A Call from Rockford (A Snap Malek Mystery) Read online

  The morning was crisp and sunny as I headed northwest through Elmhurst and Elgin, and on into farming country. I pulled off the road in the small town of Marengo for gas.

  "Howdy, partner," an old coot in soiled coveralls said as he limped out of the filling station. "Fill 'er up for ya?"

  I nodded as he cranked the rusted pump that dispensed regular gas. "Where ya headed for, friend?" he asked.

  When I told him, he ran a gnarled hand through wispy gray hair and said, "Lord, I hain't-a been to Rockford in years, a darn sight too big a place for my taste. Yes siree!" I began to realize the coot had seen at least one Gabby Hayes movie too many.

  "By any chance do you have a map of Rockford?" I asked after he finished filling the tank and was wiping my windshield.

  "Got one ya can look at, but ah'm afraid it's all we have here. We keep it handy 'cause all sorts of folks stop to ask about how to git around that there town." I followed him inside, and he spread the map out on a table. I knew the intersection where the restaurant was and quickly pointed to it, on the east side of the city.

  "Shoot, that's an easy one, Lad. It's jest a block offa this very road," the coot said. "You could find it with your eyes closed."

  I thanked him and got back on the highway, winding through more of the gently hilly farmland dotted with clusters of black-and-white cows and the occasional brown barn with a 'Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco' sign painted on the side. Some minutes later a sign welcomed me to "Rockford, The Forest City," although there didn't seem to be any forests around. The old fellow in the gas station was right, though. I found the corner café with no trouble. My wrist watch read three minutes before 10.

  I pushed open the door and looked to my right as instructed. A triangular, dark-eyed face beneath a gray flat cap set down his coffee cup and nodded in my direction from a window booth. I walked over and slid in opposite him.

  "Mr. Blake," I said to the skinny man, who could have been anywhere from forty-five to sixty.

  "Mr. Malek," he answered, nodding. "And right on time. That's a good start."

  I ordered coffee from a teen-aged waitress. "Now, tell me about this girl."

  He flashed a humorless smile. "Not so fast, mister newspaperman. On the phone, we talked about money, if you recall."

  I reached into my billfold and pulled out a twenty, laying it on the pearlized Formica surface between us.

  Blake leaned forward, dark eyes wide. "That's it? That's all? A measly double sawbuck?"

  I leaned forward, sticking out my jaw and speaking in a low, measured tone, spacing the words for emphasis. "Listen, and listen carefully. I could walk over to that pay phone by the door and have some Rockford cops here in minutes. They'd charge you with withholding information on a missing persons case, which is a felony. And if you tried walking out of here while I was on the phone, I'd make sure you didn't make it. Read me?"

  Blake, if that was his name, licked his lips but said nothing.

  "The money stays right where it is on the table, while you tell me what you know. Start now!"

  He snorted and looked down at the greenback on the tabletop. "The girl you're looking for, she's living just a few blocks from here."

  "How do you know?"

  "The timing, for one thing. The woman she's staying with says the girl's a niece who moved here a few weeks back from someplace out west, Montana maybe. The girl doesn't look like the picture that ran in the paper now, but I'm pretty sure it's her."

  "Oh! So now it's 'pretty sure,' is it?"

  Blake fidgeted at his seat. "She showed up just about the time the one back in Chicago disappeared."

  "It was Oak Park."

  "Yeah, okay, Oak Park. Anyway, I'd lay a bet that's she's the one."

  "All right, but before you grab for the money, tell me where I can find this woman," I snarled, pulling a notebook from my pocket. "And I want your name, address, and phone number."

  "Why the hell for?" he asked querulously.

  "I like to know who I'm dealing with, that's why. Now show me your drivers' license, Goddammit!"

  He shook his head but pulled out the license and slapped it down on the table. Sure enough, his name was Blake, Marcus G. Blake. I took down his address and demanded his phone number, which he gave me. "And if you don't believe me, it's in the directory," he muttered.

  "All right, now the address where this woman lives–and her name," I demanded. He gave it all to me and told me how to get there.

  "Okay, you can take the money now," I said. "And I'll even pick up the bill for your coffee." I got up and left the booth without a backward glance. I'd seen all I wanted to of Mr. Marcus Blake.

  * * *

  The house was a modest and pleasant-looking story-and-a-half bungalow on a tree-lined street with similar homes. I climbed the six steps to the front stoop with its metal awning and rang the bell.

  An attractive woman of about forty with sandy hair beginning to go gray opened the door. "Are you Mrs. Adkins?" I asked, smiling.

  "Yes, I'm Anne Adkins, why?" She did not return the smile.

  "My name is Malek, Steve Malek, from the Chicago Tribune," I told her, holding out the press card with my mug shot on it. "I'd like to talk to you."

  "What about?"

  "May I come in?"

  She nodded reluctantly and held the aluminum storm door for me to enter. We went into a small, neat living room and sat. "Mrs. Adkins, I understand that you have a niece living here with you, as of the last month or so."

  "May I ask what concern that is of yours?" she asked. Despite the wording of the question, there was no hostility in her tone.

  "It has been suggested to me that this girl is not your niece at all, but rather a girl named Patricia Wallace, who recently disappeared from Oak Park, where she had been living with her parents."

  Mrs. Adkins studied her lap for a half-minute before speaking. "I recognized your name, of course, from the story."

  "Yes, from the story. Do you read the Tribune regularly?"

  "Oh, no, only since…since she was reported missing. I've read it every day since then. Are you here to take her away?"

  "I don't know. Why don't you tell me about it?"

  "Is this for another story in your newspaper?"

  "I don't think so. Try not to view me as the enemy."

  She fixed me with hazel eyes. "Mr. Malek, I have just one child, a daughter, Grace. She is the same age as, as Patty, who we call Laura now, Laura Mitchell. The two went to violin camp in Michigan last summer and almost instantly became best friends. After they got home from the camp, they wrote each other several times a week, and even talked on the phone occasionally. Grace has never had such a good friend before." She paused to swallow. "Can I get you some coffee?"

  I shook my head. "Please go on."

  "Well, about six weeks ago, the letters from Patty began to upset Grace, but she wouldn't tell me why, and I make it a policy not to pry into my daughter's life. And then, one day, Patty just appeared at our door, and I found out what the problem was."

  "She just showed up here? Unannounced?"

  Mrs. Adkins nodded. "After school one day, she took what you call an elevated train into downtown Chicago and got a Greyhound bus to Rockford. And then she walked to our house, over two miles! She had even packed a couple of changes of clothes in her gym bag and brought her violin with her."

  I was dumbfounded. "Why did she come?"

  "Because of her father. Because he had done things to–"

  "That's hard to believe," I interrupted, not wanting to hear the rest of the sentence.

  "Believe it," she stated firmly. "I've taken her to see our doctor. This is not the wild imagination of some overly dramatic adolescent."

  "My God. As far as you know, had this been going on for long?"

  "Close to a year, she said, and it finally got so that she had to get away. I'm surprised she didn't run sooner."

  "What about her mother?"

  "Patty tried to tell her what was going on,
but she wouldn't believe it–or didn't want to."

  "So now she lives here, with a new identity. You've taken a lot onto yourself."

  "I'm a widow, Mr. Malek. My dear husband operated heavy road-grading equipment. A little over a year ago, the big machine he was driving broke an axle and rolled over. Larry was killed instantly. The only good that came from it is that the insurance and benefits are very generous, enough so that I will live comfortably for the rest of my life and Grace will be able to attend college. And Laura too, depending…"

  "I have to ask this: How are you going to keep people from knowing Patty's, or Laura's, identity? And can your daughter keep the secret?"

  "I know Grace will never give Laura away. She loves her too much. In fact, Laura's–Patty's–mother actually called here a few weeks ago, to ask if we had heard anything from her daughter. I know it was hard for Grace to lie, but she told Mrs. Wallace that she hadn't gotten a letter or a call from Patty for quite some time. And you might not like to hear this, but I was proud of Grace for that."

  Anne Adkins looked as if she might have to stop, but she pushed on. "I am at your mercy, Mr. Malek. I know very well that you could have her sent back to her parents in an instant, but now I see no reason to keep anything from you. She is enrolled in the same school Grace goes to–as Laura Mitchell. She moved here from a small town out in Montana after her parents, my sister and her husband, were killed in an auto accident."

  "That's quite a piece of fiction you've woven. What about her previous school records?"

  "In for a penny, in for a pound," she said ruefully. "I really do have a sister in Montana, Mr. Malek, who is very much alive, as is her husband. She works for a school district in a rural area, and she forged class records for Laura, using the district's very official-looking forms. Our school here accepted them without question and enrolled her quickly. And she has fit right in. Oh, here come the girls now," she said, looking out the picture window. "You'll get to meet them. And Laura, well…she doesn't look the same as in the picture that ran in your newspaper."

  The front door opened, and two effervescent teenagers burst in. "Hi, Mom!" the red-haired one said, then quickly halted when she saw me.

  "Hi, Sweetie, hi, Laura. Come on in and meet Mr. Malek. He's an old friend of your Dad and me from Chicago who happened to be in town," she said. I stood and smiled at them, concentrating on Laura. Her hair was blonde now, and she wore tortoise-shell framed spectacles that probably had window-pane glass in them. The transformation was marked, but I'm good with faces. I saw that the facial shape was the same and the blue eyes were the ones from the photograph.

  Both girls grinned at the stranger in the room but they were anxious to get on with their activities, which at that moment included a matinee at the neighborhood movie theater. Anne Adkins gave them each 50 cents and they went back outside, chattering and giggling.

  "I assume you found me through that viper Blake down the street," she said after they had left.

  "As a matter of fact, yes. How did you know?"

  "We ran into him at the local grocery store a week or so back, and he acted unusually interested in Laura. At first, I thought he might be some sort of pervert–he's slimy enough–but then I realized he was asking an awful lot of questions, more than is normal. Obviously, he'd seen your Tribune story–I had, too, as you now know, and it terrified me. It still does."

  "And you're worried about him talking?"

  "Of course I am, just as I'm worried about what you may do, Mr. Malek."

  "May I use your telephone? It's for a local call."

  "All right. It's in the kitchen," she said, looking uneasy.

  "Come on in with me," I told her. "I want you to hear what I'm going to say."

  She reluctantly rose and followed me. I pulled out my notebook and dialed a number. He answered on the third ring.

  "Hello, Mr. Blake. It's Steve Malek, from the Tribune." I held the receiver away from my ear, so Anne Adkins could hear both ends of the conversation.

  "Yeah, what is it?"

  "I thought I should tell you that the girl you saw is not the one in my story. You got it totally wrong. I wasted my time driving all the way out here today because of you."

  "Huh! Hey, what about my twenty bucks?"

  "Oh, calm down. You get to keep that, but if I were you, I'd be more careful in the future about what you say. It could cause a lot of people a lot of trouble." He muttered something unintelligible and hung up.

  "It was nice to have met you, Mrs. Adkins," I said, shaking her small hand.

  "Mr. Malek," she said, dipping her chin.

  I walked down the front steps of her comfortable Rockford house, like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner a wiser man, and maybe a sadder one, too

  The drive back seemed to go faster than the trip out. At home I parked on the street, and when I walked into the living room, Catherine was waiting for me.

  "How did it go?" she asked.

  "Strangely."

  "Did you see Patty?"

  "Yes, only for a minute. I doubt you would recognize her now."

  "Why?"

  "She looks different–not at all bad, just different. And she has a new name. And a new life."

  Before I could continue, she said, "It was her father, wasn't it?"

  I looked startled, and she continued. "Remember, Steve, I was abused, too, by an uncle. I had a suspicion about Wallace all along. I just didn't want to believe it."

  "I'll be damned," I said, proceeding to tell her everything that had happened in the venerable river town of Rockford that morning.

  After I finished, Catherine looked at me anxiously. "What are you going to do now, Steve?"

  "The very same thing, my dearest, that you would do in my place," I said, falling into my favorite chair and pressing my palms over my eyes. I was exhausted after 140 miles behind the wheel of the old Ford.

  Also available from Robert Goldsbrough

  Snap Malek Mysteries

  Three Strikes You’re Dead

  Book One

  Shadow of the Bomb

  Book Two

  A Death In Pilsen

  Book Three

  A President in Peril

  Book Four

  Snap Malek Shorts

  One Eyed Man on the Elevated

  Robert Goldsborough spent his early teens complaining that he had "nothing to do." One day, his mother, an avid reader of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries, she gave him a magazine serialization, and he became hooked on the adventures of the corpulent Nero and his irreverent sidekick, Archie Goodwin. The rest is history.

  Goldsborough took pen to paper and when it was all said and done, had written seven original Nero Wolfe books with the support of Rex Stout's estate.

  As much as he enjoyed writing those mysteries, Robert Goldsborough longed to create his own characters. He has done just that with his Snap Malek mystery series, including Three Strikes You're Dead, Shadow of the Bomb, A Death in Pilsen, and the soon to be released A President In Peril.

  Goldsborough, a lifelong Chicagoan who logged twenty-one years with the Tribune and twenty-three years with the trade journal Advertising Age, says it was "Probably inevitable that I would end up using a newspaperman as my protagonist."

  Visit his web site at

  www.robertgoldsborough.com