Тимоти Уилльямз - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

Travis thought he put just enough hesitancy in his answers to show that he was both stunned and worried sick. Finally they left, telling him they would let him know as soon as they found out anything.

Travis waited the rest of the morning, spending a great deal of time pacing the floor. In the middle of the afternoon he had a call from Lieutenant Miller. “Mr. Penley, we’ve talked to the Dalroys and they say they know nothing of any kidnapping. Mrs. Dalroy said you were hitting on her daughter at school and when she told you she was going to the headmistress, you offered her a hundred thousand to keep quiet.”

“That’s a damn lie!” Travis exploded. This time his emotion was real. The idea of that woman saying he offered the money. “It happened exactly as I told you. They took my wife and said I’d get her back after I paid the money.”

“We’re looking into it further,” the lieutenant said.

Travis spent a sleepless night, continually turning to find a cool side of the bed.

On Monday afternoon he received another call from Lieutenant Miller. “Mr. Penley, the body of a woman has been found just off a rural road south of town. The woman was wearing a pin with the initials R. P. on it. We think it may be your wife. Can you come down for identification?”

“Ye-es,” he choked out the word. “I’ll be right there.”

There was a makeshift morgue in the basement of the building beneath the police station. Lieutenant Miller took him down on the elevator and he stood behind a glass partition while a white-coated man on the other side pulled the sheet off Reva’s face.

Travis took one quick look, then put both hands over his face. “That’s my wife,” he said brokenly. “That’s Reva.”

Lieutenant Miller helped him back upstairs and asked, “Would you like for someone to drive you home?”

“No, I can drive. I have to make arrangements. When can I get... get her?”

“Probably not for a couple of days. There will be an autopsy.”

On his way home he stopped at a grocery store and bought a beef roast and fresh vegetables. This was one night he was going to eat real food. No more boiled bags or baked boxes. He enjoyed the cooking almost as much as he did the eating. There was roast beef, mashed potatoes with real gravy, and fresh asparagus with butter sauce. He hadn’t had a better meal since... he couldn’t remember when. Tomorrow he’d bake an apple pie.

The phone rang just as he was getting ready for bed. “This is Lieutenant Miller. I hate to bother you so late, but there is news I thought would interest you. We’ve done some background checking on the Dalroys and found out they’ve lived in seven different towns in the past two years. The girl was enrolled in schools in each town, and although she seemed to be doing well, she dropped out for no apparent reason. It seems pretty obvious that the two of them were running some kind of scam, though there was nothing about any kidnappings. Maybe the victims of the scam were too embarrassed at being taken to report it. There were no deaths reported, though, so if they ever tried kidnapping before, there must have been different circumstances than in the case of your wife.”

“Reva would certainly have put up a struggle,” he said, “even if they held a gun on her.”

“Yes, well... We’ll charge them with everything possible,” the lieutenant said, and hung up.

Travis was ecstatic. Everything was being resolved in the best conceivable way and in very little time. His whole life was going to be just the way he had dreamed it might years ago. Instead of going to bed, he went inside his study and sat at his desk. He was going to write that book he’d always wanted to write: showing that Plato was just a copycat, and Socrates was the real brains behind all that wisdom. It was apparent that Plato had written down every word Socrates uttered and then passed much of it off as his own. Travis’s book would open the eyes of the scholars of the world and he would be famous. Indeed, he’d probably be asked to lecture at the university. And maybe, after all, he’d have that chair in philosophy named for him.

Finally, he went to bed and his last conscious thought before dropping off into a deep, untroubled sleep was: Just when you think never-ending darkness has descended on your whole world, the sun comes out and you discover that life can be beautiful.

The next morning he felt like skipping as he parked his car in the faculty lot and went to his ten o’clock. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully to the young ladies, something he’d never done before. “This morning we’ll forgo today’s assignment, because I want to tell you about a very important book that will shake up the world of philosophy.”

He had just begun talking when there was a knock at the door, another unusual occurrence. He opened the door, unhappy about the interruption, and there stood Salter, the younger of the cops.

“Yes?” he said abruptly. “I’m in the middle of a class.”

“Sorry, sir, but Lieutenant Miller wants to see you downtown.”

“I’m sure he can wait until the end of the class.”

“No, sir, he said for me to bring you back with me now.”

Well... best not to push it. He turned toward the class. “We’ll continue this tomorrow. Class excused for today.”

Once inside the blue and white cop car, he began to wonder what this was all about. Previously when the lieutenant had something to tell him, he either came to the house or called. Travis hadn’t been called downtown before except to identify the body. Probably it was nothing but more questions about the Dalroys or Reva.

But why couldn’t Miller have waited an hour or so? Travis began to feel just a wee bit edgy. “What is this about?” he asked Salter. “And why is it so urgent?”

“I think it’s about where your wife was found.”

“As I understand it, it was out in the country somewhere.”

“Yes, on a rural road ten miles south of town.”

“But why does the lieutenant want to see me?”

“Because, sir,” Salter said, “the Dalroys don’t own a car.”

Copyright (c); 2005 by Helen Tucker.