“My husband tell me last night that Señor Pickett say he going fishing.”
“Fishing.” Huddy struggled with the word, as if it were alien to his tongue.
“Si. He go sometimes. Sometimes with other old people from the Citizens Center, sometimes with people from the hospital, sometimes by himself.”
“Do you happen to know where he was going fishing?” Huddy asked desperately.
“Sure,” the woman said. “Sierra Nevada.”
“Sierra Nevada,” Huddy repeated dumbly. “Did he happen to mention where in the Sierra Nevada?”
The woman frowned as she thought. “No, my husband not say. So I guess Señor Pickett not say.” She was suddenly concerned. “Hey, Señor Pickett, he not bad sick, is he? He’s a nice man. You know, he has an orange tree in his yard. Every year when the oranges are ripe he let everybody in the neighborhood go and help themselves. Nice man.”
“Yes, I know he’s a saint,” said Huddy intensely. “Please try to think, Señora. Are you sure you don’t know where in the mountains he said he was going fishing?”
“No, I would remember. If he’s bad sick I hope you find him. Maybe he forget you coming for him?”
“Yeah, it looks like it. Don’t worry, Señora. We’ll find him.” He hesitated, then handed the woman one of his business cards. “Listen, this isn’t my hospital number but I can be reached here. If Señor Pickett shows up, would you call me and let me know? I’m Benjamin Huddy.”
“Hoody?” She stared at the card.
He nodded. “Please call me. But don’t tell Señor Pickett about it.” He smiled again. “I don’t want him to worry. He doesn’t really like doctors and hospitals.”
“Si, I’m the same way myself, Señor Hoody. Nothing against you.”
“I know. Thank you, Señora. You’ve been very kind. Good-bye.”
“Vaya con dios, Señor.” She closed the door on him.
Huddy stood thinking on the doorstep, then spun and headed back for the waiting ambulance.
“What’s the next step, Mr. Huddy?” asked Drew, keeping pace like a big dog with its master. “You think he’s onto us?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Mighty funny, though, him suddenly taking off like that.”
“Maybe he planned on going fishing all the time,” Drew suggested. “Maybe that’s why he decided to cancel out on the exam in the first place. Didn’t want to miss his fishing trip.”
“Maybe,” murmured Huddy, “but if that were the case I don’t see why he wouldn’t have told us about it. I know he could have forgotten, but he didn’t seem senile to me. No, something stinks, Drew.” They piled back into the ambulance. The driver looked laconically at his partner.
“Well, man?”
“The old guy’s gone fishing up in the Sierras.”
“Oh boy.” The driver didn’t sound enthusiastic. He had some idea what was coming. “That’s a lot of mountains to check out, Mr. Huddy. You sure you don’t just want us to wait until he gets back?”
“He may not plan on coming back. Damn.” Huddy pounded the dash with an angry fist. “I don’t see how he could have gotten onto us!”
“Maybe it’s like the fat taco said,” Drew murmured. “Maybe doctors and hospitals just make him nervous.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet they do,” said Huddy tersely. “But that doesn’t mean you have to run away fishing to cancel an appointment. He said he’d think about the exam. I don’t see him just picking up and taking off to make sure he gets out of it. He had no reason to suppose we’d try to force it on him.”
“So what now?” the driver wanted to know. “We start combing the Sierras for him?”
“We start looking for him, yeah,” replied Huddy, “but not by hand-searching the Sierras, and certainly not in this hunk of junk. Remember the Seven-Eleven we passed coming up the hill?” The driver nodded, turned the key. The ambulance started off down the bumpy, filthy road.
He had made the call collect. As soon as Somerset was on the phone he started in. They didn’t have time for casual banter.
“It’s Benjamin. Pickett’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” asked the puzzled voice at the other end.
“Gone, as in vanished, disappeared, evaporated. Now do you believe that he’s got something to hide?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “The whole thing still strikes me as more fantastic than likely. But if he’s really run off somewhere….”
“One of his neighbors,” Huddy continued, “says that her husband saw him yesterday and that Pickett told him he was going fishing in the Sierras. I wouldn’t see him taking his old clunker up there, but it’s gone, too.”
“Do you know what kind of car?”
“I never took a good look at it. He pointed it out to me once but it was parked way down the hill from his house. I didn’t think it would be necessary to have a good look at it.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll check it out.”
“From back in the office?” Huddy was only mildly surprised. Nothing Somerset did really surprised him. “How are you going to manage that little number?”
“Let me worry about that. You just get your ass back here fast. I’ll find out not only what kind of car he owns but where he’s taken it to. Relax, Benjy. Everything’s well in hand. This is only a temporary setback. Just leave it to me.”
Huddy found himself looking at the ambulance. Drew and his partner had emerged from the Seven-Eleven. Each was sucking on a garishly colored slurpee. The sight was as disconcerting as seeing Bozo the Clown with a sawed-off shotgun. It verged on the surreal. But then, so did this whole morning.
