Eleven Hours (10 page)

“The FBI is probably going to send someone regardless. They like to be on the safe side. And if he calls, you'd want someone to answer the phone, wouldn't you?”

“I hear what you're saying,” said Rich. “But you have to understand. I have my five-year-old daughter answering the phone. My mother is not going to be able to take care of this. She is very—” He paused. “Emotional.”

“Maybe one of our guys then?” said Murphy.

“Maybe,” Rich said vaguely. He was not ready to speak to his mother.

Murphy said, “There's a chance the guy is still in Dallas, holed up somewhere. If we have to, we'll put him on the local news.”

“Could he be headed for Mexico?”

The chief shook his head. “He'd only head there if—” And then Murphy stopped and stared bleakly at Rich.

“What were you going to say?” Rich said, paling. His knees were giving out on him. “If he what? If he killed her?” He shuddered and crossed his arms. “But she's pregnant. She's going to have a baby. What kind of a person—”

The chief placed his hand on Rich's shoulder and didn't say anything.

Rich thought back to an hour ago when he had called Didi's cell phone and she had picked up. She had been alive an hour ago.

He said, “Just notify the border police, can you do that?” Rich looked away from the chief's face—he didn't want to see his own aching reflected in it.

For a while he couldn't speak. Rich was trying to feel his Didi somewhere in the world. Where was his wife? He felt himself choking. With one fast motion he loosened his tie, and when that wasn't enough, he ripped it off his neck.

When he could speak again, he said, “What I want to know is, if it wasn't for our brand-new car, why would he take my pregnant wife?”

4:30 P.M.

Didi felt parched from the inside out. She was so thirsty she felt she could drink blood. The baby was hiccuping. That lucky baby, she thought. He's drinking the amniotic fluid. He's thirsty too, my little guy. We'll be okay, she thought, trying to feel braver.

“Lyle,” she said carefully. “Could we stop for a drink? You did promise.”

“Yes, Didi,” he said. “You don't have to remind me. I said I would and I'm as good as my word.”

Silence. Oh, so the kidnapper keeps his promises, thought Didi. That's nice.

“But Didi, Arizona,” he said. “Didn't you promise me a kiss?”

Fear enfolding her, Didi wanted to say, but Lyle, you idiot, you didn't get it right. She only said, “Lyle, I can't. I'm a happily married woman. And didn't you say you were married yourself?”

He said, “Didi, I'm counting—this is the third time you've brought up my wife.” And then, putting his strong hand on her leg, he added insinuatingly, “You didn't seem to mind when I kissed you in front of those ladies in the parking lot.”

“I minded very much, and you know that,” she said, shifting away from him. “I'm married.”

“I'm sure your husband won't mind,” Lyle said.

“You don't know my husband. He's a very jealous man,” she said, looking longingly at another rest-stop sign. “Please, can we stop? I need to go to the bathroom, and I'm very thirsty.”

“Don't move away from me, Didi,” Lyle said to her, his friendly tone disappearing. “I like it when you sit real close and I can talk to you. We have a long way to go, and I don't want to be reaching halfway across the car to touch you. Move closer to me.”

Didi didn't move.

He reached out and patted the Belly. She recoiled from him, turning her body toward the door. She thought that nothing could be worse than his touching her pregnant belly.

Groaning throatily, Lyle grabbed her breast very hard, squeezing it, then slapping it roughly. She cried out.

He pushed her away with one hand and laughed. “Look at that,” he said, staring at the road, trying to keep the car in one lane. “We had our first fight.”

Strangely, after that he ignored her. Didi sat with her arms enveloped around herself, worriedly wanting to feel the baby kick to make sure he or she was all right. She looked out the window and hoped for another rest stop.

Didi tried to beam good Christian thoughts to Lyle but couldn't feel his soul in the car. When she was in church and praying, she felt happy and whole, because she could feel souls surrounding her. In Lyle's car, Didi felt alone.

Why isn't he stopping to call? she wondered. Why isn't he having me call and say he wants a million dollars for me, pay up? Of course, what would her poor husband do with that information? Where could he possibly get that kind of money?

Didi didn't want to think about it.

Lyle had turned up the radio and was humming a country tune, tapping the steering wheel, acting as relaxed and friendly as he had in the mall.

As they neared Waco, Didi watched the fields swim by in a blur. The heat in the car was making her dizzy. She blinked the sweat out of her eyes, and when she looked outside the window again, she thought she saw Amanda and Irene playing on the grass on the shoulder. She whispered their names,
Manda, Reenie,
blinked, and they were gone, nothing but parched grass.

Lyle spoke. “Why did your parents name you Desdemona, Arizona?” She thought he was like a mean kid with good ammunition. A kid in the playground himself constantly taunted now took it out on the wimpy new kid in school. Name-calling, finger-pointing, laughing.

“Why?” he repeated.

Glad he was in better spirits, she answered him. “Because it's my mother's name and my grandmother's name. Just a name passed down through generations. I think my great-grandmother was a Shakespearean scholar, and
Othello
was her favorite play.”

He said nothing as he drove.

Trying to sound cheerful, Didi said, “So what's your wife's name?” Calling on his better nature. His married nature.

He was silent so long that she thought he wouldn't answer her, but then he said, “I told you. Melanie.”

“Melanie. That's a pretty name.”

“My wife is pretty.”

“I'm sure she is,” said Didi.

“Too pretty,” said Lyle. “And she knows it.”

Didi blanked at the turn of the conversation, but then Lyle smiled at her and said. “You're not too pretty, Didi.”

She said nothing.

“Is your husband pleased you're not too pretty?”

“My husband?” she repeated vacantly. “I'm not sure how to answer that. Are you not pleased that your wife is pretty?”

“Not too pleased,” he admitted. “I wish she was less—you know—” He fell quiet and then said, “She dresses up too nice when we go out.”

“Oh, yeah? Where do you guys go?”

“Nowhere special,” Lyle replied evasively. “We just go for a little drink at night. Sometimes we dance and stuff. Have some buffalo wings.”

“That sounds like fun,” Didi said. “Didn't you say she just had a baby?”

“When did I say that?” he said brusquely.

Didi tried to recall. “I think at the yogurt place when I first saw you.”

“I don't remember saying that,” he said, frowning.

The pit in Didi's stomach widened. “Never mind then,” she said. “I'm probably mixing you up with someone else.”

On the radio, the announcer gave a short news wrap-up and said, “Headline news in fifteen minutes.”

4:45 P.M.

Rich was sunk into a wooden bench outside Chief Murphy's office when he saw Lopez and Murphy walking quickly toward him accompanied by a black man in a crisp white shirt, khaki dress slacks, and a wide purple-and-orange tie—a funky dresser, Rich immediately thought. Can this guy be serious?

“Rich, I want you to meet Scott Somerville, from the FBI,” said Murphy, adding with a sideways glance, “Scott says he will be in charge of this case.”

Rich listlessly shook Scott's hand. Scott had an unusually firm handshake. He pumped Rich's hand, and when he let go, Rich's hand buzzed.

Rich noticed that Scott was shorter and much broader than he, but he especially noticed Scott's brown eyes, because they beamed with enthusiasm. “That's right,” Scott said, his electric gaze boring into Rich. “I will be in charge of this case.” He slapped Rich's shoulder. “I know you're hurting, man. I'm here to get your wife back, okay?”

Rich felt a little better. “You got here all the way from D.C.?”

“Nah,” Scott said, furiously chewing on a piece of gum. “The Bureau has field offices all over the U.S. I'm a field officer in Dallas.”

“Oh yeah?” Rich said weakly. “Have any experience in kidnapping?”

Scott put a steady hand on Rich's shoulder. “It's my job. Trust me.”

Rich said nothing. Scott watched him carefully for a few moments.

He felt all their stares on him. Rich saw Scott staring at him with an inquisitive, serious, slightly suspicious expression. It was the same expression that the chief had earlier leveled on him. Only Juan's gaze was sympathetic. What the hell was going on?

“What?” Rich said. “Why are you guys staring at me as if I'm the sixth guy at a lineup?”

Scott said nothing for a moment, and then asked, “So, tell us again how you knew this guy took your wife.”

“What are you talking about? What do you mean?” Rich was so exasperated and raw with emotion that it took him a little while to understand. “Hey—” he stammered in disbelief. “Hey—wait a second, what the hell are you asking me?”

“Just a question,” Scott said politely. “I'm just a little vague on the whole thing. Something about a pretzel bag?”

“Oh my God.” Rich wanted to pull his hair out. “Don't you—haven't we got better things to do than to question me? What's the matter? Out of leads so soon? Am I not acting enough like the bereaved husband?”

Chief Murphy and Scott continued to stare at Rich. Only Juan lowered his gaze. “Juan? What's going on, man?”

“Just standard procedure,” Juan mumbled.

“There's a lot that seems to be standard procedure around here,” exclaimed Rich. “Tell me, is it standard to have a young pregnant woman abducted from a shopping mall? Huh?”

No one said anything. Finally Rich said in a slow, flat voice, “I found the pretzel bag that belonged to my wife. I knew it was my wife's because I smelled her hand lotion on the bag.”

“If she put it on in the morning, it must have been very faint,” noted Scott in a casual voice.

Rich got defensive anyway. “Okay, so? It was faint, yes. You wouldn't have been able to recognize the smell, certainly. And if it smelled of someone else's wife, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. But it smelled of
my
wife. Of all the people in the world, don't you think
I
would know that?”

Scott nodded, exchanging a glance with Chief Murphy. “Sure, of course.” He nodded again. “Let's not worry about this anymore,” he said to the chief. “I'll take care of it.”

“Take care of what?” Rich said, even though Scott was not talking to him.

Suddenly Scott's expression changed. “God help you if you're lying to us. If you're lying to
me.
”

“Oh, for Christ's sake! Look, give me a damn lie detector test if you have to. I'm telling you the God's honest truth. Every minute you're standing here interrogating me, he's one mile farther away from us.”

Scott and Chief Murphy stared at each other for a moment, and then Scott nodded slightly. He tilted his head to one side and smiled at Rich. “All right, man,” he said in a comforting voice. “The spouse is always under suspicion at first. Standard procedure. Listen, even when you think we're not working, we're working. I'm on the job five minutes and we may already have a small breakthrough.”

Rich's eyes brightened. “Breakthrough?” he said.

Scott lifted his hand. “Now, don't get your hopes up.”

Blood rushing to his face, Rich said, “God, what, what?”

“Well, this is what we have. At three thirty-five, ten miles south of Dallas on Thirty-five E, a report came in on police radio from a lady about a disturbance in the car next to her. She called nine-one-one on her cell phone.”

“What kind of disturbance? What did she say?” Rich's heart pounded in his chest.

“She said that she was driving her car minding her own business, when she noticed that in the car to the left of her a woman was turned to the window while the driver, a man, was hitting her with an object.”

“Oh God,” said Rich, and thought,
maybe that's not Didi.

“The lady said,” Scott continued, “that the woman looked young and had long brown hair. The woman was saying something through the window, but the lady couldn't make out what it was. She also said the woman was holding her hands up to the window as if in prayer, so she might have been saying something like ‘please' or ‘help me.'”

“Oh my God,” Rich said, his fists helplessly clenched.

“We don't know anything for sure, you understand?” Scott said.

Rich noted that Juan and Chief Murphy had said nothing during the conversation. Scott had a cocksure and intimidating manner that didn't allow for interjection.

“It could have been some couple having a domestic fight,” Scott said. “It does happen, you know.”

Rich knew it happened. But he had to believe it was his wife and his wife was alive. That was the most important thing. Not knowing what had happened to his wife was the unbearable part. Not knowing if she was all right.

Had Scott said 3:35? What time had Rich called the cell phone? It had been about three-thirty.

The relief flooded out, replaced by weights that dragged him deeper into despair.

He realized that finding out that Didi was alive in a car with a man who was hitting her with an object was not great news, but she was alive. And so long as she was alive, there was hope.