Midnight Rambler_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [46]
“I heard what Melinda said on the radio,” Claude said, his face pressed to the slider.
“Bad news sure travels fast.”
“Did you fuck her?”
“No.”
“Not even once?”
“No, not even once.”
“Think someone forced her to do that interview?”
Claude was looking at me in the slider's reflection, and I nodded.
“I once called into Neil Bash's show when he was talking about gun control,” Cheever said. “The show's broadcast live, you know.”
It took me a moment to get his drift. If Melinda had been forced to call Bash's show, her abductors were taking a risk, since she could have blurted out the truth. Yet, it wasn't something that I saw Melinda doing on her own.
“Someone made Melinda say those lies,” I said.
“That's good enough for me,” Cheever said.
Cheever found the complex's superintendent and got him to unlock Melinda's front door. Cheever told the super to hang around, then went inside. I followed him and walked down a narrow hallway to the kitchen.
Everything looked normal except the upturned chair. I covered my hand with a paper towel and righted it, then studied the scratches running along one side. The marks were fresh, and I envisioned Melinda's kidnappers dragging her across the floor while she was still in it. I slid the chair back into its spot at the table.
Kitty was happy to see me, and I filled a bowl with crunchies and put it on the floor. Then I checked the countertops and table. Nothing looked out of place. Picking up a pencil, I used the eraser to press a button on the answering machine and check for messages. There were none.
Beside the phone was a notepad filled with cartoonlike drawings. I peeled the pages back with the tip of the pencil and saw pictures of cats, horses, and other domestic animals. The drawing on the last page caught my eye. It contained a pair of stick figures standing in front of a two-story house with lollipop trees and smoke billowing from its chimney. The figures were holding hands and sporting big smiles. They were a man and a woman, and the man wore a badge.
I gave the room another sweep. Beneath the table lay a book bag, which I pulled out and opened. It contained a GED prep book and a laminated badge for Broward Community College with Melinda's picture on it. She looked different from the woman I knew; her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her face without makeup.
“Hey, Jack, come here,” Cheever called out.
Closing the bag, I walked down the hallway and entered the bedroom. Cheever sat on a water bed with a collection of Winnie the Pooh teddy bears at its head. A suitcase lay on the floor, stuffed with winter clothes. Cheever was going through the suitcase and glanced suspiciously at me.
“Looks like Melinda was planning to take a trip,” he said.
“She was going to Aspen,” I said.
“She tell you that?”
“I arranged for her to stay at a house there. She was afraid of Skell coming after her once he got released.”
“Were you going with her?”
“No, I wasn't going with her.”
“You sure you're not fucking her, Jack?”
“Positive, Claude.”
He patted the bed for me to sit down. The expression on his face was no longer that of a friend. He was wearing his cop face, and it was cold and unflinchingly hard.
As I sat the water bed shifted beneath me. It was an unsettling feeling, as were the words that next came out of Cheever's mouth.
“My guess is, you are fucking her, Jack, and don't have the courage to admit it. The two of you were going to leave town, only Melinda got cold feet, and she went on Neal Bash's show and spilled her guts. Then she split, and now you can't find her.
So you called me,