familiar with agoraphobia. “When I got home tonight, she was gone.”
Lanny nodded soberly. “Got a picture?”
Jeff took a photo from his wallet. “Her name’s Sheila.”
Lanny nodded again, and Jeff knew that the man would never repeat the story or forget the name. “Anything suspicious on the waterfront today? Anything at all, no matter how insignificant it might seem?”
“Nothing unusual in a criminal sense. Slim pickings, as far as old loot. Monday, you know.” He paused for a second. “Almost bought me a fine-looking caduceus pin — Twenties or Thirties, I’d reckon — but the gal wearing it was . . . I don’t know, distracted, nervous.”
“Caduceus?” Jeff hadn’t seen one of the medical symbols in some time, old or new. “Much of a market for those?”
“I’ve got a buyer who would’ve loved to get his hands on this one. Looked like sterling, with rhinestones down the shaft, sharp detail on the snakes and wings. I could’ve turned a good profit.”
“Was she wearing it as a fashion statement, or do you think she was a doctor?”
“Nurse, actually. At least, she was dressed like one.” Lanny smiled, settled back in the seat with a sigh. “Hot little thing. Long black hair, dark lips. Nothing like any nurse I’ve ever seen. Looked like Wonder Woman.”
“You mean Lynda Carter?”
“Nah, the comic book character.”
Jeff thought about the dozens of comic books inside the warehouse.
“Anyway,” Lanny continued, “the guy driving the car kept trying to inch forward, like there was an inch to spare. You know what it’s like, waiting in line to board the ferry. It was weird, like he was in a hurry, but I heard the gal say something that told me otherwise.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. You see, she was smoking a cigarette, had her window cracked. She was complaining to the old man about taking one ferry just to get to another ferry to get to another place.”
“That’s strange. It’s a pain to turn around if you’ve pulled up to the ticket booth and found out you’re at the wrong pier, but it’s better than going around the world.”
“According to my way of thinkin’, it is.”
Something about the scenario didn’t set right with Jeff. “I wonder if she was even a real nurse.”
“She was more of a nurse than he was a driver. He almost ran over me when the line started moving.”
“Did you get a look at him?”
“No. I’m sure it was a man, but I was on the wrong side to see his face.”
“Maybe they were leftover tourists, not used to the ferry system.”
“I thought so, too. Come to think of it, I glanced back at the plates. They were Washington.�
��
“Rental, maybe.”
“Not new enough. A Buick sedan, at least ten years old, I’d guess, with a maroon paint job that had seen better days.”
Jeff pictured the dock scene Lanny had described, unsure why it raised a red flag. He chalked it up to training, the ingrained habit of noting anything out of the norm. Trouble was, those were usually the innocent ones. “So, you didn’t get the pin?”
“Nah.”
“Want something better?”
Lanny raised the photo of Sheila that he held firmly in his grasp. “Not without earning it.”
“Call it a retainer.”
Jeff hopped from the woodie, made a quick dash into the warehouse, and emerged with a stack of comic books. He handed them to Lanny.
Lanny whistled appreciatively. “Where did you find these?” Flipping through the pile of plastic-encased books, he said, “Mint, mostly, a few pristine mint. All from the Golden Age — that’s Thirties to Fifties, in case you’ve got more.” He shook his head, muttered “Unreal,” then looked at Jeff. “Do you realize what you’re giving away?”
Jeff shrugged. One had to pay well for information.
“You’ve got the contacts and the expertise for this sort of stuff.” This “sort” meant comics, vinyl records, toys. “When I have more time, we can work out a split on the others I have.”
“Sounds like you struck the mother lode.”
“I haven’t run an inventory yet, but it looks that way.”
Lanny was obviously pleased with the gift. He pulled from the stack a copy of Our Flag Comics, dated 1941 with red, white, and blue letters indicative of Old Glory. “Wait a minute, you can’t give me this. Don’t you know that anything with a flag on it is primo right now?” He tried to hand it to Jeff. “I can’t accept it.”
Jeff shook his head. “Sure you can. I’ve got two more from that year.”
Lanny’s mouth dropped.
“Just let me know if you hear anything.”
“You’ve got it.” Lanny opened the door, then hefted the stack of comics. “Thanks. The profit from these will carry me through next year.”
“You’ve earned it.”
“Not yet, but I’ll try.”
Maybe you already have, Jeff thought as his mind conjured up the vague image of a young nurse with a vintage caduceus and her invisible companion.
Jeff thought about calling Greer from the cell phone, then thought better of it. He didn’t want to tie up the only two lines Sheila might try to call.
He made his way home, combing the streets as he drove for any sign of Sheila, anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. When he got back to the house, Greer met him at the door. But the look on the butler’s face told him there was no news.
“I made a brief call to Mrs. Appleby, sir, as soon as you left. She contacted Miss Blessing, and Mr. Carver and his family. They’re all here in the neighborhood, looking for the missus.”
“Smart thinking, Greer. Thank you.”
“You know Mrs. Appleby. She mentioned bringing in food. I told her it wasn’t necessary, but I’m sure that when they are through searching, she’ll go home and bake all night.”
Jeff smiled, nodded. He understood the connotations of food — comfort, friendship, nurturing — and the therapy it could provide for anyone who liked to cook. Personally, his therapy was in antiques. He’d always lost himself in them, used them as an escape — even before he’d become a picker. Frequently, he had to instruct his wandering mind to get back to people.
It hadn’t always been easy. But then Sheila had come along, come into his world and wrapped life around him like cashmere.
Perhaps, he surmised, food was Sheila. Sheila was his sustenance. He couldn’t survive without her.
And as the world closed in on him, threatened to become too much for him to handle, he recognized the need for something to occupy his mind until Gordy arrived, or the cops called, or Sheila miraculously walked through the door.
Wearily, he climbed the service stairs to the third floor.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Persons who meet the criteria as physically or mentally disabled, or a qualified veteran, may be eligible for a license at a reduced rate. These and other permanent physical disabilities may be qualifiers for a Designated Harvester Card, which allows another licensed person to assist a fisher with a disability in harvesting a daily limit of fish or shellfish.
—Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife
Jeff opened the door that led into Sheila’s antiques rooms, and his senses were assaulted by her fragrance, her presence, by her. He shivered, unsure whether it was from fear or cold, and stepped inside. Hugging himself, he held tight as if he might somehow control his nerves, prevent them from unraveling. He wasn’t sure whether he could stand being in these rooms, but he didn’t know where else to go.
The idea of sitting in the rooms he usually shared with his wife was unbearable. And, since they shared so much time together when he returned home every day, that left precious few segments of the large house in which he might seek respite, however fleeting it might be.
He couldn’t face the dining room. Or the kitchen, for that matter. She was nearly always there when he came home from work, happily creating dinner. Whether it was one of her old favorites or some new and fabulous recipe she’d recently developed, she seemed most within her element while preparing food to nurture those she cared for. It wasn’t lost on him that this task, this labor of love, did as much for her own well-being as it did for his.
He couldn’t stay downstairs in the library. That realization hit him as soon as the police followed Greer out of the room earlier that evening. He and his wife often spent evenings there in front of a fire, either the both of them reading or Jeff researching antiques while Sheila cross-stitched or pored over cookbooks. The den was off limits, too. When the couple wasn’t in the library, they could usually be found in the large den, watching movies.
Forget the second floor. The lion’s share of it was the master bedroom, their bedroom. He couldn’t bring himself to go in there. Not without her.
The rest of the rooms on that story were used either as dressing rooms, or guest rooms rarely occupied. Jeff seldom visited any of those, other than the one that held his clothes and luggage.
Eliminating all those led him to the one area of the house where he believed he might grasp some sort of comfort. If any room was going to offer both an escape from reality and a sense that his wife was still with him, it was in the adjoining bedrooms on the third floor that his wife had converted into her own private antiques store.
Sheila’s presence in the room could be felt so strongly that Jeff allowed it to permeate his senses, to assure him that she was still alive out there somewhere, that she was unharmed. After allowing this sensation to soothe him, he embraced his next impression of the rooms, which was one of wonder.
He gazed at the antiques as he walked back and forth between the two rooms and recognized that his wife had created a phenomenal shopping oasis.
He noted, too, that she exhibited a bit of Blanche’s keen eye for categorization. One room was full of things for the house, grouped according to tasks — cooking, reading, travel, writing, gardening, decorating — and he wondered whether this gave her a sense of categorizing her own space in what might be considered by some to be a small existence.
The second room resembled Vanessa Valentine’s place. It was decidedly feminine, made more so by the ancient rosebud wallpaper that had been hung for Auntie Pim’s nursery more than seventy years earlier. Auntie Pim’s death suddenly felt more real to him than it had when she’d passed, shortly before he’d met Sheila. Primrose Talbot was his father’s older sister, and she had raised Jeff, cared for him as if he were her own, after his parents had died in a boating accident off the Juan de Fucas.
In this room were antique dressmaker’s forms decked out in Edwardian suits and confectionous hats; parasols with handles of sterling silver and horn and c
arved coral, both in umbrella stands and resting on chests of drawers; vintage dressing tables from the twenties, all loaded with gleaming dresser sets, scent bottles, costume jewelry.
He picked up an Art Nouveau mirror with a lustrous silverplate that was part of a dresser set Sheila had recently mentioned purchasing.
Gripping the mirror’s handle, he thought about Sheila’s delicate hand holding it, too. He wanted to touch everything in the room, hold every piece that she had chosen for her future shopping trips. He wanted to absorb her, reach out to her. He wondered if she’d been in these rooms as recently as that afternoon.
He stood waiting, hoping that something, anything, would speak to him.
A bonnet caught his eye, and he reached for it, carefully lifting it from the nail upon which its tied bow was looped. It was red calico, dotted with little white and yellow daisies.
He tried to remember how long it had been since he’d found the bonnet for her. Three, four years? Sometimes, it was hard for him to understand how she could refrain from “buying” certain items from the store, when he knew he hadn’t mistaken her excitement at first glance of the object. She practiced amazing restraint when it came to choosing from this massive collection of goods. It was a trait he only exhibited when dickering with a potential seller. But in his own home? No. He couldn’t wait to display something new that he’d found for one of his collections.
A song from the Seventies came to mind, one he’d sung to Sheila when he’d given her the bonnet:
“I’ll give you a daisy a day, dear,
I’ll give you a daisy a day.
I’ll love you until all the rivers stand still,
And the four winds we know blow away.”
Has Sheila ever worn this bonnet? He wondered. Does she remember the song? He breathed in its scent, trying to pick up his wife’s fragrance, but he couldn’t be sure, so surrounded was he by her things. He just wanted to hold her, comfort her, and be comforted by her. He untied the bow and, in a last-ditch effort to feel his wife’s presence, placed the bonnet on his head. He checked his reflection in the looking glass. A part of him scorned the silliness, but he didn’t care. Sheila loved it when he let go of macho inhibitions and embraced his playful side.
The Weedless Widow Page 16