Catch a Falling Knife

them.
    “Winston, did you take Great-Grandma’s keys?” Sandra asked.
    Winston ran back to the sunroom and returned with my key ring. “I didn’t lose your keys,” he said.
    It took us another five minutes to get ready. Most of that time Sandra spent trying to get Winston to go potty even though he said he didn’t need to. Then she transferred the car seat from her Toyota to my Mercedes. Finally, we were ready to go. I asked Sandra to drive.
    As we drove, Sandra told me how to check her messages from my cell phone. She didn’t have any. Traffic was heavy but moving. Sandra was impatient and I wanted to warn her about following too closely, but sometimes grandmothers have to keep quiet. I checked her messages again just before we got to Bethany. Still nothing.
    Once in Bethany I gave her directions on how to get to Donna’s apartment. We pulled into Donna’s residential street, which was parked solid with cars.
    “There’s Mark’s car,” Sandra said.
    She stopped abruptly beside the car, our bodies jerking forward as they obeyed a law of physics. I turned around and saw that Winston had fallen asleep, his head leaning to one side. Even the jerk hadn’t awakened him. We were 100 feet from Donna’s apartment.
    “I’ll check the car and the apartment,” I said. “You can look for a parking place.”
    “I’m going to keep you in sight,” Sandra said. “Don’t go into the apartment without me.”
    She remained double-parked after I exited the car. I tried the passenger-side door to Mark’s car. It was unlocked, as usual. I stuck my head inside and saw his beeper, lying on the front seat where it could be taken by anybody who wanted it. So he hadn’t gotten Sandra’s message. I didn’t see anything else of interest.
    I looked for Donna’s car as I walked to the door of her apartment, but I didn’t see it. No light shone through the window from her main room. I rang the doorbell, not expecting Donna to answer. She didn’t. Remembering that the door had been unlocked when Mark and I were there, I tried the door handle. It didn’t budge.
    Sandra had driven to the front of Donna’s building. I walked back to the car and climbed into the passenger seat. I said, “There’s no sign of life.”
    Sandra threw up her arms in frustration. “What do we do now?”
    “Put out an APB,” I said, but it was a hollow joke. Then I thought of something more practical. “Drive around the block, slowly, so I can look for Donna’s car.”
    Sandra did that, but Donna’s car was nowhere in sight. What now? So far, we had been engaged in a flurry of activity, but not much thinking. It was time to think. For several minutes I tried to get my brain into gear while Sandra chattered, nervously. Then I had an idea.
    “I think they might be at Club Cavalier,” I said.
    “Club Cavalier?” Sandra asked, incredulously. “Why in the world would they go there?”
    “Just a hunch.” I couldn’t explain it in a few words. “But we’ve got nothing to lose. If they aren’t there we’ll check some of the restaurants in town.”
    I gave Sandra directions on how to get to Club Cavalier. Traffic had thinned out and it didn’t take us very long.
    While we were driving, Sandra said, “I can’t understand why Mark would go with Donna to a place like that.”
    “Because he’s trying to get information; because he’s trying to clear himself. Rest assured that if we find them there it’s because Donna suggested it, not him.” Sandra had been showing signs of wanting Mark back. I hoped this trip wouldn’t change her mind because she held a low opinion of strip joints. “Maybe I’m all wet,” I said. “Maybe they’re not there at all.”
    When we arrived at Club Cavalier we cruised through the parking lot, looking for Donna’s Chevrolet. It wasn’t near the front door, where most of the cars were parked at this hour. I told Sandra to go around the side of building, to the additional parking.
    We found Donna’s car in the back corner of the lot. I verified the license plate number to make sure it was hers. Maybe she was afraid of getting her license plate put on the Internet and thought it would be safe from Eric Hoffman there. I looked around to see if I could find Eric’s pickup truck, but there were no pickups in sight and I hadn’t seen any in the front lot that had looked familiar. It was probably too early for him to be on the prowl.
    Sandra pulled into the space beside Donna’s car.
    “What are