Winter of Discontent Read Online Free Page B

that a response was useless. I had wondered even then if that was the truth or just a convenient fiction.
    But those were nursing homes and the residents all had dementia to some degree. Surely a retirement home was a different sort of environment. I wrenched my thoughts back from the scary future to the worrisome present.
    “Bill still drives, though,” I argued. “He has his independence. He has a job. Doesn’t that make a difference to people’s attitude?” I had to fight it, fight the possibility that Jane was right.
    “He’s old. We’re both old. One foot in the grave. Out of the loop. And single. Makes it worse.”
    I usually have a lot to say, but there seemed to be something wrong with my throat. I swallowed several times.
    Jane gave me an unreadable look, got up, and put the kettle on. She copes better with other people’s distress than with her own.
    A fresh pot of tea helped. So did the brewing interval, time enough to get my emotions under some kind of control and my thoughts in some semblance of order.
    “Jane, you were right. I didn’t understand completely, but I’m beginning to. You’re afraid of the whole situation, not just Bill being missing. And you think that your age, and his, will keep people from paying enough attention. Are people really that callous, though?”
    “Not callous. Ignorant. Think they know who Bill is, what he is, when they haven’t a clue.”
    “All right, then. We can’t make them older and wiser all of a sudden, and we can’t make them know Bill better. Maybe we can’t even get them to listen to us. So we’ll just have to use our own resources. And don’t look at me that way. We do have resources. You know Bill well, and you know this town as well as you know your dogs. As for me, I don’t have either of those advantages, and besides I’m something of an old crock. I may have fewer birthdays behind me than you do, but my knees would argue the point. But even if my joints don’t work very well, my mind is just fine, thank you. I can contribute ideas, lots of them. And my tongue works double time. I can ask questions.”
    Jane didn’t look impressed. I played my ace.
    “And if you don’t think much of that list of assets, I’ve saved the best for last. Alan.”
    She sat, stony-faced, and said nothing.
    “Jane, he knows the police, he’s brilliant, he’s no spring chicken, and he’s on our side. What more do you want?”
    “I want my friend, Bill.”
    And a tear coursed slowly down her weathered cheek.

FOUR
     
     
     
    I WAITED, PRETENDING NOT TO NOTICE. I’D NEVER SEEN JANE CRY. She would hate to be patted on the shoulders and told, “There, there.” I debated about leaving. Would she be embarrassed? Tough, resilient Jane, reduced to tears?
    But it was, after all, only the single tear. She turned away from me, blew her nose, and stood up. “All right.”
    Jane not only speaks in shorthand, she thinks in it. “Um-m-m?” I said brilliantly.
    “Ready to go.”
    “Whoa! You’ve turned a page. Go where?”
    “Museum,” she said impatiently. “Last place we know he was. Place to start.”
    I was so happy to see her jolted out of her despair, I didn’t state the obvious: that we had been all over the Town Hall yesterday and found nothing. “We’d better drive, then. It’s pouring cats and dogs.”
    “No place to park. Have Alan drive us.”
    So Alan obligingly got out the car and drove us the short distance. “Right,” he said as he let us out of the car. “Do you have the mobile?”
    I nodded. I always keep the cell phone in my purse, even though I seldom use it.
    “Ring me when you’re ready to come home, or if you need help. I’ll be here. If the line’s busy I’m working on the problem myself. We have to find Bill soon. This is filthy weather.”
    What he didn’t say was that every passing hour made it less likely that Bill would be found alive. He didn’t have to say it. Jane and I both knew.
    “What are we going to do, now