Alice in Jeopardy: A Novel (6 page)

The point is, a death threat was made.

So they have to tiptoe around old Farraday here—to both Saltzman and Andrews, sixty years old is ancient—find out whatever they can about the car that picked up the kids yesterday, without indicating in any way that any sort of crime has been committed here. They have an advantage in that Farraday seems kind of stupid to them. Then again, all old people seem stupid to Andrews and Saltzman.

“These’d be Jamie and Ashley Glendenning,” Andrews says. “Little boy and girl.”

“You fellas want some coffee?”

“No, thanks,” Saltzman says.

Andrews shakes his head no.

“Make a good cup of coffee here,” Farraday says.

Old farts talk about food a lot, Andrews notices.

“Not as good as Starbucks,” Farraday says, “but pretty damn good for a school cafeteria, am I right?”

“This would’ve been about two-thirty yesterday,” Saltzman prods.

“You know who else makes a nice cup of coffee?” Farraday asks.

“Who’s that?” Andrews says.

“Place called The Navigator? On Davidson? I stop there every morning on my way to work, they give you a good breakfast for a buck twenty-nine. Eggs and all. Nice cup of coffee, too.”

“Would you happen to remember these kids?” Saltzman asks. “The Glendenning kids?”

“He the one can’t talk?” Farraday asks.

This is the first they’re hearing about the kid being a mute. The two detectives look at each other.

“Father drowned out on the Gulf one night. Probably taking a piss over the side, lost his balance, fell in. Most of these small boat drownings are guys taking a piss over the side, did you know that? It’s a fact,” Farraday says, and nods. “The Glendenning boy can’t talk, it’s some kind of post-traumatic thing, the shock of it, you know.
Won’t
talk is more like it, I guess.”

“That’s a shame,” Saltzman says. “Did you happen to see the Glendenning kids yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes, I did,” Farraday says. “What’s this all about, anyway?”

“Apparently, they missed the bus, and some woman was kind enough—”

“No, they didn’t miss no bus,” Farraday says.

“Whatever,” Andrews says. “The thing is, some woman was nice enough to pick them up, and drive them home. But she left them with the housekeeper, and drove off without saying what her name was.”

“That’s funny, ain’t it?”

“Well, she was probably in a hurry, Thing is, Mrs. Glendenning would like to thank her, so if there’s—”

“But they didn’t miss no bus,” Farraday says. “Fact is, they were about to get
on
the bus when she called them over.”

“This would’ve been a blue car, is that right?”

“Blue Chevrolet Impala, that’s right.”

“Woman driving it.”

“A blonde woman, yes.”

“Would you happen to know who she was?”

“Nope. Never saw her before in my life.”

“A woman, though?”

“Young blonde woman, yes,” Farraday says. “Hair down to here,” he adds, and runs the flat of his hand along the side of his neck, about three inches above the shoulders.

Scratch a black woman, Andrews thinks. But he asks anyway. “White or black?”

“I just said she was a blonde, didn’t I?”

“Well, yes, but lots of blacks these days bleach their—”

“I suppose that’s true, at that,” Farraday says, and nods. “But this woman was white.”

“How old would you say?”

“I didn’t get that good a look. Just saw a blonde leaning over to open the door for the kids.”

“And the kids got right in, is that it?”

“Got right in the car, yes.”

“Must’ve known the woman, wouldn’t you say?”

“Don’t know if they knew her or not. Just saw them get in the car, and she drove right off.”

“You’re sure it was an Impala?” Andrews asks.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes, mister.”

“Didn’t think there was,” Andrews says, and smiles. In which case, why are you wearing bifocals? he wonders.

“
Blue
Impala, right?” Saltzman asks.

“Blue as my eyes.”

Which Andrews now notices are, in fact, blue. Behind bifocals as thick as the bottoms of Coca-Cola bottles.

“The year?” Saltzman asks.

“Couldn’t say exactly. But it was a new car.”

“You didn’t happen to notice the license plate, did you?”

“Wasn’t looking for it.”

“Florida plate, would it have been?”

“I didn’t look. I got things to do here, you know. I got a job here. I have to make sure all these kids get on their right buses. I have to make sure they all get home.”

Right, Andrews thinks.

So you let two of them get in a car with a blonde woman you never before saw in your life, quote unquote.

You blind old fart, he thinks.

Special Agent Felix Forbes
is here on Rose Garrity’s doorstep this morning at eleven o’clock because apparently she reported a kidnapping to a detective in the Cape October PD’s CID, and no action was taken on her complaint. Standing beside him on Rosie’s doorstep is another federal agent named Sally Ballew, whom the Cape October cops call “Sally Balloons” because of her extraordinary chest development, which even Forbes has noticed on occasion. He does not think she knows the cops call her Sally Balloons. He is wrong. She knows. There is not much that gets by Sally Ballew.

The woman who answers the door is somewhat short and pudgy, in her early fifties, Forbes guesses, with a mop of brownish-red hair, and freckles on her cheeks and nose, and a high sheen of sweat on her forehead. This presages a house without air-conditioning, an unwelcome prospect on a day when the temperature has already hit eighty-six and the humidity is thick enough to swim in.

“Mrs. Garrity?” he says.

“Yes?”

“Special Agent Forbes,” he says, “FBI,” and shows his shield. “My partner, Special Agent Ballew.”

“May we come in, ma’am?” Sally asks.

“Please.”

The small development house is every bit as hot as Forbes expected it would be. Mrs. Garrity leads them into a tiny living room furnished with a sofa and two easy chairs slip-covered in paisley. She offers them iced tea, goes out into the kitchen to get it, and then sits opposite them on the sofa. The two agents sit on the easy chairs, facing her.

“So,” Forbes says, “what’s this about a kidnapping?”

He frankly finds it difficult to believe that the Cape October cops would not have acted swiftly on any report of a kidnapping. These days, however, with terrorists of every stripe and persuasion apparently slipping through the fingers of the FBI and the CIA and the INS, he would be foolish not to investigate any errant phone call, even from someone like Mrs. Garrity here, who, to tell the truth, looks a little too eager to attain her own fifteen minutes of fame by becoming the star of a little kidnapping melodrama she herself has concocted. Sally is thinking the same thing. But they are here to listen.

Mrs. Garrity tells them about being at the Glendenning house yesterday afternoon when Alice Glendenning got home from work, and then about the kids not being on their regular bus, and then about the phone call from this woman who sounded black, according to Mrs. Glendenning, anyway, who told her not to call the police or the children would die.

“Were you listening to this phone call?” Sally asks.

“No.”

“Then how do you know what she said?”

“Mrs. Glendenning repeated the conversation to me.”

“This woman said she had the children?”

“Yes. And she said not to call the police or the children would die.”

“You didn’t hear the caller’s voice, is that it?”

“I did not hear it. That’s correct.”

“Then how do you know she was black?”

“Mrs. Glendenning said she sounded black.”

“She volunteered this information?” Sally asks.

“No, I asked her was the woman white or black. She said she sounded black.”

It so happens that Sally herself is black. Forbes hopes she is not about to get on her high horse here with a lot of racial attitude that has nothing to do with why they’re here. If the woman on the phone sounded black, then she sounded black. There is nothing wrong with sounding black if you sound black. Which Sally herself, by the way, sounds on occasion. Like right this very minute, for example.

“So what happened after this phone call?” Forbes asks.

“I advised her to call the police. She told me no.”

“Then what?” Sally asks.

There is still an edge to her voice. She is still bridling because she thinks Mrs. Rose Garrity here was doing a bit of racial profiling yesterday when she asked if the caller was white or black. It seems to Forbes that this is a perfectly reasonable question to ask in law enforcement, where a person’s color or lack of it might be a clue to the person himself or herself—yes, and how about
that,
for example? For example, is it wrong to ask if a person is a man or a woman? Is that profiling, too? You can carry all this stuff just so far, Forbes thinks, and says again, “Go on, Mrs. Garrity.”

“When I got home last night, I called the police. I spoke to a Detective Sloane there…”

“Must be Wilbur Sloate she means,” Sally says. “CID.”

“Was that his name, ma’am? Detective
Sloate.
S-L-O-A-
T
-E?”

“I thought he said Sloane.”

“Well, maybe there’s a Sloane up there, too,” Forbes says.

“I thought that was what he said his name was.”

“So what happened?”

“He said he’d get on it right away.”

“So why’d you call us, ma’am?” Sally asks.

“Because when I spoke to Mrs. Glendenning this morning, she told me she was alone. And I figured if Detective Sloane, I’m sure his name was, had got right on it the way he said he would, then she wouldn’t be alone in her house when her children are in the hands of some black woman who said she would kill them, was why I called you.”

“You’re sure she was alone there?”

“She told me she was alone. She told me not to come in today, said she wanted to be alone if that woman called again. I have to assume, if Mrs. Glendenning tells me she’s alone in the house, that she really
is.
”

“And where
is
this, Mrs. Garrity?” Sally asks.

“Where is
what,
Agent Ballew?”

“
Special
Agent Ballew,” Sally corrects. “Where is this house where Mrs. Glendenning is sitting alone waiting for a call from a black kidnapper?”

When the telephone rings,
they all turn to look at the clock.

It is 11:40
A
.
M
.

Sloate puts on the earphones.

“I think I’m ready now,” Marcia says.

“Go ahead,” Sloate says, and indicates that Alice is to pick up the phone.

She lifts the receiver.

“Hello?” she says.

“Alice?”

“Who’s this?”

“Rafe.”

“Rafe?”

“Your brother-in-law. Want to give lunch to a poor wandering soul?”

“Where… where are you, Rafe?”

“My rig’s right outside a 7-Eleven on… where is this place, mister?” he shouts. “
Where?
I’m up here in Bradenton. How far is that from you?”

“Rafe, I don’t think it would be a good idea…”

“I’ll get directions,” he says. “See you.”

There is a click on the line.

“I thought he was supposed to be in Mobile by now,” Sloate says.

“Apparently not.”

“Who was it?” Marcia says.

“Rafe,” Sloate says. “The jailbird brother-in-law. He’s on his way over.”

“We don’t need him here,” Marcia says.

“I don’t need
anyone
here,” Alice says.

The grandfather clock reads 11:45
A
.
M
.

“Hello?”

In that single word, Christine knows intuitively that someone is in that house with Alice Glendenning. She simply senses it. The certain knowledge that the woman is not alone.

“Is someone there with you?” she asks at once.

“No, I’m alone,” Alice says.

“You didn’t call the police, did you?”

“No.”

“Because you know that’s the end of your kids, don’t you?”

“Yes.”