at the Ford dealership in South Paris. She was having carburetor trouble. The needle valve in there kept wanting to jam. We talked about it on the phone Monday afternoon. She was really pissed off and upset about it. I meant to make an appointment for her to get it done by a local guy here in town, but I forgot because . . .”
He trailed off, thinking about the reasons why he had forgotten.
“You forgot to make the appointment here in town, so she would have taken it to South Paris?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He couldn’t remember exactly what the run of the conversation had been now, except that she had been afraid the car would seize up while she was taking it to be fixed.
Masen glanced at his watch and got up. Vic started to rise with him.
“No, stay put. I just want to make a quick phone can. I’ll be back.”
Vic sat where he was. The screen door banged closed behind Masen, a sound that reminded him so much of Tad that he winced and had to grit his teeth against fresh tears. Where were they? The thing about the Pinto not being here had only been momentarily promising after all.
The sun was fully up now, throwing a bright rose light over the houses and the streets below, and across Castle Hill. It touched the swing set where he had pushed Tad times without number . . . all he wanted was to push his son on the swing again with his wife standing beside him. He would push until his hands fell off, if that was what Tad wanted.
Daddy, I wanna loop the loop! I wanna!
The voice in his mind chilled his heart. It was like a ghost voice.
The screen door opened again a moment later. Masen sat down beside him and lit a fresh cigarette. “Twin City Ford in South Paris,” he said. “That was the one, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. We bought the Pinto there.”
“I took a shot and called them. Got lucky; the service manager was already in. Your Pinto’s not there, and it hasn’t been there. Who’s the local guy?”
“Joe Camber,” Vic said. “She must have taken the car out there after all. She didn’t want to because he’s way out in the back of the beyond and she couldn’t get any answer on the phone when she called. I told her he was probably there anyway, just working in the garage. It’s this converted barn, and I don’t think he’s got a phone in there. At least he didn’t the last time I was out there.”
“We’ll check it out,” Masen said, “but her car’s not there either, Mr. Trenton. Depend on it.”
“Why not?”
“Doesn’t make a bit of logical sense,” Masen said. “I was ninety-five percent sure it wasn’t in South Paris, either. Look, everything we said before still holds true. A young woman with a child needs a car. Suppose she took the car over to Twin City Ford and they told her it was going to be a couple of days. How does she get back?”
“Well . . . a loaner . . . or if they wouldn’t give her a loaner, I guess they’d rent her one of their lease cars. From the cheap fleet.”
“Right! Beautiful! So where is it?”
Vic looked at the driveway, almost as if expecting it to appear.
“There’d be no more reason for Kemp to abscond with your wife’s loaner than there would be for him to abscond with her Pinto,” Masen said. “That pretty well ruled out the Ford dealership in advance. Now let’s say she takes it out to this guy Camber’s garage. If he gives her an old junker to run around in while he fixes her Pinto, we’re back at square one right away: Where’s the junker? So let’s say that she takes it up there and Camber says he’ll have to keep it awhile but he’s got nothing he can give her to get back to town in. So she calls a friend, and a friend comes out to pick her up. With me so far?”
“Yes, sure.”
“So who was the friend? You gave us a list, and we got them all out of bed. Lucky they were all home, it being summer and all. None of them mentioned bringing your people home from anywhere. No one has seen them any later than Monday morning.”
“Well, why don’t we stop crapping around?” Vic asked. “Let’s give Camber a call and find out for sure.”