phone book. If someone requests a meeting, I have it at a neutral location like a donut shop. All of these measures are to protect me from disgruntled clients or subjects knowing where I eat and sleep. Unfortunately, there are no safeguards against a neighbour calling the local television station about a SWAT-like situation next door. I glanced out the front window of my house and wondered when the media would arrive to stake claim to my yard. So far, they had either ignored the tip altogether or figured it wasn’t worth getting involved in dangerous police business. At least something was going my way.
Before calling Maria, I tried to get hold of my former best friend, Wayne “Doogie” Dugan, hoping he might know about her strange phone message.
After two rings Wayne picked up and stated quite forcibly, “I don’t know how you got this number but I’m not giving any interviews about that loser Steve Cassidy. So stop calling!”
“Mr. Dugan, please don’t hang up. We’re willing to pay $50,000 for your story.” My offer was met with a long, thoughtful moment of silence.
“You know, Steve,” Wayne began to laugh, “for fifty grand I’d give up details of my grandparents’ sex life.”
“Call display takes all the fun out of life, Doogie.”
“Tell me about it. It sure comes in handy though when Trudy is trying to track me down.”
We both let out a quick, awkward laugh, each knowing what was coming next.
“So, has anyone called you?” I began.
“Not yet.”
“I’m sorry about any inconvenience this will cause.”
“Hey, no biggie. I will only give ‘em my rank and serial number. Trudy on the other hand . . .”
“Does your lovely wife know yet?”
“She went to work at the flower shop early, so I doubt it.”
“But when she finds out, Maria will find out, right?”
“That’s the way it goes when you work side by side.” Another deadly pause. “What about Linda? How’s she taking this?”
“Not well,” I sighed. “She’s gone. Took everything belonging to her and left me a note.” I wanted to tell Wayne about the police visit but couldn’t find the strength. There was no use bringing up Linda’s apparent disappearance if she was just cooling her heels out of town for a while.
“You haven’t talked to her?”
“I didn’t have the chance,” I offered. “I’m hoping to though.”
“I don’t know what to say, Steve. I’m kinda in a rough spot—you’re my friend but I also like Linda a lot. My kids still talk about her since she left the library.”
“I screwed up, Wayne. That’s what I do,” I admitted. “Regrettably my moral breakdowns end up hurting a pile of innocent people, like Linda and Samantha.”
“Who’s Samantha?” Wayne asked, before it dawned on him. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened,” he added quickly. “From what I read, you were doing your job. Who knew that guy was going to go psycho?”
“That’s easy for you to say. If I hadn’t been fooling around, we would have left the motel as soon as buddy got in the taxi. That’s the way it worked in the past and no one got killed. Anyway, what’s done is done. I’ll have to live with the consequences. As for those reporters, tell them whatever they want to know,” I said. “And if they want to contribute to your kids’ college fund, go for it. There will be no hard feelings.”
“I wouldn’t rat you out.”
“Not even for fifty thousand big ones?” I kidded him.
“Trudy’d kill me if I turned down that kind of dough,” he admitted.
“Make sure you tell the Global Scoop reporter some of my good points, okay?”
“As soon as I think of one, I’ll pass it right along.”
“That’s all I can ask of you. Now . . . the real reason for my call is—”
“Maria.”
“Yes, Maria. Do you know anything about a phone call she received? She left a message on our—I mean, my machine.”
“You must be talking about the call from the penitentiary,” Doogie said.
“What penitentiary? Sandwedge?” I began to fear that somehow the killer from my celebrated missing person case was trying to threaten Maria from the big house.
“Too small. Think B-I-G. Think of sandy beaches and palm trees.”
“The Farmington Penitentiary?”
“Boy, you’re good,” Wayne replied. “You’ve been watching Jeopardy, haven’t you?”
“More like Court TV,” I said. “So who does Maria know at The Farm?”
“You mean who do we know?”
“Wayne, you’re slaying me here.”
“Okay, okay. Do you remember Max Feldberg, class of ’84?”
“Of course I do. We were like brothers,” I said. “The last I heard he was on the run for passing himself off as a shrink and disappearing with his patients’ cash. I guess they caught up with him then.”
“To the tune of seventy–four years.”
“For fraud? Isn’t that a bit harsh?” I recalled a conversation with my former Delta lawyer, Francis McKillop, who had updated me on my friends’ whereabouts since graduation. “Hold on—aside from being a thief, didn’t a disturbed woman jump to her death from his office window or some such thing?”
I heard Wayne laughing. “You’re half-right. He did milk his clients for big cash but the woman was pushed—she didn’t jump. The stolen money got him six years. The other sixty-eight was for the manslaughter conviction.”
“So, getting back to Maria’s mystery call, do you know why he contacted her?” I asked, growing more perplexed.
“No. She told Trudy there was a message saying Maxwell Feldberg had requested to speak with her and that she should contact the penitentiary.”
“Did they say if it was an emergency or anything?”
“Nope—just that she should call.”
“Has she?”
“I don’t think so,” Wayne said. “She wanted to talk to you first.”
“I’ll try her at work. The sooner the better. She may not want to speak to me after she hears what I did to Linda.”
“Your secret is safe with me but I don’t think it’ll be a secret for long, once a reporter or
