Rock Bottom (Imogene Museum Mystery #1) Read online

  Ahh.

  I held the door open for them and wondered if Mac realized how transparent he was. I was also pretty sure Pete Sills didn’t care one iota what other people thought of his appearance, and his beard was most certainly not for my benefit. If he’d asked, I would have told him I preferred clean-shaven men. Scratchy neck nuzzles aren’t my thing.

  “Makes sense to me,” I answered. “What about your hands, though? When my hands are cold, I get clumsier. You’ll want to keep your remaining digits intact.”

  Mac flushed brightly like the latent redhead he apparently is and said, “I have all of my digits.”

  I shook my head. “Digits are fingers and toes.”

  “Oh. In that case, I have nineteen and a half out of twenty.”

  I left him doing the math and ducked down a hall and around a corner to grab a transit cart of chamber pots. I wheeled it into the freight elevator beside the first two cases.

  On the way up, Mac said, “So, on a scale from one to ten, I’m a 9.5.” He elbowed me and winked. “Not bad, eh?”

  I tried to laugh it off, but the sound came out more like the noise old Amos Stanley makes when he hawks loogies and spits on the sidewalk in front of God and everyone, especially ladies. He also clears a path through the earwax by inserting an index finger and waggling it vigorously, but that’s beside the point. At least old Amos hadn’t asked me out yet.

  “Nice and easy,” Ford crooned.

  The guys wrangled the cases into place and left to get the others while I started arranging chamber pots. I couldn’t remember the exact sequence, so I dashed upstairs for the description cards, my leg muscles reminding me of yesterday’s long hike.

  The phone rang just as I opened my office door.

  “Hello?” I answered, breathless.

  The red message light was flashing. Since when did I get messages on my work line?

  “Ah, we speak at last.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “This is Dr. Clyde Elroy. I believe you are supervising the internship of one of my students, Greg Boykin?”

  “Yes, I am.” What of it, I wanted to say, but held my tongue for Greg’s sake. His adviser sounded pinched and nasal, like he was looking down his nose just to talk on the phone.

  “I wanted to know if you’re requiring overtime of Greg without my permission.”

  And Greg thought I should meet this guy. Huh.

  “Well, he did come early on Thursday, but that was because he wanted to. We received a new collection —”

  “I mean yesterday and so far today,” Dr. Elroy cut me off.

  “No, I gave Greg Sunday off since he worked so hard —”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  I gritted my teeth. His rudeness was off the chart. “He should be in Corvallis, attending classes as usual.”

  “He missed his weekly four o’clock meeting with me yesterday, and he’s not answering his phone.”

  Maybe he got fed up with your snobbishness, I thought.

  “I checked with his other professors. He did not attend his classes yesterday or today.”

  Okay, that was a problem. “As far as I know, he left here on Sunday, possibly even earlier than normal since he had no commitments here at the museum.”

  “And as far as I know, he never arrived here,” Dr. Elroy answered.

  “Have you called his parents, his friends?”

  “His mother is next on my list. I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily.”

  I exhaled. “I see. While you do that, I’ll call the lady he rents a room from to see if she knows what time he left.”

  “Thank you.” Dr. Elroy clicked off.

  My knees wobbled, and I dropped into the chair. Greg was nothing if not reliable. The thought of his Prius mangled against a concrete barrier along I-5 made my stomach cramp.

  “Please, no. Please, no,” I whispered as I flipped through the county White Pages booklet looking for Betty Jenkins’ number. Hoping the E stood for Elizabeth, I dialed. The other options were T and O.

  “Hello?” A sweet, light voice answered.

  “Betty? Mrs. Jenkins? This is Meredith Morehouse from the Imogene Museum. Is Greg still there?”

  “Oh, no, honey. He left early on Sunday, right after —”

  Her last few words were drowned out by loud rumbling that had to be a freight train. We waited a solid two minutes until it was quiet enough to speak again.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “Right after breakfast. He’s such a kind boy. He helped me wash the dishes then left in that tiny car of his.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “Oh, no, dear. He always goes back to school on Sundays.”

  “Did he leave anything in his room, as though he was going out but would come back?”

  “I don’t know about that. I told him he could leave his things here during the week. No sense in packing them away every time since he’s my only lodger. I clean his room, but I don’t disturb his things. He doesn’t usually leave much.”

  “Oh, I know,” I said. “You take good care of him. His professor called. It seems Greg didn’t make it back to school on Sunday. Did he say anything to you about stopping along the way home?”

  “Oh dear. No. I’m afraid I rattled on about this and that, and he didn’t say much at all.”

  “Do you remember anything he did say?”

  “Just polite things like, ‘Let me help you with that.’”

  “All right. I need to go now, Mrs. Jenkins. I’ll call you if I hear anything.”

  “Okay, sweetie. Oh dear.”

  I found Dr. Elroy’s phone number from caller ID and dialed. “His landlady says he left Sunday morning right after breakfast.”

  “His mother hasn’t heard from him since last week. And then she panicked on me.” Dr. Elroy sighed. “Obviously, I don’t have his friends’ phone numbers. I will notify the Oregon State Police. They have an office here on campus, and they could check his apartment.”

  I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll call the county sheriff. She’s a friend.” I took a deep breath. “We’ll find him.”

  “Greg is one of my best students, you know.”

  “I’m not surprised.” I liked Dr. Elroy better now. After giving him my cell phone number, I hung up and called Sheriff Marge.

  “Where are you?” Sheriff Marge asked when I finished explaining.

  “At the museum.”

  “Stay there. I’m going to put out a missing person report, then I’ll pick you up. We need to have a look at his room at Betty’s.”

  My stomach was doing the cramping thing again. Sheriff Marge’s voice was all business, which meant she thought it was serious.

  “Greg’s Prius is silver, isn’t it?” Sheriff Marge asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Know the license number?”

  “No.” The word strangled my throat.

  “I’ll check with OSP.”

  I was still staring at my phone when Mac tapped softly on the open door.

  “We have all the cases in place,” he said. “Want to come inspect?”

  “Oh, Mac.” My eyes welled up, and I squeezed them shut. I hate crying. It would be even worse in front of Mac. “Greg’s missing.”

  “You sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Aw, he’s probably off cavorting. He’s a young guy.” Mac said it like he had outgrown that distant phase of his history. He patted my shoulder.

  I took a deep breath and followed Mac downstairs to the exhibit bedroom where Ford was dusting the new cases with his sleeve.

  “As usual, Mac, they’re wonderful.”

  “I rigged the lights in all the cases to one switch.” Mac pointed at Ford who flipped the switch and grinned.

  “Perfect. Thank you.” I tried to smile. “I have to go with Sheriff Marge now, so I’m going to lock the room until I have a chance to arrange the exhibit. Sorry to cut it s
hort, guys.”

  “Sheriff Marge goin’ to arrest you?” Ford asked.

  “No, we’re looking for Greg.”

  “Uh-oh.” Ford said. Having the sheriff looking for you was a bad thing in his world.

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  Mac watched me lock up then squeezed my elbow. “There are lots of reasons Greg might not be in contact for a few days,” he said. “He’ll turn up. But if Sheriff Marge wants to launch a search, tell her I’m in.”

  “Thanks, Mac.”

  I remembered the flashing light on my phone and ran back to my office. All the messages, four of them, were from Dr. Elroy earlier, ranging from “please call me at your convenience” to “call me immediately.” He was more worried than he had let on. I knew every minute counted with missing persons. And, if Greg had been in an accident on Sunday, we were already into Day Three — way past counting hours, let alone minutes.

  CHAPTER 6

  I paced along the sidewalk in front of the museum, mind racing. Maybe Mac was right — maybe Greg was on a spontaneous road trip. But he would never miss an appointment with his adviser without at least calling to cancel ahead of time. Greg was way too responsible to forget a regular appointment. So he was sick, or injured, or — no, I refused to consider worse possibilities.

  A dirty white Ford Explorer with a light bar on top and county logo on the front doors zipped down the tree-lined driveway and charged toward the museum. Sheriff Marge skidded to a stop and leaned over to pop open the passenger door. The SUV’s suspension was shot, and it was still bouncing as I climbed in and buckled up.

  “Good news — no accidents reported involving a Toyota Prius since Thursday on the main route between here and Corvallis,” Sheriff Marge announced. “One in Madras and one outside Spokane, neither silver.”

  “What about non-main routes?”

  “Nothing reported. If he was in a single car accident and went off the road into a ravine where no one driving by can see him, well then —” Sheriff Marge didn’t finish the thought. “We can’t search everywhere. It’s nearly 200 miles. Which is why we’re going to look through his stuff for clues as to where he might have gone.” She gunned the Explorer onto the highway. “You with me on this, Meredith? I need your brain in gear.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” I balled my right hand into a fist and clamped my left hand around it to keep them from trembling.

  If my nerves were taut when I got in the Explorer, they were a fraction away from fraying through when Sheriff Marge slammed on the brakes in Betty Jenkins’ potholed driveway.

  Something about Sheriff Marge’s girth had kept her firmly grounded behind the wheel, but I was slung from side to side against the lap belt as Sheriff Marge cornered going 50 and jounced the old battleship over roads that hadn’t seen a paving crew in a decade. I actually rose off the seat at one point and felt my hair brush the roof. I braced a foot against the dashboard and clung to the door handle. If the county couldn’t afford a new four-wheel drive police cruiser, they should at least install five-point harnesses in the ones they had.

  Betty came rushing out at the sound of crunching gravel and stood swathed in a ruffled floral apron, wringing her hands. “Did you find him?” Her voice warbled.

  I clung to the side mirror for a few seconds to steady my legs before venturing toward Betty’s porch. Solid ground had never felt so good. I’d even forgotten about Greg for a few minutes, but at first sight of Betty, worry, bordering on panic, flooded over me.

  “Not yet,” Sheriff Marge answered, “but we will. We need to look at his room.”

  “Wasn’t he going home?”

  “Could be. But we have to think about all the possibilities.”

  I caught Betty under the elbow as her knees sagged and helped her onto the creaking porch swing.

  “Oh dear,” the old lady murmured. “I talked and talked Sunday morning to cheer him up. Maybe he would have told me what he was planning if I hadn’t been such a chatter box.”

  Sheriff Marge squatted beside the swing. “Was Greg sad, depressed?”

  Betty nodded, her silver pony tail bobbing against her back. “Sad. Anxious maybe. That young lady he’s fond of —”

  “Angie,” I said.

  “Yes, that’s the one,” Betty said. “He was worried she may have found someone else, someone — I forget — some foreign name.”

  “Lorenzo.” The word came out like a snarl. I even startled myself. The other women looked at me in surprise. “But they’re in Turkey. He can’t drive there.”

  “I think he felt like he disappointed his girlfriend, wasn’t enough to impress her,” Betty added. “I tried to tell him that sometimes it’s best if things don’t work out the way you want, because sometimes what you want isn’t best, but you can’t tell right away. I told him all about my first engagement which broke off when I met Roland.” Betty dabbed her eyes. “Oh dear. Maybe that wasn’t helpful.”

  Sheriff Marge said, “I could really use a cup of coffee.”

  “Oh, how thoughtless of me! Of course.” Betty scurried into the kitchen.

  Sheriff Marge and I followed her into the worn but cozy little room crowded with a dinette table and four chairs from the 1950s. Cracked linoleum the color of speckled parchment covered the floor. Narrow counters flanked the walls, and an ancient refrigerator wheezed in the far corner. Betty filled an aluminum percolator-style electric coffee pot at a deep farm sink that my old friends would have fought over to put in their own designer homes.

  “Greg’s room is down the hall, Betty?” Sheriff Marge asked, already sidling into the narrow opening.

  “Second door on the right,” Betty called.

  The eyes of Betty’s extended family followed me from their picture frames jam-packed on the hallway walls. I had to be careful not to brush any of them with my shoulders. I stepped into the cramped bedroom and peered around Sheriff Marge.

  A narrow bed with a crocheted coverlet cut the room in half. It looked shorter than normal. Greg probably had to sleep with his knees pulled up. A small desk with an alarm clock and lamp fit between the bed and the far wall. A metal folding chair was pushed against the wall in front of the desk, a pile of books on the seat.

  Across from the foot of the bed, a maple dresser sported an antique wash basin and pitcher. I leaned in to examine them. The transferware design might be the same as one of the chamber pots in the new collection. A matched set. Maybe Betty would loan them to the museum.

  I caught my reflection in the mirror above the dresser — my face was ghastly pale — and my mind jerked back to the reason I was in Greg’s room.

  Sheriff Marge pulled on the glass knob of the slender closet door. A handful of empty wire hangers hung on the rod. A couple of plastic tubs on the floor held what looked like Betty’s stash of hand-knit baby sweaters, hats and blankets ready for the next several newborns in town.

  I wriggled around to the desk. The books on the chair were mine, the ones Greg had borrowed. I moved them to the bed and sat on the chair.

  I opened the right-hand desk drawer and came up with a number two pencil and a half-inch stack of standard-ruled notebook paper. The left drawer held a stapler, a couple petrified rubber bands and a small 1998 calendar from Brown’s Insurance Agency.

  Bending in half, I looked under the desk. Yep, an outlet. Greg would have done all of his work on his laptop. The garbage can was empty.

  The room’s bleakness settled on my shoulders. Greg didn’t really live here, hadn’t left any of himself here. I wondered at his nomad life, the temporary shelters. And with his girlfriend out of the country, he had to be lonely. Where would a lonely single young guy go?

  My eyes widened, and I impulsively shook my head to delete the unbidden thought that popped into my mind. Greg’s character was impeccable, and he was clearly smitten with Angie. He wouldn’t keep additional female companionship on the side. I gritted my teeth. I hate when my history rears up to taint others. Not every man is like my ex-fi
ancé.

  The floor began to vibrate. Within seconds, the deafening roar of a freight train filled the house. Sheriff Marge worked the strings to pull up the Venetian blinds on the high window above the bed. We could see the top foot or so of loaded coal cars flashing by. The tracks were probably fifty feet away, but they might as well have been in the room.

  Sheriff Marge pulled out dresser drawers, stacking them neatly on the bed. They, as well as the interior cavity of the dresser, were empty. There were no manila envelopes taped to the underside of the drawers, not that I expected any. Greg wasn’t a spy or a mob informer; he was a graduate student.

  If Greg had revealed his worries about his fickle girlfriend to Betty, then he wasn’t a secret-keeper either. That surprised me. He’d been reluctant to tell me about Angie. Maybe he trusted Betty more than he trusted me. I frowned. Had I let him down? Probably. Too absorbed in ancient artifacts to pay much attention to the people right in front of me. I wished I had the lunch at the Burger Basket to do over — really all of Friday and Saturday, knowing now it was the last time I’d seen him.

  Betty appeared in the doorway with a tray of coffee mugs. She looked like the quintessential grandmother. Anyone would trust her, including Greg. She slid the tray onto the dresser next to the wash basin and watched us replace the drawers. The train whistle blasted at an intersection a mile away and the rumble faded.

  “When did you clean the room, Betty?” Sheriff Marge lifted the edge of the mattress.

  “Sunday, after church. I like to do it right away. Oh dear.”

  “It’s alright, Betty. You had no way of knowing.”

  “Was there anything in the garbage can?” I felt bad for asking. Poor Betty — she was being subjected to a housekeeping inspection in her own home.

  “A few scraps of paper, some tissues.” Betty answered.

  “When’s your garbage pickup?” Sheriff Marge asked.

  “Tomorrow. But the papers are gone. I burned them in the wood stove, like I usually do. No sense clogging the landfill with that. Oh dear.” Betty sat on the bed and covered her face with her hands.