Ed McBain - Alice in Jeopardy

“Yes, ma’am, and what’s that?”

“I think my children may be on a boat. We’ve been checking land accommodations, but they may be on a boat someplace. Miss Ballew may want to alert the Coast Guard, or—”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll tell her.”

“Thank you,” Alice says.

There is a click on the line. She has the feeling she’s just been brushed off. She replaces the receiver on its cradle, and is staring at the phone in anger and disbelief when suddenly it rings.

She picks up the receiver at once.

“Hello?” she says.

“Mrs. Glendenning?”

“Yes?”

“This is Rosie Garrity. Please don’t hang up, ma’am.”

“What is it, Rosie?”

“My husband, you know? George?”

“Yes.”

“He’s a waiter out on Siesta Key? In Sarasota? A restaurant called The Unicorn?”

“Yes, Rosie, what about him?”

“He was working last night when this man came in for dinner. A white man with a black woman.”

“Yes?”

“George thought he recognized him, so he went over to the table and introduced himself—”

“Rosie, what is it you’re—?”

“Do you remember that Saturday my car broke down and George had to drive me to work? And he met Mr. Glendenning going out to the mailbox for the newspaper?”

Alice is suddenly listening very hard.

“Well, George thought this man last night was your husband. Was Mr. Glendenning.”

“Why… why would he think that, Rosie?”

“Well, this man was the same height and build, and he had blue eyes, and blond hair.”

“Even so, Rosie…”

“Though now he’s wearing it much longer. To his shoulders, actually.”

“What are you saying, Rosie?”

The line goes silent.

“Rosie? You said he’s wearing it much longer. What are you trying to tell me? Who’s wearing it much longer?”

“God forgive me, your husband !” Rosie says. “Mr. Glendenning.”

“Rosie, that’s imposs—”

“I know, I know. Your husband drowned last year, how can I believe it was him sitting there in that restaurant?”

Mom, I can’t believe it!

The words her daughter shrieked into the phone.

“But this man paid the bill with a credit card, and the last name on the card was Graham, but his first name was Edward…”

Oh Jesus, Alice thinks.

“…so I can’t help believing…”

“Oh Jesus !” she says aloud.

“Mrs. Glendenning?” Rosie says. “Please don’t fire me. I just had to tell you what I was thinking.”

“You’re not fired, Rosie. Thank you. I have to go now.”

“Mrs. Glendenning? Do you think it really was—?”

Alice puts the receiver down on the cradle.

Her heart is pounding.

“What?” her sister asks.

“Eddie’s alive,” she says.

“What!”

“He’s alive. He was out last night with that black woman, he’s alive !”

“That can’t be.”

“It is.”

She goes into the bedroom and takes the.32-caliber pistol from her top dresser drawer.

“Come on,” she tells her sister.

“He’s the one who has the kids,” Alice says. “Him and this black woman… whoever she is.”

They are driving out to Lewiston Point. Alice is thinking that she doesn’t know who the woman is, and she doesn’t know who Edward Graham is, either. Edward Fulton Glendenning no longer exists. These people are both strangers to her.

“He knows boats,” she says. “He’d be comfortable on a boat. And they’d be less obvious on a boat than in a hotel or a motel. Besides, we took the kids there four years ago. They loved it. They’d feel safe and protected there.”

“Where, Alice? Where are we going?”

“Marina Blue. That’s what Ashley was trying to tell me on the phone. Not Maria, not Marie, but Marina Blue. Out on Crescent Island. Half an hour from the Shell station.”

The women are silent for several moments.

The Mercedes truck bounces along Lewiston Point Road, which in the past few minutes has gone from potholed asphalt to rutted dirt. Either side of the road is lined with thick mangroves. Beyond, they can hear the gentle lap of water. The sun is beginning to set. Nightfall comes quickly here on the Cape, especially near the water, where the sky turns from red to violet, to blue, and then black with a suddenness that can stop the heart.

“That’s why the kids got in that car,” Carol says, nodding. “It wasn’t a stranger, it was their father.”

Was, Alice thinks.

Was their father.

Who knows what he has become now?

Eddie has paid the marina bill, refueled the boat, and brought it back to their dockside mooring. Christine knows that his plan is to get under way as soon as it’s dark. She knows nothing beyond that. When she comes topside, he is sitting at the helm, alone and silent, smoking a cigarette. He raises the flip-up bolster, making room for her on the upholstered companion seat. She sits beside him and takes his left hand. It is a warm evening, but his hand is cold to the touch.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yes, fine. What are the kids doing?”

“Watching television.”

He nods.

“When do we call Alice again?” she asks.

“Well, there’s no hurry,” he says.

“Because we should tell her where we’re leaving the kids, you know.”

“Yeah,” he says, and nods, and takes a long drag on the cigarette.

They are silent for several moments.

Out on the water, a fish jumps.

Then all is still again.

“Are we going to just leave them here on the dock?”

“No, that wasn’t my plan,” he says.

“Because I thought we were getting under way…”

“That’s right.”

“…soon as it got dark.”

“Right.”

“Which is pretty soon, Eddie.”

“I know it is.”

“So where are we going to leave the kids?”

“You see…” he says, and then stops, and shakes his head.

She looks at him.

“They saw me,” he says.

He draws on the cigarette.

“They know I’m alive,” he says.

She is still looking at him.

“We can’t turn them loose,” he says.

“We can’t take them with us, either, Eddie. The police’ll be looking for them everywhere we—”

“I know that.”

“We have to let them go, Eddie.”

“But we can’t,” he says.

“Then what…?”

He draws on the cigarette again.

“We’ll move out in about five minutes,” he says, and looks at the luminous dial of his watch. “We’ll head straight out to the Gulf.”

“I don’t understand. What about…?”

He does not answer.

He turns away from her penetrating gaze and tosses the cigarette overboard. Its glow arcs against the sudden blackness of the night and hits the water with a brief dying hiss.

They get to the ferry landing just as the boat is about to leave. Alice pulls the truck into a parking space alongside a red Taurus. Carol jumps out and first begins waving and shouting at the lone dockhand who is already tossing lines aboard, and next at the pilothouse to let the captain know they’re here. Alice slams the door shut on the driver’s side. They both run for the dock.

“Take it easy, you’ve got time,” the dockhand says.

The ferry carries passengers only, no cars. There are perhaps half a dozen people aboard when the captain gives a final warning toot on his horn and begins backing away from the dock. He makes a wide circle, coming around, and then points the boat’s prow toward Crescent Island, some thousand yards across the inlet.

Ten minutes later, the boat is docking on the island side.