Ed McBain - Alice in Jeopardy

“Mrs. Garrity?” he says.

“Yes?”

“Special Agent Forbes,” he says, “FBI,” and shows his shield. “My partner, Special Agent Ballew.”

“May we come in, ma’am?” Sally asks.

“Please.”

The small development house is every bit as hot as Forbes expected it would be. Mrs. Garrity leads them into a tiny living room furnished with a sofa and two easy chairs slip-covered in paisley. She offers them iced tea, goes out into the kitchen to get it, and then sits opposite them on the sofa. The two agents sit on the easy chairs, facing her.

“So,” Forbes says, “what’s this about a kidnapping?”

He frankly finds it difficult to believe that the Cape October cops would not have acted swiftly on any report of a kidnapping. These days, however, with terrorists of every stripe and persuasion apparently slipping through the fingers of the FBI and the CIA and the INS, he would be foolish not to investigate any errant phone call, even from someone like Mrs. Garrity here, who, to tell the truth, looks a little too eager to attain her own fifteen minutes of fame by becoming the star of a little kidnapping melodrama she herself has concocted. Sally is thinking the same thing. But they are here to listen.

Mrs. Garrity tells them about being at the Glendenning house yesterday afternoon when Alice Glendenning got home from work, and then about the kids not being on their regular bus, and then about the phone call from this woman who sounded black, according to Mrs. Glendenning, anyway, who told her not to call the police or the children would die.

“Were you listening to this phone call?” Sally asks.

“No.”

“Then how do you know what she said?”

“Mrs. Glendenning repeated the conversation to me.”

“This woman said she had the children?”

“Yes. And she said not to call the police or the children would die.”

“You didn’t hear the caller’s voice, is that it?”

“I did not hear it. That’s correct.”

“Then how do you know she was black?”

“Mrs. Glendenning said she sounded black.”

“She volunteered this information?” Sally asks.

“No, I asked her was the woman white or black. She said she sounded black.”

It so happens that Sally herself is black. Forbes hopes she is not about to get on her high horse here with a lot of racial attitude that has nothing to do with why they’re here. If the woman on the phone sounded black, then she sounded black. There is nothing wrong with sounding black if you sound black. Which Sally herself, by the way, sounds on occasion. Like right this very minute, for example.

“So what happened after this phone call?” Forbes asks.

“I advised her to call the police. She told me no.”

“Then what?” Sally asks.

There is still an edge to her voice. She is still bridling because she thinks Mrs. Rose Garrity here was doing a bit of racial profiling yesterday when she asked if the caller was white or black. It seems to Forbes that this is a perfectly reasonable question to ask in law enforcement, where a person’s color or lack of it might be a clue to the person himself or herself — yes, and how about that, for example? For example, is it wrong to ask if a person is a man or a woman? Is that profiling, too? You can carry all this stuff just so far, Forbes thinks, and says again, “Go on, Mrs. Garrity.”

“When I got home last night, I called the police. I spoke to a Detective Sloane there…”

“Must be Wilbur Sloate she means,” Sally says. “CID.”

“Was that his name, ma’am? Detective Sloate. S-L-O-A- T -E?”

“I thought he said Sloane.”

“Well, maybe there’s a Sloane up there, too,” Forbes says.

“I thought that was what he said his name was.”

“So what happened?”

“He said he’d get on it right away.”

“So why’d you call us, ma’am?” Sally asks.

“Because when I spoke to Mrs. Glendenning this morning, she told me she was alone. And I figured if Detective Sloane, I’m sure his name was, had got right on it the way he said he would, then she wouldn’t be alone in her house when her children are in the hands of some black woman who said she would kill them, was why I called you.”

“You’re sure she was alone there?”

“She told me she was alone. She told me not to come in today, said she wanted to be alone if that woman called again. I have to assume, if Mrs. Glendenning tells me she’s alone in the house, that she really is. ”

“And where is this, Mrs. Garrity?” Sally asks.

“Where is what, Agent Ballew?”

“ Special Agent Ballew,” Sally corrects. “Where is this house where Mrs. Glendenning is sitting alone waiting for a call from a black kidnapper?”

When the telephone rings, they all turn to look at the clock.

It is 11:40 A.M.

Sloate puts on the earphones.

“I think I’m ready now,” Marcia says.

“Go ahead,” Sloate says, and indicates that Alice is to pick up the phone.

She lifts the receiver.

“Hello?” she says.

“Alice?”

“Who’s this?”

“Rafe.”

“Rafe?”

“Your brother-in-law. Want to give lunch to a poor wandering soul?”

“Where… where are you, Rafe?”

“My rig’s right outside a 7-Eleven on… where is this place, mister?” he shouts. “ Where? I’m up here in Bradenton. How far is that from you?”

“Rafe, I don’t think it would be a good idea…”

“I’ll get directions,” he says. “See you.”

There is a click on the line.

“I thought he was supposed to be in Mobile by now,” Sloate says.

“Apparently not.”

“Who was it?” Marcia says.

“Rafe,” Sloate says. “The jailbird brother-in-law. He’s on his way over.”

“We don’t need him here,” Marcia says.

“I don’t need anyone here,” Alice says.

The grandfather clock reads 11:45 A.M.

“Hello?”

In that single word, Christine knows intuitively that someone is in that house with Alice Glendenning. She simply senses it. The certain knowledge that the woman is not alone.

“Is someone there with you?” she asks at once.

“No, I’m alone,” Alice says.

“You didn’t call the police, did you?”

“No.”

“Because you know that’s the end of your kids, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Stay right there by the phone,” Christine says, and hangs up, and goes back to the blue Impala she’s parked at the curb alongside the phone booth. She begins driving at once, searching for the next pay phone along the Trail. She is not positive about how telephone traces work, but she thinks maybe they can close in on specific locations if not specific phone numbers. She called on a cell phone last night, from where the two of them are holding the kids, but they decided together that it would be safer if she called from pay phones this morning.

She pulls off the road as soon as she spots one in a strip mall. She gets out of the Impala again, walks over to the plastic phone shell, and dials Alice’s number.

She looks at her watch.

12:10 P.M.

She hears the phone ringing on the other end, once, twice…

“Hello?”

“Have you got the money?” she asks.

“Not yet,” Alice says.

“What’s taking you so long?”

“There are securities to sell. It isn’t easy to raise that much cash overnight.”

“When will you have it?” Christine asks.

There is a silence on the line.

Someone coaching her for sure. Hand signals, or scribbled notes, whatever. She is not alone in that house.

“I’m still working on it.”

“Work on it faster,” Christine says, and hangs up. She looks at her watch again. The call took fifteen seconds, going on sixteen. She does not think they can effect a trace in that short a time. She goes back to the car, and drives along the Trail until she spots another pay phone. It is 12:17 when she calls the house again.