Smiling, she filed it in the box of completed forms.
Chapter 28
When Todd reached Alex Kramer’s office in Oilstar’s bioremediation facility, he found the door locked. Yellow phone-message slips were taped to his door, one on top of another until they made a stack. Todd flipped through them. A note from Iris was on top; the bottom one was dated three days earlier. Two days after the victory party. He frowned.
Most of the other offices seemed empty as well, as if Oilstar had declared an employee holiday. Mitch Stone’s office also stood closed; a handwritten note was stuck with a red push-pin into the wall above his name plaque. “WORKING AT HOME. CAR TROUBLE.”
Around the Bay Area, cars were breaking down right and left—the “bad gasoline” from the Oilstar refinery had hit far too many vehicles, and now fingers were pointing at other area refineries, as well. A few people suspected deliberate sabotage of the gasoline output.
Frustrated, Todd got the division secretary to waddle down the hall and open Alex’s office for him. Todd followed her, as if he could herd her into greater speed. “He called in sick a few days ago,” she said. “Haven’t seen him since.”
Todd stared into a dark empty room. Concern gnawed at him. What if some radical protester like that Torgens guy decided to go after the scientist responsible for the Prometheus microbe?
Inside, the desk was neat, all the papers filed, as if Alex knew he wasn’t coming back. A part of him expected to see sheets draped over the furniture. “You haven’t heard from him since, when, Tuesday?”
The secretary shrugged. “I don’t know, Mr. Severyn—we’ve got so many people out with the traffic snarls and breakdowns that I can’t keep track. I’m not their mother, you know.”
“Never mind.” He opened his wallet and dug out Alex’s unlisted phone number as he walked into the office. Picking up the desk phone, he asked out of the corner of his mouth, “What number do I use to dial out? Seven?”
“Eight.”
He punched the number while the secretary watched him suspiciously.
Alex’s phone rang, but no one answered; even the answering machine was disconnected. That was odd. Alex had not looked well after their wild horse ride. What if he was alone at home, too sick to answer the phone?
“You’re sure he didn’t call? Wouldn’t somebody call in sick if they weren’t going to come in for work?”
She sighed, poking her lower lip out at him. A thin smear of lipstick had deposited itself on her teeth. “Usually, but a lot of these scientists live in a different universe. We had one guy who never managed to button his shirts right, and another one who had to be reminded to take lunch every day. They’re on flex time. They work late into the night sometimes, and other times they don’t come in at all. Especially with Dr. Kramer’s… uh, personal problems, we don’t see a lot of him.”
Todd listened to ten hollow rings before hanging up. Remembering the victory celebration, he recalled the closed room filled with treasured pictures of lost family members. Alex Kramer lived alone. No one else would worry about him if Todd didn’t check. Besides, he’d promised Iris to see what he could find out. “I think I’m going to drive over there.”
Grabbing his cowboy hat, he clomped out of the office, leaving the secretary to lock up behind him.
Out in the parking lot, his own truck started right up. He breathed a sigh of relief, then wound his way out of the cluttered, narrow roads inside the refinery, out the gates past the usual batch of yelling protesters, then headed for the San Rafael bridge that would take him to Marin county.
Todd had no problem until he got on the freeway. Weaving past stalled vehicles—more than he had ever seen before—he found that the far left lane was open. Traffic crawled along, but at least it moved. He felt his stomach rumble with anxiety and impatience, worried about Alex but also growing more dismayed as he passed a van hauling a motorboat stalled off to the side of the road, then a motorcycle, then a Toyota, finally a tow-truck itself abandoned in the breakdown lane. He turned his head, suddenly filled with confused fear.
When Todd finally made his way through the hilly backroads, he was relieved to see Alex’s four-wheel drive pickup in the gravel drive. The brown Chevy sat parked next to Alex’s ranch house, which looked closed-up and abandoned. Alex must be home—but why hadn’t he answered the phone? Could he be out riding one of the horses?
Todd’s truck bounced in the driveway as he pulled up. Swinging down from the cab, he ambled to the door, trying to look calm but growing more uneasy with each step. He rang the doorbell. Nothing. He rang again and shouted, “Hey, Alex, you in there?” Impatient, he tried the doorknob, then pounded on the door—still no answer. The grassy hills and nearby forest smothered all sound.
Muttering, he walked around back, his boots crunching in the dry grass. He heard neighing as he approached and smelled the bright, fresh odor of the stables. The two horses trotted to the fence as he approached. Todd held out a hand as the palomino, Ren, nuzzled him, looking for a sugar cube or a carrot. He noticed that the back corral gate was wide open, but the horses had remained next to the stable.
Todd scanned the back yard, then went to close the gate. The horses followed him like lonely puppies. “Hey, Alex!”
When no one answered, he ran a hand along Ren’s neck. The crisp animal smell made him long for Wyoming. “Sorry, buddy. I’ll get you some sugar later.” He swung over the wooden fence and walked across the corral. The horses followed, even to the point of nudging Todd with wet noses. He half expected to see Alex come out of the stable, but the place was vacant. Worse yet, the feeding trough was empty. Ren whinnied.
“Hold on,” said Todd. He slipped into the barn and returned with a rustling armload of hay, which he dumped into the trough. The dry, weedy scent clung to his shirt. Todd found the smell pleasant. The horses pushed toward the food and ignored him. As they munched, Todd rubbed the sweaty back of his neck.
Obviously the horses had not been fed for a day or two. No one had seen Alex since the party. Something terrible must have happened to make him neglect his horses. From what Todd had noticed on their ride, Alex doted on the animals.
Something must have happened to him.
Despite their empty smiles and bubbly “Have a nice day!” comments, Todd thought Californians were particularly callous to their neighbors. They never checked on each other or watched each other’s homes, barely managing to wave when they went to get the mail. If some tragedy had happened to Alex, the other residents would turn a blind eye until somebody else took care of the problem.
Well, Todd wasn’t from California, and in Wyoming people watched out for each other.
Todd strode to the rear of the house, around flower beds gone to weeds. A picnic table out back sat streaked with caked dust, and the blue-and-white overhead umbrella had been rolled down for some time. At the back door, he pulled open the screen and rattled the knob on the white-painted door, but the back door was locked solid with a deadbolt.
He didn’t give much thought to calling for help. Who was Todd to file a missing persons report anyway? He had spoken to Alex after the celebration, gone on a brief horse ride with him, but he could not claim to be a long-time friend. Did Alex have any long-time friends? The police would tell Todd to wait a few days, check back, maybe something would turn up.
But Todd kept imagining Alex unconscious or dead on the floor inside his house. He would rather pay for some broken glass than leave the microbiologist inside.