Isabel felt a tingle of hope. What if Wendy had hitched a ride with Curtis? Was she nearby, on campus? But this Curtis— who was he? A predator, a creep preying on young women? He didn’t seem that way. But what did she know about him?
Not much beyond observation. He was quiet, sullen compared to the chatty girls. About thirty-five, dark hair, skeletal, the look of a smoker. Prompt to a fault, all-business. Never went to the Owl. Never partied with the students. Read a lot. She’d seen him once with Madame Bovary.
She didn’t even know his last name. She’d been too busy with the problem children to pay attention to the driver.
The morning sun glared off vehicle mirrors, making her squint. Isabel pulled the orange Bug alongside the chain link gate of the campus bus barn and cut the engine. The gate was padlocked. A rusty sign told the hours, Monday through Friday, 6 to 6. Closed Saturdays— today. Isabel got out and yanked on the lock, cursing. If only somebody had thought of Curtis yesterday. Now she’d have to wait until Monday. Was there an emergency number? None listed.
Inside the chain-link boxy white vans like the one Curtis drove were lined up. Twenty or thirty of them. On the other side yellow school buses, pickup trucks, bigger trucks, nice and tidy. In the center a wide parking lot and a green metal barn, its big doors secured with another padlock. All quiet as the grave.
She hadn’t gotten here as early as she hoped. After tossing for an hour, she’d overslept. Ten o’clock and the sun was heating the expanse of asphalt and shimmering off the metal buses. Who could she call? Maintenance? The Chancellor? Not if she wanted to keep this quiet. If Curtis got fired for transporting Wendy, things could get dicey. All future field studies might be in jeopardy. She might never finish her thesis. She might be held liable, even charged with some crime. Lillian would never get to be chairman of the department. The sky would collapse around their ears. Reputations would crumble.
Wait. That was Mendel thinking. Wendy had to be found. And quickly, before she got desperate or someone took advantage of her. It was ludicrous to think future field studies or dissertations or even wild bees were more important than a young girl’s future. Even if her future involved Hooters.
Isabel called Maddie Elliot again. Still no answer. Isabel left a message: “Do you know Curtis’s last name or anything about him? Call me. Urgent.”
She drove back through the edge of the campus. The place was still dozy from summer vacation but slowly waking up. Sororities were airing mattresses, stacked on their porches. Trucks double-parked in front of dorms, unloading crates of frozen pizza. Gardeners tidied the flowerbeds in front of Memorial Stadium. In another week the place would be howling.
Everything was still in summer mode at Beans & Me. Inside the smell of roasting coffee beans permeated the air. She ordered a plain cup of something grown under shade trees and sat down to read the paper. She made it through the second page before she called Jonny.
“Miss Yancey,” Art Knobel said. Did he think she was 80? “Any news? Wait. Here’s my brother.”
“Miss Yancey,” Jonny echoed with a tease in his voice. “Mister Knobel here.”
“Listen, I had an idea. One of the girls actually. About the van driver, Curtis. Do you remember him? Wendy might have hitched a ride in the van. He had plenty of room.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“I don’t know how to get hold of him. I don’t know his last name. The bus barn is locked up for the weekend. I might find somebody in the office at the physical plant.”
He talked to someone, then said, “I’m coming down.”
“She might not be here at all. He could have dropped her off anywhere—”
“It was something she said. She looked at the Illinois website. She was talking about a scholarship. She might have— I’ll be there— as soon as I can.” He hung up.
She frowned at the phone. She couldn’t delay calling Professor Mendel now.
“Hold on— oy! Stop that, I have a phone call. Can’t you see?” Lillian Mendel modulated her voice, a little, for the telephone. “Isabel. My physical terrorist is harassing me. How are you?”
“Quick question. Do you know how I could get hold of Curtis, the driver? Somebody left something in the van.”
“At the bus barn, I suppose. They’ll have cleaned out the van by now. They probably have a lost and found.” She yelped again, then cursed at the physical therapist.
“This is urgent. Something valuable got left.”
“Oh good heavens. Students think everything is urgent. Tell them to wait until Monday. Whatever it is, it’s been there a week already. I must go, dear. Is the house all right?”
“Yes, Dr. Mendel. Thanks again for letting me stay there.”
“It’s a favor to me.” She signed off, yammering about her foot.
Isabel set the phone down on the newspaper. It wasn’t exactly a lie. Wendy was a valuable thing. Still, she could have told the professor. She also could have called the campus police. Or the sheriff from Red Vine. But she didn’t.
She put her head in her hands. Wendy wasn’t her responsibility. And yet, if Curtis had done something wrong— ?
No. She had done wrong. She should have completed her obligations toward the field crew, to the host at the motel. Not run off on personal missions. Made sure everything was squared away, all towels accounted for. Checked off the students like toddlers, made damn sure everybody got home with all their stuff and only their stuff— no extra teenagers.
But she didn’t. And now, what should she do? She opened the paper and found her horoscope. Virgo— practical and picky.
“Think positive thoughts and all will go your way. Obstacles will crumble. But only if you dream big, believe in the power inside you, and send the powerful vibes of your most heartfelt wishes to Mother Earth.”
Okay. Here goes.
Mom Earth: Let Curtis be a good, honest lad, and while you’re at it, cure him of that nicotine habit. Let Wendy be safe. Let Jonny find her quickly. And Mom? If it’s at all within your power, let me help.
When she got out of the shower an hour later the cell phone was beeping again. Maddie had left a message.
“I don’t know Curtis’s last name, Isabel, sorry. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Social, was he? When we did talk it was about the books he was reading. He said there was a really good bookstore in Urbana, near campus, and he’d stocked up on novels before the study. From his description, a big chain store, maybe a Barnes & Noble? He said he bought a few video games there too.”
Isabel knew the one. Although it could be the campus bookstore too, it was huge with shelves and shelves of novels, games, and movies. Just before running out the door she looked around the house. Her papers were strewn over the dining table. Dirty dishes in the sink. She spent ten minutes frantically cleaning up. As she reached the car, Jonny called.
“I’m at O’Hare. The flight gets into Bloomington at one-thirty.”
“I’ll pick you up,” she said. She flipped the phone shut, ran a hand through her damp hair, and hit the gas.
The airport was small. There was plenty of illegal parking along the curb, so she sat in the Bug. The late summer weather was mild after all, not the intense heat the morning had promised. She rolled down the windows and felt a breeze ruffle her hair.
The Barnes & Noble had been frustrating. Sixteen clerks and she could only talk to five or six, the rest were off or too busy. She didn’t have a picture of Curtis. She wasn’t a private eye. Lots of people bought stacks of books at the start of the summer, he was hardly unusual. Many books and games had gone out the door. Months had passed.
Curtis probably didn’t live in the area at all. He could have taken the job for the summer, driving for the field crew, picking up some extra cash. He read a lot of books. Maybe he was a grad student somewhere, or an English teacher, or a writer even. Or a school bus driver in Cleveland. A waiter in San Antonio. Why the hell hadn’t she talked to him all summer?
The side door opened. Jonny stuck
his head in. “Hi.” He threw a small duffle bag into the back seat. “Thanks for picking me up.”
She pulled into traffic, making her way out of the airport and back onto the highway. She didn’t know what to say to him. She was no closer to finding Wendy than she’d been yesterday. And he’d come all this way.
“Anything new?”
She shook her head. “Oh, well, Maddie called to say Curtis told her about a big bookstore where he’d bought novels. But nobody remembered him. It’s been months.”
“Did you get somebody to open the bus barn?”
“No.” She wasn’t really sure who was in charge of that. They drove in silence, out of the suburbs of Bloomington, past ripe cornfields, fields of alfalfa, cows, mini-horse pastures, more suburbs. The sun shone down hard on the highway and she gripped the wheel tightly.
Finally they returned to campus. Long stretches of awkward silence had passed between them. Isabel badly wanted to talk but couldn’t find the words. He seemed preoccupied. Worried, no doubt. He wanted to go straight to the maintenance office at the physical plant. They parked and ran up the steps. The door was locked.
Jonny swore and pounded the door. No one answered. “Take me to the bus barn.”
The fenced yard with the vans and buses and trucks was still locked up tight. No one in sight. Jonny rattled the gate and called out. He hiked the perimeter, as much as he could, looking up at the tall chain link fence with barbed wire strung across the top. When he returned to the car he was frowning.
“Pretty secure,” he said.
“Unless we get some giant wire cutters. Prison Break.” She smiled at him.
“If we knew she was in there I would do it in a second.” He gripped the chain link with all fingers and stared at the locked shed. “This looks like a dead end.” He turned to Isabel. “So now what?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Let’s find somebody in Administration. Somebody has to know how to find the driver.” He hopped in the car, clicking into his seatbelt. “How about the cops. You know the way?”
Jonny had brought Wendy’s senior picture and showed it to the clerk on duty at Campus Police. “We think she may have stowed away in a University van. Nobody’s fault,” he said. “We just need to find her.”
The clerk— or officer, his tag said Monroe— was a balding man with a double chin and beady eyes. He pulled out a form. “Tell me the particulars.” Jonny gave her name, age, description, address, phone. The clerk copied the photo on an ancient Xerox machine. When he had looked over the form three times, he nodded to himself. “We’ll get this posted tonight.”
“I’m in town today. Please call me if anyone sees her.” Jonny leaned his elbows on the counter. “Now, is there any way we can find out more about the driver?”
The clerk frowned. “That’s a matter for Human Relations.”
“Do they staff HR on the weekends?”
He shrugged. “Doubt it.”
Jonny stared at the clerk who pretended not to understand. After a minute of fingering the form he began to squirm. “I could make a call, I guess. But I wouldn’t count on anything. They’d have to open up the building and look through files.”
“How taxing,” Isabel said. Jonny kicked her on the shin. “I mean, that would be great, Officer Monroe. We know you’re busy but we’re so worried about Wendy.”
“If she stowed away, like you say, he won’t know anything,” the clerk said.
“But he might,” Jonny said. “Please.”
Monroe made the call, to the university switchboard that took calls after hours for Administration. He asked for someone in Human Relations to call— immediately. Jonny and Isabel sat down in worn vinyl chairs to wait. It was a quiet night on campus. No one else came in to the Police Station. Monroe busied himself with paperwork. Twenty minutes passed before the reply came.
The clerk explained, briefly. “A phone number would be sufficient. Any kind of contact information. The brother is here and is very worried.”
He listened some more. “Okay. Right.” He hung up. “The building is closed until Monday. They’re doing some kind of toxic material cleanup. Nobody gets in or out.”
Outside the light had left most of the sky. The days were getting shorter. Isabel stomped up to the car.
“They just couldn’t be bothered to go over there tonight! Toxic cleanup. They don’t even care.” She flopped behind the wheel. “They don’t want to get implicated in case Curtis did something—”
She hadn’t meant to bring up unpleasant scenarios. She glanced at Jonny. His jaw was clenched and he stared out the windshield. He was angry too. She made herself calm down. They had to think of something else. She couldn’t think, which usually meant one thing. “Are you hungry? Because I could eat a horse.”
Jonny had a draft beer with his burger at the Sports Pub but he wasn’t in the mood for drinking. He wanted to keep his head clear in case somebody called. He’d brought along Sonya’s cell phone. The remains of his burger lay in a puddle of ketchup.
Isabel had devoured hers. You had to like a girl with a healthy appetite. She’d been helpful and kind, trying to think about new investigative routes and keeping his spirits up with jokes. Artie was right, she did care. Even if they were no closer to finding Wendy.
“Listen.” She leaned closer. “I don’t think Curtis lives here. I think he probably just found a contract job for the summer.”
He hadn’t thought of that. “And he probably didn’t willingly drive her down here.”
“He was a stickler for the rules.”
“But if she stowed away? He might not have seen her at first.”
“Do you think she wanted to come here?”
Jonny shrugged. He looked around the pub, the high booths around the perimeter, the television screens playing pre-season college football. Clumps of students ate and laughed and talked. What would it have been like to go to a college like this? A real university. A real degree. Would it have changed his life? Would he have met someone else?
“You ready?” He’d had enough of the regrets. He paid the check and walked outside into the night air, still warm but with the moldy scent of autumn creeping in around the edges.
Isabel stepped up beside him, jingling her keys. “Got an idea?”
He glanced at her. His ideas had nothing to do with Wendy. What if he’d met someone like Isabel, someone smart and caring, someone who wanted to learn and grow? Who would he be now? He tossed his head. Enough. “You?”
“Not really. You want to go back to the professor’s? I’m staying at her house while she’s in the hospital.”
“I should get a motel room. But thanks.”
She looked at him sideways. “It’s a big house.”
In the wood-paneled entry Jonny caught the closed-up smells of the old house: grease, mildew, cloying perfume. Isabel moved briskly, flipping on lights and showing him through dusty parlors and messy offices. She told him to sit and went upstairs to get her laptop. When she returned she told him she’d emailed all the students, just in case somebody remembered something about Curtis, or the departure from the Rainy Days.
They sat at the kitchen table, a clean spot in a kitchen that looked haphazardly scrubbed.
“Let’s see,” Isabel said, tapping keys. “Nothing. Maybe tomorrow.”
“I should see about catching a flight,” Jonny said. She pushed over the laptop. In a few minutes time, he was booked out of Bloomington at 10:45 in the morning.
“A wasted trip. Sorry,” she said, closing the computer.
“You never know. I’m glad I came.”
“You don’t need to get a motel room. You can stay here. I mean, on the sofa. It’s a little lumpy but adequate.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s all so frustrating,” she said. “She can’t have just disappeared.”
He felt the weight of hope again, pulling him down. It wasn’t getting any lighter. Wendy was thoughtless and wild, yes, but would she run off and
never call her mother? Never write to her doting father? Had something really bad happened to her?
“I should call Artie,” he said. He pulled out his phone, made the call, hung up. Not much to say when you’ve failed.
“Any leads at that end?” she asked.
He shook his head. Isabel got up to make them some tea, something herbal and minty to help them sleep after this day. Jonny wrapped his hands around it and felt the steam on his chin. Then, out of nowhere she asked him about his wife.
“Were you married long?”
He was surprised at her bluntness, then sort of relieved. Everyone tiptoed around his feelings, as if they comprehended him better than he did himself. Half the time he had no idea what was going on in his heart. Unfortunately, the other half of the time he was all too keenly aware.
“Too long. Eight years.”
“You must have been infants.”
“Still in diapers. What about you? Where’s your boyfriend?”
“Let’s see,” she said, putting a finger to her chin. “I’ve mislaid him, that’s it.” She slumped a little. “He married somebody else. He wasn’t the person I thought he was.”
“That’ll do it.” He sipped his tea. He wondered who he’d thought Cuppie was, and how he’d found out differently. Whatever it was, God bless it.
“And in Vegas too.”
“Very tacky. Then what?”
“No idea. I’m not on their Christmas card list.”
“Then what with you.”
“Oh. Then I went to Europe. Backpacked around. Met a guy in Barcelona.”
“The Spanish throw you out?”
“After the torture chamber, and the rack.” She looked straight at him, a steady gaze into his eyes, a gesture he found both brave and amusing. He smiled. What did she see in his eyes? Was she deciding whether he was worthy of her secrets? “He was Latin.”
“Ah.”
“And the bees were calling.”
“Your calling. What’s your thesis on?”
All Your Pretty Dreams Page 18
