The email account yielded little of interest.An offer for free paper with purchase of ink and toner from the office supply store we use, which I forwarded to Rachel.A reminder that I had a doctor’s appointment a week hence, along with a—separate—suggestion that an online order of Viagra might seriously change my sex life for the better.
My sex life is non-existent at the moment, and has been since David left me for Jackie-with-a-q.I had a strong suspicion that it would take a lot more than an order of Viagra to fix it.
I didn’t expect much from the office phone—everyone who knows me, knows my cell phone number—but when I picked it up, the canned voice told me we had a message.I pushed the button to play it back and leaned back in my chair to listen.
It took a second, and then a male voice came on.“Yeah.Um… Gina.This is… um… Steven.”
He said it as if there was a question mark at the end.I sat bolt upright in my chair as he continued.
“Steven Morton?”As if I hadn’t already figured out that part.“I know we haven’t actually met, but… um… I recognized you yesterday.And the detective.Mendoza.Diana helped him with his divorce a couple of years ago.”
Or more accurately, she’d helped Lola, Mendoza’s wife.I’m not quite sure how the two of them ended up being friends through it all.It would have made more sense for Mendoza to resent Diana.
“She’s probably worried,” Steven continued, his own voice betraying a hint of worry, too.“And I can’t call her.So I thought maybe you could tell her?—”
At that point, there was a noise in the background.Maybe a door opening?Or someone walking into the room?I heard a female voice, but not what it said.
“Nothing,” Steven said, and then the line went dead.I deduced he’d disconnected the call so the woman he was with—Anastasia?—wouldn’t realize he was talking to anyone.
If he was on his cell phone, all she had to do was check his calls to see what he’d been doing, of course.But maybe he wasn’t.
I thought about dialing *69.That’s still a thing, right?But what if the phone rang back there, and Anastasia realized that Steven had called someone last night?If she hadn’t realized it already?
So I called Mendoza instead.“Will the telephone company tell me who called me, if they didn’t leave a number?”
There was a moment’s silence while he must be sorting through my question and figuring out what I wanted.“Who called?”
“Steven,” I said.
“From where?”
“That’s what I want to know.He left a message on the office machine in the middle of the night.If he wanted to talk to me, I have no idea why he didn’t call my cell phone instead…”
“Maybe he didn’t want to talk to you,” Mendoza said.“Maybe he just wanted to leave a message.”
Maybe.
“What did he say?”
“Not much.”I repeated the few sentences Steven had said.“Here.It’s on the recording.I’ll play it back and let you listen to it yourself.”
I made sure the recording was ready to go, and then held my cell phone up to the other phone while it ran.When the recording had finished, I put the phone back to my ear.“That’s it.I guess the blonde came in at the end.Or someone did.I couldn’t make out what she said, but Steven said ‘Nothing,’ and hung up, so she probably asked what he was doing, or something like that.I have no idea what happened after that.”
“And how would you?”Mendoza said.“Did you try dialing *69?”
I told him I hadn’t.“I was afraid the phone would ring back there.And that something bad might happen.”
“Try it now.You’re on your cell phone, right?”
I was.So with that in one hand, I pushed *69 on the desk phone and waited.The phone rang, and rang, and rang.Nobody picked up.
After a minute—or maybe it only felt like a minute but was actually less—I spoke into the cell phone.“Did you hear that?”
Mendoza grunted.
“If I call the phone company, will they be able to tell me where Steven called from?Will they want to?Or is it better if you do it?”
“I’ll probably need a subpoena to access phone records,” Mendoza said.“It’s better if you ask.”
