Linwood Barclay - Fear The Worst

“How do you spell that?” Chilton asked.

I started to spell Bluestein, but he held up his hand. “The first name,” he said.

I blinked. “J-e-f-f,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, making his notes. “Sometimes people spell it with a G, don’t they?”

“That’s true,” I said.

“But not G-e-f-f . It would be G-e-O-f-f.”

“Yes,” I said. Did I need to tell him it was Syd with a y and not an i ?

“Now,” he said, “did you notice anything weird with Sydney before she took off?”

“No,” I said. I only hoped he was right, that Sydney “took off.” “We had a small argument at breakfast. About some new sunglasses she had.”

“What was that about?”

I didn’t want to get into it with him. I didn’t want to believe it had anything to do with why Syd left, and it wasn’t any of Arnold Chilton’s business anyway. “It wasn’t a big deal,” I said.

“Was she doing drugs? Like, dealing or something like that?” I thought about the coke found in my room, but said nothing. He continued, “Hooking, maybe?”

That made me want to punch his lights out. I felt my hands forming into fists. “Listen, Mr. Chilton-”

“Just call me Arnie.” He grinned.

“Arnie,” I said, stretching the word out, “my daughter was neither a drug dealer nor a prostitute.”

Chilton, clearly a very keen detective, picked up something in my tone. “Okay,” he said, and made a note in his book, muttering under his breath, “No drugs, no hooking.” He glanced back up. “And how about yourself? Can you account for your whereabouts?”

“What?”

“At the time your daughter disappeared, where were you?”

I said, “Arnie, if you don’t mind my asking, just what sort of work have you done for Bob? Or anyone else, for that matter?”

“Pretty much all my security work has been for Bob,” he said.

“Just what kind of security work was it?” I asked. “Without,” I added, with mock sincerity, “violating any sort of confidentiality, of course.”

“No, no problem,” Arnie Chilton said. “Watching stuff, mainly.”

“Watching stuff,” I repeated. “What kind of stuff?”

“Cars,” he said.

“So let me get this straight. You were, what, a security guard?”

Arnie nodded. “The night shifts are the worst. Trying to keep your fucking eyes open, you’re almost hoping someone will break into the compound so it’ll keep you awake, you know?”

“Sure,” I said. “Arnie, you mind waiting out here a moment while I make a phone call? I just remembered there’s someone I have to get in touch with.”

“That’s cool,” Arnie said. “I’ll just review my notes.”

I went back into the kitchen and hit one of the buttons already programmed into the phone’s speed dial.

Susanne, clearly looking at the caller ID before picking up, said, “Anything?”

“No,” I said. “Is Bob there?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I need to talk to him.”

“I don’t think he’ll be interested. He’s furious with you.” But there was nothing in Susanne’s voice to indicate she felt the same.

“Magnum P.I. is here.”

“What?”

“The other day, Bob said he was sending around an investigator to help find Syd. A guy named Chilton.”

“I know. I was spending so much time on this, getting so frustrated with those goddamn crutches and cane, Bob wanted Arnie to do some of the legwork.”

“I need to talk to Bob about him.”

“Hang on.”

She put the phone down. A minute later, Bob picked up the receiver and said, “What do you want, Tim?” His contempt came through the phone like a virus.

“He’s a security guard, Bob.”

“What?”

“He’s a fucking night watchman. This Chilton guy you sent over. This so-called security expert you’ve hired to help find Sydney.”

“You know what your problem is, Tim? You’re a snob. You run people down.”

“He’s not a licensed private investigator, Bob. He’s not some security expert. He’s a goddamn security guard.”

“Look,” Bob said, lowering his voice so Susanne wouldn’t hear, “he was working for me, and I sold him a Corolla, and he couldn’t make all the payments. I thought I’d let him work it off.”

“This guy couldn’t find his ass in a snowstorm, Bob.”

“I try to do something to help, and this is the thanks I get,” he said. “Maybe this is why I’m where I am, and you’re where you are. Bad attitude.”

I hung up.

Arnie Chilton was waiting for me in the yard, notepad at the ready.

“Hey,” he said. “I’ve thought up some more questions. Good ones.”

“Terrific,” I said. “But something’s come up.”

“What’s that?”

“Bob needs you to go to Dunkin’s and pick him up a dozen donuts and half a dozen coffees and deliver them to the car lot.”

“Oh, okay.”

“He’ll pay you when you get there.”

“Did he say what kind of donuts?” Chilton asked.

I shook my head. “He said it was up to you.”

Chilton smiled, evidently pleased at being given the responsibility. “So I can check in with you later, ask you some more questions.”

“Looking forward to it,” I said.

Arnie Chilton walked down to his Corolla, got in behind the wheel. It took several tries before the engine turned over.

As I was walking back into the house, my eye caught something shiny next to the step, down in the garden beds.

I knelt down and brushed away the dirt. It was a cell phone. Black, slender, and off. I opened it, blew away dirt from around the keypad. Who’d lost a cell phone? It could have been any number of people, including all the cops who’d been in and out of the house the last couple of days. I tucked it into my pocket, figured I could check later.

“Whatcha got there?” said someone from behind me.

It was Kip Jennings.

“EXCUSE ME?” I SAID. Jennings had caught me off guard. I hadn’t noticed her drive up the street.

“In your pocket? What was that?”

I pulled out the cell phone. “I found it in the dirt, by the door there,” I said.

“It’s not your phone?”

“No. I just said, I found it on the ground.”

“Can I have a look at that?”

I handed it over to her.

“Looks pretty clean,” she said.

“I just brushed the dirt off,” I told her. She looked up from the phone at me, then back at the phone. She hit a button to power it up and we both waited a few seconds for the little jingle to indicate it was up to speed.

“Maybe it belongs to one of your officers,” I said.

She started playing around with the menu. “Just checking to see what this cell’s number is… here we go.” She rattled off a number with an area code that was, up until recently, unfamiliar to me. “You know that number?”

“I think so,” I said, and felt something like a chill run up my back.

“Let me check something else here… missed calls. Someone made a number of calls to this phone that went unanswered. All from the same number.” And she told me what it was. “That one ring a bell?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s my cell number.”

“This phone,” Jennings said, holding it up as though it were an artifact, “is the one that belonged to-what was her name?”

“Yolanda Mills,” I said. “That’s the number she gave me to call her.”

“Isn’t that something?” Kip Jennings said.

“So it has a Seattle area code and everything?”

“It sure does,” Jennings said.

I was trying to sort this new discovery. “So there really was someone from Seattle, and whoever it was came back here, broke into my house?”