Case of the Vanishing Visitor

by Shanna Swendson

  I felt a little flutter of excitement. I wondered if the secretary had been the one to accidentally spill the beans, if Florrie had mentioned the trip to her and the secretary hadn’t known anything about it. “This is actually a personal call,” I said. “I was just trying to track him down. No one’s answering the phone at their house. You wouldn’t know where Florrie is, would you?” I hoped using her nickname would make me sound like a friend of the family.

  “Oh, haven’t you heard? Florrie’s gone missing.”

  “No!” I said, faking a gasp. “I hope she’s okay.”

  “So do I. I’m sure she will be. It’s probably just a misunderstanding.”

  I thanked her for her time and ended the call. I didn’t get a lot of information out of her, but my mental story was filling out. I imagined poor Florrie, sad that her husband didn’t want her going with him to Vegas, mentioning it to his secretary and learning that he wasn’t taking a business trip. She must have put two and two together and come up with her scheme.

  I shook my head. I was doing it again, spinning stories. I needed proof, not more conjecture.

  I went back to that list of bridesmaids and did some searches to track down where they were now. Maybe they were the kind of friends who’d ask Florrie to house-sit. Unfortunately, none of them lived in that neighborhood, and if I really had seen Florrie in that alley, that probably meant she was staying nearby. She looked like she’d left the pool and thrown on a cover-up to come out and watch the excitement.

  I’d just wrapped up that research when Charlene came back from lunch. She had a foil-wrapped plate with her that she brought over to the office refrigerator. “I thought you might like a little brisket. Royce was awfully proud of it. He’s got a new smoker.”

  “Oh, wow, thanks!” I said.

  “If he wants to take on the cooking as his retirement hobby, that’s fine with me. What did that other editor want?”

  “Gossip, I think. He has to go to press tonight and wanted to see how I was covering our missing woman.”

  She snorted. “It figures. He didn’t know anything?”

  “Not that he let on.”

  “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  I stared at my scribbled notes around the list of bridesmaids. “If you needed a house sitter, who would you call?” I asked.

  “Probably someone in my family. When you’ve got as many relatives in town as I have, you don’t have to worry about finding someone. My problem is keeping them all out of my house.”

  If that was the case, I was in trouble. I’d have to track down all of Florrie’s extended family, and that could be a challenge in a town like this with so many interconnections. And if there were so many connections, why bring in a relative from out of town? “If they were going to use family, I’d think it would be someone already in town. Other than family, who might you turn to?”

  “Someone from church, I suppose. Or someone I worked with. I did once have a student teacher stay with me. She wasn’t from here, and there was no point in her having to pay rent when I had a spare room.”

  “But she works in a different town and she’s house-sitting here.”

  Then it occurred to me that the friend might have moved, and if she was new in town, she might have to turn to someone from out of town to house sit for her. I did a search for the name of the other town in the newspaper archives. Most of what I got was stories about school sporting events. It seems our two towns were big athletic rivals, or at least were in the same district so they frequently played against each other. But on the third page of results, I found an item from the school kick-off luncheon two years ago. The story did the recap of the usual “best school year ever” speeches—nothing about a musical production number—but down toward the bottom it listed newly hired teachers. Two of them were recent graduates, but one of them came from that other town.

  I had that “big story” tingle that made my hands tremble as I switched over to a search engine and looked for that person’s address.

  “Bingo!” I said out loud. That teacher’s house was directly across the alley from Cissy’s house and, according to the satellite view, it had a swimming pool.

  “What is it?” Charlene asked.

  “I think I’ve found it. There was a teacher from that town who moved here a couple of years ago, and her house is across the alley from Cissy’s.”

  “That’s convenient,” Jean said.

  The question was, what did I do with this information? It still wasn’t really evidence. It was just a piece of data that backed up my current theory. I’d already rung the doorbell at that house, so I wasn’t going to verify that Florrie was there that way. I doubted she’d answer the phone there, either, especially not if she saw either my name or the newspaper name show up on the caller ID. She might come out again to see any further commotion at Cissy’s house, but I couldn’t stage that sort of thing. My best option was probably to look over the fence and catch her lounging by the pool. That sort of thing was borderline. If I was in the alley and not trespassing, I might be okay, but peeping over the fence would probably be frowned upon. Maybe there was a knothole in the fence I could look through.

  Or should I tell Wes? This was the sort of lead he could follow up on. She’d have to open the door to the cops. I didn’t have to tell him that I might have seen Florrie in the alley behind Cissy’s house. I could simply let him know I might have figured out where she was house-sitting, and he’d want to look into that, at least to verify whether or not she was there.

  “I think I’m going to pass this on to Wes,” I said, picking up my phone.

  “You’re cluing in the cops when you’ve got a scoop?” Jean asked.

  “It’s not really a scoop, and there’s not much I can do with it. I can’t make people answer when I knock on doors, and if I enter the backyard, it’s considered trespassing. But it might be a useful tip, and he probably doesn’t have the time to do the kind of research I’ve done.”

  Before Jean could argue, I hit Wes’s name on my contacts. The call went to voice mail. At the tone, I said, “Hi, it’s Lexie. I know you told me to stay out of things, but I did some research, and I think I may have found where Florrie’s house-sitting. It’s right behind Cissy’s place.” I gave the address before hanging up. “There. It’s up to him what he wants to do with it.”

  “You didn’t tell him you think she staged the whole thing?”

  “She what?” Charlene asked.

  “We think she’s setting up her husband to out his affair,” Jean said.

  “I guess that’s better than her being dead,” Charlene said with a shrug.

  “I didn’t say anything to Wes because it’s just supposition,” I said. “He’d say I was writing my own story right out of some cheesy movie. If he follows up on it, he can figure it out for himself. I just hope he does it before that other paper goes to print and that editor runs a story about Hugo being suspected of murder.”

  By late afternoon, Wes still hadn’t called back. He should have at least acknowledged the tip or asked questions about it. I’d left out enough information that I was sure he’d have to get back to me to know how I figured it out, and that way I could get his reaction.

  “Maybe I could at least run by there and check,” I said. It was the kind of interference Wes hated. I would definitely be involving myself in the case, which could get me in trouble. On the other hand, it would be nice to be the one to actually expose Florrie’s scheme.

  “Good thinking! You break this story wide open,” Jean said. Then again, if Jean was for it, it might not be the best idea ever.

  “I’ll watch the phone,” Charlene said. That did it. If Charlene didn’t oppose it, maybe it was a good idea.

  Since I was still dressed for the luncheon, I went up to the apartment and changed into khakis and a T-shirt, clothes that were lightweight and yet suitable for crawling or climbing. Remembering the lesson I’d learned the day before, I filled a sports bottle with water
before I headed out. I didn’t want to pass out again.

  I drove to that neighborhood and came down the alley from the direction that meant I wouldn’t pass the driveway where I believed Florrie was staying. I didn’t know how Florrie had known about the commotion in the alley, but I didn’t want to take any chances that there was a security camera over the garage door that would alert her to my presence. I stopped my car behind a fence between driveways and made sure my phone was on silent so an ill-timed call wouldn’t give me away before I got out of my car.

  The fence was tall and solid. There was no way I’d be able to see over it without climbing on the hood of my car, so I hoped there was a knothole or a gap between boards, and then I hoped Florrie was enjoying her time by the pool rather than staying indoors with the air conditioning. Now that I thought about it, that seemed the most likely scenario. I was probably wasting my time. I could be comfortable indoors instead of in an alley where there was little shade and the heat was radiating off the concrete.

  But since I was there, I figured I might as well check. If she wasn’t there, I could go home and leave it to Wes. I’d more than done my part, and if any delay meant Hugo got exposed in his hometown paper, then that was his problem. He probably deserved it.

  I walked along the fence, looking for any gaps. There weren’t any. If I ever needed to build a fence in this town, I’d have to find whoever had built this one. They’d done good work.

  I reached the end of the fence where it turned the corner to the driveway. If I rounded the corner, I’d be trespassing on the driveway, and I’d probably be in range of any security cameras that were there. Then again, it wasn’t as though Florrie could call the police on me without exposing her scheme.

  Now that I thought about it, it was a win-win scenario for me. I could get proof that she was hiding while she was presumed missing either by spotting her or by alarming her enough to call the police. I had nothing to be afraid of.

  I took a deep breath and turned the corner. That was where I finally spotted what I’d been looking for, a knothole on the edge of a board, so that the gap between boards was larger in that one place, and if I stood on my tiptoes, I could see through it.

  There was a large expanse of green grass at the rear of the lawn, and closer to the house was a rectangular swimming pool. A woman lay stretched out on a lounge chair set under a patio umbrella. Her face was hidden behind the book she held, but she was wearing the same caftan I’d seen the day before.

  Unfortunately, that was no proof that it was Florrie. I thought her hair looked similar, but I needed her to look up so I could be sure. The problem was that anything I could do to make her look up would also make her notice me.

  I held my phone to the knothole and adjusted it until I got a good view of her on the screen, then zoomed in as much as I could. It probably wasn’t the sort of evidence that would convince the police, but I was pretty sure it was Florrie. I tapped the screen to take a picture.

  I’d barely put the phone back in my pocket when loud, deep barks came from inside the yard. It hadn’t occurred to me that Florrie might have been pet-sitting as well as house-sitting, but it made sense. You hardly needed someone living at your house while you were gone unless there was something that needed looking after. I’d been worried about security cameras, but it seemed that this house had living security.

  The barking drew nearer, and then there was a thud as the dog threw itself against the fence, trying to get at me. I ran down the driveway to the alley, and the barking followed me as I rounded the corner and hurried to my car.

  I was almost there when a voice called out, “Stop right there!” It held the kind of command that was nearly impossible to disobey, and I instinctively paused. It was a good thing, too, since when I looked back at her, Florrie was pointing a gun at me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fear rushed through me, leaving me feeling weaker and shakier than yesterday’s heat and shock had. I’d gotten into some scrapes during my career and had confronted and even been targeted by killers, but I’d never before found myself staring down the barrel of a gun. The fact that the gun was being held by a matronly teacher wearing an orange caftan didn’t diminish the fear. I knew just how desperate and upset Florrie had to be to have set up the whole situation that had led to this moment, so I didn’t know what she might do.

  That meant if I wanted to get out of this alive, I had to keep her calm—and then hope that Wes checked his voice mail, took my message seriously, and followed up on it. “Florrie, you’re okay!” I said. “I’ve been so worried about you. I’ve been looking everywhere in town for you.”

  That took her aback enough that the gun barrel dropped ever so slightly, though it was still aimed at me. “You have?” she said.

  “Yes! When you didn’t show up for our interview, and then you didn’t answer the phone, I got worried. You never know what might happen to a woman traveling alone. I didn’t know if you might have been in a car accident after you left the restaurant or when you were on your way to the interview, so I called all the hospitals. I called the police and tried to report you missing, but they didn’t think I had enough of a relationship with you to know you were really missing. And then I worried about you swimming by yourself, since you mentioned that the place you were house-sitting had a pool. You might have had a cramp or something while swimming alone. So, I started looking for where you might be house-sitting. And I found you! Now that I know you’re okay, I’ll leave you alone.”

  As I spoke to her, her face softened, and I thought I saw a tear trickling from beneath her sunglasses. The gun wavered, and then she lowered it as I kept talking. I took my chance and reached for the car door handle, but the gun snapped up again. “I can’t let you go, not now,” she said. “You can’t tell anyone where I am. If this story doesn’t make it into the newspaper so that everyone thinks for at least a day or two that my husband killed me, then all of this will have been for nothing.”

  “But the newspaper doesn’t go to press until Thursday,” I said. “You can’t hold me that long, and people will notice I’m missing long before then.”

  “Not your newspaper. I don’t care what people here think about him, though it would be nice if his relatives start to doubt him. Our newspaper goes to press tonight, I know. And if I’m not still missing, there won’t be any story at all. A cheating husband isn’t news. A missing woman and a husband who’s being investigated after he lied to police is news.”

  “You’re not going to hide out forever, are you?” I asked. “They’re going to find you eventually.” I didn’t think I’d actually be able to reason with her. I was trying to buy time for the eagle-eyed neighborhood watch to notice a woman holding another woman at gunpoint in the alley. If they’d all spotted the police activity the day before, surely they’d notice this. I regretted the decision to park where I didn’t think I was in range of any security cameras. Now I hoped there was a hidden one, or maybe that periscope I’d wondered about.

  “Of course they’ll find me! I just want the article to run,” she said, sounding exasperated. “Even if I reappear and he’s cleared soon after everyone reads the newspaper, it will forever change the way he’s seen. They’ll know he was cheating on me and lying, and even if he didn’t actually kill me, that seed will be planted in everyone’s minds.”

  And Wes thought I was bad about spinning facts and theories into stories. The lesson here was to never piss off an English teacher. They read enough to know how plots work.

  “I did talk to that editor,” I said. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  “And it’s going to stay that way. Now, I’ll take that.” She grabbed my phone out of my hand, then gestured with the gun for me to head back to the house with her. We got to the gate and she ordered, “Open it.” She really was a conscientious house sitter if she’d taken the time to close the gate so the dog wouldn’t get out when she went to confront the person who could destroy her entire scheme.

  I lifted
the latch with some trepidation. I could hear the dog on the other side, barking and growling, and I could only imagine what it would do to me when I opened the gate.

  “Bowser, sit!” Florrie called out, and the barking stopped. I eased the gate open and braced myself as I stepped through.

  The dog wasn’t as intimidating as he’d sounded. He was a medium-sized mutt, the kind that had traits and coloring from just about every other breed. He looked like something that might have been cooked up in a mad scientist’s lab, but his tail was working on overdrive, wagging so hard I thought it might dig a trench in the ground where he sat. The growling sound turned out to be a weird kind of purr that came between barks, and the barks struck me as friendly. He desperately wanted to greet me, but he was well-trained enough to stay where he was until he was instructed otherwise.

  Florrie followed me through the gate and shut it behind her. “It’s okay, Bowser,” she said, then instructed me, “Let him sniff you, then pet him so he knows you’re a friend.”

  Being ordered at gunpoint to pet a dog was certainly a new experience. I bent and held out my hand for Bowser to sniff, then gave him a tentative pat behind the ears. He made that strange growling/purring sound again and licked my hand. I figured that meant we were now friends.

  “Come on,” Florrie said. “You should probably get into the shade after what happened to you yesterday. It would really mess up my plans if I had to call an ambulance for you.”

  We walked across the lawn to the pool deck, Bowser trotting at my heels, where she motioned for me to take one of the lounge chairs under the large canopy umbrella. She set my phone and the gun down on a table and picked up a pitcher of lemonade to pour a glass, which she handed to me. “It’s important to stay hydrated.”

  I took the glass and sat gingerly on the edge of the lounge chair. Bowser flopped down at my feet and gazed up at me with adoring eyes. Apparently, I was his new favorite person. I couldn’t help but wonder why Florrie had a spare glass for serving lemonade when she was hiding out and not expecting company. Maybe it was second nature for her to bring out a pitcher and two glasses, or else she wanted to be prepared in case a bug flew into her glass.