Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

Missing person reports were not common in End of Main, and so Chief Robideau was surprised to receive a second one the very next day. Even more interesting was the name and address of the complainant, Mrs. Tozer. She lived one street over from the Highcliff — in fact, just across the alley from it. She could not locate her son, a man of about forty who was no stranger to Chief Robideau’s files. Edward Tozer (Ted, his mom called him) had been accused of unsavory acts in the past, several times being a suspect in the mutilation of neighborhood pets.

Mrs. Tozer was as he remembered her, a heavy woman with an aura of doom about her. She had no idea where poor Teddy could be.

Robideau asked, “Was there an argument between the two of you? Was he threatening to go off on his own?”

“His clothes are still in his closet, aren’t they? And his money — all what he had — is still in the tin box under his bed. He wouldn’t leave that. Not on purpose.”

“All right, Mrs. Tozer, let’s visit his room.”

She led him up a malodorous staircase, wheezing asthmatically like someone unaccustomed to the climb. Probably, Robideau thought, she hadn’t been up these stairs in years.

There was scarcely space for the two of them in the half-story room. It had walls of half-height that angled up to a low, narrow ceiling. The bed was a tangle of sheets. The walls were covered with posters, and realizing the violent nature of some of them, Robideau’s jaw tightened. Not typical movie horror scenes, this was neo-Nazi stuff, hateful and vicious. Sensing his disapproval, Mrs. Tozer was defensive. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s just something he’s going through.”

Good Lord. And the man was forty.

A sheet of drawing paper lay on a rickety sideboard, covered with writing that was heavily stylistic. Fat, pillowy, indecipherable characters. The markings repeated as if whoever made them had been practicing penmanship.

“Has Ted taken up calligraphy?”

“I dunno. What’s that?”

“Fancy writing.”

“Oh, he can write okay. He’s not stupid, you know.”

Back they went down the creaking stairs. At the door, the woman told Robideau emotionlessly, “I hope you find him soon. It’s important.”

Robideau paused. “How so?”

“He’s got a job. He was looking for ages, since you told him that’s what he should do, but no luck. Then a man offered him work. A man he met someplace.” She swung her head morosely. “He’s already done a few things for him.”

“What sort of work is it?”

“Ted never told me.”

“Did you meet his employer?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you know anything about him? Anything at all?”

She screwed up her heavy face in concentration. “Well, sir, one thing. Ted said he wore an overcoat that could of paid off our mortgage.”

This time the tanned face appeared strained. In a slow, practiced movement, Overberg cupped the back of his head with linked fingers and leaned back, as though to communicate a relaxed sincerity.

“I know of Ted Tozer. Who doesn’t in this town? But he doesn’t work for me, and even if he did, I trust that wouldn’t be a crime under some new bylaw.” He went on gratuitously. “We may have been seen together. We talked at the mall one day. A chance encounter.”

“Oh? Did he mention during that conversation that he was thinking about moving out of his mother’s house?”

“Why, I believe he did. Called her an old bag. Said he was fed up with her. I chastised him, of course. ‘She’s your mother,’ I told him.”

“That cheered him up, I’m sure.”

“Ah... not exactly. But I did give him food for thought.”

“Do you know where he might have gone?”

“He mentioned something about Texas, I think.”

Robideau contemplated the aging but still handsome face. He considered Tozer’s sudden departure, abandoned belongings, and forgotten cash. “Mr. Overberg, let me tell you my problem. I don’t often have missing persons to find, but here I have two of them. And you’re connected to both.”

Overberg chafed his thin, clean hands. “Hardly connected. I have many tenants, after all. And surely I’m not the only person to have spoken to Mr. Tozer in the last while.”

“Still, it’s strange.”

“It isn’t really. A small coincidence. One of life’s little pranks.”

He laughed dryly.

You’d better hope, the chief thought, that the joke’s not on you.

“What it is,” Leonard Boski indignantly informed his visitors, Wilmer Gates and Chuck Lang, with insistence, “kids nowadays got no respect. It’s like they figure they got clearance from God almighty to go slap gerfeedy all over the place. And I’m supposed to get it off? How? You answer me that!” His pals sat on crates in the furnace room with their beers in their hands, staring thoughtfully into space as if they expected the solution to leap into their minds, filling a blank spot. And Lord knew they had blank spots. Big enough to roll a combine-harvester through. But for some reason Leonard put up with them; maybe because they put up with him.

“We didn’t do gerfeedy when I was a kid,” Leonard announced, defying anyone to refute it.

“What did you do?” Chuck asked. He burped hugely and fisted his chest.