George, Anne (25 page)

Yeah, right.

Maybe I should warn Frances that when you retire you become cynical, start talking to yourself, and minding other folks' business.

I had promised Trinity I would bring food over later. She could probably fill me in on the Cassie-Judge Haskins relationship. Her version of it, anyway. I divided the chicken tetrazzini Sister had given me, putting part of it in a small casserole for Trinity. Not enough. I needed a green salad, but my only lettuce was yellow around the edges and limp as a bad perm. I stuck the casserole back in the refrigerator, combed my hair, slapped on lipstick, and headed for the Piggly Wiggly.

The paper with Heidi Williams's address and phone number on it fell out when I reached in my purse for my money. Hollywood Boulevard. Just a couple of blocks away. She hadn't answered the phone, but what the heck. If she was out of town, maybe some neighbor knew where she could be reached.

I swung onto Hollywood, watching the street numbers. Heidi's address was Apartment B in a complex of six apartments that formed a "U." The stucco exterior said 1920s, but, like most of the homes in this area, the complex was well-maintained. From the sidewalk that ran along the street, another large sidewalk led into the middle of the "U" and neatly bordered sidewalks branched to the front doors of the individual apartments. These apartments, I knew, would have high ceilings and arched openings between the living room and dining room. There would be dentil molding throughout, and glass in the front of the kitchen cabinets. These apartments, in this neighborhood, did not come cheap.

I slowed, trying to decide whether to go knock on the door. An elderly man sitting in a wheelchair in front of one of the apartments waved at me. I waved back. It was a nice day to be out enjoying the sun.

He waved both arms, trying to get my attention. I stopped and let the window down.

"Hey!" he yelled, propelling himself toward me. "Hey!"

I got out to meet him, though he seemed to be having no problem getting around.

"You the woman from the Humane Society?" he asked.

"No. I'm just looking for a woman named Heidi Williams. Why? Is something wrong?"

"It's her dog. Mrs. Williams's. It's been howling for two days. I swear I think that woman went off and left that poor animal without any food or water."

"Nobody has a key to her apartment?"

"None of the neighbors has a key. I'm the only one around during the day, so I promised I'd call the Humane Society." He swung his chair around and headed back toward the apartment. He was not as old as I had first thought, but rather in his early fifties; his withered legs were the recognizable legacy of childhood polio. He seemed to assume I would follow him, which I did.

"Right here," he said, pointing to Apartment B. "Listen."

He didn't have to tell me to listen. Plaintive wails, interspersed with yelps, were emanating from the apartment.

"My God!" I said. "When did you call the Humane Society?"

"This morning. They said they couldn't go in the apartment, though, and I should call the police. So I called the police and they said they'd get hold of the Humane Society. Back and forth. Back and forth."

"Maybe Mrs. Williams is sick in there." I hated to say what I was really thinking. "When did you see her last?"

"Don't know." He suddenly held out his hand. "Bill Mahoney." I shook his hand. "Patricia Anne Hollowell."

"And she's not dead, if that's what you're thinking. Hot as it is, we'd have known."

I let that pass. "Did you ask the police to come check?"

"I told them about the dog. They said they'd call the Humane folks. I kept thinking they'd show up together, but they haven't."

I walked up the sidewalk to Apartment B. Draperies were drawn across what must be the living room windows. I tried to peep through them, but I couldn't. The windows on the side were too high to look in, and the poor animal inside, sensing my presence, howled even louder.

"It's enough to make you cry," Bill Mahoney said when I came back from my excursion around the apartment. "She's the cutest dog you ever saw."

"Mrs. Williams has never done anything like this before, has she?" I asked.

"No."

I have no excuse for what happened then. Here he was, worried about the dog and not the woman, and it suddenly infuriated me. "Did you explain this to the police? Did it occur to you she might be lying in there sick? Needing help from her neighbors? No. You were going to let her die and wait until her body smelled? What's wrong with you, man? And where's your phone?" My voice was shaking with anger.

"Apartment A. And you listen, lady, I'm a good neighbor."

He probably thought he was. At least he was trying to get the dog out. Damn. What the hell was I doing beating up on a man in a wheelchair? He had enough troubles without me adding to them. I willed myself to calm down as I followed him down the sidewalk to his apartment.

"Here," he said, opening the front door for me. I found Bo Peep Mitchell's number and called it. "A semi-emergency," I told the operator, and gave my name and the number of Bill Mahoney's phone.

He had followed me into his living room, which was filled with all kinds of exercise machines.

"You want a Coke?" he asked as I hung up the phone. I shook my head no. He wheeled into the kitchen and came back with one. "I guess I just never thought about Mrs. Williams being sick."

"Sorry I jumped down your throat," I apologized.

"It's okay. I guess I should have. I just assumed she was gone and I'm sure the other neighbors did, too. I've been getting her newspapers and mail." He put his Coke on a table and picked up a couple of barbells. Up. Down. Up. Down.

The phone rang. Bo. She was only about six blocks away, she said, when I explained the situation. She'd be right along.

"The police will be here in a minute," I said.

"You really think Mrs. Williams is in there sick?'' Bill Mahoney asked.

"I hope not." My anger was gone. Bill Mahoney had enough problems. Let him go on thinking he was a good neighbor. He had done more than anyone else in the apartment complex. "I'm going to wait outside," I said.

"I think I'll stay here."

Ah hah. Afraid of what they were going to find.

In a few minutes, Bo's black and white pulled in behind my car.

"What's up?" she called, coming up the sidewalk.

"Listen."

"You called me to hear the Hound of the Basker-villes?"

I explained to Bo what had happened, and she made the same tour around the apartment that I had made.

"Can't you just go on in?" I asked.

"No, Patricia Anne. I can't just barge into someone's house. I'd be out of the police department and on my butt. There's more to it than that, girl."

"Well, do something. What if the poor woman had a stroke or something?"

"I'll do something. Give me time." She looked around. "Where does the Good Samaritan live?"

"Apartment A."

"I'll go talk to him for a minute."

Bill Mahoney was waiting for her. I saw him open the door. I sat on the front steps of Apartment B. The poor animal inside had calmed down. There was an occasional whimper, but not the earlier wails. "We'll get you out soon," I whispered.

When Bo came back, she explained that another officer was on his way with a warrant to open the apartment, that there did, indeed, look as if something were amiss inside. She also wanted to know what I was doing there.

I started with Georgiana Peach's intestinal problems and ended up with how expensive lettuce was in March at the Piggly Wiggly.

"Okay," Bo said. She sat down on the steps beside me.

"Can you imagine," I said, "that no one in these six apartments has seen this woman in several days, her papers are piling up and so is her mail, and they wait until her dog starts howling to check on her? And even then, it's the dog, not the woman, they're worried about."

"People like dogs," Bo said.

"You don't think they liked Heidi Williams?"

"How do I know? People don't want to get messed up in other folks' lives. Scared they'll step on other folks' toes or get their own stepped on. Dogs are different. They're just dogs." Bo sighed. "Don't be rough on these people, Patricia Anne."

"It makes me sad," I said.

"Me too," Bo agreed.

A second police car pulled up, and a handsome middle-aged man with a handlebar mustache got out.

"Rambo, my man," Bo called to him.

"Bo Peep, my woman." The policeman came up the sidewalk and was introduced to me as Gaston Rambo.

"God's truth," Bo said. "Imagine having to live with that."

"Beats Bo Peep," Rambo smiled. The dog inside the apartment began to moan again. "You ready to see what's going on?"

"Expect we better." Bo got up. "You better wait out here, Patricia Anne."

"I'm not horsing to go in," I said. I sat on the steps. Bill Mahoney had wheeled himself out to the sidewalk again. Together we waited.

"Here," Bo said in a minute, handing me a small brown and white mixed breed dog. "So far so good."

I held the trembling little dog. It was amazing that something this tiny could have made such a noise.

"Her name is Doodle," Bill Mahoney called.

"It's okay, Doodle," I whispered. "You're going to be okay now."

"I'll get her a bowl of water." Bill wheeled back into his apartment. I got up, carrying the dog, and went over to his porch. "Here you go, Doodle," he said, taking the dog from me and setting her before an orange Tupperware bowl. She drank the whole bowl of water and half of the refill Bill brought. "You think she'll eat some Dinty Moore stew?" he asked.

"I think she'd love it."

We were on Bill's porch watching Doodle finish the last of a large can of Dinty Moore when Bo and Gaston Rambo came out.

"Everything looks okay," Bo said. "The dog was just hungry and thirsty. She left quite a few opinions of the way she was being treated for her mistress."

Bill Mahoney looked relieved, and I'm sure I did, too.

"Either one of you know anything about her family?" Gaston Rambo asked.

"Castine Murphy down at The Family Tree might. That's where she worked. And Georgiana Peach, but she's in intensive care at University Hospital."

"Well, we need to follow this up," Bo said. "Bill here says she's never done anything like this before."

"Never," he repeated. "Can Doodle stay with me until Mrs. Williams gets back?"

"I thought you wanted her to go to the Humane Society."

"I just wanted them to rescue her. Come here, Doodle." One jump and the little dog was in Bill's lap.

"Sounds good to me," Bo said.

"You want me to go get her some dog food?" I asked.

"There's probably some over in Apartment B," Bo said. "Come on, Patricia Anne, let's look."

"I'll see you later, Bo," Gaston Rambo said. "I'll write the report on this."

"Thanks."

I followed Bo over to Heidi Williams's apartment. "What is it?" I asked. "You don't need me to help you pick up a can of dog food."

"You can help me clean up dog doo."

"Yuck."

"We don't want Mrs. Williams coming home to a messy house," Bo said.

We entered a living room that was totally in order. "Reckon there's a Mr. Williams?" I asked Bo. "I forgot to ask Bill Mahoney."

"Look around you, child."

Bo was right. This was a woman's house with frills and pillows and lacy curtains. It was the house of a woman who should own a cat, not a Doodle. But a Doodle was what she owned, and a Doodle had made a mess on the backporch, close to her empty water and food bowls.

"I'm not liking what I'm seeing," Bo said.

"I'm not either," I said, eying the mounds of Doodle doo and the yellowed, drenched newspapers.

"I mean the way this woman has disappeared. A woman with heart-shaped pillows on her bed and a Laura Ashley comforter and draperies does not go off and leave her dog."

"Is this a Bo Mitchell theory?"

"Nope. It just doesn't fit. One thing you learn in police work is that things fit. If they don't, you can bet something's wrong."

"Pure brilliance," I said. But my grin swas halfhearted. "How old is Heidi Williams?"

"How should I know? She was your friend." .

"I didn't know the woman from Adam's house cat. I was getting her for Georgiana Peach."

"You got strange friends, Patricia Anne."

"God's truth. Just keep shoveling, Bo Peep."

We worked for a few minutes. "Least Doodle stayed in the same area," Bo said, rinsing out the mop.

"She looked like a nice little dog."

"Yes." Bo swished the mop across the floor. "What do you know about Georgiana Peach, Patricia Anne?"

"I never met her until this week. She's a genealogist, an old friend of Meg Bryan and her sister. She seems very nice. Why?"