What I didn’t find was any article, about potato blight or pipeline rivets or anything else, authored by any Bob Richardson.
Chapter Nine
Jack followed me out of Bob’s bedroom and down the hall. “Call me old fashioned,” I remarked to the dog, “but I would keep my computer on the desk. But I suppose the point of a laptop is you can move it anywhere.”
Jack’s expression was agreeable. When we reached the living room the dog went to the front window and lifted the sheers with his head to peer out. I inspected the room for a laptop, but saw nothing on the few pieces of furniture or lurking in a corner. The dining room was the same. I walked to the kitchen, which looked as it had last night: clean and quiet. A single coffee mug sat upside down on the counter, and a teaspoon reposed in the sink. I hadn't noticed them last night but I'd been focused on the phone. I turned in a slow circle, then began opening cabinet doors, which proved to hide only the normal kitchen accoutrements of dishes, pans, and food.
Frowning, I tried another hop to check the top of the refrigerator. “The man doesn’t have a computer, or he doesn’t keep it in the house. Maybe he goes to the public library to use one,” I commented. I looked around and realized neither dog had followed me into the room. I always feel much sillier talking out loud to myself than to a dog. I turned to leave the kitchen, and saw a small object on the table in the corner. Three steps, and I picked it up: a printed book of matches. Opened, the outside looked like a business card for a bar called The Last Resort. Small black print on white showed an address and phone number and “G. Harburn, Prop.” in the lower right-hand corner.
I turned it over. Inside the name Trixie and a phone number were written in purple ink, the i’s dotted with a star and a heart. I frowned. Who was Trixie—could she be the woman in red? I had difficulty imagining that name with the classy suit, but parents are apt to stick any old name on their infants. I myself knew lawyers named Brandy, Junior, and Chip.
By now slanting morning sunlight streamed through the kitchen window. I shoved the matches in my jeans pocket and went the stove to switch off the light over it. As I brought my hand back down, both dogs burst through the kitchen door. Emily Ann, who is usually content to stay on a sofa—any sofa—until it is time to eat or run to, say, Philadelphia, glued herself to my leg. Jack stood with his back to me, facing the front of the house, and growled. A deep, menacing, real growl.
I'd always heard the phrase ‘my blood ran cold,’ but I hadn’t known until then it was actually possible. Both dogs became absolutely still. Jack’s hackles were raised. I felt the hairs on the back of my own neck stand up which, combined with my blood running cold, was amazingly uncomfortable—like an ice pack in need of a shave.
I swallowed the big lump of fear in my throat and whispered, “What’s the matter?” I edged around the dogs, forcing my stiff legs to carry me across the kitchen to the door. I squinted around the door frame. Through the big window in the living room, where the sheer curtains gave a misty unreality to the view, I could see my car being searched by a strange man. His head was under the open back hatch and he was rummaging in the spare tire compartment. A few feet behind him stood another car, large and black.
Apparently finding nothing, he backed up, and I saw that he was dark-haired and tall, wearing a navy sport coat and khaki slacks that seemed rather formal for searching my car. He walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and started groping under the seat. I knew nothing was there, and soon he knew it too. He straightened, and turned to look at the house. As he did, sunlight glittered on something metallic at his waist. I'd never seen a gun tucked into a waistband outside a movie, but I was instantly convinced that this was the real thing.
I ducked behind the doorframe. Jack growled again. I looked at him and saw that he was trembling, his tail tucked in tight. His big ears were clamped against his skull, and his lips pulled up to expose the tips of his shining teeth. I risked another peek around the door jamb. The man was walking toward the house.
The next thing I knew I was by the back door, a dog on each side of me. I had no memory of moving—I might have levitated across the room. The door was locked. I didn’t see a deadbolt latch to open. It was the old fashioned kind that needs a key to unlock it. Bob must keep a key somewhere close. Hadn't seen one when I searched the kitchen. But one of the keys on his ring must open it. I struggled to get into my pocket for Bob’s keys. No, that pocket had the book of matches. The other pocket.
The keys clattered in my shaking hand as I tried one after another. The front door rattled. Had I locked it behind me? I heard the rattle again. The next key I tried slid into the lock. The back door opened. Two tiptoeing leaps and I was across the porch and down the stairs. I grabbed for Emily Ann’s leash, and Jack streaked ahead of us into the woods. We ran.
Chapter Ten
I hate to run. I'm not built for it—my legs aren’t long enough to work gracefully at more than a fast walk, I have hip joints that creak, and ankles that are perilously prone to turning. I immediately break into a sweat when I move fast, and I hate being hot.
I also hate the woods. Things reach out and grab you or poke you. Poison ivy lurks, and you don’t see until you’ve sat in it or your dog has nosed through it and given you a big kiss on the ear. You can’t see where you’re going, and you plunge into hidden creeks and trip over leaf-covered logs.
Now I discovered that with sufficient motivation—like a strange man with a gun trying to break in—none of this mattered in the slightest. Jack bounded ahead and I puffed along as fast as I could. Emily Ann, damn her, was barely trotting. Why in the world had I chosen a greyhound? And how come Jack’s short legs carried him so much faster than mine?
This particular patch of woods was no better than any other I had been in. Oh, I’ve read the Gothic novels where the heroine—usually clad in a Victorian high-necked yet diaphanous nightdress and flimsy slippers—is able to narrate a description of every plant as she flees from the villain. “I darted past a towering columbo oak, its pinnate leaves trembling in the wash of moonlight. A nearly impenetrable understory of myanumma bushes, species Crotoniguestulafogma if I am not mistaken, writhed their sinuous, twisted branches covered in the tell-tale glaucous leaves of leathery pea green, serrate edges dew bedecked and dripping…”
I am not horticulturally adept, even when no one is chasing me with a gun. I crashed into brambles that I thought were blackberries because of the withered fruit that smeared on my shirt. My socks and jeans got plastered with stick-tights. My right foot squished down on a pallid mushroom and I slipped, wrenching my back as I struggled to stay on my feet. My glasses steamed up. I became aware of a low, growly muttering and realized I was cursing steadily.
I had no idea how far we’d run when I had to stop, get my breath, and wipe off my glasses.
Jack circled back to where Emily Ann and I stood panting. Well, I was panting, Emily Ann was her usual cool, unruffled self; she sat down quietly at my side. I finished drying my lenses and put them back on to survey our surroundings. Behind me, broken twigs and fallen leaves gave evidence of our passage through the underbrush. Bob’s house was out of sight, but I didn’t know how far away it was. Starting off our dash with a goodly amount of fear-induced adrenalin meant that I had run farther than I'd normally be able to manage. But I hadn’t been gliding through the woods like something out of James Fennimore Cooper. It wouldn’t be difficult to follow our trail.