Dead Ringer: Chapters Eleven & Twelve

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(Also, whispering in very tiny letters, today is my birfday and I’m 70 whole years old.)

Here we go.

…from the end of Chapter Ten…

“Where are you?” I asked, none too kindly. Rachel had that drug-addled voice my brother Sean used to get.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, then I guess I can’t come get you.” Bitchy, I know, but I was working with too little sleep and too short a fuse.

The next thing I heard was a man’s barely suppressed shout, “What the hell are you doing?” followed by Rachel’s voice, saying“I was just…” and then a sharp “click,” and the line went dead.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Even in the moment, I knew it made no sense, but I dialed anyway.

A woman’s bright voice came on the line. “911, what is your emergency?”

“I just received a call from someone I think is in trouble.”

“What is the address of the emergency?”

“I don’t actually have one.”

“And why are you concerned about a possible emergency?”

“I received a call from this person, she doesn’t know where she is, but she sounds like she’s in trouble, and she might be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”

“What is the phone number she called from?”

“I don’t have that either. It came in as Unknown.”

After a moment’s silence, I said, “I realize how this must sound. The call came from a woman I believe could be in danger. There was someone with her, he was shouting…”

More silence.

“I’m a pastor,” I said, “so I’m a mandatory reporter.”

Her voice was slightly less bright. “So do you want me to send someone?”

“Where?”

“To your house?”

“No. She’s not here.”

Another stretch of silence. Then the operator said, “Look, it’s my first week and I’m not really sure how to handle this. I could get my supervisor if you like.”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll file a police report this morning. I’m sorry to take up your time.”

“No problem. I hope your friend is okay,” she added.

“Thanks. Me, too.”

I phoned Mark next. If I had to be awake worrying, then so did he.

“I’ll try the number she gave me,” he said.

‘You mean Weston’s,” I said.

“I’ll call you right back.”

It was 5:00 a.m. and first light was filling the sky to the east. I made a pot of coffee while I waited, replaying the brief conversation with Rachel, feeling more and more certain something bad had happened and feeling shittier and shittier about how I’d spoken to her.

“Now the number is disconnected,” Mark said when he called back.

“Well, crap,” I said. “What next?”

“I’d say police station and file a report. That way, at least there’s something on the record. Beyond that, I'm not sure what else we can do.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

***********

From my chair beside the young officer’s desk — Chad Miller was the name on the photo ID clipped to his muscular chest — I read his upside-down scrawls as I responded to his questions, spelling out my first and last name, giving my address and phone number and place of employment. I carefully blew past any mention of Omega Investigations.

“Your friend’s description?”

“She’s late thirties, has reddish hair and blue eyes.”

“Race?”

“White.”

He put me in mind of a fourth-grader, hunched over the form, making neat entries with a black pen. His head was tilted, and his tongue just peeked out from between his lips as he concentrated. His skin was fair and translucent, and the whiskers over his square jaw glinted pale gold in the harsh light of his desk lamp. He didn’t even look old enough to drink.

“Height?”

I realized I’d never seen Rachel Roper standing, but I didn’t know if that detail would be helpful to Chad. “Probably around 5’5”,” I said, remembering Guy’s description, “and average weight,” I added, trying to imagine, then calculate, her body mass beneath the hospital sheet.

“What was she wearing the last time you saw her?”

“Well, I met her just a few days ago when she came into the ER with some breathing issues and so the last time I saw her…well, the only time I saw her, to be honest, she was wearing a hospital gown. White with a blue print.”

“Oh, okay,” he said. One hand moved up to his head and ruffled his buzzcut. “Why do you think she called you?” Chad asked, looking up at me for the first time. “Do you usually give out your home phone to hospital patients?” So not as harmless as he seemed.

“I don’t, no.” I stalled, trying to decide how much to tell. “We knew each other from high school,” I said, “and she asked me to help her in her search for the daughter she’d surrendered to adoption.”

He tapped his pen on the desk and raised his eyebrows. “I thought you said you just met her?”

“I didn’t remember her at first.” I lied so easily is scared me. “It had been over twenty years since I’d seen her.”

Chad wrote, “Friend from high school.”

“Look, I have a phone number she gave me, but I think it’s been disconnected.” I slid a scrap of paper across the gray plastic desktop, the one Mark had given me with the corrected number.

He took the paper and copied the number into the form. He wrote down Weston’s name with a note he was the brother. He filled in the details about the hang-up phone calls and my brief conversation with Rachel. My face burned when I recounted the way I’d brushed her off.

“I get it,” he said in a suddenly kind voice. “My dad drinks. You can only do so much.” I wanted to hug him for that.

When he finished, he proofread the completed form, using his pen to point to each section as he ticked it off in his head, then, “Okay, Miss Blair, I’ll get this in the system,” he said, waving the paper, “and let you know if anything turns up.”

“Do you think you could you make a photocopy of that, please?”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

It being early on a Sunday morning, there were only two other officers in the room. I tried not to look at them, tried not to fidget, tried not to look guilty of anything. I fixed my eyes on a maple tree outside the window and made my feet keep still.

“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Chad said when he returned from the copy room. He handed the page to me.

“Thanks so much for your help,” I said, folding the form and tucking it in my tote bag. I hightailed it out of there.

I had just pulled into my driveway when my cell phone rang. “Hey, Blainey,” said Mark. “I got some information that I think can be helpful, and I have some thoughts about how we might be able to find Rachel. Swing by here around one? I’ll get us something for lunch,” he added. “I’m guessing you’re pretty worn out.”

“You guess right. I’ll see you then.”

Before I fell into bed, I checked my answering machine. There was just one message, from Jenny’s mom, Nora. My heart skipped a beat when I heard her voice, but it was good news, an invitation to Jenny’s rescheduled birthday party, Tuesday at 4:30. So she was doing well.

“You bet I’ll be there,” I said to the machine, and trundled off to bed, ignoring the glare of the morning sun, and slept into early afternoon.

***********

Mark handed me a plastic container of sushi and a pair of chopsticks. “Thanks,” I said. “Now what’s this information you have?” I popped the top off the container and beheld three glistening California rolls and a seaweed salad.

“I have a connection at the phone company,”  he said, setting his elbows on his desk so he could give full attention to his avocado-ginger rolls. “In the accounting department.”

“This wouldn’t be a female, would it?”  

He shot me a look. “Do you want to know, or not?”

“I apologize. Please spill.” I wedged a whole California roll in my mouth and let the flavors of soy sauce and pickled ginger burst on my tongue.

Mark beamed in triumph and said, “I got Rachel’s address. At least, it’s the address connected to the land line she gave us.”

“Local?”

He nodded. “1125 Franklin, just off River Road.”

I whistled. “I guess there’s money all right!”  Houses in that area started at a cool million.  

“Here’s the thing. The house is listed as belonging to Diamond Realty, but since it was Weston’s voice on the answering machine, I’m assuming he rented the place.”

“And Rachel probably lived there, too,” I said. “I wonder how long they’ve been here in Brady? And do you suppose they’re still there? With disconnected phone service?”

An odd look came over Mark’s face, and his cheekbones seemed to sharpen in the afternoon light. “So, Blainey. Feel like taking a drive tonight?” 

CHAPTER TWELVE

The evening air was cool and sweet, and a light breeze whispered through the pines. A three-quarter moon was just rising in the sky.

I’d dressed in dark clothing, as Mark had instructed — navy sweats, a black long-sleeved shirt, and a blue Durham Bulls baseball cap. Mark seemed excessively tall in tight black pants and a black knit turtleneck.  Excessively tall and excessively nice.  He looked me up and down, then nodded his approval. I opened the passenger door to his Saab, resisting the urge to salute.

 The interior of his car looked like a small grenade had gone off. As I slid across the leather seat, paper wrappers rattled under my feet. Something gritty covered the arm rest, and the whole interior smelled like burned toast.

“That seat belt doesn’t work,”  he told me as he slid in next to me, “so just hang on tight.” 

I’d never ridden with Mark, and pretty quickly I realized I didn’t want to again very soon. He drove like he was on the Charlotte Speedway with the finish line just up ahead and a dozen racecars crawling up his tailpipe. I reached for the grab handle and didn’t let go until we reached River Road, where Mark backed off the accelerator.

Narrow, overgrown, and not very well lighted, River Road reeked of vigilant privacy, and therefore money. Tucked back long winding lanes and barely visible to lowly passersby were sprawling mansions with long sweeping lawns.

Franklin Road ran west off of River Road. Mark turned and cruised slowly until we came to the mailbox with the numbers 1125 on it. A high, ivy-covered brick wall with a wide wrought-iron gate bordered the front of the property. An intercom stood on a short, curved post, and past the gate a long paved driveway wound through the trees.

Catty-corner from the driveway, a small dirt lane led back into a slight open rise surrounded by a thick stand of pines. Mark popped the Saab in reverse, cut the lights, and whipped us back in. In the dim moonlight we could see the driveway and about two-thirds of the house. Outside lights and one interior light were on.

“Do you think she’s in there now? Maybe we should try the intercom.”

“It’s just 10:15 now,” Mark said, ignoring my suggestion. We’ll wait until eleven, keep an eye on the house, note anyone going in or coming out, lights going on or off.”

“And then what happens at eleven?” I asked.

I couldn’t see his face, but I was pretty sure he looked at me like I was a big dummy.

“If we’re sure no one is around, we go get a closer look.”

“And by closer, you mean…”

He didn’t respond.

“Listen, we can’t just go waltzing in there. If I’d known you were planning to do some kind of break-in, I’d never have come.”

“Bullshit,” he said, and then, “If you have to pee, just go in those bushes over there.”  He crossed his arms and lowered his chin to his chest. His breathing slowed, but I knew he wasn’t asleep. He was just really, really good at extremely focused observation. 

He was right, of course, about calling bullshit on me. My natural inclination to snoop into other people’s business nearly always carries with it the willingness to trespass, no matter how I try to dress it up.

I felt like a big floppy dog, you know how they’ll make about fifty circles before finding the right spot. I’d get an itch on my arm or a muscle in my butt would start to twitch and I’d have to readjust. Finally, I settled, imitating Mark’s posture, arms folded over my chest, my head propped between the head rest and the door frame.

We sat like that for the next thirty-seven minutes. I know, because I watched the hands circling around on my wristwatch. In that time, four cars had gone past. The first one slowed and entered the driveway a couple doors down from the Roper’s. The second and third cars were probably using Franklin as a short cut to somewhere else, given their speed. The fourth car was a police car, and that caused the first perceptible movement from Mark, really less a movement than a shift, as he went from relaxed to vigilant. The cruiser slowed as it passed us, then rolled on by, and Mark exhaled.

It was now ten minutes before eleven. Out of nowhere, Mark said, “Dumbest thing you ever did.”         

“Excuse me?”

“What’s the dumbest thing you ever did.”

“Why do you want to know that?”

 “Because I’m curious as hell about you, Blainey.  I’m still trying to figure you out.”

“Good luck,”  I said. “And, by the way, if I spill, you spill.”

“Fair enough.”

“Okay. Well, I had a fling with a married neurosurgeon my junior year in college,” I said, hardly believing I’d blurted out one of the most shameful things I’d ever done.

“You’re kidding!”

“I wish I was. I don’t know, no excuses, but both parents were dead by then and I was estranged from my brother…”

“You have a brother?”

“Another story, another day, but, yes, I have a brother. Younger by four years. Anyway, I was young and horribly lonely, and the guy initially lied about being married.”

“Ah,” Mark said, and I was glad for the dark hiding my red face. After my ranting about Nate, and my sneaking around after Paolo, I wondered how Mark felt hearing a story featuring me as the Other Woman.

“Anyway. I knew better. I let it go on for far too long, three months.”

We sat staring straight ahead. I hated how the atmosphere had shifted. “Okay, your turn,” I said.

“Nothing to tell, really. I’m pretty boring. I get up, run six miles, go to yoga, shower, go to my office, work, come home, meditate, eat, sleep, and do it all over again.”

I snorted. “Yeah, right. Uh, what was his name? Burton something?”

“Oh, that,” Mark said and laughed. “Stalked him until he got a restraining order. No biggie.”

“Come on, now. I’m sure there’s more. I just told you one of my deepest, darkest secrets.”

He patted his watch. “Hey, eleven o’clock. Time to rock.” And with that, he got out of the car.

“We’ll pick this up later,” I said as we stood looking toward the house across the way.

“Sure,” he said.

The night air was pleasantly cool, and our bodies cast patchy shadows in the faint moonlight.

We had just crossed the road when we heard a car approaching.

“Over here,” Mark hissed and grabbed the first handful of my shirt he could, which happened to be the right shoulder, and pulled me with him into a shallow ditch just as car lights appeared. We lay flattened in the weeds as it sped by.

“Do you think they saw us?”  I whispered.

“Nah. Going too fast.”

We waited another minute just in case. The ground smelled clean and fresh. I could hear bugs rustling around underneath us, and in the distance the faint roar of semis out on I-40, and I lay there working hard to ignore Mark’s arm thrown across me.

Finally, he got up. “Okay. Let’s go.”

He took off along the right side of the property, and I trotted after him, tripping over weeds and my own feet. We followed the brick wall about thirty feet back, where it gave way to standard four-foot chain-link. 

Now the house, a stately red brick Georgian with white trim, was fully visible. All the windows were dark except one, the same one we’d seen from the road. “Mark, I don’t think anyone is home, do you?”

He shook his head. “No one coming or going, same inside light on. Unless they go to bed really early, I’d say we have the place to ourselves.”

“So now what?”

“We go take a look.”

“What if there are security cameras, or an infrared alarm system, or really angry Doberman Pinschers? Or all three?”

But Mark was already hoisting himself over the fence. I considered praying but I couldn’t come up with a prayer for safety while breaking and entering.

“This is a bad idea,” I said, but my heart was pounding as much with excitement as with fear.

“Hush,”  he muttered and landed on the other side. “You know you don’t have to come,” he said. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his car keys, pushed them at me through the fence. “In case something goes south, you can get in the car and go.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said, and climbed over, not as gracefully and easily as Mark had, but I got the job done. “C’mon,” I said, landing next to him. “Put your keys away before you drop them and they get lost in the grass.”

He flicked my forehead and turned and strode across the lawn in a confident manner I did not think was warranted. I skulked along, ducking behind the occasional tree. We headed toward the darkened back of the house where there was a patio and a pair of wide French doors.

I pressed my face against the glass and peered inside. The room was completely empty. We made our way around the back and then the side of the house, looking into each room. There wasn’t a stick of furniture anywhere. We decided to avoid the front lights, and so we came back around to the patio, and Mark pulled out a set of lock picks and got to work on the French doors.

When they swung open, we stood frozen, waiting for the blare of a tripped alarm.

“I don’t hear anything,” I whispered.

“Could be a silent one,” Mark said.

I hit him on the arm, hard. “Why didn’t you mention that possibility earlier, like when we were on the other side of the fence,” I hissed.

Mark shrugged and turned on a penlight. “If it is, we’ll still have a few minutes.” I followed him inside, cursing under my breath.

The place smelled of fresh paint and polyurethane, so pretty recently vacated. Mark made a beeline for the front of the house. Our footsteps echoed around us, making it sound like someone was trailing us from room to room.

“Where are you going?” I whispered.

“I think they left the kitchen light on, and that’s where a phone will be, and if so then that’s where the answering machine will be.”

He was right, of course.

I felt completely exposed in the bright, white kitchen. Mark pulled a small notebook and pen from his back pocket and scrolled through the answering machine’s call history, jotting down phone numbers as they popped up on the LCD screen.

In the distance, I heard a siren. “Mark,” I said, and he nodded.

“I’ll call these numbers tomorrow and see if anything interesting turns up,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve seen enough.”

Driving back to Mark’s office, my head whirled, and not just from his driving. I didn’t see how we were any closer to finding Rachel Roper. I kept thinking, “I just broke into someone’s house. I just broke into someone’s house,” and I mostly wished I felt worse instead of all juiced up. I reasoned it was for an important purpose, to help someone who might be in danger. Technically, nobody lived there, so no harm, no foul, right? Sure.

Later, at home, brushing my teeth, I stood staring at myself in the bathroom mirror.

“What?” I said to my reflection. But I knew what.

Chapter Thirteen