Running Out of Time

by Suzanne Trauth

  After last night’s rolling around on the ground in the roadside muck, I surrendered my down jacket in favor of my wool coat. Topped off with a muffler and wool cap, I was ready to face the morning. And Bill. I tucked Sally’s photograph carefully into my pants pocket, checked out the street in front of my house, and treaded carefully to my Metro. As if it knew we were not messing around this morning, the engine turned over quickly and purred as I drove down Ames and onto Fairfield. With the brilliant morning sun and cloudless blue sky, I had difficulty recreating last night’s scary, distressing episode. I still hadn’t fully scratched the itch that was the lead captor’s voice.

  I found a space in front of Coffee Heaven, locked the car, and dropped some money in the meter.

  “Hi, Dodie!”

  It was Edna darting out of Coffee Heaven with a takeout container of coffees. “Hey there. You’re in a hurry. Busy morning?”

  “As a one-legged grasshopper in a jumping contest.”

  I wondered if it had anything to do with the murder?

  Edna leaned in, exhaling wisps of air. “Sally’s out on bail. Archibald and the chief huddled together in his office at seven a.m. Until Archibald had to leave to go to court.” She took a few steps. “Got to get these back before they freeze. Hey, will the Windjammer be open for lunch? Hate to miss Henry’s special.”

  “I’m not sure. Depends on the state of the roof and the dining room. Call in about an hour or so and we should know one way or the other,” I said.

  I shivered as I opened the door to Coffee Heaven and heard the welcome bells tinkling. Jocelyn looked up from behind the counter and waved me over. “Dodie, I heard the Windjammer roof collapsed.”

  “No, nothing like that. The roof is fine. Some ice backed up under the shingles and then water—”

  “You know, years ago a roof collapsed on a house in my neighborhood. Someone was almost killed. Good thing nobody died during lunch at the Windjammer yesterday,” she said seriously.

  I gave up. “Right.”

  “The regular?” Jocelyn asked.

  “Black coffee.” My cell binged. It was Pauli: Talk?

  I moved to the end of the counter to get a scrap of privacy. Hard to do anywhere in Etonville, still it was relatively early and the town was just waking up. I tapped on Pauli’s cell number.

  “Uh, hi,” Pauli said.

  “Hey, were you able to work on the picture?”

  “Like, yeah. I sent it. But like, is there anything else you want me to do with it?” He sounded awfully eager for nine a.m.

  I had a sudden inspiration. “You know how the police can use a computer program to make a suspect or victim look older?”

  “Age progressed sketches,” he said knowingly.

  “Could you make a person look younger? Age regressed?” I asked.

  “Easy-peasy. But gotta bounce now to get to class,” he said.

  “No problem. Send it when you can.”

  “Can do it in homeroom in a couple of hours. Like, how far back do you want me to go?”

  “To his twenties. Thanks, Pauli. Hey, how’s the photography? Any more cinéma vérité?” I asked, smiling.

  “Nah. I’m ditching reality. Now I’m like, doing some cool things with underexposed film,” he said. “Totally rocks.”

  “Nice. Can’t wait to see it.”

  “Later.” He clicked off.

  Jocelyn returned with my takeout container. “Now be careful. A collapsed roof is nothing to fool around with.” She shook a finger in my face and I nodded.

  I checked out Pauli’s text and enlarged the photo of Gordon Weeks. Without the facial hair he was an attractive man with a high forehead and a square chin. Seeing him clean-shaven gave me a feeling for his character. But there was something else about his face…what was it?

  I said good-bye to Jocelyn and left.

  * * *

  I sat in a chair in the outer office of the Etonville Police Department waiting for Bill to see me. Suki was out of the office—attending to an 11-25 according to Edna. A traffic hazard she told me. Someone had left a car in the middle of the road because there were no available parking spaces at the Shop N Go. I was grateful for the wayward automobile. It meant I could avoid Suki’s questioning looks. I ran through my talking points again until I heard Bill’s door open and a clunking sound I had become accustomed to since his accident.

  “Come on in,” he said, leaning on his crutches. His sandy-colored hair glinted in the morning light, his mouth boasted a hint of his crooked smile. Any vestiges of our argument yesterday had seemed to disappear.

  “Thanks for seeing me. I know you’re as busy as a one-legged grasshopper in a—”

  “Edna?” Bill looked down the hallway toward dispatch.

  “Edna.”

  I followed him to his inner office and took a seat, both of us silent.

  “Look I’m sorry—” he started.

  “About yesterday—” I jumped in.

  We halted.

  “You first,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No. You.”

  I inhaled slowly. “Where to start?”

  Bill’s face tightened into that “oh no” expression he assumed whenever I laid out my theories and referenced my instincts. He propped his chin on his interlaced fingers and sat forward. “From the top.”

  He already knew my opinion on Sally’s innocence so I dove into my story, careful to build my case slowly, emphasizing my research and circumventing my impulses. I’d save the hazardous stuff for last. I reminded him that Gordon Weeks’s 1997 crime had been an attempted break-in into Sally’s childhood home in Boston. Which seemed more than a coincidence. Then I described my finding Sally’s photograph in the theater.

  “The theater was still a crime scene,” he said reproachfully.

  “I know. But I happened to be getting my clothes from a dressing room…” I left out Lola’s name and ignored the fact that I had gotten my clothes earlier in the week.

  “And using the emergency escape?” he asked skeptically.

  “Sally seemed really frantic about the photo, so I tried to recreate her exit from the theater the night of the murder. She had disappeared from the stage so quickly I figured she must have slipped into the emergency hallway.”

  “And you just happened to find this photo there,” he added.

  “Right.”

  He studied the picture that I’d laid on his desk blotter. “A picture of a couple of young kids.” He turned it over. “Date stamped on the back. May 1994.”

  That reminded me of Pauli and his time stamps. Was the date important?

  “What am I not getting?” Bill asked.

  “Gordon Weeks gave that picture to Sally before he died.”

  Bill sat forward. “What? How do you know that?”

  “Sally told me. She said he had it in his hand and…then seconds later he was gone—”

  “She told us he was dead when she found him.” Bill’s voice grew quieter. “And by the way her prints were on the murder weapon.”

  Oh no. More bad news. “Maybe she accidentally touched the knife when she discovered Gordon Weeks?”

  Bill bypassed my speculation. “So what about this photograph?”

  “It’s way more important than it might seem.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  My palms were damp. I was more nervous than I’d ever remembered being with Bill. “Last night I had a little incident.” Incident?

  Bill placed the photo on the desk, his forearms tense. “What happened?”

  “Well, you know the Windjammer had a leaky roof yesterday so we had to close early and clean up and I was the last to leave—”

  “Dodie!”

  “Right. And then I locked up and suddenly there was this guy.” I described my encounter with
the kidnappers.

  Bill’s face turned red. “You were hooded and bound?” he asked aghast. “What did they want?”

  “The photograph.”

  Bill’s mouth formed an O. I waited for the realization to sink in. “That’s how I know it’s worth something.”

  I finished with the late-night phone call from my abductor and the demand for the photo today.

  “You were kidnapped,” he yelled. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Take it easy. I’m here now. He’s supposed to call me later today to arrange a place for a meeting,” I said.

  Bill hit his intercom. “Edna, get Archibald ASAP.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Catch your kidnappers,” he said and stood.

  I placed my hand gently on his. “Slow down. I have one more piece of information. Do you know who Sally’s Boston therapist is? The one Archibald supposedly spoke to about Sally’s mental state?”

  Bill looked wary.

  “My brother, Andy.”

  “Your brother…?” he choked out.

  “Yeah. And he never spoke to Archibald or any detective about Sally. I’m sorry, Bill, but I think your friend has been deceiving you,” I said as carefully as I could.

  Bill ran his fingers through the spikes of his hair in a frantic gesture I now could diagnose as extreme frustration. Archibald was on his way in; no need to stoke this particular fire. “I’ve got to get to the Windjammer.”

  “Call me when you hear from them. Immediately! And stay put in the Windjammer today. It’s the safest place to be,” he said firmly. “I’ll assign Suki to keep an eye on the restaurant.”

  “Right. By the way, who paid Sally’s bail?” I asked.

  “Charles Oldfield,” Bill said.

  “Where are they now?”

  “Creston for a few days until the court grants permission for her to leave the state.”

  “Did you check her phone to see if Gordon Weeks—?”

  Bill nodded patiently. “We dumped her cell when she was arrested. We found calls to folks in town and her father. And texts to you,” he added wryly.

  So she didn’t communicate with Gordon Weeks by phone. I walked to the door. “Bill, I’m sorry about Archibald.”

  “Dodie, there’s stuff you don’t know about him…”

  I understood. They had a relationship that went back years. “Someone wants that photo badly.”

  “I got it covered.” He nodded grimly and I slipped out, moving quickly past Edna yakking on her headset.

  25

  I stood on the sidewalk outside the Windjammer next to Henry, who was so stressed he had neglected to put on his coat. He glowered, arms bare and head turning red. He made me colder just looking at him. I was bundled up against the wind, my face buried in my muffler. Both of us stared upward at the roofer who held up shingles to demonstrate his point.

  “Yup. Need new ones here.”

  In an effort to get to the source of the leaks, the roofer had had to chip away at the ice that had formed along the gutter and remove chunks which pried up loose shingles—destroying some in the bargain. He insisted that a waterproof membrane needed to be laid down to prevent further leaks and the rotting of the building materials under the shingles. The roof was probably an accident waiting to happen; I’d noticed water stains on the Windjammer’s ceiling. Meanwhile, the roofer cleared out gutters and downspouts and insisted a cure, as opposed to a temporary fix, included a combination of sealing, insulating, and venting the space under the roof. The Windjammer was an old building that dated from 1898. No wonder the winter weather had taken its toll.

  I dragged Henry inside with me and put on a pot of coffee. Something warm would do the trick. Then I sent him to the kitchen to do some prep for tomorrow’s menu. With new water still dripping and the buckets and pots still scattered around the floor, the dining room was not in any state to host customers today. We needed more time to clean up—again—and get the place ready. I consulted with Henry on changes to the menu and inventory orders. Some food would hold up until tomorrow; some things had to be cooked today.

  I sat in my back booth and laid out the order forms for meats, vegetables, and dairy products. My cell phone pinged and I grabbed it eagerly. Maybe Pauli had finished his regressive computer sketch. I checked the caller ID and tapped on the message: Bring the photo to parking lot of primrose diner rt. 53. 7:00.

  My mouth went dry. I texted Bill. They made contact. Within seconds, he called me back.

  “When and where?” he asked, all police chief–like.

  I filled him in.

  “Damn. That place is too open. They’ll see us coming from a distance,” he said, worried.

  “Bill, what do you think makes the picture so significant?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. I studied the thing with a magnifying glass. All I can see is two young kids, dressed up, smiling in front of some steps.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I saw. We have to speak with Sally. She’s the one who has to know.”

  “Let me figure out this meeting with the kidnappers. Stay out of trouble. I’ll take it from here.”

  My cell binged.

  “Bill, can you hold on?”

  Before he could answer I checked the text. This one was from Pauli. I opened it and gazed at the regression of the photo he had sent: Gordon Weeks in his twenties was the spitting image of the young man in the photograph. My little hairs were having a field day. Every instinct in my body told me the young woman was Sally’s mother, and that Olivia Holmes Oldfield and Gordon Weeks had been a couple in May of 1994. Thoughts zipped hither and yon. I had to get back to Bill. My fingers were clumsy as I tapped my phone again, but the line was dead. Bill must have given up, or had some other business to attend to. My return call went to voicemail. I punched in the number of the station.

  “Etonville Police Department,” Edna called out cheerily.

  “Edna? I need to speak with Bill,” I said rapidly.

  “Hi, Dodie. How’s the roof coming along? I sure hope that you’ll be open for dinner before the final dress rehearsal tonight—”

  “It’s an emergency!” That was one word Edna responded to instantly.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Where’s Bill?”

  “He had a 11-79 down on the highway.”

  I figured it was an accident.

  “Don’t know if it’s a 11-80 or 11-81 yet. Major or minor injuries. But they called an ambulance.”

  Now what?

  “Want me to get him on the radio?”

  “No. Don’t interrupt him. I’ll check in later.”

  “10-4.”

  * * *

  I gripped a pen and doodled on an inventory sheet. I needed to get to Sally. I had to know what she knew about Gordon Weeks. But she was squirreled away in Creston with her father presumably. I texted her: Need to talk…I know about Gordon Weeks. That should get her attention.

  Henry and Enrico were entrenched in the kitchen, concocting a variation on chicken vegetable soup for tomorrow’s lunch using the ingredients previously planned for the chicken kabobs. The roofer was chipping away at the ice dam and, with the inventory sheets completed, I was left twiddling my thumbs. I re-mopped the floor, re-arranged a few tables that had been shoved to one side to make room for the roofer’s ladder yesterday, collected the buckets and pots, and otherwise prepped the dining room for lunch tomorrow. Which the roofer had assured us would happen. Closing the restaurant for a day and a half would take a bite out of the Windjammer’s income this week.

  I also checked the wall clock every minute or so. Waiting to hear from Bill or Sally. Finally a text came in from Lola: Can you sit through the run at 7…could use some BFF hand-holding. I knew exactly what she meant—I could use a little bit of TLC myself. My confid
ence level had taken a hit since my meeting with the kidnappers. I texted back that I would come if I could and wished her good luck.

  I poured another cup of coffee, sat back down in my booth, and drummed my fingers on the table top. It was five thirty. Had Bill figured out a plan of action?

  My cell rang and I checked the caller ID. I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?” I said cautiously.

  “Dodie?”

  “Sally! Am I glad to hear from you. I’m not sure if you know what’s going on but—”

  “Thanks for getting my photo. Can you bring it to me?” she asked, her voice tremulous.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  She gave me the name of a hotel in Creston.

  “Are you alone?”

  “My father left. He had an errand to run and I told him I had a headache and wanted to take a nap,” she said. “The police took my cell phone and my father took my car keys. I’m like a prisoner.”

  “I can be there in half an hour.” I clicked off.

  “Henry, I’m going out for a while,” I yelled into the kitchen. I pulled my coat and scarf off the coat tree and hurried to my Metro. Next door at the ELT, actors and crew were straggling in. It was still a couple of hours before the rehearsal began, but apparently everyone was super eager to get this theatrical show on the road.

  I fired up the engine and backed out of my parking space, hoping Suki was not in the area keeping an “eye on me” as per Bill’s instructions, preventing my trip to Creston. I put the address of the hotel into my GPS Genie, then I headed down Main, over Anderson, and took the on-ramp to State Route 53. Traffic was light for rush hour on a Friday afternoon in New Jersey. I figured the highway gods were on my side today which was good because I had the feeling Sally and I were going to need all the help we could get. Where was Bill and why hadn’t he gotten back to me yet? I could have texted him to let him know I was on my way to pick up Sally, but he might send Archibald to intercept me. Not a good idea.