Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum 8)

“I was a terrible student. Somehow the state managed to educate me in spite of myself. Did you go to college?”

“Rutgers, Newark. Joined the army after two years.”

When I first met Ranger I would have been surprised by this. Now, nothing surprised me about Ranger.

“The last woman on the list should be at work, but her husband should be at home,” Ranger said. “He works food service for the university and goes in at four. The guy's name is Harold Bailey. His wife's name is Louise.”

We wound our way through a neighborhood of older homes. They were mostly two-story clapboards with the front porch stretching the width of the house and a single detached garage to the rear. They weren't big, and they weren't small. Many had been badly renovated with fake brick front or add-on front rooms made by enclosing the porch.

We parked and approached the Bailey house. Ranger rang the bell and, just as expected, a man answered the door. Ranger introduced himself and handed the man the photographs.

“We're looking for Evelyn Soder,” Ranger said. “We were hoping you might be able to help. Have you seen any of these people in the last couple days?”

“Why are you looking for this Soder woman?”

“Her ex-husband has been killed. Evelyn has been moving around lately, and her grandmother has lost touch with her. She'd like to make sure Evelyn knows about the death.”

“She was here with Dotty last night. They came just as I was leaving. They stayed overnight and left in the morning. I didn't see much of them. And I don't know where they were off to today. They were taking the little girls on some sort of field trip. Historical places. That sort of thing. Louise might know more. You could try reaching her at work.”

We returned to the car, and Ranger took us out of the neighborhood.

“We're always one step behind,” I said.

“That's the way it is with missing children. I've worked a lot of parental abduction cases, and they move around. Usually they go farther from home. And usually they stay in one place longer than a night. But the pattern is the same. By the time information on them comes in, they're usually gone.”

“How do you catch them?”

“Persistence and patience. If you stick with it long enough, eventually you win. Sometimes it takes years.”

“Omigod, I haven't got years. I'll have to hide in the Bat Cave.”

“Once you go into the Bat Cave it's forever, babe.”

Eeek.

“Try calling the women,” Ranger said. “The work number is in the file.”

Barbara Ann and Kathy were cautious. Both admitted that they'd seen Dotty and Evelyn and knew they were also visiting Louise. Both insisted they didn't know where the women were going next. I suspected they were telling the truth. I thought it was possible Evelyn and Dotty were only thinking a day ahead. My best guess was that they'd intended to camp and for some reason that hadn't worked out. Now they were scrambling to stay hidden.

Pauline had been entirely out of the loop.

Louise was the most talkative, probably because she was also the most worried.

“They would only stay the one night,” she said. “I know what you're telling me about Evelyn's husband is true, but I know there's more. The kids were exhausted and wanted to go home. Evelyn and Dotty looked exhausted, too. They wouldn't talk about it, but I know they were running away from something. I was thinking it was Evelyn's husband, but I guess that's not it. Holy Mother of God,” she said. “You don't suppose they killed him!”

“No,” I said, “he was killed by a rabbit. One more thing, did you see the car they were driving? Were they all in one car?”

“It was Dotty's car. The blue Honda. Apparently, Evelyn had a car but it was stolen when they left it at a campground. She said they went out grocery shopping and when they came back the car and everything they owned was gone. Can you imagine?”

I gave her my home phone number and asked her to call if she thought of anything that might be helpful.

“Dead end,” I said to Ranger. “But I know why they vacated the campground.” I told him about the stolen car.

“The more likely scenario is that Dotty and Evelyn came back after shopping, saw a strange car parked next to Evelyn's, and they abandoned everything,” Ranger said.

“And when they didn't return, Abruzzi cleaned them out.”

“It's what I'd do,” Ranger said. “Anything to slow them down and make things difficult.”