“You could just go there in person.As long as the receptionist is female, you’ll get all the records you want.”
He didn’t respond to that.“Let me know what you find out.”
He didn’t give me time to say anything.I refrained from sticking my tongue out at the phone screen and went to dig up the number for the telephone company’s customer service line.
Getting the information I wanted took much longer than it should have, of course.I spent a long time on hold.And when someone finally answered, she said she couldn’t help me.In accented English, so Mendoza probably couldn’t have gone to where she was even if he’d wanted to.I was probably talking to India.I was tempted to ask, but instead I asked to speak to a supervisor, and spent more time on hold.When the supervisor came on—if, indeed, it was the supervisor, and not just the customer service rep in the next cubicle pretending to be the supervisor—I was annoyed.
“All I want is to know where a call came from.Someone called me last night.He started to leave a message and got cut off.I tried *69, but no one’s answering.All I want to know is where my friend called me from, so I can go there and make sure he’s all right.”
“If you’re concerned about someone’s well-being,” the supervisor said snottily, “it’s a matter for the police.”
“I’ve already spoken to the police.Specifically, Detective Jaime Mendoza with the Nashville PD.Homicide.He told me he could get a subpoena and the information, but that it would be quicker for me to get it myself.”And I wasn’t even lying.“Of course, if you want to refuse to tell me where the call to my phone originated, while my friend is lying in a pool of blood somewhere…”
An image of Griselda Grimshaw appeared, unbid and unwanted, and I ground to a halt while I tried not to imagine Steven in that same position, prone on a floor somewhere, with blood soaking his shirt.He hadn’t sounded scared last night.He hadn’t sounded like he was in danger.But of course that could have changed in the hours since he’d made the call.
And had changed, if the ransom note was real.
The supervisor heaved a long-suffering sigh, but agreed, very clearly against her will, to provide me the information I probably had the right to know.“When did the call come in?”
“Just before one this morning,” I said.“To this number.”I rattled off the office phone number and waited while she tapped buttons in the background.Eventually she came back with a number.It was local, judging by the prefix, but unfamiliar.
“Any chance you could look it up?Reverse lookup, or whatever?Find out where it belongs?”
It didn’t sound like a cell phone.Around here, they mostly start with the same few numbers, which this didn’t.
She sighed again, more deeply this time.I heard tapping.
“1843 Blackburn Drive,” she said.
“1843…” I stopped in the middle of writing it down.“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”She sounded irritated that I’d ask.Of course, she’d been sounding irritated about everything else, too.
I finished writing the address on the same piece of paper where I’d scribbled the phone number.“No chance you’re mistaken?”
“None.”She bit the word off in a way that indicated she’d like to bite me.
“I appreciate it,” I said.“Thank you for—”your time…
She’d already hung up.This time I did not contain myself, but made the worst face I could manage, right at the phone.And then I called Mendoza back.“It’s me.”
“I can see that.”
This time the background noises indicated that he was driving.
“Where are you going?”I asked.
“I’ve dropped the note off at the lab and put out the BOLO.I’m in the car, on my way to Franklin to talk to your friend.”
She wasn’t exactly my friend, and under other circumstances I would have said so.Now I had more important concerns.“You’ll have to turn around.I got through to the phone company.The call came from 1843 Blackburn Road.”
There was a beat.“That’s my crime scene,” Mendoza said.
I nodded.And then said, “Yes.Mrs.Grimshaw’s house.”
“They’re messing with my crime scene?”
They probably weren’t messing with it.They’d probably gone there to look around.Or maybe because they figured it would be safe, that no one would look for them there.
