Chow Down (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

one hell of a way to treat a friend.”
    “It sounds like you’re more pissed off than worried,” I said.
    “I guess I don’t know how to feel. Or what to think. Maybe I jumped the gun, contacting the police and all. For all I know, this could be like one of those crazy college things. You know, where you go out and get wasted and don’t make it home at night?”
    “Have you known Lisa since college?” I asked.
    “No, but come on. Everyone’s experience is more or less the same, isn’t it?”
    Not mine, I thought. But then I’d had to take on responsibilities young. I couldn’t recall a single time in my life that I’d ever been too inebriated to at least call and check in with someone who might have been worried about me.
    “Lisa does have some old sorority friend around here. I think maybe they were roomies or something. If I could remember her name, I’d give her a call. I bet she might be able to shed some light on this whole thing.”
    “Maybe.”
    I didn’t sound convinced, and I wasn’t. Lisa was too old for shenanigans like that. Plus when I’d seen her last, she’d had Yoda with her. It was a stretch to imagine the elegantly groomed Asian woman out barhopping to the point of incapacity, all the while holding a little Yorkie in her arms.
    “Instead I had to call her boss,” Sue said, sounding annoyed. “It’s not like he was any help.”
    “Her boss? Lisa has a job?” That was news to me.
    “No, sorry, not her actual boss. Lisa doesn’t work. Larry was the one who took care of earning the money. I meant that guy who’s running the contest.”
    “Doug Allen?”
    “That’s the one. I talked to him earlier this morning. He didn’t have a clue. Said pretty much the same thing you did. That you all got off the bus in Norwalk yesterday afternoon and went your own separate ways. He had no idea where Lisa might be.”
    It was only eight o’clock now. How early had she called Doug? I wondered.
    “Maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes ago,” Sue said when I asked. “I woke up with a crick in my neck from sleeping on the freakin’ couch and I was in a mood to get some answers. Since the last people who had seen Lisa were the ones associated with the contest, that seemed like a good place to start.”
    “Doug was at work at seven fifteen?” I was only thinking out loud, but Sue answered the question anyway.
    “No, Lisa’s address book had Doug’s home number in it, so that’s the one I called. But like I said, it didn’t do me the slightest bit of good. He said if I was worried that I should report her missing to the police. Like I couldn’t have come up with that idea myself.”
    “Wait a minute,” I said. “Back up.”
    Sue sighed. “I told this to Bertie, I just assumed she passed it on. Adults have to be missing for—”
    “No, not that. The other part, about Lisa’s address book.”
    “It was just sitting there on top of her desk. It wasn’t as though I had to go digging around in her drawers to find it. All I did was open it up and look—”
    “I don’t care where you got it from,” I said impatiently. After all, it wasn’t as though I was above snooping around in other people’s things. “Lisa had a listing for Doug Allen in her address book?”
    “Yup. Office. Cell. Home. I called the home number because it was early and that’s where I got him.”
    I thought back to the first time I’d gone to the Champions Company. Each of the finalists had been given a goody bag of products on their way out. Doug’s business card had been attached to the top. The card had listings for Doug’s office, cell phone, and fax numbers. There hadn’t been a home number on there, I was sure of it.
    So what was that phone number doing in Lisa Kim’s address book?

21
    L isa Kim’s disappearance was a concern, but it wasn’t the only thing I was worried about. There was another, even more pressing item on my agenda. Despite repeated attempts, I had yet to come up with the slightest clue about what was going on with Crawford. It was time to kick that investigation into high gear and take my queries straight to the source.
    Well, the next best thing, anyway.
    Terry—that indefatigable supplier of information, gossip, and innuendo—was clearly the person I needed to talk to. And considering that in the current humid summer weather my hair was hanging around my shoulders like a Puli’s straggly mop, it wasn’t hard to come up with the perfect excuse.
    Terry had been