Mary Clark - Nighttime Is My Time

Before coming to the crime scene, Sam had called Jean on her cell phone, but she had not answered. He left her an urgent message to call him and then dialed Alice Sommers again.

Alice had partially reassured him. "Sam, when Jean was talking about meeting Lily's adoptive parents tonight, she mentioned that she wished she had brought more clothes with her. Woodbury Mall is less than half an hour away. I wouldn't be surprised if she simply decided to ride over there and do some shopping."

It was a reasonable supposition, and it had helped to partially allay Sam's concern for Jean. But now the concern was building, and he knew it was his instinct warning him not to wait any longer to begin an active search for her.

"Robbery wasn't the motive," Cal Grey was saying. "Brent was wearing an expensive watch and has six hundred bucks in his wallet and a half-dozen credit cards. How long has he been missing?"

"He hasn't been seen since after dinner on Monday night," Sam said.

"My bet is that he didn't last long after that," Grey commented. "Of course the autopsy will pin down the time of death much more accurately than I can now."

"I was at that dinner," Sam said. "What was he wearing when you got him out of the trunk?"

"Beige jacket, dark brown slacks, and a brown turtleneck sweater."

"Then unless he slept in his clothes wherever he went, he died on Monday night."

Cameras were flashing as photographers behind the tape took pictures of the car that had been Robby Brent's coffin. A salvage truck had hoisted it out of the river, and now, still attached to the cable, it was standing on the bank, dripping water as technicians continued to photograph it from every angle.

A local policeman filled Sam in on the details, sketchy as they were. "We think the car may have been dumped around ten o'clock last night. A couple who live in New Windsor were jogging past here at about a quarter often. They say they saw a car parked near the railroad tracks and that someone was in it. They turned and started back about half a mile down the road. When they reached this point again, the car was gone, but a man was walking fast along Shore Road."

"Did they get a good look at him?"

"No."

"Did they mention if he was tall? I mean really tall?" Sam asked.

"They can't agree. The husband said the guy was average size; the wife thought he was pretty tall. Both of them wear distance glasses and admit they barely got an impression of the guy, but they are sure that a car was parked here, that ten minutes later it was gone, and that someone was leaving this area on foot and in a big hurry."

God deliver me from eyewitnesses, Sam thought. As he turned back, he spotted Jake Perkins pushing his way to the front of the group behind the tape. He was carrying a camera that reminded Sam of the kind he had seen in a book about the great World War II photographer Robert Capa.

I wonder if that kid has the gift of bilocation, Sam thought. It's not only that he seems to be everywhere; he is everywhere. His eyes met Jake's, but Jake looked away immediately. He's sore at me for telling Tony to throw him in jail after he claimed to be my special assistant investigating Laura's disappearance, Sam thought. I could have given him a break and at least said that he's trying to be helpful, because he was. After all, he was the one who tipped me off that Laura sounded nervous on that phone call.

He was debating whether to go over and speak to Jake when his cell phone rang. He snapped it out of his pocket, hoping the call would be from Jean. Instead it was from Joy Lacko. "Sam, a call came into 911 a few minutes ago. A BMW convertible registered to Dr. Jean Sheridan has been parked at Storm King Lookout on 218 for a couple of hours. The call was made by a salesman who drove past it around seven-forty-five and then again twenty minutes ago. He thought it seemed odd that the car was there so long and decided to check to see if there was a problem. The keys are in the ignition, and her pocketbook is on the passenger seat. It doesn't look good."

"That's why she hasn't been answering her phone," Sam said heavily. "My God, Joy. Why didn't I insist that she have a bodyguard? Is the car still at the Lookout?"

"Yes. Rich knew you'd want to look over the location before we moved it." Joy's voice was sympathetic. "I'll keep in touch, Sam."

The vehicle with Robby Brent's body was starting to back up. Three bodies in less than a week in that meat wagon, Sam thought. Don't let the next one be Jean Sheridan, he prayed. Please don't let the next one be Jean.

Jake Perkins had immediately regretted not acknowledging Sam Deegan when their eyes met. It was one thing not to give the detective any information he might come across, but it was another thing to cut off all contact with him. No good reporter, no matter how insulted he'd been, would ever do that.

He would have loved to ask Deegan for a statement about Robby Brent's murder, but he knew better than to do that. He knew what the official line would be-that Brent was the victim of a homicide by person or persons unknown. They hadn't released the cause of death, but it was a cinch it wasn't suicide. Nobody climbs into the trunk of a car while it's rolling into the river.

Maybe Deegan knows where Dr. Sheridan is, Jake thought. He had tried to phone Jean, but there was no answer in her room. He did want to get confirmation from her that Laura Wilcox had slept in the murder bedroom on Mountain Road.

Struggling with the heavy camera, Jake worked his way through the crowd of photographers and reporters and caught up with Sam at his car. "Mr. Deegan, I've been trying to get in touch with Dr. Sheridan. Do you by any chance know where I could reach her? She doesn't answer her phone."

Sam was about to get into his car. "What time did you try her?" he asked sharply.

"About nine-thirty."

That was the same time I tried her, Sam thought. "I don't know where she is," he snapped as he got in his car. He slammed the door closed and turned on the siren.

Something's up, Jake thought. He's worried about Dr. Sheridan, but he's not making the turn back to the hotel. He's going too fast for me to follow him. I might as well go back to school and clean up the darkroom. Then I'll head over to the Glen-Ridge and see what's going on.

On the way to the observation point, Sam phoned the Glen-Ridge House and asked to be put through to the manager immediately. When Justin Lewis got on, Sam said, "Look, I can get a subpoena for your phone records, but I can't waste the time. Dr. Sheridan's car has just been found, and she is missing. I want you to give me right now a list of the phone numbers of all calls received by Dr. Sheridan between ten o'clock last night and nine o'clock this morning."

He had been prepared for an argument but did not get one. "Give me your number. I'll call you right back," the manager said crisply.

Sam put his cell phone on the passenger seat as he raced toward Storm King Lookout. He rounded the bend and saw Jean's blue convertible with a policeman standing beside it. He pulled up behind it and had his notebook and pencil out when Lewis called back. The man obviously had understood the need for urgency. "Dr. Sheridan received seven phone calls this morning," he said crisply. "The first came at quarter of seven!"

"At quarter of seven?" Sam interrupted.

"Yes, sir. It was made on a cell phone from this area. The name of the subscriber was not given. The number is…"

Stunned and disbelieving, Sam wrote down the number that he recognized as the same one Robby Brent had called from on Monday night when he had imitated Laura's voice on the call to Jean.

"The other calls have been identified as coming from a Mrs. Alice Sommers and a Mr. Jake Perkins. They both tried to reach Dr. Sheridan several times. There are two from your own number."