“Was the voice male or female?”
“Male, I think. But I wouldn’t know what was being said. I plug in just long enough to hear a voice. I’m too busy to listen longer than that.”
I dialled Evans again. He promised to check the toll charges on the Van Drimmelens’ phone for that evening, but informed me that, unless a message unit call had been placed, no record of the call would exist. Still, even if I drew a blank in that area, I had enough information to satisfy me, although it would hardly convince the District Attorney.
I called Mrs. Van Drimmelen back with one more question. The answer was no, their record collection was entirely composed of classical music.
I got some more change and called Milt Rosenberg, who was happy to give me the names of the men who’d lost their jobs as a result of being pulled in for questioning.
“Have any of them asked for permission to leave the city?” I inquired.
“No, Ted. Why?”
“Just a hunch. Call me at home if it happens.”
I cashed by cheque, then stopped at a music store on my way out to see James Duncan, the artist who had served three years on account of his excellent penmanship. I had to agree with Milt — Duncan wasn’t the type to try his hand at armed robbery. Or kidnapping. He wasn’t even a particularly good liar: his denial was so all-inclusive that I was sure now I was on the right track.
The rest of the afternoon I spent with a travel agent. We planned about six different vacations for me, with careful attention to flexibility and economy. I regretted not being able to make up my mind, but gave her to understand that I’d let her handle all the arrangements as soon as I reached a decision.
Then I went home and opened a beer and sat back and admired the clinical thoroughness of the whole swindle.
In a little while the telephone rang. I’d been expecting that.
“Victor Sorenson,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get you all day. They tell me at the paper you don’t work there any more.”
“Sad, but true. You find anything?”
“Not what I was looking for. Something better, I think. That was a fine profile you did of Deborah Raglan.”
“Thanks, but it lost me my job. Get to the point.”
“I’m getting there,” he assured me. “Your story was particularly effective alongside the photo of the ransom note. I wish you’d shown me the note itself yesterday, instead of just your reconstruction. Something struck me as odd the minute I saw the paper this morning. It may not mean anything, but...”
The paper was in plain sight. I stared at it for a moment, then grinned. “I see what you’re talking about,” I told him. “All by itself it wouldn’t mean much. I’m afraid. Comparison discloses it.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t spot it yourself,” Sorenson chided.
“You know, Victor, for a while I suspected you.”
“Really?” He sounded amused. “Why?”
“After what you told me about yourself I started thinking. You were one of the few who knew her whose whereabouts I couldn’t account for at the time the ransom note was mailed.”
“I was ill that morning. Who else can’t you account for?” he asked.
“One of them was Raglan himself. But he doesn’t count.”
“What are you going to do about this?”
Sorenson was asking too many questions. “I think I’ll sit on it,” I said cautiously. “See what else develops. You spotting the error confirms something I suspected, but letting the information go any further right now could queer the whole thing.”
“I’ll keep quiet,” Sorenson promised.
We chatted a few minutes more. Afterwards, I opened another beer and settled back to wait for Rosenberg to call. He did, about half an hour later. When he accused me of being psychic, I felt so good I considered for a moment applying for Joe Raglan’s job. But you have to work your way up from the bottom for that, paying careful attention to your reputation.
“What’s his name, Milt?”
“Eddie Rocco. He’s nineteen; served six months for grand theft auto. He’s kept his nose clean since he got out, but being picked up killed his job. I guess Raglan isn’t as ruthless as I thought. When he found out, he got on the phone and found the kid another job where nobody knows he’s done time.”
“That was real nice of him. Rocco tell you this?”
“Raglan called me himself a few minutes ago to see if I’d approve.”
“What city?”
“New York.”
“You tell Joe about my hunch?”
“No. Should I have?”
“I’d just as soon you didn’t. Joe and I aren’t on the best of terms these days.”
“He’ll cool off,” Milt assured me. “He’s proved he’s human, anyway.”
I hung up and laughed, then. And I put some records on and laughed some more.
I watched television for a while. Someone in the city was sitting on one hundred thousand dollars in unmarked twenty-dollar bills. That was on the midnight news. Raglan had delivered them as per instructions in a second mis-spelled note, and he refused to tell even the FBI where he’d taken the money until Debbie was back. The TV played it up big. Would she be returned alive? Or would her body be discovered half-buried in a shallow grave?
I knew the answer to that one. I was one of two people in the entire nation who knew the answer to that one. Sorenson suspected the truth, of course, and maybe Florence Raglan did, too.
The next morning, Saturday, I conferred at length with that travel agent. It took us about ten minutes to find the information I was looking for, now that I knew the destination, but she was such a charming girl that it was an hour before I left her office.
I drove over to the telephone company then, after calling to make sure Jay Evans would be in. “In that time bracket,” he said, “it must have been a local call. There was a message-unit call about two hours earlier, though.” Reluctantly, he gave me the number.
“Who belongs to that number, Jay?”
He told me. “You think it’s important? Should I call Raglan?”
“No. That fits in with one of her homework assignments. She was just checking some facts.”
Evans looked crestfallen. “Well,” he shrugged, “I tried. I’m sorry.”
I patted his shoulder. “Thanks.”
I was whistling as I walked out of the telephone building. Maybe it was because I had another excuse to visit my favourite travel agent.
Once a day, after that, I went for a drive. It took me half an hour to get there; I’d spend forty-five minutes watching people come and go; I’d spend another half-hour getting back. I got to know the parking attendant quite well, and discovered that it takes ten days for a car to qualify for impound. I browsed around the lot until I found the car for which I was looking.
Raglan, after it was obvious to everyone that the kidnapper had failed to keep his end of the bargain, resumed the search. I followed it on the front pages with considerable interest. It annoyed me for a while, not seeing my byline there, but I certainly couldn’t write those stories if I was persona non grata at the Detective Bureau. I grinned ruefully when I realized that most of my former friends were useless to me now as news sources. I decided I’d have to start making some new friends.
“Our pigeon has flown,” Raglan was quoted one day. “With the money in his pocket, he doesn’t need Debbie any more. If he were going to release her, he’d have done so earlier. The fact that he didn’t leads me to believe he couldn’t risk her describing him, and I am forced to assume that my daughter is dead.”
Reminded of his promise to “track you down”, Raglan was asked if he’d resign to do so. “I may apply for a leave of absence,” he said.
My daily drives continued. They were quite pleasant. Nine days had gone by since Debbie had vanished. And in the parking lot, the car I’d been checking on was gone.