She nodded. “So you don’t get any of the weird calls yourself.”
“Not directly. The answering service takes note of them, though.”
“Keeps a record?”
He nodded.
“Is that true of calls that come in during the day?”
“Yes and no. Requests go into the request book. We keep score of those. We get lots of hang-ups—people calling, asking for one DJ or another, then hanging up when he can’t take the phone. We don’t record those.”
Savannah thought of the two calls she’d made herself and worked to keep her expression neutral. “But the others—the ugly ones?”
He nodded. “We’ve got them.”
She felt an inkling of hope. “Can I see them?”
“There’s not much to see. The phone isn’t tapped, so its not like we have a transcript of tapes. All we’ve got is the notes of the person who answered the phone when the call came in. And that, only for the daytime. The records from the answering service are at their office. We don’t have cause to collect them regularly. If there’s anything unusual or particularly deadly, they tell us, but I haven’t heard anything lately. I can guarantee you that we didn’t get any calls about a kidnapping. I would have been notified.”
She pushed her hands so deeply into her pockets that her arms went rigidly straight. “There has to be something.”
“You can take a look, but I don’t think you’ll find a thing.” His voice had an edge. “I’m sensitive to any irregularities. Believe me.”
She did. Yet she felt more helpless than ever. “I need a lead,” she cried softly, more to herself than to him. More loudly and with a hint of despair, she said, “It would be natural for someone who is in some way associated with the station to use wording like that.”
“Thank you,” Jared said, “but I don’t have criminals associated with my station.” He swiveled away, but it was only to punch another button on the console. With one hand on each of two slides, he waited for just the right moment to fade Lee Greenwood out and Randy Travis in. Only then did he swivel back.
Savannah picked up where he’d left off. “Kidnappers aren’t necessarily hardened criminals.”
“You said it was a clean job. You think just anyone off the street could have pulled it off?”
“No, but someone bright could have, someone who had thought everything out and could probably vanish into thin air faster than someone with a record. Has anybody here quit lately?”
He shook his head.
“Anyone been under really tight financial pressure?”
Again, he shook his head.
More meekly, she asked, “Anyone been asking for the names of good hotels in Iran?”
He didn’t bother to respond to that one. Instead, he eyed her more closely. “This means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
“Of course, it does. Kidnapping is a serious crime.”
“From what you say, you deal with lots of serious crimes. Do you go at them all this intently?”
She sensed subtle criticism in his tone. “I take my job seriously.”
“Is that why you’re out working in the middle of the night?”
She frowned. “When else was I supposed to reach you?”
“You might have called during the day. If you’d identified yourself, I’d have returned your call.”
“Would you have?” she asked, then hurried on. Jared Snow was fast falling from his pedestal. “Excuse me for being skeptical, but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that if I want answers, I don’t wait for a call back.”
“And you want answers on this one.”
