Part Sixty-Six

Continued from Part Sixty-Five

Friday, October 14

Peggy drove back to her house from Raoul's in the same amount of time it took her to go the other way: eight minutes, two minutes faster than normal. She screeched to a halt in her driveway and then, in her rush to get from the car to the house, she did the one thing she absolutely did not want to do at that moment: she locked her keys in her car.

She realized what she had done the instant she slammed the car door shut, just after mashing down the little button that locks all the doors. It's probably true that on some models of cars these days a person could not do what she did. But hers was not one of those new-fangled cars that are smarter than their owners.

She stood in front of the door to her house and felt energy draining from her. Inside her house she was sure there were messages, perhaps numerous messages, from Raoul. She did her controlled breathing exercises. They always helped during moments of stress. It reminded her of being in labor. In those days no one taught you how to breathe during labor, but she had had a midwife who was skilled in many practical aspects of child birthing. 'Your body will forget to breathe,' she had said. 'Your brain must order the body to breathe. Decide to breathe. Slowly...there. Don't be in a hurry to exhale.' Peggy remembered those words and the sound of the midwife's voice almost thirty years later as she stood on her front stoop, locked out of her house and car.

Then a happy thought came to her. She had her purse! It was attached to her shoulder like an extension of her body. She must have grabbed it without thinking. She snatched her cell phone from the bag and held it like gold. Then she called her boss.

"You did what?!" said Milton Pacer.

Peggy cringed. Milton was a great boss, patient, understanding, flexible. But he was a slave to deadlines, and was counting on Peggy to meet hers on a sensitive new project.

"I locked myself out of my house and car," Peggy repeated.

"But how can that be an issue when you're in Seattle? Just walk to the office and we'll straighten it out before you go home today."

"I'm on Bainbridge Island." She then told the story how she had unexpectedly returned to the Island to check on Raoul.

"Oh," was all he said. But it was enough. He was clearly not happy.

"Look, Milton. I'm sorry, but that's the state of things. Now if you'll excuse me I'll see if I can get into my house and get my spare car key, or else I'll walk down to the police station and ask them to break into my car. They know how to do those things, I believe."

"Right, they'll do it," he said without a trace of enthusiasm. "Let me know how it goes, okay?"

Peggy hung up and began to think through her options. She had not given a house key to any of her neighbors, in fact, she hadn't really made friends with her neighbors. It was not like her former life in Ballard, where she and Taylor, her late husband, had had many friends. Good friends, lifelong friends, people who knew every detail of your life, like what kind of cereal your kids ate for breakfast and what music you listened to and what books you read and how often you cleaned your kitchen. She had no one like that in her new neighborhood. She tried to think of to whom she had given a spare house key, and came up with only one name: Raoul.

Peggy turned away from her house and walked down the road to the police station near the ferry terminal. A policewoman named Mandy agreed to come and unlock Peggy's car. Several minutes later, Peggy stood in her driveway and watched Mandy pedal up the hill on her police mountain bike. She wore shorts in spite of the brisk air.

With quiet efficiency, Mandy got unlocked the door with a long, flat strip of metal that she slid between the door and window.

"Wow," said Peggy. "That was too easy."

"With older cars especially," Mandy said. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Peggy paused as a thought came to her. "Maybe. How does one go about reporting a missing person?"

Mandy's eyes widened. "Hmm. That's a bit more serious than locking your keys in your car."

"It's probably nothing. The fact is, I have a friend I haven't heard from and I just went to his house and he wasn't there and it appears he's gone off on his motorcycle. But the unusual thing is that he didn't tell anyone where he was going."

Mandy straddled her bicycle and donned her helmet. "So you don't know if he's in trouble or if he has just chosen to be alone."

Peggy gasped. "What kind of trouble?"

Mandy shrugged. "Is he wealthy? Or ill? If he's wealthy he could have been abducted, if he's ill he could have just wandered off without knowing what he was doing."

"He's not wealthy and he's not ill," said Peggy. "He went off on his motorcycle and packed very little."

"How do you know what he took with him?"

Peggy blushed a bit. "I'm, uh, a regular guest at his house."

"I see," said Mandy, doing a poor job of hiding the amusement in her voice.

Peggy squirmed and turned two shades of purple.

"Have you searched the entire house?" asked Mandy. "Do you really know everything that he took with him? The reason I'm saying that is because my boyfriend rides a motorcycle and it's amazing how much stuff you can carry on those things if you really wanted to. He goes camping and fishing on his bike."

"Camping?" Peggy said. A new thought came to her. "Excuse me. I need to make some calls. You just gave me an idea."

Mandy turned her bicycle around. "Why don't you at least give me your phone number and if somebody reports a man in trouble I'll contact you."

"Okay. Thanks." Peggy scribbled her cell phone number on the back of her business card and handed it to the policewoman.

Peggy raced into her house with her newly-retrieved keys. There were no voice mail messages from Raoul. Peggy turned on her computer and listened to the whine of the fan and the buzzing of the hard drive and watched the meaningless display of symbols and logos parade across her screen like credits for a bad movie. When it was ready to be useful she went straight to her mail and reviewed recent messages: several work related notes, one from Marjorie with a pregnancy update--no complications so far--one from an old friend in Ballard. Nothing from Raoul.

Then she dialed Deidre's number. Deidre answered at once.

"Does your father have any camping equipment?" Peggy asked.

"Yes. On the metal shelves in the garage. Why? What have you learned?"

"Nothing yet. But I realized that I could be overlooking an important clue. After all I'm not as familiar with your father's possessions as some people think."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Peggy relayed the story of the policewoman.

"You went to the police?"

"I locked my keys in the car and I had to ask them to break in for me."

"She'll probably have a good story to tell back at the station."

Peggy tried not to think about it. "I'm going back to Raoul's to check the garage. If he took the camping stuff, where would he have gone?"

"It depends on what he took. Call me when you get there and I'll tell you exactly what to look for."

Eight minutes later Peggy stood in Raoul's garage with her cell phone to her ear. Deidre was on the other end.

"Look at the high shelf next to the wall, all the way to the right. See it?"

"Yes."

"Second shelf from the top there should be a small gray nylon bag. It holds a small camping tent."

"I don't see it," said Peggy excitedly.

"Look around the floor. Look on the other shelves."

"I'm looking. I'm looking. I don't see the gray bag." It was a fairly neat place, as garages go. Peggy scanned the contents of the shelves and saw tools, coolers, gardening equipment, paints, oils, but nothing that looked like a small tent in a gray bag.

"Now look for a red backpack," said Deidre.

"I definitely do not see a red backpack. I'm looking everywhere."

"That contains his camping overalls and a couple of flannel shirts."

"Ah. So he's not frolicking about in just his running shoes."

"That doesn't sound like Dad."

"That's just me. I tend to imagine the worst possible scenarios. Okay, so far he has a tent and the red backpack. What else?"

"Sleeping bag."

Peggy again followed instructions but could not locate a blue lightweight sleeping bag that should have been next to the gray tent bag.

There was excitement in Deidre's voice. "It means he's camping somewhere very close. Right on the Island. There aren't many spots: Fort Ward, Fay Bainbridge. Oh, but wait, there's also Blake Island. Dad and Mom used to borrow a boat and go camping on Blake Island."

"What would he do with the motorcycle?"

Deidre paused. "I believe Mr. Ed had a boathouse or something. Dad could have parked his bike in it and taken the motorboat."

"Why wouldn't he have driven his car?"

"It's hard to say. It's worth checking on, though."

"Do you have their number?"

"It's in Mom's address book, which is on Dad's desk."

Peggy walked back into the house with the phone still to her ear. "What's the name?"

"Sorry, I only knew him as Mr. Ed. I don't remember their last name. But look for an Ed and Jenny in Eagledale."

It was a big book with lots of pages. "This will take time," said Peggy. "I think I'll try the local camping places first: Fort Ward and Fay Bainbridge. Any others?"

"I'm sure there are others, such as private lands."

"Okay. Gotta run. I'll stay in touch. Love you." Peggy hung up and fished around for a good map of Bainbridge Island.

She went out to her car and squinted: the sun was high and bright by this time. She unfolded the map on the seat next to her and at last felt like she had something to do besides worry. She had a goal. She was looking for a man on a motorcycle with a red backpack and a blue sleeping bag. That shouldn't be too hard: Bainbridge was a small island.

TO BE CONTINUED