Rock Bottom (Imogene Museum Mystery #1) (7 page)

“
Stay there. I’m going to put out a missing person report, then I’ll pick you up. We need to have a look at his room at Betty’s.”

My stomach was doing the cramping thing again. Sheriff Marge
’s voice was all business, which meant she thought it was serious.

“
Greg’s Prius is silver, isn’t it?” Sheriff Marge asked.

“
Yes.”

“
Know the license number?”

“
No.” The word strangled my throat.

“
I’ll check with OSP.”

I was still staring at my phone when Mac tapped softly on the open door.

“We have all the cases in place,” he said. “Want to come inspect?”

“
Oh, Mac.” My eyes welled up, and I squeezed them shut. I hate crying. It would be even worse in front of Mac. “Greg’s missing.”

“
You sure?”

I nodded.

“Aw, he’s probably off cavorting. He’s a young guy.” Mac said it like he had outgrown that distant phase of his history. He patted my shoulder.

I took a deep breath and followed Mac downstairs to the exhibit bedroom where Ford was dusting the new cases with his sleeve.

“As usual, Mac, they’re wonderful.”

“
I rigged the lights in all the cases to one switch.” Mac pointed at Ford who flipped the switch and grinned.

“
Perfect. Thank you.” I tried to smile. “I have to go with Sheriff Marge now, so I’m going to lock the room until I have a chance to arrange the exhibit. Sorry to cut it short, guys.”

“
Sheriff Marge goin’ to arrest you?” Ford asked.

“
No, we’re looking for Greg.”

“
Uh-oh.” Ford said. Having the sheriff looking for you was a bad thing in his world.

“
Yeah,” I whispered.

Mac watched me lock up then squeezed my elbow.
“There are lots of reasons Greg might not be in contact for a few days,” he said. “He’ll turn up. But if Sheriff Marge wants to launch a search, tell her I’m in.”

“
Thanks, Mac.”

I remembered the flashing light on my phone and ran back to my office. All the messages, four of them, were from Dr. Elroy earlier, ranging from
“please call me at your convenience” to “call me immediately.” He was more worried than he had let on. I knew every minute counted with missing persons. And, if Greg had been in an accident on Sunday, we were already into Day Three — way past counting hours, let alone minutes.

CHAPTER
6

I paced along the sidewalk in front of the museum, mind
racing. Maybe Mac was right — maybe Greg was on a spontaneous road trip. But he would never miss an appointment with his adviser without at least calling to cancel ahead of time. Greg was way too responsible to forget a regular appointment. So he was sick, or injured, or — no, I refused to consider worse possibilities.

A dirty white Ford Explorer with a light bar on top and county logo on the front doors zipped down the tree-lined driveway and charged toward the museum. Sheriff Marge skidded to a stop and leaned over to pop open the passenger door. The SUV
’s suspension was shot, and it was still bouncing as I climbed in and buckled up.

“
Good news — no accidents reported involving a Toyota Prius since Thursday on the main route between here and Corvallis,” Sheriff Marge announced. “One in Madras and one outside Spokane, neither silver.”

“
What about non-main routes?”

“
Nothing reported. If he was in a single car accident and went off the road into a ravine where no one driving by can see him, well then —” Sheriff Marge didn’t finish the thought. “We can’t search everywhere. It’s nearly 200 miles. Which is why we’re going to look through his stuff for clues as to where he might have gone.” She gunned the Explorer onto the highway. “You with me on this, Meredith? I need your brain in gear.”

“
Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” I balled my right hand into a fist and clamped my left hand around it to keep them from trembling.

If my nerves were taut when I got in the Explorer, they were a fraction away from fraying through when Sheriff Marge slammed on the brakes in Betty Jenkins
’ potholed driveway.

Something about Sheriff Marge
’s girth had kept her firmly grounded behind the wheel, but I was slung from side to side against the lap belt as Sheriff Marge cornered going 50 and jounced the old battleship over roads that hadn’t seen a paving crew in a decade. I actually rose off the seat at one point and felt my hair brush the roof. I braced a foot against the dashboard and clung to the door handle. If the county couldn’t afford a new four-wheel drive police cruiser, they should at least install five-point harnesses in the ones they had.

Betty came rushing out at the sound of crunching gravel and stood swathed in a ruffled floral apron, wringing her hands.
“Did you find him?” Her voice warbled.

I clung to the side mirror for a few seconds to steady my legs before venturing toward Betty
’s porch. Solid ground had never felt so good. I’d even forgotten about Greg for a few minutes, but at first sight of Betty, worry, bordering on panic, flooded over me.

“
Not yet,” Sheriff Marge answered, “but we will. We need to look at his room.”

“
Wasn’t he going home?”

“
Could be. But we have to think about all the possibilities.”

I caught Betty under the elbow as her knees sagged and helped her onto the creaking porch swing.

“Oh dear,” the old lady murmured. “I talked and talked Sunday morning to cheer him up. Maybe he would have told me what he was planning if I hadn’t been such a chatter box.”

Sheriff Marge squatted beside the swing.
“Was Greg sad, depressed?”

Betty nodded, her silver pony tail bobbing against her back.
“Sad. Anxious maybe. That young lady he’s fond of —”

“
Angie,” I said.

“
Yes, that’s the one,” Betty said. “He was worried she may have found someone else, someone — I forget — some foreign name.”

“
Lorenzo.” The word came out like a snarl. I even startled myself. The other women looked at me in surprise. “But they’re in Turkey. He can’t drive there.”

“
I think he felt like he disappointed his girlfriend, wasn’t enough to impress her,” Betty added. “I tried to tell him that sometimes it’s best if things don’t work out the way you want, because sometimes what you want isn’t best, but you can’t tell right away. I told him all about my first engagement which broke off when I met Roland.” Betty dabbed her eyes. “Oh dear. Maybe that wasn’t helpful.”

Sheriff Marge said,
“I could really use a cup of coffee.”

“
Oh, how thoughtless of me! Of course.” Betty scurried into the kitchen.

Sheriff Marge and I followed her into the worn but cozy little room crowded with a dinette table and four chairs from the 1950s. Cracked linoleum the color of speckled parchment covered the floor. Narrow counters flanked the walls, and an ancient refrigerator wheezed in the far corner. Betty filled an aluminum percolator-style electric coffee pot at a deep farm sink that my old friends would have fought over to put in their own designer homes.

“Greg’s room is down the hall, Betty?” Sheriff Marge asked, already sidling into the narrow opening.

“
Second door on the right,” Betty called.

The eyes of Betty
’s extended family followed me from their picture frames jam-packed on the hallway walls. I had to be careful not to brush any of them with my shoulders. I stepped into the cramped bedroom and peered around Sheriff Marge.

A narrow bed with a crocheted coverlet cut the room in half. It looked shorter than normal. Greg probably had to sleep with his knees pulled up. A small desk with an alarm clock and lamp fit between the bed and the far wall. A metal folding chair was pushed against the wall in front of the desk, a pile of books on the seat.

Across from the foot of the bed, a maple dresser sported an antique wash basin and pitcher. I leaned in to examine them. The transferware design might be the same as one of the chamber pots in the new collection. A matched set. Maybe Betty would loan them to the museum.

I caught my reflection in the mirror above the dresser
— my face was ghastly pale — and my mind jerked back to the reason I was in Greg’s room.

Sheriff Marge pulled on the glass knob of the slender closet door. A handful of empty wire hangers hung on the rod. A couple of plastic tubs on the floor held what looked like Betty
’s stash of hand-knit baby sweaters, hats and blankets ready for the next several newborns in town.

I wriggled around to the desk. The books on the chair were mine, the ones Greg had borrowed. I moved them to the bed and sat on the chair.

I opened the right-hand desk drawer and came up with a number two pencil and a half-inch stack of standard-ruled notebook paper. The left drawer held a stapler, a couple petrified rubber bands and a small 1998 calendar from Brown’s Insurance Agency.

Bending in half, I looked under the desk. Yep, an outlet. Greg would have done all of his work on his laptop. The garbage can was empty.

The room’s bleakness settled on my shoulders. Greg didn’t really live here, hadn’t left any of himself here. I wondered at his nomad life, the temporary shelters. And with his girlfriend out of the country, he had to be lonely. Where would a lonely single young guy go?

My eyes widened, and I impulsively shook my head to delete the unbidden thought that popped into my mind. Greg
’s character was impeccable, and he was clearly smitten with Angie. He wouldn’t keep additional female companionship on the side. I gritted my teeth. I hate when my history rears up to taint others. Not every man is like my ex-fiancé.

The floor began to vibrate. Within seconds, the deafening roar of a freight train filled the house. Sheriff Marge worked the strings to pull up the Venetian blinds on the high window above the bed. We could see the top foot or so of loaded coal cars flashing by. The tracks were probably fifty feet away, but they might as well have been in the room.

Sheriff Marge pulled out dresser drawers, stacking them neatly on the bed. They, as well as the interior cavity of the dresser, were empty. There were no manila envelopes taped to the underside of the drawers, not that I expected any. Greg wasn’t a spy or a mob informer; he was a graduate student.

If Greg had revealed his worries about his fickle girlfriend to Betty, then he wasn
’t a secret-keeper either. That surprised me. He’d been reluctant to tell me about Angie. Maybe he trusted Betty more than he trusted me. I frowned. Had I let him down? Probably. Too absorbed in ancient artifacts to pay much attention to the people right in front of me. I wished I had the lunch at the Burger Basket to do over — really all of Friday and Saturday, knowing now it was the last time I’d seen him.

Betty appeared in the doorway with a tray of coffee mugs. She looked like the quintessential grandmother. Anyone would trust her, including Greg. She slid the tray onto the dresser next to the wash basin and watched us replace the drawers. The train whistle blasted at an intersection a mile away and the rumble faded.

“When did you clean the room, Betty?” Sheriff Marge lifted the edge of the mattress.

“
Sunday, after church. I like to do it right away. Oh dear.”

“
It’s alright, Betty. You had no way of knowing.”

“
Was there anything in the garbage can?” I felt bad for asking. Poor Betty — she was being subjected to a housekeeping inspection in her own home.

“
A few scraps of paper, some tissues.” Betty answered.

“
When’s your garbage pickup?” Sheriff Marge asked.

“
Tomorrow. But the papers are gone. I burned them in the wood stove, like I usually do. No sense clogging the landfill with that. Oh dear.” Betty sat on the bed and covered her face with her hands.

I rubbed Betty
’s shoulder. “It probably doesn’t matter. I expect Greg used his laptop for important things.”

“
Oh, yes.” Betty perked up. “That’s what he always did. Sat at the desk and typed on his computer, for hours and hours. Sometimes he would chat with me in the living room, but mostly he studied.”

Sheriff Marge drained her coffee cup.
“Thanks, Betty. If you think of anything else he said, anything out of the ordinary, let me know.”

Betty stood on the porch and watched us leave.

“What now?” I asked.

“
For you, nothing. Stay near your phone.”

“
What do you mean?”

Sheriff Marge eyed me over the top of her glasses as we bounced along.
“My deputies and I will be driving the county roads — Highway 14 and all others generally heading west, keeping a lookout for places where Greg might have gone off the road. WSP and OSP have their eyes peeled on the rest of his expected route.” She turned on the blinker and slowed. “Until we have a reported sighting with a more specific location, that’s all we can do. The Portland TV stations will be running his photo and the Prius’ license number on the news tonight.”

I stewed in silence. I didn
’t like it, but I wasn’t going to argue with Sheriff Marge either since I didn’t have any better ideas.

Sheriff Marge dropped me off in front of the museum. Lindsay was behind the gift shop counter when I entered.

“Did you find him?” Lindsay had twirled knots in her long blond hair.

“
Not yet. Did he say anything to you Friday at the game — or any other time — about plans he had for going somewhere?”

“
No, just football talk.” Lindsay sniffed. Her brown eyes were puffy and pink-rimmed. Had she been crying about Greg?