The Winter Widow (15 page)

Osey had questioned Floyd Kimmell. Floyd claimed he didn't know anything and hadn't seen Lucille. Floyd was nervous.

George had questioned Vic Pollock. Vic hadn't seen Lucille; stuck to the story his wife was visiting relatives. He was belligerent.

Otto Guthman thought he might have some cattle missing. He wasn't positive, was still trying to get an accurate count. He had no idea where Lucille was, insisted she was fine, she'd be back any time now. Ella Guthman was frantic about her daughter, but couldn't suggest any place Lucille might be.

Susan arched her back and stretched, then lit a cigarette, moseyed to the window, and yanked on the cord to raise the blinds higher. The glass was fogged with ice crystals on the outside; the sky was gray and overcast. Snow covered the rooftops and the street was a mess of churned-up slush. Three or four people tromped by, all muffled up and trailing streams of vapor.

Why hadn't anybody seen Lucille in the last sixty-two hours? In a town this size, where everybody knew everybody, where could she hide?

Long ash formed on the cigarette; Susan turned from the window, went back to the desk and tapped it against the ashtray. Near the ashtray sat a small framed snapshot of herself in an orange life jacket, hair windblown, taken on the deck of a friend's boat. Daniel had liked that picture. She pitched it in the bottom drawer, then sat down and read Parkhurst's interview with Sophie. Sophie hadn't seen Lucille, had no idea where she was and thought Parkhurst ought to be looking for her instead of wasting time asking questions. The latest missing cat was still missing.

She put out her cigarette, leaned back and gazed at the fluorescent fixture in the ceiling. Could Sophie be hiding Lucille? According to Jack—and he still hadn't called, as he had promised—Lucille considered Sophie a friend, and Sophie was certainly unconventional enough. Susan shook her head. No, couldn't be. Brenner was staying with Sophie. He'd notice. Sophie might hide Lucille, for reasons only understandable to herself, but surely Brenner wouldn't go along.

Susan wondered about the injured man and checked with the hospital. Still alive. Still no change in his condition. She remembered the phone bill she'd seen in Lucille's office and shoved around papers to find her notebook, then cleared a space and studied the list of calls Lucille had made in December. Two numbers had been called several times each.

Osey ambled in. “Ma'am?”

She looked up.

“Ben asked me to tell you he's talking to neighbors about Emma Lou Pollock, trying to pin down more how long she's been gone and where she might be.”

She nodded. Two missing women? One dead, one missing? Two dead? “Osey, do you recognize either of these phone numbers?”

He bent over the desk. “This here's the
Kansas City News.
” He put a finger on the bill. “Don't know this one, it's Kansas City too, by the prefix.” He straightened, stepped back and waited.

She reached for the phone, then, aware he was still waiting, said, “Thanks, Osey. That's all.”

“Right.” He ambled out.

She punched the number he couldn't identify and got a recorded message. “This is Doug McClay. Leave your name and number and I'll get back to you.”

She left her name and both police department and home numbers, then broke the connection and cradled the receiver against her shoulder. Doug McClay. Kansas City. She pushed a button to get Hazel.

“Yes, Susan?”

“Hazel, do we have a Kansas City phone book?”

“Sure do. White pages or Yellow?”

“Both, I guess.”

Hazel brought in the phone books and eyed Susan with concern. “You don't look so good. You should be home in bed.”

“It's just a cold. As long as I breathe through my mouth I'm fine.” Susan looked up the
Kansas City News.
Osey was right about that number. And a Doug McClay was listed in Kansas City, with an address on Morganhill Drive.

She called Jack and the phone rang, unanswered. She tried Emerson College and was told Dr. Guthman was teaching a class. Thinking maybe Lucille's mother would know Doug McClay, Susan phoned the Guthmans'; the housekeeper said neither Ella nor Otto was home.

She thought a moment, then flipped through Yellow Pages to hotels. Hotels, hotels. Drake, Drake. Yes. Drake Hotel. She reached for the phone again.

“Drake Hotel, may I help you?”

“Do you have a Lucille Guthman staying there?”

There was a pause. “Yes. Ms. Guthman is a guest here.”

“Would you ring her room, please.” She let it ring until the receptionist broke in to say, “That number doesn't answer.”

Susan broke the connection and pushed the button for Hazel. “I don't suppose you happen to have a street map of Kansas City.”

“I might. Let me check.”

A moment later, Hazel came in and handed her the map.

*   *   *

IT was after three by the time she found Morganhill Drive, a quiet residential street of mostly new homes, with spindly trees and bare front lots. She had crossed the river into Missouri before she came to Doug McClay's address.

It was a small two-story house, red brick with white trim and a steep, peaked roof. She pressed the doorbell and waited, then stepped to her right for a try at looking through the window. The curtain covered it completely. Irritated, she rang the bell again. Well, not surprising, since he hadn't answered the phone, but some people let the machine pick up calls and she'd thought it worth a try.

The garage sat at the end of a long driveway with two narrow paths shoveled clear of snow. Why bother to shovel the whole driveway when all you really need are two tracks to get the car in and out? Hands shoved in her pockets, she walked up a cleared path to see if a car was inside the garage. The overhead door was shut and locked, the only window too high to look through. She scribbled a note asking McClay to call as soon as possible and stuck it in the mailbox.

*   *   *

THE Drake was a small old hotel and as Susan tromped up to the entrance, an elderly man with a cane struggled with the door on his way out. She held it open for him. He smiled, wound a scarf around his throat and said, “Got to keep moving.”

Quite right, she thought, and smiled back.

The lobby had green couches and gold chairs with potted plants lurking in the corners. The young woman at the reception desk reluctantly placed her paperback romance face down on the counter and fixed her gaze on Susan. A mass of frizzed brown hair obscured a small face, giving the impression of a timid animal sheltering behind a thicket. A white pin with the name Patsy was attached to her red sweater. Susan asked for Lucille Guthman's room number.

“She has three-ten, but she's not in.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you're the second person this afternoon who's asked.”

“Who was the other?”

Patsy raked back her hair and as soon as she let go, it fell over her eyes again. “He didn't leave his name.”

“What did he look like?”

Patsy gave her a suspicious look. “Why did you want to know?”

“Maybe I know him.”

“Oh. Well. Nice.” Patsy smiled a dreamy smile and seemed to drift off in a fugue.

Whoever he was, he'd certainly had an impact on her. “Was he tall?”

Patsy nodded. “Blond hair. And handsome, you know? He was real mad about something. I could tell. But nice anyway.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Black pants and a white sweater. One of those fisherman's sweaters with all the cables? Oh, and he had black gloves.”

Susan thought of Brenner Niemen and his slick, blond handsomeness, then decided that was pretty farfetched. How would Brenner know Lucille was here, and why would he come to see her even if he did know? There must be more than one blond, handsome man in this part of the world.

“He said he'd try again later,” Patsy said. “Would you like me to tell him you were here?”

“When did you last see Lucille?”

“Oh, gee. That would have been yesterday.” Patsy thought a moment, then nodded.

“Did she say anything?”

“No. Well, hello or like that.”

“Was she going out?”

“I guess so.”

“Where was she going?”

Patsy shrugged.

“What time was that?”

“About three o'clock.”

“When did she check in?”

“Monday night,” Patsy said.

“What time?”

Patsy shrugged again and her fingers strayed toward the novel. “I don't work the night shift.”

“I'll just go up and see if she's come back.”

“Okay, but I know she isn't there.”

Patsy snatched up her book and Susan went to the elevator. On the third floor, she knocked on the door of room three-ten and got no response.

No sounds from inside and the door was locked; a
DO NOT DISTURB
sign hung from the knob. “Lucille? Open the door. I need to talk with you.” She waited. “Come on, Lucille. This is silly.”

A couple came out of a room further along the hallway and went past chatting about where they might go for supper. Susan dabbed at her drippy nose with a tissue, shoved it in her pocket and looked at her watch. Almost four-thirty. She got back in the elevator and it groaned and grumbled its way down to the first floor.

Putting down the novel, Patsy gave her a smug smile. “I told you she wasn't in. She went out early this morning.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she left a wake-up call for seven and she didn't answer. So she must have gone before then.”

“Maybe she was in the shower.”

“Pretty long shower. She was called at seven and then at eight and then at eight-thirty. She just got up earlier than she planned.”

“Did you see her leave?”

Patsy shook her head. “She could have had breakfast in the coffee shop, I guess.”

In the coffee shop, Susan found the manager, a man in his forties, behind the cashier's desk and asked if Lucille had been in for breakfast. “Twenty-five,” Susan said to jiggle his memory. “Pretty. Blond curly hair, blue eyes.”

“Oh yeah. I think she was here.”

“This morning? What time?”

“No, yesterday.”

“You haven't seen her today?”

“I don't think so. We get kind of busy around here.” His voice trailed off and he thought a moment. “Guthman, yeah.” He shuffled through a pile of order cards. “Three-ten. She left a request with room service yesterday evening. Coffee at seven this morning.”

“And you took it up to her?”

“One of the girls did. Hey, Joan,” he called to a waitress who hustled over. “You take that coffee to three-ten this morning?”

Joan nodded. “I knocked, but nobody answered so I just left the tray by the door. Anything wrong?”

“You picked up the tray later?” Susan asked.

“I didn't. One of the maids brought it down. I guess she didn't want coffee after all, because the pot was still full. The cup hadn't been used.”

“Guests.” The manager's shrug said nothing a guest ever did would surprise him.

Susan took the groaning elevator back up to the third floor. She was getting a bad feeling about all this. A laundry cart stood outside the open door of three-twelve and sounds of a vacuum cleaner drifted out. At three-ten, the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign was still on the doorknob. Lucille still didn't answer a knock. Susan wondered what she should do. A sneeze had her groping for Kleenex. Damn cold. She could just camp outside this door and wait. Another part of her mind said something was wrong.

Lucille hadn't been seen since yesterday afternoon. She didn't meet Doug McClay when she was supposed to. She didn't answer her wake-up call, didn't drink the coffee ordered yesterday evening, didn't return any of Doug's five calls, didn't answer the phone.

Susan thought about taking all this to the Kansas City police. To get in the room, they'd need a search warrant; to get that, they'd need to show probable cause. Could she do that? Missing person.
Who said she was missing?
Her mother.
Nothing illegal about not telling your mother what hotel you're at.
I'm worried. After they stopped laughing, they'd tell her to fuck off.

She tried to tell herself she could be wrong. All that did was make her worry more.

The hum of the vacuum cleaner stopped, and after a moment a maid came trundling it out of the next room. Her name tag read Delores; she was a middle-aged woman who walked as though her feet hurt.

“Have you cleaned this room today?” Susan asked her.

“Not yet. It's been there all day.” Delores nodded at the sign hanging on the doorknob. “I can't go home until I clean in there.”

“I'm a police officer.” Susan flipped open her ID case. She had no authority here, but most people don't scrutinize police identification. “Would you unlock the door, please?”

Delores gave her a dubious look, then with a shrug pulled a key from her pocket and inserted it in the lock. She pushed the door in, stepped away and took her laundry cart and her vacuum and her tired feet off down the corridor.

The room was dark inside, the curtains closed. Running a hand along the wall, Susan located the light switch and turned it on. Brown carpeting, double bed made up but rumpled, long, low desk-chest combination across one wall with a television set on one end. An easy chair and a small round table in the corner with a hanging lamp above; a spiral notebook on the table.

She turned on the bathroom light. Hum and rattle of the exhaust fan. Unused towels, paper-wrapped glasses, cosmetics on the countertop and a toothbrush, dry. Shower curtain pulled across the tub.

She jerked it aside, then let out a breath. The tub was empty, clean and dry. No dead body sprawled on the white porcelain.

The closet had one small suitcase and a few items of clothing on hangers. She started to worry about having gotten the maid to let her in here. She'd be in trouble if Lucille or the hotel filed a breaking-and-entering or illegal-search complaint. As nearly as she could tell, nothing seemed amiss. No sign of any struggle.