Eleven Hours Read online

  She wasn’t certain she’d opt for the police officer.

  “Well, I don’t know!” Lyle exploded, hitting his fist against the steering wheel.

  Didi stared at him, her eyes widening.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I gave you a modern-day country singer, you’re giving me some crap about a man loving her and harming her, an old play, I mean, what the hell!” He slowed down a little, both in driving and in language, and glared at Didi. “You’re not giving me good clues,” he said. “In fact, you’re giving me very bad clues. And I think,” he said slowly, “that you’re giving me these bad clues on purpose, on purpose so I would lose to you, because you want to seem smarter than me.”

  She shook her head violently, pushing herself into the door. “No, that’s not true. Look, I’ll tell you my name.”

  He hit the wheel hard with his fist. She sucked in her breath, and for some reason that made him laugh.

  “I’m glad you think it’s funny,” she said.

  “Listen, it’s funny that you think you’re so smart.” Now his laugh sounded hollow and miserable. “Hah! If you think you’re so smart,” he said, rubbing her thigh hard with his knuckle, “how come you’re sitting here in my car then? What makes you so smart? That you know plays and I don’t? Miss Smarty Pants!” Reaching over, he pulled her away from the door and closer to him. “Sit right here with me. I don’t want you to sit so far away. We wouldn’t want you to fall out, would we?”

  “No,” Didi whimpered, sweat running down her face.

  “No, that’s right. Now, you’re going to sit right here, and you’re going to give me clues till I guess your name. Okay?”

  She adjusted herself on the bench seat and couldn’t help but move slightly away from him. “Okay,” she whispered. “It’s just that I’ve never known anyone with my name, no one modern. It’s hard for me to think of modern things. Listen, do you go to the movies?”

  “Not much. Why?”

  “Because there was a movie made of this play recently. Maybe a year or two ago. With Laurence Fishburne. Do you know it?”

  “Who is Laurence Fishburne? Never heard of him. What was the name of the movie?”

  “If I tell you, you’ll know her name. That’s like you saying who was Julia Roberts briefly married to. You’ll know right away.”

  “That’s okay. Give me the clue.”

  “Okay. The name of the movie,” said Didi, happy to be ending the charade, “was Othello.”

  There was a silence. The engine sounded loud and unhealthy, going at eighty. A blue truck whizzed by. Didi noticed a barn and a blue sign that said, GAS-FOOD-LODGING. 5 MILES.

  Lyle said nothing for several moments. And then he said, “Othello? What kind of a damn clue is that? I never heard of Othello.”

  “No? You’ll never guess my name then. Never. It’s the only clue I can give you. Let me tell you my name—”

  “No!” he shouted. “I’m going to guess and I’m going to guess it right.”

  “Lyle,” Didi said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel, and failing. He was unraveling right in front of her, and it was frightening to watch. “Trust me. If you’ve never heard of Othello, you will never have heard of my name.”

  “Try me,” he said doggedly. “Go on, give me a clue. Tell me what it rhymes with.”

  Didi was crying openly now, tears mixing in with the sweat, running into her cheeks and into her mouth. “Please,” she whispered. “Please. What do you want with me? Call my husband, please, ask him for whatever you want. Let’s just have this over with. Why do you have to do this?”

  He looked at her with a hurt expression on his face. “Do what? What are you talking about? I thought we were just having a conversation.”

  She nodded, taking a deep breath and pulling herself together. “Yes, yes, of course we are. Do you play these games with your wife?”

  “I thought I told you to leave my wife out of this!” he snapped. “But yes,” he added. “We do.”

  “Lyle,” Didi said, “please let me go. Please. Stop the car, let me out. I won’t tell anyone about you.”

  “You promise?” he said sarcastically. “You swear?”

  “I swear.”

  “You swear on your unborn child?”

  “I swear on my unborn child,” Didi repeated.

  “Bullshit!” he yelled. “Bullfuckingshit! As soon as you get out of my car, you’ll be bleating like a lamb all over Texas. No, I can’t let you go,” he said, quieter. “Besides, I’m not done with you. You know that. Now, continue. Give me a clue.”

  “So call my husband and tell him what you want. Why have we been driving for more than two hours and you haven’t called anyone?”

  “Give me a clue, I said.”

  She wiped her face and licked her hand. Yes, salt, but salted water. “My name rhymes,” Didi said slowly, trying to calm down, “with ‘Arizona.’”

  “Arizona, Arizona,” he said. “I can’t think. No, nothing is coming. Another one.”

  “It rhymes,” she said, “with ‘my bologna.’”

  “Hmm. Arizona, my bologna … No nothing. Another one.”

  “It rhymes with ‘Barcelona.’”

  “Barcelona? What is that?”

  Oh, God.

  “I’ll tell you right now,” he said, threateningly, “if you don’t make me guess, it’ll be so much the worse for you. And for this one I swear on my child. Now another one. Arizona, my bologna, Barcelona. What kind of stupid clues are those? Those are just dumb clues. No one would be able to guess.”

  “You’re right. It’s a very hard name to guess,” said Didi. “Want to try to guess my nickname instead?”

  “Does anyone call you by the nickname?”

  “Sure, lots of people.”

  “Your husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, give me the nickname.”

  “It starts with D, and it rhymes with ‘pretty.’ It’s got only two syllables in it and they’re both the same. It’s only got four letters.”

  He was muttering to himself. “Pretty, ditty, deedee, didi—Didi?” he said with hope and surprise.

  “Yes!” she exclaimed. “Yes, that’s right. See? That’s right. Didi.” And she breathed again, the tension leaving her body for a moment.

  Lyle quickly stopped smiling. “So why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “Because it’s my nickname. It’s not my name on the birth certificate or my license. Don’t you have a nickname?” she asked, grimacing, hoping it looked like a smile to him.

  Lyle got a faraway look on his face as he watched the road. “My wife used to call me Lovey. Because I liked Lyle Lovett so much and because she loved me. Lovey.”

  Used to? Why in the past tense? Somewhere in a parking lot in the middle of a hot, perfectly normal Texas afternoon, or was it in the middle of a perfect, posh, pristine mall, sometime in Didi’s life, this man had told her something about his wife and baby.

  “So what’s your full name?” she heard him saying.

  “Desdemona,” she told him.

  “Desde-what?”

  “Desdemona,” she repeated, slower. “She was Othello’s wife.”

  “There you go again with that damn Othello!” he exclaimed. “Are you Othello’s wife?”

  “No.”

  “So what do you keep bringing him up for all the time? And how did you get Didi from Desdemona anyway? Why not Mona, or Desde, or Demona?”

  “When I was young I called myself Didimona. I wasn’t that good with my s’s. So my parents called me Didimona until I started school, and then my kindergarten teacher shortened it to Didi.”

  “It’s a stupid name,” he said gruffly, slowing to seventy, much to Didi’s disappointment.

  “It’s an impossible name,” she said, turning to the right, staring at the burned grass outside the window.

  “Yes, it is,” Lyle said. “Barcelona, Arizona, my bologna, pretty Didi. And so much the worse for you.
”

  4:15 P.M.

  Rich followed the squad car to police headquarters in downtown Dallas. The fifteen-minute ride was the worst of his life. He got through it by willing his mind to go blank. A dull ache flooded his heart. All the while the July sun blazed, and there was no relief outside from the thicket of heat that hung over him. In the back of the station he parked in a lot reserved for police officers.

  And emergencies.

  Officers Charles and Patterson brought Rich inside through the back door. He had never entered this way. Not that he’d spent much time here. He and Didi had come downtown to report an attempted break-in and also to sign out their stolen car, retrieved nearly whole but without the radio.

  Waiting for Rich inside the door was a short, earnest-looking young man with a slight Spanish accent. “Detective Juan Lopez. Please call me Juan,” he said as he shook Rich’s hand. “I heard what happened. We will do everything we can to help.”

  Rich was going to complain about Patterson, but then he thought better of it. It wasn’t important.

  “Come,” said Juan. “I’d like you to meet my chief.”

  “Listen,” said Rich. “Not that I wouldn’t like to meet all you guys and shoot the breeze, but can we—my wife is—”

  “No, I understand,” said Juan, his brown eyes softening. “I have a wife too.”

  “I’m sure you do,” said Rich. “We all have wives. My wife happens to be pregnant and missing. So can we just—”

  The chief of police came out of his office. “I’m Chief Murphy. John Murphy.” He extended his hand, and Rich shook it, wishing for comfort.

  “We’re going to do everything we can to help. Okay?” said the chief. “Try not to worry.”

  Rich shrugged him off. “How are you going to find them?” he asked. “How?”

  The chief studied him for a moment, then turned to Detective Lopez. “Juan, take the Freshens Yogurt employee to the photo room. Let’s run some photos past this Alex. And you’ve got an APB out, haven’t you?”

  Juan said, “No. Not yet. I was waiting for word from the Bureau.”

  They were all crowded in the narrow hall. Rich wanted to sit down, or fall down. Murphy asked if they had been notified.

  “The Bureau?” Rich asked. “You mean the FBI?”

  Murphy nodded, an air of resentment on his face and in his voice. “Yeah, something like this, we’re gonna do all we can to help. The kidnapper may stay local, you know—especially if he wants money. Technically this is not federal jurisdiction yet. You know? Because your wife is probably still in the state of Texas. But … he could be an out-of-towner, from Oklahoma or Louisiana. If the guy is headed out of town, it’s hard for us to coordinate that kind of operation. Too many complications. The FBI obviously has more resources,” said Murphy, sneering. “Just that, mind you, they only come in on the really big stuff—”

  “What do you think, will they consider this really big stuff?” Rich asked.

  Murphy shrugged. “Who knows? I sure don’t. The other month, we had a child abduction. It was all over the radio. You’ve heard of our new Child Outreach Program for kidnapped kids?”

  Rich fervently shook his head no.

  “We have a few select radio stations we notify immediately if a child has been abducted, and they broadcast the information on the missing kids every five minutes. On the case I was telling you about, the feds were nowhere to be seen. It ended up that the girl was from a divorced family and the father took her, but they had no way of knowing that. Listen, that’s all by the by. I think you’ll have a better chance with them involved, all right?”

  “All right,” Rich said in a faint voice. All he needed was to be in the middle of a squabble between local law enforcement and the FBI. “Have you called them yet?”

  “The radio stations?” asked the chief.

  “No, the FBI.”

  “Yes,” said Juan. “I called them as soon as I got word from Charles that there was a situation. One of their field officers should be here soon.” Juan was efficient. Rich liked that as much as he could like anything right then.

  Murphy said, “Well, we don’t have to sit around and do nothing while we wait. Put out the APB on a pregnant woman and a young man, will you? Get the description from Alex. And have Don come back in.”

  “Don is the police artist,” the chief said to Rich. “He’s excellent.”

  Rich felt like an idiot asking, “The APB is going to help?”

  “Help? Well, it’ll be something.”

  “It’s four-thirty,” Rich said. “She’s been…” He paused. “She’s been gone since one,” he continued. “Is three hours enough time for them to get near the Mexican border, or into Oklahoma, or Louisiana?”

  The chief shook his head. “Not near the border. Oklahoma, Louisiana, yes. But he’ll be driving very carefully, I bet. He doesn’t want to be stopped for speeding. And if he took her out of state, he’s in more trouble than he can find in Texas. Under federal law, it’s the death penalty for him if he took her out of state.”

  “Chief Murphy,” Rich said, trying hard to maintain his composure, “to give him the death penalty we have to catch him first.”

  “Yes. Yes, we do.” The chief nodded to Juan, who carefully stepped away from the two of them.

  “Look, Rich, I’m not going to bullshit you,” Murphy said, averting his eyes.

  Rich needed the chief of the Dallas police to look straight at him. He was man enough to take it, and he was going to take it, but he needed the chief to level with him. Rich wasn’t going to break down in front of a stranger who didn’t know his wife and didn’t love her.

  “Chief Murphy, look at me. Please.”

  Leveling his gaze on Rich, the chief said sympathetically, almost apologetically, “It doesn’t look good, Rich.” And then’ the chief stared interminably at him. It was probably just a few seconds, but the stare was oddly out of place with the apologetic tone. Rich wondered why the chief was giving him what appeared to be a suspicious look. Was he trying to elicit some emotion? Or was it something else?

  “Of course it doesn’t look good,” Rich said loudly, breaking the silence. “Would it look good if your wife had been kidnapped?”

  “My wife is dead,” said the chief. He waved Rich off. “Don’t apologize. I already told you, we’ll do everything humanly possible.” Murphy paused. “Are you wealthy? Is that why he took her?”

  Rich narrowed his eyes. “I have a good job, but Didi is home with the girls, and we just built a house, nothing fancy, so we’re house-poor, you know.”

  “Listen, a couple of things will happen. This guy will call most likely and tell us what he wants. Maybe he’ll have your wife call. And maybe someone will spot them somewhere on the road and notify us.”

  Rich was thoughtful. “If he calls my house, how will we know? I’m here.”

  “Who’s at home?”

  “My two kids. The babysitter. My mother should get there soon. But she’ll go nuts. She doesn’t even know what’s going on.”

  Chief Murphy said, “Now wouldn’t be a bad time to tell her.”

  Rich shook his head. “Can’t. She’ll go nuts. She won’t be able to look after the kids.” He added, “And tell her what? We don’t know anything.”

  “I see. Do you want us to send somebody?”

  “Where? To my house? Oh, yeah, sure.” Rich shook his head.

  “The FBI is probably going to send someone regardless. They like to be on the safe side. And if he calls, you’d want someone to answer the phone, wouldn’t you?”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” said Rich. “But you have to understand. I have my five-year-old daughter answering the phone. My mother is not going to be able to take care of this. She is very—” He paused. “Emotional.”

  “Maybe one of our guys then?” said Murphy.

  “Maybe,” Rich said vaguely. He was not ready to speak to his mother.

  Murphy said, “There’s a chance the guy is still in
Dallas, holed up somewhere. If we have to, we’ll put him on the local news.”

  “Could he be headed for Mexico?”

  The chief shook his head. “He’d only head there if—” And then Murphy stopped and stared bleakly at Rich.

  “What were you going to say?” Rich said, paling. His knees were giving out on him. “If he what? If he killed her?” He shuddered and crossed his arms. “But she’s pregnant. She’s going to have a baby. What kind of a person—”

  The chief placed his hand on Rich’s shoulder and didn’t say anything.

  Rich thought back to an hour ago when he had called Didi’s cell phone and she had picked up. She had been alive an hour ago.

  He said, “Just notify the border police, can you do that?” Rich looked away from the chief’s face—he didn’t want to see his own aching reflected in it.

  For a while he couldn’t speak. Rich was trying to feel his Didi somewhere in the world. Where was his wife? He felt himself choking. With one fast motion he loosened his tie, and when that wasn’t enough, he ripped it off his neck.

  When he could speak again, he said, “What I want to know is, if it wasn’t for our brand-new car, why would he take my pregnant wife?”

  4:30 P.M.

  Didi felt parched from the inside out. She was so thirsty she felt she could drink blood. The baby was hiccuping. That lucky baby, she thought. He’s drinking the amniotic fluid. He’s thirsty too, my little guy. We’ll be okay, she thought, trying to feel braver.

  “Lyle,” she said carefully. “Could we stop for a drink? You did promise.”

  “Yes, Didi,” he said. “You don’t have to remind me. I said I would and I’m as good as my word.”

  Silence. Oh, so the kidnapper keeps his promises, thought Didi. That’s nice.

  “But Didi, Arizona,” he said. “Didn’t you promise me a kiss?”

  Fear enfolding her, Didi wanted to say, but Lyle, you idiot, you didn’t get it right. She only said, “Lyle, I can’t. I’m a happily married woman. And didn’t you say you were married yourself?”

  He said, “Didi, I’m counting—this is the third time you’ve brought up my wife.” And then, putting his strong hand on her leg, he added insinuatingly, “You didn’t seem to mind when I kissed you in front of those ladies in the parking lot.”