The Girls Are Missing by Caroline Crane Page B

might not have. “Isn’t he cute? All that curly hair, and I just love uniforms. It makes people look so—capable.”
    “A little young for my taste,” said Joyce. “If I had to choose, I’d take D’Amico. He’s a real man.”
    “Who, the old one?”
    “Old? I doubt if he’s forty.” She took a breath to say something more. To tell Mary Ellen, Please don’t be so boy
    crazy that you get carried away with the wrong person. But to start lecturing would only make Mary Ellen stubborn.
    With the police coming right on his heels, she had almost forgotten about the reporter. By the time Carl came home she was thinking of it again, and had worked herself into a state of pique. Almost triumphantly she related how she had chased him away.
    “We really ought to get a dog, Carl, there’s too much going on here, and this house is so isolated. I’d feel a lot safer.”
    He was unpacking his briefcase, taking out all three daily papers, the Times , the News, and the Post.
    “I suppose I never told you,” he said, “I’m allergic to dogs.”
    No, he hadn’t told her. The subject had never come up, and his bland statement made her feel oddly deflated.
    “Well, then, maybe a Pinkerton guard.” She started toward the stairs to remind the girls about setting the table.
    He called her back. “Did you see this in the paper?”
    She approached it with dread, for she caught a glimpse of a photograph. But it was only the site where the third girl had been found, not the body itself. Below it were three smiling portraits: the victims. What if somebody came to the door and asked for a picture of my daughter?
    He motioned her to sit down and read it with him.
    “Later,” she said. “I’ve got dinner almost ready.”
    With a final, questioning look, he laid the papers on the sofa and went up to take his shower. When they gathered at the dinner table, he was silent at first, apparently disappointed that she had not shared his fascination with the murder story. She hoped he would not talk about it in front of the girls, and felt relieved when he did not talk much at all.
    After the meal was over, the dishes cleared away, and
    the children watching television, she picked up the paper. Carl gave her an approving glance across the sofa. It was the excitement that got to him, she supposed. The mood of crisis. He wanted to share it.
    The victim was a girl named Toni Lemich. She had a round face, short dark hair worn like a cap, and heavily outlined eyes.
    Joyce skimmed the columns. It was disgusting the way the newspapers latched onto these things. Like vultures.
    Carl moved over beside her and pointed to a block of print set apart.
    “Look, did you see that? A letter. The man wrote a letter to the paper.”
    “The murderer? Why can’t they catch him from that?” For some reason she had never pictured the killer as an actual person, with the ability to get up in the morning, dress, buy groceries, or write a letter like anybody else.
    Carl looked at her with a slight frown.
    “How could they catch him? The letter was typed. It says so.”
    “I read somewhere that even a typewriter has its individual quirks,” she said, “and they can identify it almost like handwriting.”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe with a manual you can. Even then, you’d have to start with a suspect. But I doubt they can identify something like an IBM, with that type ball. There must be millions of them in use. You can change the typeface, and the print’s too even to have individual quirks.”
    “Did he do it on an IBM? I should think even that would narrow it down, at least to somebody who had access to one.”
    “Millions of people have access to them. Go on. Read it.”
    Dear Sirs,
    The Cedarville police are too slow. They don’t even start to get warm yet. So in the meantime we have three cold bodies, maybe more to come, ha ha. Its getting to be a habit. Theres never any shortage of girls. When I want one I can always get one.
    Your