Ding Dong Dead

47

Mr. B. didn’t answer her desperate knocks. She turned the doorknob.

Unlocked.

What a break.

If he wasn’t at home, she could still go inside and use his phone. He’d never know, and if he did, he’d understand that she’d had no choice. Gretchen opened the door cautiously, not wanting to startle Mr. B. if he was home. “It’s Gretchen,” she called, trying to project her voice out, but not loud enough to give her location away to Andy. “I need to use your phone.”

Gretchen quickly shut the door behind her and locked it, loving the sound of the bolt action. Then she remembered Andy’s lock-picking tool. He still had it.

Move quickly, she told herself. Although he hadn’t looked like he was in any shape to pursue her.

She looked around at the typical single older male décor, stark in contrast to what he’d accomplished with the lower banquet hall. The smell of pipe tobacco hung in the air, thick and soothing.

Gretchen moved through the apartment, still calling out softly while glancing around for a landline. A younger man might not have one in these modern days of high-tech advancement and wireless connections, but Gretchen had noticed Mr. B.’s old-fashioned mannerisms and she’d never seen him using a cell phone.

He’d have a landline phone in his house.

The small kitchen and living area didn’t produce one.

The door to the only other room in the apartment was closed. She tapped. Nothing from inside.

Slowly she turned the handle.

What would he think if he came home and found her inside, searching through his house? How embarrassing would that be?

Gretchen poked her head inside. His bedroom. Drawn blinds on the windows kept the room cast in darkness, but she could tell that it wasn’t occupied at the moment. She flipped a switch on the wall next to the door and an overhead light came on.

There had better be a phone in here or she’d have to go back down those steps and risk another encounter with Andy. That is, if she hadn’t killed him.

For good measure, she also locked the bedroom door behind her. That would slow down the professional lock picker.

The nightstand didn’t offer up a phone. Neither did the top of the dresser.

The man didn’t have a phone? What was the world coming to?

In the future, she’d be telling her children old-fashioned stories of street-side pay phones and phones with cords. If she lived to have kids.

Gretchen’s eyes lit on a glass curio cabinet in the corner that she hadn’t noticed at first. She walked over, peered in-and sucked in her breath in surprise.

The cabinet contained rocks, a fairly sizeable collection. Each specimen had an identification tag attached to it.

Gretchen opened the curio and picked up a rock. Read the tag.

Exchanged it for another. Read another tag.

And another.

The rocks had long complex names that she couldn’t pronounce, let alone decipher. Granodiorite, gabbro, anaorthosite gneiss.

And every one of them had a place of origin neatly printed underneath the name.

Cairo.

Jericho.

Zimbabwe.

The same exotic places she’d daydreamed about. The travel stickers had come from these faraway cities. They had been placed lovingly on a doll’s travel trunk by a young girl named Flora.

Gretchen had found John Swilling’s rock collection.