Rubbed Out

by Barbara Block

  “You mean George?”

  “I didn’t say that. You did.”

  “Good-bye, Paul.”

  The wheels on Paul’s chair gave out with another squeak as he shifted position. “Hey, you can bullshit me if you want, but don’t do it to yourself.”

  I grabbed my jacket and went out the door. The elevator was slow coming. While I waited for it I took out my cell phone and called Wilcox’s number.

  I was in the middle of leaving a message on his answering machine when he picked up. He sounded distraught, but then most people would in his situation. We set up a meeting for the following afternoon.

  It was snowing as I left the building. Big fat flakes fluttered down, blotting out the sky and whitening the streets and the cars. I closed my eyes, lifted my head up, and stuck out my tongue. Spots of cold hit it and dissolved.

  As I drove home, I thought about Tiger Lily. Then I thought about Zsa Zsa. We hadn’t been out for a long walk in a while. Maybe I’d take her out to the field behind Nottingham High School. She liked that. And I got a kick out of watching her root around in the snow and scare the deer mice out of their winter nests. When it happened, it was always hard to tell who was more surprised, Zsa Zsa or the mice.

  Chapter Five

  It was snowing as I drove over to Walter Wilcox’s office. We’d gotten six inches since last night and, according to the weather forecaster, were due for six more by this evening. The roads were gray with churned-up slush, but the houses, streets, and lawns were a pristine white.

  Wilcox’s office was located over on the north side of Syracuse, four blocks before the farmer’s market. I’d passed by the building hundreds of times but had never really looked at it closely until now. It was an undistinguished, narrow, two-story rectangular affair constructed out of brick that someone had painted blue. But they must not have primed the walls correctly because the paint was flaking. It made the walls look as if they had a bad skin disease.

  A dusting of snow covered a white stretch limo parked outside the front door. It was one of those big ones, the kind with the double wheels in back that was large enough to transport a football team. Mostly, they come out on the roads in the spring when the kids have their proms. For some reason they’ve always reminded me of millipedes. I wondered what it was doing here now as I studied the placard on the building wall.

  Wilcox’s office was located on the bottom floor of the building, while the upstairs was taken up by a real estate firm. I wiped the slush on the bottom of my boots off on the mat in front of the door and went inside. The receptionist glanced up from the pile of papers in front of her. She was an older lady with a haircut her stylist should have been shot for committing and a sour expression on her face.

  “Yes?” she said, obviously annoyed at having me interrupt her work.

  “Robin Light. I have an appointment with your boss.”

  “He’s on the phone. He’ll be out soon,” she said and went back to her sorting. Miss Graciousness.

  “Do you know his wife?” I figured that as long as I was here, I might as well get started on the job.

  “Of course I know Mrs. Wilcox.” The receptionist removed a staple from a set of papers and began separating them.

  “Was she in a lot?”

  “No.”

  “You two chat when she was here?”

  The receptionist peered up at me over her reading glasses. “I’m busy. I don’t have time to chat.”

  I tried a different tack. “I like the limo outside.”

  She didn’t even bother looking up, just continued with her sorting.

  “Is that how your boss goes to court?”

  No response.

  “Are you always this loquacious?”

  “Not when I have work to do.”

  I stood there for a few more minutes waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t—obviously she could withstand my penetrating stare—and finally I gave up and took a seat. The chair was impossible to get comfortable in. I tried distracting myself with the magazines on the table, but they were all Field and Stream, and old ones at that, and after leafing through them in a desultory fashion and wondering why anyone would want to do the kind of stuff they were writing about, I leaned back and studied my surroundings.

  The cheap fake-wood paneling on the walls made the waiting room look like a sixties den. The brown shag carpet cemented the impression. And I thought they didn’t sell it anymore. Or if they did, they shouldn’t. The pictures on the walls, the kind you buy at one of those art stores in the mall, were on the same aesthetic level as the carpeting. The plants were plastic. This place was even worse than Paul’s.

  Given the decor, I figured Wilcox wasn’t charging his clients a lot. Or if he was, it certainly wasn’t going into the furnishings. On the other hand, he had enough cash lying around to hire Paul, and Paul didn’t come cheap. Maybe Wilcox just had a bad sense of design.

  Five minutes later Wilcox came out. He had the look of a drinker. He clasped both of my hands in his. They were unpleasantly moist. So were his eyes. He was a small man with a squarish face, a jawline that was beginning to soften, and a pronounced stoop to his posture that pooched his stomach out, making it look bigger than it already was.

  His suit was cheap and ill-fitting, and his hair looked as if someone had gone over the top of his head with a thresher, but he had an expensive watch on his wrist, an item that must have set him back at least six figures, and expensive shoes on his feet. When he opened his mouth, his teeth looked stained and uneven.

  My grandmother had always said you could judge a person by their shoes, but that was because Rolexes were before her time.

  “So,” he said as he led me into his office and closed the door. “Paul tells me you’re going to find my wife.”

  “I’m going to try,” I replied. “Hopefully, people will be more helpful than your secretary.”

  “Martha is protective.”

  “I would have chosen the word rude myself.”

  Wilcox shrugged. “Maybe, but I couldn’t get along without her.”

  I changed the subject. “I take it you’ve been to the police?”

  He nodded.

  “And?”

  “And they said there’s nothing they can do. My wife isn’t a minor. She hasn’t committed a crime. No one’s abducted her. All of which is true. But I’m concerned.”

  He drew his breath in as he indicated I should sit down on the plain wooden chair next to his desk. After I had, he sat in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankles.

  I took a pen and notebook out of my backpack. “Why is that?”

  “Why, indeed.” Walter Wilcox clapped his hands together softly while he tried to decide what to say. I waited. A minute later he began to talk.

  “Recently my wife began seeing a therapist. A psychologist. She hasn’t been the same since.”

  “In what way?”

  “She’s become agitated.” Wilcox bit his lip. “This man . . .” He gave the word a twist.

  “The pyschologist . . .”

  Wilcox nodded. “. . . claims that my wife Janet was sexually abused as a child. Says that’s the root of all of her problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “That’s the thing.” Wilcox flung out his hands. “I didn’t think she had any. I mean, any more than the ones everyone has. Like last year, she went to a family reunion back home. She got some sort of twenty-four-hour stomach bug. But this psychologist told her it was her body’s way of telling her she’d been abused.”

  “She told you this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that upset her?”

  “Terribly. It’s like she’s become a different person. Maybe it’s the pills she’s taking.”

  I interrupted. “Which are?”

  “Prozac and . . . I’m not sure about the other.”

  He looked at me for a comment, but I didn’t say anything.

  “All I know,” Wilcox continued, “is she f
lies into these rages. She cries. She gets anxious. And the worst of it is, I don’t think this abuse thing is true.”

  “Did you tell her that?”

  “Yes. And I wish I hadn’t.” He rubbed the furrow between his eyebrows with his thumb. “She began screaming and yelling. Telling me I was part of the problem. Telling me I was just like her uncle. I left and came to the office. I had to. I just wanted to give her time to calm down, you know?”

  I nodded encouragingly. It’s something I’m good at.

  “When I returned, she was gone.”

  “How did you know that she’d left?”

  He frowned. “What do you mean, how did I know? It was obvious. Her car was gone. And she’d packed her suitcase.”

  “What did she take?”

  “Some of her clothes. I’m not sure what exactly. I don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing.”

  I could have told that from the way he dressed. “What else?”

  “Her makeup. Hairbrush. Toothbrush.”

  “Did she take a lot of money with her?”

  “Not that much. Two thousand dollars.”

  Two thousand dollars was enough to allow her to go somewhere, but it wasn’t enough to live on. “Does she have another source of income?”

  Wilcox shook his head. “Frankly,” he continued. “I’m afraid she’s suicidal. She’s been talking a lot lately about life not being worth living. I don’t want to have to . . .” He shuddered.

  “I see. Can I ask why she went to this psychologist in the first place?”

  “My daughter suggested him. Janet wanted to lose weight, and she hadn’t been able to. She got on the Internet and that’s when she decided that she was an emotional eater, so that’s why she went to see this man. God, I wish she hadn’t. I told her I liked her the way she was. I told her it didn’t matter, but we were going to go to a wedding in six months and there was this dress she wanted to wear . . .” Wilcox’s voice trailed off. “There were going to be some people there she hadn’t seen in a couple of years. I guess she wanted to impress them.”

  “This must be hard on your daughter.”

  Wilcox nodded. “She feels terribly guilty.”

  “Can I speak to her?”

  Wilcox made a vague gesture with his hand. “I’m not sure what her plans are. Exactly. Outside of the fact that she’s going back to New York City soon.”

  “Perhaps I can speak to her before she does.”

  “Be my guest.” Wilcox wrote down a number on a piece of yellow paper, tore it off the pad, and gave it to me. “She’s staying at a friend’s. But I just got off the phone with her. Stephanie hasn’t heard from her mother either.”

  “Perhaps she can tell me something that would help.”

  Wilcox looked doubtful.

  I pressed on. “Does your wife have any siblings?”

  “No. She’s an only child.”

  “Parents?”

  “Both died a few years ago.”

  “Cousins?”

  “I’ll give you their names, but all they do is exchange Christmas cards.” Wilcox leaned forward slightly. “Aren’t you going to take notes?”

  “When I need to, I will,” I assured him. So far I hadn’t learned anything worth writing down. “Do you have any idea where your wife would have gone?”

  “None. She’s a homebody.”

  “Would her friends know?”

  “She really doesn’t have any.”

  I let that one go.

  “Did she have a favorite place?”

  “She likes the rose garden in Thornden Park in the summer. Did you know it’s one of the ten best in the country?”

  “No. I didn’t. Was there someplace special you two went when you vacationed?”

  “We haven’t taken a vacation in years.”

  “Someplace she fantasized about going?”

  Wilcox looked blank. I guess fantasy didn’t count for much in their lives.

  “Like Paris? Rome? San Francisco?”

  “I don’t think so. She didn’t like to travel.”

  I didn’t point out that she was traveling now.

  “Did she take your name when she married you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was her maiden name?”

  “Lyons.”

  I wrote that down.

  “Why is that important?”

  “Your wife might decide to start using it again.”

  The phone rang.

  “She’ll get it,” Wilcox said, indicating his secretary.

  It rang twice more before Martha picked it up.

  “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more,” he said.

  “Do you have a picture of her I can have?”

  “At home. But it’s two years old.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. I’d like you to do something else for me as well. I’d like you to sit down and give me a list of people she knows, the name of her doctor and the psychologist she’s going to, as well as the name of her college and high school. I need the license plate number of the car she took. Her Social Security number. Her credit card bills, old phone bills, her favorite restaurants, places she likes to go to, places she’s always wanted to visit. In short, the more stuff you can tell me about her, the better my chances are of finding her.”

  “I’ll have everything by tomorrow morning,” Wilcox promised, looking up from the list he’d written down.

  I stood.

  “So you’ll find her?” he said.

  “I’ll certainly try.”

  The limo was gone when I walked out the door. I decided someone in the real estate firm upstairs must have been closing a big deal.

  Chapter Six

  As I got into my car, I wondered if Janet Wilcox really was crazy or if her husband just thought she was. Women, you ask them why they left their husbands and they’ll give you five hours’ worth of reasons, easy. Most can go on for days detailing the causes. You ask guys why their wife left them, and they’ll look at you and shrug their shoulders and say, “I don’t know. She just went nuts.” Like Wilcox.

  Crazy or not, though, there was no question in my mind that Wilcox wanted his wife back even if he didn’t understand what the hell was wrong with her. If he didn’t want her back, he wouldn’t be laying out the money he was. Since I’ve been doing this kind of work, I’ve found that money is as good a barometer of sincerity as anything, and a job like this could run Wilcox a substantial chunk of change.

  I thought about the meds Wilcox said his wife was on as I turned the car over. It groaned in the cold. I rubbed my hands to warm them while I waited for the heater to kick in. One of these days I had to remember to buy a new pair of gloves. That could be the cause of her problem right there. Recently, I’d read somewhere that serotonin reuppers can spark manic episodes in people who are susceptible to bipolar disorder. Maybe that was what happened to Janet. And now she was crashing.

  On the way back to the store, I checked in with Paul, then dialed the number Walter Wilcox had given me for his daughter. She picked up on the second ring.

  “Yes?” she said.

  I introduced myself and explained why I was calling. “I’d like to see you if possible.”

  “I’m leaving to go back to New York City in an hour.” She sounded nasal. As if she had a cold.

  “I can come over now.” There was a long pause on her end. I got the feeling she was searching around for an excuse to say no. “This won’t take very long.”

  “Why can’t we do this on the phone?”

  “Because I’d like to meet you.”

  “Oh”

  “It might help me to find your mother.”

  “I don’t know anything. Didn’t my father tell you that?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did. I’d still like to talk to you, though.”

  “Oh, all right.” Stephanie sighed and gave me her address. “But I’m telling you it’s going to be a waste of time.”

  “I’m willing to take that r
isk.” And I hung up before she could change her mind.

  As I paused at a light, it occurred to me that Stephanie seemed amazingly unconcerned about her mother’s disappearance. Which meant one of two things: either she didn’t care or she’d heard from her. I guess I’d find out which soon enough.

  On the way over to Stephanie’s, I called Leonard’s Animal Hospital to see how the dogs that had been taken out of the backyard on Fayette Street were doing. Leonard’s Animal Hospital was where Animal Control took all the animals they picked up.

  “Oh, you’re the one that called it in,” the vet tech who answered the phone said when I explained who I was. “We had to rehydrate the beagle, but everyone else looked worse off than they were. It’s amazing what some food and water and warmth will accomplish.”

  “You forgot kindness.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. Now all we have to do is find homes for them.”

  “What happened to the two people they arrested?”

  “Well, I heard the woman is in the psych ward at Upstate—she totally bugged out. And the kid is downtown at the Public Safety Building.” A dog started baying in the background. “Gotta go,” the tech said. “If you hear of anyone who wants a dog, send him our way.”

  “Yeah, rescuing is the easy part.”

  “You can say that again.”

  I clicked off and called Manuel.

  “Listen,” I said to him. “You think Bethany would want one of the mutts that I rescued from the backyard?”

  “She really wants one of Lily’s puppies, but I have a couple of friends who’ve been talking about getting a dog.”

  “Call them up. I’ll drive them over to the shelter if necessary.”

  “No need. They’ve got their own cars.”

  “Could you make a sign and put it in the store window?”

  “I’m on it.”

  Maybe saving five dogs wasn’t saving the world, but these days I’d take what I could get. The snow had let up, and the gray clouds were thinning. Occasionally I could see wisps of blue sky as I drove over to the university area. The streets were clogged with school buses discharging children, and it took me longer to get there than I anticipated.