True-Life Adventure

of fact,” said Susanna. “She’d just finished a story. Right before she disappeared.”
    “Was it an investigative story? Anything that could be dangerous to someone?”
    She shook her head. “No. In fact, we ran it after she left. It was just a story about alternative methods of treating cancer.”
    “Susanna,” said Sardis, “had she been depressed or anything lately? I didn’t see her for several weeks before she left.”
    “She seemed it, yes. She was very upset about her breakup with Mike Brissette— oh, God, and now he’s dead. It was an accident, wasn’t it?”
    I answered. “It looks like it, but—”
    “But maybe not?” She might look simple and straightforward, but she was a journalist. I hesitated.
    As if reading my mind, she said, “Look, Paul, if you think I’m interested in this thing as a story, forget it. In the first place, I haven’t got a show without Lindsay. In the second place, I could care less about the goddam story or the goddam show or the whole goddam station. Lindsay’s one of my closest friends.” Her eyes filled as she spoke.
    Sardis and I looked at each other and it was obvious we were of the same mind. I told Susanna all about the attempts on my life and the awful fate of my house and what we thought about Brissette. It didn’t exactly ease her mind on the Lindsay question. Her fear popped out of her: “She can’t be in danger! She couldn’t be!” It was practically a wail.
    I was horribly afraid she was— or worse— but I didn’t say so. I said, “You were telling us about her breakup with Brissette.”
    Susanna composed herself. “That was about eight months ago and she never quite seemed to snap out of it— her depression, I mean.”
    “Didn’t she have a new boyfriend?”
    “Pete Tillman. She started seeing him about a month ago— I mean, a month before she left. But you know— she just didn’t seem that interested in him. The only thing that seemed to perk her up was that cancer story she was working on— sometimes she got very exuberant when she was on a good yarn.”
    “It wasn’t that good a story, was it? I mean, it’s been done before.”
    “Lindsay isn’t the kind of reporter who only likes a story if it’s a potential prizewinner. If she was interested in something, she gave it everything. I mean, she does. God, I sound like she’s dead.”
    Sardis gasped at the sound of the word and I forged ahead quickly. “Think back, Susanna. Was she depressed before she broke up with Brissette?”
    “She was, yes. I had the impression they weren’t getting along.”
    “I don’t know how to phrase this, exactly, but— did she seem stable?”
    “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. For months she’d been depressed and withdrawing from me and, I gather, from Sardis and her other friends. Then one day she took Terry and disappeared. It doesn’t sound stable, does it? I wish I’d realized sooner.”
    I could tell this was a train of thought that wasn’t exactly new for Susanna and that she felt like hell about it. I kept talking, not wanting to give her time to dwell on it. “How about the week she disappeared— did she seem any different then?”
    Susanna brushed her hair behind her ear and paused, her hand over her mouth. “Yes,” she said at last. “I think she did. She was sort of high on that cancer story, but that wasn’t all. She was very hyper. I mean, she seemed to be working at top speed to finish it. As if she knew she wasn’t going to be able to finish it the next week. She was driving so hard one of the cameramen complained.”
    “And that wasn’t like her?”
    “No. It was the sort of story that takes two weeks and she did it in one week. It’s that simple. Also, she was very edgy that week. As if she had something on her mind. Friday afternoon she was a bear— she was determined to finish the story and she had to meet someone by seven.”
    “Who?”
    “You mean who was she meeting? I don’t know. I assumed it was Pete.”
    “Did she say where she was meeting this person?”
    “Why, yes. The Hunan Restaurant. It’s around the corner, which meant she could work up until the last minute. It has a bar and lots of people from the station go there after work.”
    “Did anyone see her there that night?”
    “I don’t know. I could ask around.”
    “I think it might be important to know whom she was meeting. Can you see if anyone remembers?”
    “Of course. I’ll do anything I can to help.” She