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I didn't have that many trees to shake. I screwed the lid on the thermos and tossed it in the back seat. I started up the car and drove back into town again. Maybe Andy 's mistress had heard from him. That might help. Fifteen minutes later, I was standing at her door, knocking po-litely. I wasn't sure if she worked or not. She was home, but when she opened the door, she didn't seem that thrilled to see me.
"Hi," said I. "I'm still looking for Andy and I wondered if you'd heard from him."
She shook her head. Some people think they can lie to me that way, without forming the actual falsehood with their lips. It's apparently part of an i
"He never checked in to let you know he was okay?"
"I just said that, didn't I?"
"Seems odd to me," I remarked. "I half expected him to drop you a note, or make a quick phone call."
"Sorry," she said.
There was a tiny silence wherein she was hoping to close the door and be done with me.
"How'd he get that account anyway?" I asked.
"What account?"
"Wood/Warren. Did he know Lance pretty well or was it someone else in the family?"
"I have no idea. Anyway, he's the claims manager. I don't know that he sold the policy in the first place."
"Oh. Somehow I thought he did. I thought I saw that somewhere on one of the forms we processed. Maybe it was his account before he got promoted to claims man-ager."
"Are you through asking questions?" she said snap-pishly.
"Uh, well, actually I'm not. Did Andy know any of the Woods personally? I don't think you told me that."
"How do I know who he knew?"
"Just thought I'd take a flyer," I said. "It puzzles me that you're not worried about him. The man's been gone, what, four days? I'd be frantic."
"I guess that's the difference between us," she said.
"Maybe I'll check out at his place again. You never know. He might have stopped back at the apartment to pick up his clothes and his mail."
She just stared at me. There didn't seem a lot left to say.
"Well, off I go," I said, cheerfully. "You've really been a peach."
Her goodbye was brief. Two words, one of which started with the letter "F." Her mama apparently hadn't taught her to be ladylike any more than mine had taught me. I decided to drive back out to Andy 's place because, frankly, I couldn't think what else to do.
23
I headed out to the condominium complex where Andy lived, thrilled that I wasn't going to have to type up a report on the day's events. The truth was, I had no plan afoot, no strategy whatever for wrapping this business up. I didn't have a clue to what was going on. I was driving randomly from one side of the city to the other, hoping that I could shake something loose. I was also avoiding my apartment, picturing the gendarmes at my door with a warrant for my arrest. Andy represented one of the miss-ing links. Someone had designed an elaborate scheme to discredit Lance and eliminate two key engineers at Wood/ Warren. Andy had facilitated the frame-up, but once Olive was blown to kingdom come, he must have decided to blow town himself. If I could pinpoint the co
I did a quick pass through the apartment to make sure it was unoccupied. I opened the rear sliding-glass door, peered into each bedroom, then returned to the living room, where I drew the front drapes. I moved through the daylight gloom with curiosity. Andy lived on such spartan terms that his place had looked abandoned even when he was in residence. Now, however, the emptiness had the aura of a vacant lot, the wall-to-wall carpeting littered with paper scraps. In situations like this, I always long for the obvious-cryptic messages, motel receipts, a
The medicine cabinet in his bathroom had been cleared out. Shampoo, deodorant, and shaving gear were gone. Wherever he was, he'd be clean-shaven and smell good. In his bedroom, all of the dirty clothes were gone and the blue plastic crates had been emptied of their con-tents. One tatty pair of boxer shorts remained, wild with fuchsia exclamation marks. I'm always amazed by men's underwear. Who could guess such things by looking at their sober three-piece suits? He'd left behind his bicycle, rowing machine, and the remaining moving cartons. There were still a few poorly folded sheets in the linen closet, one package of pizza rolls in the freezer. He'd taken the bottle of aquavit and the Milky Way bars, perhaps anticipating his life on the road as an endless round of sugar and alcohol abuse.
The card table was still in place, the answering ma-chine on top, aluminum lawn chairs pulled up as if he'd had di
I stared at the display on the answering machine, thinking about the features on this model. Carefully I pressed the asterisk button to the left of 0. On my machine, the * redials the last number called. With a flurry of notes up and down the scale, the machine redialed, the number displayed in green. It was vaguely familiar and I made a note of it. The line began to ring. Three times. Four.
Someone picked up. There was a whir and a pause as a machine on the far end of the line came to life.
"Hello. This is Olive Kohler at 555-3282. Sorry we're not here to take your call. I'm out at the supermarket at the moment, but I should be home at four-thirty or so. If you'll leave your number and a message, I'll get back to you as soon as I return. If you're calling with confirmations for the New Year's Party, just leave your name and we'll see you this evening. 'Bye for now."
I could feel my heart thump. No one had changed the message since Olive's death, and there she was again, per-petually hung up in New Year's Eve day, leaving a verbal note before she went off to shop for the party that would never take place.
Perversely, I pressed the asterisk again. Four rings, and Olive picked up, her voice sounding hollow, but full of life. She was still going out to shop for the New Year's party, still requesting the caller's name, telephone num-ber, and a message. " 'Bye for now," she said. I knew if I called a hundred times, she'd still be saying "'Bye for now" without ever knowing how final that farewell would be.