Act of Betrayal by Edna Buchanan Page B

coworkers, friends, neighbors, and total strangers, calling to offer support and sympathy.
    â€œThey all want to help,” Randolph said. “They’re asking what they can do. I don’t know what to tell them.”
    A blinding flash of light stunned me for a moment and I continued to see spots, even after blinking several times. Seth was crouched in front of my desk and had just shot my picture with his little camera.
    â€œThey can be valuable,” I told Randolph, one hand over my blinded eyes. “Take names and numbers. If no solid leads come in, maybe you can ask volunteers to distribute fliers, demonstrate, or conduct candlelight marches. Anything we can think of to keep the story alive. The more exposure the better.”
    â€œA reporter from Channel Ten wants to come over to talk to us and take pictures of Charles’s bedroom. You think that’s all right?” He sounded doubtful.
    â€œSure,” I said, shaking my head in warning and glaring murderously at Seth, who appeared to be focusing on me again. “But don’t let them touch anything. Now that there’s publicity about the case, the police might want to come lift prints off Charles’s books or belongings and try to take hair samples from his comb or brush.”
    â€œBut I thought it was your story.”
    â€œAll I want is to be sure that you tell me about any new developments first, right?”
    â€œOf course, you’re the only one who would help us.”
    â€œAny crank calls?”
    He hesitated; obviously he had not intended to mention it. “A couple. Some kids called and were whimpering, ‘Daddy, Mommy, come get me.’ We could hear ’em giggling in the background. Then a young girl, a teenager, called and asked to speak to Charles.”
    Kids’ cruelty amazed me, as usual. I could have cheerfully wrung their scrawny little necks. The scary part was that they may not have all been kids.
    â€œHow could they?” I murmured, as Cassie hung up to tend to something in the kitchen.
    â€œIt’s all right,” her husband said. “We can handle it. We’re thrilled that other people care and want to help. Anything that will help find him.”
    â€œRight. That’s what counts. Meanwhile, if you get any more prank calls, say: ‘It’s them, officer,’ in a stage whisper, as though a cop is standing next to you. That’ll give ’em something to think about.”
    Seth, wearing his pass from security, was pounding away on the computer terminal at Ryan’s desk. “Be careful,” I warned him. “Don’t touch a thing.”
    â€œMan, is this system a dinosaur!” he said.
    I began returning calls. A Broward County man was not interested in Charles Randolph. He had his own obsession. His mother had vanished without a trace when he was ten. Foul play was likely, his abusive stepfather long a suspect, but no charges were ever filed. I referred him to a reporter in the Broward bureau.
    A Hialeah Gardens schoolteacher had no information about Charles Randolph either. She wanted me to help find her own missing person. At age forty, shy and never married, she had been swept off her feet by a handsome stranger. After a three-week whirlwind courtship, they married. Eight blissful months later he hooked his boat to his trailer and drove off for a day of fishing. That was a year ago. Unlike skeptical police, she believed he had met with an accident or foul play. I might have agreed, except that when she had tried to notify his family in San Antonio that he was missing she found that they were, too. Neither they, nor their addresses, existed. The man she married had no history, at least not in the name he had given her.
    Scowling, teeth on edge, I began punching in the next number as Bobby Tubbs waved to me from the city desk. I saw the look on his face and moaned.
    â€œThey’re shooting over at the Miami Dream Motel on Northeast