And Now She's Gone(12)

A simple web search pulled up almost five million results for “Isabel Lincoln,” but only two of those—both UCLA-related—could be obviously tied to Gray’s missing woman. She consulted the text filled with Isabel’s friends and family and selected “Tea.” In a text message, Gray told Tea that she was looking into Isabel’s … “situation” and that she’d like to talk with Tea as soon as possible.

No response from Tea.

Gray climbed out of the Camry to stretch her legs.

The sun was still burning trees and hillsides, and sweat sizzled down Gray’s spine. She could taste the air—it tasted like ground black pepper and wood chips.

Needing to stretch more, she strolled over to the condominium’s gated entry.

Isabel Lincoln’s porch was just a few feet from the gate. There were no piled-up newspapers or dead leaves blown onto the welcome mat by the wind … unlike the entry gate with its janky lock, now creaking open from the slight breeze. Creaking open just … like … that.

Gray slipped through the gate, then pulled it until she heard the lock click. Wouldn’t want trespassers sneaking through to start trouble. She strolled to Isabel’s porch as though she belonged there, then knocked on the front door, because she was polite and maybe the missing woman wasn’t missing but was hunkered on the couch with a bottle of pinot noir and a pack of Nutter Butters, streaming Empire on her sixty-inch television and being secretly black.

“She ain’t there, baby.” An old woman with the wide, freckled face of Maya Angelou and the floral housecoat of old ladies everywhere stood in her open doorway across the breezeway she shared with Isabel Lincoln. Judge Judy’s televised voice—“You picked her”—played from the living room.

Caught, Gray startled, but then she pushed a smile to her face. “Hi! I’m Maya, one of Izzy’s friends.” She nodded to the door. “She’s supposed to be coming back. Her birthday’s tomorrow and we’re planning to surprise her.”

The old lady grinned, and her clouded eyes twinkled. “Sure makes me happy hearing that she’s okay. She ain’t usually gone this long, just a week or two, but this time…”

“You are…”

“Beatrice Tompkins.”

“Nice to meet you.” Gray cocked her head. “Yes, we were all caught off guard with her leaving this last time. Especially since she left upset.”

“I can tell when she and her doctor be fighting,” Beatrice Tompkins said. “Sometimes I can hear ’em yelling and carrying on like someone being killed. But then, the next day, he come out as nice as pie. Like butter don’t melt in his mouth, that doctor. I ain’t ever spent more than two minutes with him, but he mean as a snake. I know that like I know day follows night.”

Gray rolled her eyes with mock exasperation. “We’re not too fond of him, either. We were hoping that she’d finally break up with him for good.” She moved closer to the old woman and glimpsed a living room filled with a sofa, an armchair covered in multicolored crocheted blankets, and a modern-day television with its volume up to eight hundred.

“Well, that morning, she had her suitcase and whoosh”—Beatrice Tompkins lifted her arms like Superman in flight—“she was gone. Got in that car—”

“Her car?”

“No, not her car. Her car is still parked back there.” The woman nodded to her left.

“So when did she get in this car?”

“That Monday. Memorial Day. She got in a black truck, not a car, and whoosh…” Another Superman.

Gray asked, “Did she have Ian’s dog with her?”

“Dog? I ain’t seen no dog. He don’t seem like the dog type. He treat her like one.”

“Ha. Not like he treats this dog. He treats Kenny G.—”

“Kenny what?”

“Kenny G. Cuz the dog’s hair is curly like the guy who plays the sax?”

The old lady grunted. “I only started to worry about Isabel when the police came by and asked me some questions. But if you’re here and she’s supposed to be home soon, that means I ain’t gotta worry no more.”

“What did the cops ask?”

“Oh … wasn’t nothing about her.” She tilted her head and squinted into the distance. “They asked about somebody named … oh … my memory … Lisa, I think they said. If a Lisa lived in the complex. Asked if people I didn’t know was hanging around. I told ’em that I didn’t know no Lisa and can’t nobody get past them gates without a key or a code.”

Gray had gotten in without either a key or a code.

“Okay, I’m wrong,” the old lady said. “This one man, he was more of a giant than a man, he kept knocking at the gate. One time, somebody let him in, and he knocked on Isabel’s door. He knocked on mine, too, but I didn’t answer.”

“Black guy? White guy?”

“Okay, I’m wrong,” Mrs. Tompkins said. “There were two men. One was black—he came by last month. And then there was a white man. He looked I-talian. He started coming by last week. I didn’t answer my door for him, either.”

“Well, she’s supposed to come home tomorrow, but she’s being very unpredictable right now.” Gray narrowed her eyes. “Did you see the person driving the black truck?”