“Good morning, JFP. How may I direct your call?”
The voice on the other end of the line sounded very young. Annie couldn’t help picturing her. Did they even call them “valley girls” anymore?
Annie put a smile into her voice. “Good morning. I would like to speak to someone in Archer Prescott’s office.”
“One moment, please.”
Annie sighed, hearing the “easy listening” music that was supposed to entertain her while she held. Fortunately, the wait wasn’t long.
“Mr. Prescott’s office.”
This voice was cool and professional, definitely older than the first. Absolutely.
There was nothing to do but plunge ahead.
“Good morning. My name is Annie Dawson. I’d like to speak to Mr. Prescott, if that’s possible.”
“May I ask to what this is in reference?”
“It’s, um, it’s a personal matter. May I speak to him?”
“I’m sorry, Ms.—?”
“Dawson. Annie Dawson.”
“Ms. Dawson. I’m sorry, but I’m sure you appreciate how busy a man like Mr. Prescott is. Unless you can give me a little more information on the purpose of your call, I’ll have to ask you to speak to someone in our Public Relations Department. They can deal with any requests for donations to charitable or political causes.”
Annie shook her head even though the gesture couldn’t be seen by the woman on the other end of the line. “I’m not trying to get a donation for anything. I’m trying to get some information about a woman Mr. Prescott was once engaged to—Susan Morris.”
“I see.” The woman’s voice was coolly polite. “Has she asked you to contact him?”
“I’m afraid she passed away back in 1989, but I would like to talk to him about her.”
“Mr. Prescott is in conference at the moment. May I ask him to return your call?”
“All right.”
Annie managed to keep the disappointment out of her voice. After all, the owner of a big company didn’t just sit around his office all day waiting to take calls from total strangers. She gave the woman her telephone number and repeated her name for good measure.
“If you’ll just let him know I’m calling about Susan Morris, I would very much appreciate it.”
“I will make sure he gets the message. Have a good day.”
There was an abrupt click, and the call was over.
“I guess that’s that.”
Boots had been snoozing on the couch beside her, and now she yawned and stretched, nuzzling Annie’s hand. Annie scratched behind the cat’s ears and under her chin.
“What do you think, Miss Boots? Do you think he’ll call me back?”
The cat only purred and blinked her eyes.
“We’d better have something for lunch, and then I have got to make some decisions about that upstairs bathroom.”
By nine o’clock, when it was six on the West Coast, Annie gave up hope of having a call that day from Archer Prescott of JFP Athletics Inc. By the same time the next evening, she gave up hope of ever hearing from him at all.
****
The next day, Annie decided to stop by the mayor’s office. Ian knew everybody in town. Maybe he knew something about Archer Prescott too.
“I wanted to ask your opinion about something,” she said, once he had invited her to sit down.
“I heard you found out your friend had passed away.”
“How did you—?” Annie shook her head. “Peggy again, right?”
Ian shrugged. “She likes to chat with the customers, you know.”
“That won’t make my mystery correspondent very happy.”
“Chief Edwards told me they didn’t find any evidence to track the guy down yet.”
“Not yet. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Annie let him read the two articles about the drowning.
“At least I know the man she was engaged to was Archer Prescott.”
“JFP Athletics, huh?”
“Do you know anything about the company or him?”
“I remember when they used to headquarter here in Maine.” Ian frowned. “Raised a little bit of a stink when Prescott moved them out to California about ten years ago.”
“Peggy mentioned something about that.”
“That put most of his employees here out of work, and there was talk that he moved to take advantage of cheaper labor out West. Maybe even illegal labor if he could get away with it, some said. I don’t know if there was anything to that, of course.” Ian pushed the articles back across the desk to her. “Sounds like he really loved the girl, though. I wonder how long he kept looking for her.”