Ed McBain - Alice in Jeopardy

Andrews found that better life here on the Cape, where first he worked as a bouncer in a strip joint on the Trail south of the airport, and then joined the police force as a uniformed rookie earning $28,914 a year. He is now a full-fledged detective in the CID, working with Saltzman, and thanking his lucky stars for his partner’s size and raw power every time they go up against some redneck like Andrews used to be, carrying a sawed-off shotgun or a machete or even a pool cue.

They find Farraday in the school cafeteria. He tells them he came in half an hour ago after supervising the unloading of the buses, and he is just now lingering over a cup of coffee before heading home. What he does, he explains to them, is come in early in the morning to unload the buses, and then goes home until it’s time to come back in the afternoon, when the kids are boarding the buses again. There’s not much for Farraday at home. His wife died three years ago, he tells them. He’s alone in the world, he tells them.

Farraday is wearing bifocals and a hearing aid, a man in his mid-sixties, one of a breed who come down here to retire and then discover that they have all the time in the world to do nothing but play golf and push a shopping cart up and down the aisles of a supermarket. They finally take jobs as cashiers in souvenir shops, or bank guards, or — as is the case with Farraday here — guards at school crossings or bus-loading areas, anything to keep them busy, anything to make them feel useful again. There is nothing like early retirement to make a person feel dead.

The detectives have got to be very careful here.

They have been cautioned by Steele that they are not to indicate in any way, manner, or form that a kidnapping has taken place. The Glendenning woman was warned that if she notified the police, her kids would be killed. Apparently, she is none too happy that the police are already on the job, but that’s the way the little cookie crumbles, lady, and if you want your children back you don’t go to a lawyer or a private eye. You go to professionals who know how to do the job. Though, to tell the truth, this is the first kidnapping Saltzman or Andrews has ever caught.

The point is, a death threat was made.

So they have to tiptoe around old Farraday here — to both Saltzman and Andrews, sixty years old is ancient — find out whatever they can about the car that picked up the kids yesterday, without indicating in any way that any sort of crime has been committed here. They have an advantage in that Farraday seems kind of stupid to them. Then again, all old people seem stupid to Andrews and Saltzman.

“These’d be Jamie and Ashley Glendenning,” Andrews says. “Little boy and girl.”

“You fellas want some coffee?”

“No, thanks,” Saltzman says.

Andrews shakes his head no.

“Make a good cup of coffee here,” Farraday says.

Old farts talk about food a lot, Andrews notices.

“Not as good as Starbucks,” Farraday says, “but pretty damn good for a school cafeteria, am I right?”

“This would’ve been about two-thirty yesterday,” Saltzman prods.

“You know who else makes a nice cup of coffee?” Farraday asks.

“Who’s that?” Andrews says.

“Place called The Navigator? On Davidson? I stop there every morning on my way to work, they give you a good breakfast for a buck twenty-nine. Eggs and all. Nice cup of coffee, too.”

“Would you happen to remember these kids?” Saltzman asks. “The Glendenning kids?”

“He the one can’t talk?” Farraday asks.

This is the first they’re hearing about the kid being a mute. The two detectives look at each other.

“Father drowned out on the Gulf one night. Probably taking a piss over the side, lost his balance, fell in. Most of these small boat drownings are guys taking a piss over the side, did you know that? It’s a fact,” Farraday says, and nods. “The Glendenning boy can’t talk, it’s some kind of post-traumatic thing, the shock of it, you know. Won’t talk is more like it, I guess.”

“That’s a shame,” Saltzman says. “Did you happen to see the Glendenning kids yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes, I did,” Farraday says. “What’s this all about, anyway?”

“Apparently, they missed the bus, and some woman was kind enough—”

“No, they didn’t miss no bus,” Farraday says.

“Whatever,” Andrews says. “The thing is, some woman was nice enough to pick them up, and drive them home. But she left them with the housekeeper, and drove off without saying what her name was.”

“That’s funny, ain’t it?”

“Well, she was probably in a hurry, Thing is, Mrs. Glendenning would like to thank her, so if there’s—”

“But they didn’t miss no bus,” Farraday says. “Fact is, they were about to get on the bus when she called them over.”

“This would’ve been a blue car, is that right?”

“Blue Chevrolet Impala, that’s right.”

“Woman driving it.”

“A blonde woman, yes.”

“Would you happen to know who she was?”

“Nope. Never saw her before in my life.”

“A woman, though?”

“Young blonde woman, yes,” Farraday says. “Hair down to here,” he adds, and runs the flat of his hand along the side of his neck, about three inches above the shoulders.

Scratch a black woman, Andrews thinks. But he asks anyway. “White or black?”

“I just said she was a blonde, didn’t I?”

“Well, yes, but lots of blacks these days bleach their—”

“I suppose that’s true, at that,” Farraday says, and nods. “But this woman was white.”

“How old would you say?”

“I didn’t get that good a look. Just saw a blonde leaning over to open the door for the kids.”

“And the kids got right in, is that it?”

“Got right in the car, yes.”

“Must’ve known the woman, wouldn’t you say?”

“Don’t know if they knew her or not. Just saw them get in the car, and she drove right off.”

“You’re sure it was an Impala?” Andrews asks.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes, mister.”

“Didn’t think there was,” Andrews says, and smiles. In which case, why are you wearing bifocals? he wonders.

“ Blue Impala, right?” Saltzman asks.

“Blue as my eyes.”

Which Andrews now notices are, in fact, blue. Behind bifocals as thick as the bottoms of Coca-Cola bottles.

“The year?” Saltzman asks.

“Couldn’t say exactly. But it was a new car.”

“You didn’t happen to notice the license plate, did you?”

“Wasn’t looking for it.”

“Florida plate, would it have been?”

“I didn’t look. I got things to do here, you know. I got a job here. I have to make sure all these kids get on their right buses. I have to make sure they all get home.”

Right, Andrews thinks.

So you let two of them get in a car with a blonde woman you never before saw in your life, quote unquote.

You blind old fart, he thinks.

Special Agent Felix Forbes is here on Rose Garrity’s doorstep this morning at eleven o’clock because apparently she reported a kidnapping to a detective in the Cape October PD’s CID, and no action was taken on her complaint. Standing beside him on Rosie’s doorstep is another federal agent named Sally Ballew, whom the Cape October cops call “Sally Balloons” because of her extraordinary chest development, which even Forbes has noticed on occasion. He does not think she knows the cops call her Sally Balloons. He is wrong. She knows. There is not much that gets by Sally Ballew.

The woman who answers the door is somewhat short and pudgy, in her early fifties, Forbes guesses, with a mop of brownish-red hair, and freckles on her cheeks and nose, and a high sheen of sweat on her forehead. This presages a house without air-conditioning, an unwelcome prospect on a day when the temperature has already hit eighty-six and the humidity is thick enough to swim in.