Even When You Win... Read online

  “Good,” Ed said, and he actually smiled, almost grinned, “We’re gettin’ low on Pinch.”

  I had Rita and Ed take turns printing out the personal ad, and then Rita put her foot down, “No. This isn’t right. We typed the last one; we’ll print this out of our computer just like it is; we’ll copy it to Word and print it, date it and sign it. That’s the way we do things these days... it’s the twenty-first century in Elliotsville, too.”

  Armed with the note, Ed and I took my vehicle to the paper, and as luck would have it, we ran right into Sonny Smith who was coming out as we were walking in. “Whoa!” He said, lighting up at the sight of me, “Jim, I was just on my way over to the Inn to see if I could track you down. I heard you were back in town. Is there any news on your wife?” He said all this as he was walking backwards into the office. Ed hadn’t slowed a bit, making a bee line to the receptionist’s desk.

  “Hi, Ed,” I heard her say, “back again?”

  My ability to hear the rest of that, however, was drowned out by Smith who had his reporter’s notebook out and was firing another question at me, “Have you heard from the kidnappers, Jim?”

  I stepped around him and away from Ed’s business. Smith followed me into the empty newsroom. He pulled out a chair and motioned to it, “Can we sit for a minute?”

  “Sonny, I don’t have anything to say for publication, you should know that. The FBI and Missouri State Police are working like the devil on Jan’s case; they’re not sharing anything with me that I could share with you. You have to understand.”

  “I do, and I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that would harm their ability to find the kidnappers and bring your wife back to you safe and sound, but when they release information it’s at a press briefing in Springfield or St. Louis.” He waved around the uninhabited office, “I certainly don’t have the resources to cover those meetings, and we don’t get to have Associated Press services at little papers like ours, even when things were at their best.”

  “I understand that, but I would hope that you and your readers will understand that this is a very trying time for me. The not knowing is torturous, and the police will only tell me things when it makes sense to them. I’m just fortunate to have friends here in Missouri who are gracious enough to open their home and their arms to me at a time like this.”

  “So you’re staying with the Sweets? I had understood that you were at the Inn.”

  “I was. I was in St. Louis yesterday, but there’s nothing like the company of friends, so I came back. It was too late to check out and move, but Ed had an errand here, and after that we’re going to go get my stuff and go home.

  “By the way, who would have told you where I was staying?”

  He laughed and shook his head, “We don’t have many famous strangers. Beulah Flynt, the manager at the Inn, was at the Square Peg last night and saw you. She told Sissy there, our receptionist, at coffee this morning, and I started to go over there to see you as soon as I got out of a company conference call. I have spies with eyes everywhere,” he kidded.

  Ed walked up and said, “Ready?”

  “Sonny, thanks for being understanding. When this is all over, I promise, I’ll give you some kind of interview that you can have exclusive.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  We went back to the car. “What’s an ad like that cost after deadline, Ed?”

  “One week for nine dollars. If I’d had it in on Monday, it would have been seven.”

  I did the math, “So it’s thirty-five cents a word normally; and forty-five after deadline?”

  “Yeah, but they put a box around it when it’s not in a classification. Do you think that’s high?”

  “No, Ed. I don’t think that at all. If you figure that’s going to go to seven thousand households, it figures out to something like point zero, zero, zero, zero, six cents per home. I’ve always been amazed by classifieds, you take all these itsy bitsy amounts of money, and at the end of the month it adds up to a significant part of the revenue stream.”

  Ed chuckled, “I guess that explains how the Internet and the ‘Road Ahead’ vision for Microsoft stole print media’s lunch money, doesn’t it?”

  I let it drop; that particular conversation never ceased to give me the blues.

  I went to my room, did a sweep to make sure I had everything packed, and rejoined Ed in the lobby. Beulah was manning her desk, and she had her smile firmly in place. “Sorry to see you leave, Mr. Stanton, but I understand this hasn’t turned out to be the most pleasant vacation you’ve been on.

  “You going to stay with the Sweets for a bit?”

  Ed answered, “Jim’s going through hell right now, Mizz Flynt; he’ll be welcome with us as long as it takes to get this sorted out.”

  I signed the credit card slip; folded the paperwork and put it in my briefcase. “Thanks for the hospitality,” I said. “You run a nice place here.”

  “Thank you. Perhaps you’ll come back when all this trouble is over.”

  I was through with small talk, and just nodded and grimaced at her as we walked away.

  “I just have never taken to that woman,” Ed said as he got into the passenger seat. “I play golf with her cousin, Ron. Nice guy; a bit weird in a typical rural Missouri way, but likeable all the same, you know? But Beulah? Just something missing there...”

  “She’s a pretty imposing kind of woman, though, don’t you think? I mean, she’s big, brassy; do you think you could miss her in a group of twenty people?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “Well, to hear Sonny Smith tell it, I musta missed her last night at the Square Peg.”

  “When was that?”

  I told him about my late dinner after driving home.

  “And she told Sissy Walton that she saw you at the Peg last night, but you didn’t see her?”

  “That’s what Sonny said.”

  “What kind of crowd did you say?”

  “Pretty much just the two pool teams and their dates, I would have guessed. About twenty people give or take.”

  “More than likely she didn’t see you there, she heard about it from Peg herself.”

  “They’re close?”

  “As close as sisters can be, I think. Both of them married young and it didn’t last for either one of them. Talk was always that the men they married couldn’t break into the clan. Ron, my golf buddy, has never married and lives alone, but on the other side of that family it’s like the twentieth century never dawned, much less the twenty-first.

  “Clannish, inbred, secular...” He ran out of words to try and define it, “Bottom line is that they coexist with the rest of the population as long as they’re not feuding with them.”

  “I remember Jan found reference to that behavior in her research before we came down here. Do you think that could have anything to do with your troubles?”

  “Not really,” he scoffed a bit. “I guess nothing about this makes much sense to me, but I have never had a problem with the Flynt family, and there are lots of branches on that tree. At one time we had more than a hundred Flynts on the payroll at Fiske and Company.

  “They worked hard, played hard and took no guff from anyone. Pretty much like every other native of this place.”

  He changed the subject. “Jim, do you ever play golf?”

  I shook my head. “I love everything about golf courses and clubs, but I’ve never played more than about twice a year, and it’s been three years or so since the last time. It’s a sport that demands time, and I have never been willing to commit the time golf demands to any one thing. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m going to duck out and play. It’s about the best thing I can do. While I’m on the course I don’t find much to think about other than getting that little ball into the little hole... right now that kind of escape is very dear to me.”

  “I’m sure I can fill my afternoon without you feeling like you need to hold my hand, Ed. Go, play. I envy you your little escape. I’ve
got to touch base with some folks out West.”

  “Maybe you could come out to the club about five? We’ll be finishing about then, and you can join us for a drink.”

  “That would work, I think.”

  Chapter 44

  On Thursday, day seven since Jan disappeared, I was the first person up, and took my walk on a new path I’d scoped out the day before. It brought me back past a combination convenience store and gas station that I found ubiquitous in the Midwest.

  I bought a copy of the Reporter and found my smiling face on the front page, but a quick look found just a recap of no progress in Jan’s kidnapping with only my “no comment” duly recorded in the lead.

  I smiled knowing that Sonny was doing his best to send the message to his readers that his newspaper was all about local news. I flipped to the back page of the second section and found Ed’s ad in a box at the top of the column right under the Classifieds banner.

  When I got back to the Sweet residence, I found Rita sitting on her porch watching the day come to life with a cup of her excellent coffee in hand. I put the newspaper in her lap without a word to interrupt her reverie, and took myself to my room which shared a bath with another guest room on the second floor.

  After my shower, I padded down stairs to the coffee and found Ed poring over the paper, a coffee of his own steaming in front of him.

  “Morning,” he said without looking up. “I’ve been reading this paper in the afternoon for years without ever buying one in the morning, and here I am this morning wondering what was wrong with me all that time.”

  We shared a chuckle. I walked out to where Rita was. “How you doin’, Rita?”

  “I can hardly breathe,” she whispered. “I’ve never been so scared. Never.”

  “I know. When I was a reporter, big stories were always fun; being out there, asking the questions, working the phones – being involved. Then I went to the desk as my career path dictated, and I came to hate those stories.

  “Instead of being out there, I had to sit at that desk, twiddle my thumbs and wonder what was happening, wondering how they’d handle it, wondering if they’d handle it like I would... I just hated it, and I still do.”

  “You’re still sure they’ll protect our babies, aren’t you?”

  “If anyone can, I believe they can. They’re simply the best, and from what I’ve seen of Richards and Hurst, they’re as good as any others.”

  Richards called me at noon to tell me that nothing was happening in Columbia. “Cindy took the kids shopping, they stopped for lunch at the mall, and they’re home now,” he said. “They agreed to follow their normal routine.”

  “That had to put some pressure on your observation team.”

  “We had twenty agents on that job with ten more in reserve. We’ll do what we have to do to put an end to this.”

  “Any word on Jan?”

  “No, man. I’m really sorry, but we don’t have a lead or a clue. We’re just taking heart that the note mentioned her being alive and serving her purpose...”

  “I’m holding onto that thought, too.”

  “Keep the faith; I’ll be in touch.”

  I was cleaning vegetables in preparation for making a salad when the phone rang that afternoon. Rita took the call and I heard her voice change and then I heard the sound of her phone clattering on the floor. Then I realized what she’d said before dropping her phone: “No!”

  I hurried to her side and she was staring straight ahead. I picked up the phone, “Hello? Hello?”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Jim Stanton, a house guest, who’s this?”

  “It’s Riley Parker, Mr. Stanton. Is my mom okay?”

  I looked down at her, and saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. “What did you say to her, Riley? She’s freaking out.”

  “I just called to ask her if she’d seen Marie today.”

  “What do you mean, Riley?”

  “She was here most of the day. I have been studying hard, and when Roxey came home, we couldn’t find her. We called a couple of friends, but nobody’s seen her, so I thought maybe she’d come over to visit Mom...”

  I could hear the fear building in his voice. “Jim, why are you there?”

  “I’m just waiting to find out what happened to my wife, Jan. You knew that she’s been taken, right?”

  “What the fuck is going on here, Mr. Stanton?”

  “Let’s not jump off the deep end here, Riley. Let me make a phone call. In the meantime you might want to keep calling likely places where she might have gone... I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  I put Rita’s phone back into her hand, and held her hands together in mine for a few seconds. She finally lifted her eyes to mine, “No, please no...”

  “Don’t jump too fast, Rita. I’m as concerned as you, but let’s not go there until we know for sure what we’re dealing with; okay?”

  Her head was shaking slowly side to side. I hurried into the back of the house looking for Ed. He was in his room, reading a book.

  “Ed, we may have a real problem, and I need you to see to Rita.” I told him what had just happened, and watched his whole body seem to shrink.

  “Could this be...?”

  “I’ve told you everything I know; please go hug your wife, she’s struggling to cope.”

  “Of course,” he said, rising and hurrying out of the room.

  Richards answered immediately. I told him what happened.

  “Holy Christ!” He shouted something away from the phone, and I heard another extension pick up. Hurst’s voice was strident, “What’s going on?”

  I told her that I wasn’t sure, but that Riley Crawford’s daughter was unaccounted for at the moment, striking fear into the hearts of Ed, Rita and me.

  “Of course, Riley is concerned, but he doesn’t have any context... he doesn’t know about Cindy and Donna... he doesn’t know about the threats.”

  Richards chimed in, “There was no threat against the grandkids unless we named the wrong one; nobody named Marie.”

  “I’m afraid that we all assumed that the child we named would be the child in danger; I need to go back to the original threat, but I’m not sure that’s what it said...”

  Hurst was rustling papers, “I have it right here...” I could imagine her scanning the document. “Oh, no! It’s an implication, but the actual language is not that specific.”

  “What do I tell the folks here, guys? We’re going to have some real pissed off people here if we put the crosshairs on that little girl and left her unguarded...”

  “Hold the fort,” Richards said. “We’ll have a team of agents on scene in...” I could imagine him checking his watch... “In less than two hours; out!”

  The line went dead in my hand, and I slowly stood up and trudged my way back to the porch. Ed and Rita were sitting there silently, wrapped up in their own misery. I took Rita’s phone out of her hand, and found her last call and hit the call button.

  “Hello,” Riley said softly into the phone.

  “Riley? Jim Stanton here; any word?”

  “Nothin’ I can share.”

  “You get a call or a note?”

  “Nothing I’m gonna share, Mr. Stanton. Not with you; not with anybody.”

  “I’m sorry, Riley. I need to come see you; there’s a back story here and it’s now your story... I don’t want to do this over the phone. Can I come over?”

  “Where’s Ed?”

  “He’s here with Rita. They’re both just blown away by this. I need to explain this to you and Roxanne. The sooner you hear this, the better it will be for you, Ed, and Rita.”

  “Come on up.” And he hung up.

  I got into my SUV, and Ed climbed into the other door. “You’re going to need me,” he said anticipating my reaction.

  I nodded to him and started talking, “Andy? Archie? I’m on my way to Riley Crawford’s house. I’m going to tell them what has happened, and try to help them buck up under this
strain. Do you have GPS on that scene?”

  “We do,” Richards said through the radio. “But I’m not sure your spilling your guts to Riley and Roxanne is going to help things.”

  “They’ve already been notified and warned to keep you away. I know and you know that’s powerful in these first hours; I think you’d agree that they need to get the courage to rely on you in this situation.”

  “We’re airborne already; our ETA in Elliotsville is an hour ten; you can expect us and the local police to be at the trailer in an hour twenty.”

  Chapter 45

  Riley was furious, and I couldn’t blame him.

  “You mean you all knew that our kids were in danger and you didn’t tell us?”

  Ed let that question hang for a second or two, long enough to let Riley know that he wasn’t arguing with him. “We didn’t think any child was in danger except the one we named in the ad in Thursday’s paper, and we did that with Cindy’s and Gene’s full cooperation. The way the threat was written led us to that conclusion, but now we realize it wasn’t strictly spelled out.”

  Riley had tears in his eyes, but his respect and love for Ed was battling with his pain; it was a close thing. Roxanne probably tilted the scales when she stepped past her husband and put her arms around her father-in-law. Ed grabbed her in a fierce hug, and she made those mother sounds, shushing a crying baby, murmuring to him in a voice so low I couldn’t make out the words.

  I watched Riley’s fury melt away, and then he turned to me, “And what’s your real role in all this... certainly not a freelance story.”

  “Ed asked for my help, Jan’s and my help. We came and did what we could, got the FBI involved... I didn’t see any of this really happening, but I’ve been totally wrong before.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I fixed it best I could, but mostly I put my faith in an FBI agent, and he fixed it finally with the help of an Oregon State Trooper.”

  “Did you kill them?”

  “They died; Jan got two; the trooper got the rest.”

  “Did they take your kids?”