by Terry Shames
She invites us in and gives us a cup of coffee in the living room, which has a cheery, lived-in feel to it with a sofa and chairs that seem to me to have just the right amount of wear and tear to make them easy to sit in. I ask Sharon when she last saw Loretta.
She taps a finger to her lips and looks out the big front window. “I see her pretty much every day one way or another. She works in the yard most days, but come to think of it, I haven’t seen her out there in the last couple of days.”
“Did she mention that she might be going out of town?”
A light dawns. “Yes, she did. I completely forgot. I guess it was, what’s today, Thursday? Last weekend she told me she had something to do this week. She seemed excited.”
“Did she say what it was? Was she going on a trip?”
“Let me think.” She shakes her head. “No, I don’t believe she said anything specific. Why are you asking?”
“I don’t want to alarm you because there might be a perfectly good explanation, but nobody has heard from her in a few days.”
“Like I said, she told me she had something to do, but whether it was going out of town or. . .” She bites her bottom lip. “Now I don’t want to be foolish, but I remember when she told me, something struck me funny. Or different anyway. I’m trying to think what it was. Oh, I know. I told Ken that she seemed like a young girl. Her eyes were all sparkly. I told him I wondered if she had met a love interest.”
“Ever seen any men come to visit her?”
She flushes. “Goodness, no. Loretta wouldn’t like to have a man come to her house unless she knew him really well. You know what I mean.”
I do know what she means, because Loretta is even skittish for me to come into her house alone, and we’ve known each other for years. She was very kind to my wife Jeanne when Jeanne was in her last days, and I feel like we got to know each other better than most.
I thank Sharon for the information and ask her to call if she sees Loretta.
When we get back to the car, we both pause and look back toward Loretta’s house. “What do you think?” I ask. I have a feeling Maria feels the same way I do—that Sharon’s information was helpful, but we’re still worried.
“It’s not like her.”
“Ellen Forester told me where Loretta keeps a spare key,” I say. “I think we should go inside and look around. We have probable cause.”
Maria nods. “You do that, and I’ll water her yard. Wherever she’s gone, she’s going to be unhappy if she comes back and her flowers are dead.”
I retrieve the key from under a flowerpot on the screened porch. When I go inside Loretta’s house, I feel like the place disapproves of me being there without her. It’s deadly quiet and smells a little musty, the way houses get when they are shut up for a few days. I go into the kitchen and take a long look at the unwashed dishes in the sink. There’s not much—a couple of small plates, a coffee cup, and a spatula. On the stove, there’s a skillet that looks like it hasn’t been washed either. It is absolutely not like her to leave the dishes undone. Why would she leave in such a hurry?
In the back of my mind is a possibility no one likes to contemplate, but when we get to a certain age, it is one of the health issues we have to consider. Is it possible that Loretta’s mind is slipping and she simply forgot a few things? I can’t believe that she would forget so much all at once. Forgetting the date with Ellen to go shopping in Bobtail, forgetting to tell anyone where she was going, and leaving the dishes undone. I could see one of those things happening, but not all of them at the same time. I’ve seen absolutely no sign that Loretta is slipping mentally. Something made her hustle out of here, leaving her work unfinished.
On the countertop, there’s a loose-leaf, page-a-day calendar, not the tear-off kind. The day showing is Monday, three days ago. Either she forgot to turn it to Tuesday or she went away Monday. Monday has a note that says, 10:30—Ladies Circle Meeting. I flip back a day and see that Sunday 4:30 is circled, but with no note about what was going on then. On Tuesday, 2:30 p.m. is circled, again with no indication of what she was doing. I flip back a few more pages and see lots of notes with times circled, all saying what is happening. Those two are the only ones that have no hint as to what she was going to do at that time.
Loretta keeps her phone numbers on a hanging pad next to her wall phone. The numbers for both of her sons are at the top of the list. Her younger son lives out in North Carolina, and Loretta wouldn’t have driven all the way out to see him—or at least I don’t think she would have. But the older son, Scott, and his family live out in the hill country, and she could make that drive easily. I hesitate before I dial Scott’s number. If she isn’t there, it’s going to alarm his family for me to ask whether they know where she is. Maybe I should wait a little longer. But for what? I dial the number, and the voicemail kicks in with the voice of Loretta’s daughter-in-law. I’ve met the daughter-in-law, Marcie, a friendly, well-kept woman. Loretta likes her “fine,” although I think Loretta mostly likes that she gave her grandchildren.
I leave a noncommittal message asking her to call me about “a quick question.” Ellen said she went through the house to make sure Loretta hadn’t left any signs of where she might have gone, but I go through it again. Her bedroom is tidied, the bed made and all the clothes put away, but the closet door is ajar. I approach it and ease it open, hoping I won’t find anything unexpected. Everything looks in place, but I notice that there are a few empty hangers. One hanger is on the floor, as if she took the clothes off in a hurry and didn’t notice that it had fallen. Then I look up at the top shelf. She keeps small suitcases on the shelf, and there is a gap between two of them. Wherever she is, she packed a bag.
In the bathroom, I find more evidence that she left on her own. There are gaps in the neat row of items on the counter. Plus, there’s no toothbrush in the holder, and no toothpaste sitting out or in the medicine cabinet.
I don’t know why she didn’t tell anybody she was going away, but it’s obvious that she left under her own steam. I feel a weight lift off my shoulders, and I laugh to myself thinking how outraged Loretta will be if she happens to come home now and find me snooping in her house.
CHAPTER 5
I may be satisfied, but Maria isn’t. When we get back to headquarters, she says she’s going to make a few calls to see whether any of Loretta’s church friends know where she is.
After the second call, she hangs up and says, “Why do some women have to be so coy?” With her dark eyes and jet-black hair, Maria is a pretty girl, except when she scowls, which she’s doing now. With her heavy brows together in one line and her mouth turned down in a pout, she looks like a statue of a Mayan warrior.
“What do you mean?”
“I called Jolene Ramsey—you know Loretta thinks she hung the moon because she’s the Baptist Ladies’ Circle treasurer—and she hinted around that she might know what Loretta has been up to.”
“If she thinks Loretta has been ‘up to something,’ that’s a good thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if Jolene knows Loretta is keeping a secret, then her going off without telling anyone is more understandable.”
She shakes her head. “Leaving the dishes undone is not understandable. That is not Loretta, and you know it.”
“Maybe. Her neighbor said she was excited about whatever she was going to do, so maybe she really did forget. But unless she told somebody where she was going, I don’t know what we can do to find her.”
“At least you can go talk to Jolene. She’s more likely to tell you than she is me.”
She’s right. Some older women don’t like the idea of a female police officer or a female doing any job that is traditionally male, and Jolene Ramsey is one of them. One reason that Maria is friendly with Loretta is that when she first came to town, having been assigned to us by the state on their minority outreach program, a few citizens resisted her joining the department. They claimed that they didn’t like the
state of Texas, or any other government entity, telling the town what to do, but I knew it was the gender issue. That was even more of an issue than her being Hispanic. Loretta would have none of it. Generally, she tends to stick to tradition, but she firmly believes that women should be able to do any job they want to. She defended Maria fiercely, and gradually the hubbub died down.
“Okay, I’ll go talk to Jolene. Was she at home?”
“Yes, but she said she was leaving her house soon on her way to the church.”
“You want to go with me? It will make the point that you are a police officer and that she ought to be forthcoming with you as much as with me.”
Maria declines. She’s more interested in getting the facts behind Loretta’s disappearance than in making a point with Jolene. I leave Dusty with her while I go to the church, ignoring the mournful look he gets when he knows I’m going in the car without him.
Loretta told me that Jolene practically lives at the Baptist church. I’m not a churchgoer, but if I were, I wouldn’t join the Baptist Church. They say it’s the same basic church as the Methodists, the Lutherans, and the Presbyterians—just with different trappings. But the Baptists have a habit of making a fuss over every little thing and demanding that people do things their way. A case in point is the stir over the goat rodeo.
If Baptists had their way, the school wouldn’t let kids dance at their prom, wouldn’t let anybody have a glass of wine at a town function, and would ban beer from the events out at the lake. I’ve discussed these strictures with Loretta, but she says it has nothing to do with being Baptist; it’s the fault of a few do-gooders who don’t want anyone to have any fun.
I’ve only met Jolene a few times, and she strikes me as being one of the do-gooders. She’s got that narrow-eyed look, like she’s keeping score of what’s going on around her so she can tattle to God. She’s in the church office, sitting at the desk with the computer open, surrounded by receipts and spreadsheet printouts. She’s a scrawny woman with iron gray hair worn like a helmet. She’s dressed in a prim dark skirt and white blouse.
“Hello, Chief Craddock. This is a pleasant surprise.”
“Jolene, hope you’re well.”
“I know why you’re here. That girl called me earlier asking questions about Loretta’s business. I guess she wasn’t satisfied with my answers.” At the end of this speech, she presses her lips into a thin line and pins me down with her stare.
“You look like you’ve got your hands full,” I say, gesturing toward the papers on the desk. I’m trying to soften her up so she’ll be cooperative.
“Nobody knows how much work it is to be a church treasurer. People assume that all you have to do is take in the collection money and it pays the bills.”
These are matters that are foreign to me. “I’m sure you’re up to the task,” I say.
“I certainly intend to be.” She has to have the last word.
“Do you have time to talk to me for a few minutes?”
“You are the Chief of Police. I suppose if I said I wouldn’t talk to you, you could run me in.”
Coming from anybody else, I would have thought this was a joke, but Jolene looks dead serious.
“It probably wouldn’t come to that,” I say. “I can come back later if you’re too busy.”
“Go ahead and sit down,” she says.
I look at my choices of seating. Severity seems to be the message imparted by pretty much everything in the office, from the sharpedged metal desk to the metal file cabinets. I take the armchair next to the desk, which is more comfortable than it looks. I note the framed Biblical quotations on the walls. Loretta told me that strict Baptists don’t believe in having pictures of saints or Jesus because nobody actually knows what they looked like. Makes sense to me, but it doesn’t keep a lot of people from hanging pictures of a blond, blue-eyed imaginary messiah.
“I don’t know whether Officer Trevino told you, but we’re a little concerned because Loretta Singletary hasn’t been in touch with any of her friends in the last few days. Have you talked to her by any chance?”
“I told the girl that I hadn’t talked to Loretta since last week, but I don’t find that cause for alarm. We don’t see one another every day.” She glances at her computer, and I wonder whether she’s thinking about her numbers rather than my question.
“Officer Trevino said you indicated you might have an idea where Loretta is.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “Well, the girl got it wrong. I don’t know where she is.”
“Did Loretta indicate to you that she might be going out of town?”
“Not really.” I wonder what Jolene said to Maria to make her think she did.
“I see.”
She levels a pert look at me, and I realize that she’s enjoying being obtuse. She doesn’t want to be an easy mark. “Do you have a list of the members of the Ladies’ Circle?”
She glances at a stack of papers on her desk. “It may not be completely up-to-date.”
“I’d like to take a look at it. Please.”
She sighs and gives an eye roll before she plucks the top sheet off the stack and hands it to me. Nothing like a little obstruction to make someone’s day.
I glance over it and see two names that Loretta has mentioned. I get out a pen and my little notebook and jot them down.
“Who are you going to talk to?” Jolene asks.
“Michele Orlander and Sunny Jones.” Loretta has mentioned their names.
“They won’t be able to tell you anymore than I can.”
“What is it you can tell me?”
She drums her fingers. She has beaten herself at her own game and she knows it. “Loretta told us at the last sewing meeting that she was going to have coffee with a man she had met online.”
“Online? You mean on the computer?”
“That’s what online means.” Her tone would wither a healthy plant.
“How do you meet somebody online?”
“A dating website.” She looks at me like I’ve just swung down out of a tree.
I have heard of dating websites; I’m not entirely out of touch. But I don’t know much about them. I’m not even sure what the right question is. How do you find out the names of such websites and where they are? And how to get in touch with them? But I’ve had enough of begging Jolene for information. “Good to know,” I say, mustering as much dignity and goodwill as I can.
It’s late afternoon, and when I leave the church, I call Maria to tell her I’m coming by to get Dusty, and then I’m leaving for the rest of the day. “Anything going on?”
“Connor and I are having a little discussion.” The surly note in her voice and her emphasis on the word “discussion” tells me that the two of them are at it again. Connor Loving is the newest cop on our force, hired after Zeke retired for good last summer. Maria and Connor argue over everything. If she says it’s hot, then he argues that it’s not as hot as it could be. If he says the coffee is weak, then she says it’s too strong. There is nothing too insignificant for them to rag each other over.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I say. “If it comes to blows, whoever survives has to take the other one to the hospital.”
When I get back to headquarters, Dusty leaps up and barks with excitement. I assume when he gets a little older he won’t act like I’ve been gone for a week when I leave him for a half hour.
An hour later, when I pull into Wendy’s driveway, Dusty whines and can’t wait to get out of the car. I don’t know which one of us likes Wendy better, but at least I try to show more dignity.
Wendy always surprises me when she comes to the door. I’ve never seen anybody who loves clothes the way she does. Tonight, she’s dressed in plain old blue jeans, but she’s wearing a ruffled blouse the color of the ocean. “Oh, I’m happy to see you!” she says. She stoops down to pat Dusty, who flings himself onto his back so she can scratch his belly. Finally, she grabs my hand, and we go inside.
“Something smells good.”
“I decided to branch out. I tried a new recipe I found for osso buco.”
“Whatever that is, I’m ready for it.” I hand her the bottle of red wine I’ve brought.
“This is perfect,” she says. There’s nothing like having a woman who thinks you’re the best at everything, especially because I feel the same way about her. When I’m with her, I feel like whatever I say will be okay. And if she disagrees with me in a discussion, she doesn’t hold back, but she also doesn’t make it into a war. More important, she doesn’t brood or pout.
When we sit down to eat, I ask her whether she knows anything about online dating sites.
“Are you planning to dump me and put yourself out there on Match.com?”
“Could happen unless you play your cards right.”
I tell her that Loretta is missing, and that someone said she was going out with a man she met through a dating site.
Wendy frowns. “I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t know Loretta well, but she seems smarter than that. You know those dating sites can be tricky.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “Every now and then you hear a story of a woman meeting up with a date through one of those sites and she gets attacked.” And then she laughs. “But I expect Loretta has enough sense not to get sucked into a situation like that. I wonder what site she’s on?”
“There’s more than one?”
“Oh, honey, there’s more than twenty. There might be fifty.”
I groan. “How do you figure out which one somebody is on?”
