“What about dinner, then?” I asked. “Are you going to join us?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I missed you last night, and there’s something I’d like to do first.”
And that’s exactly what we did. It wasn’t until much later—after we were showered, dressed, and waiting for Scott and Cherisse to show up—that we actually started talking about work. She told me how far she’d gone in making notes on the abstracts, and I told her about my semi-fruitful trip to Leavenworth.
“What’s the defense analyst’s name again?” Mel asked thoughtfully, reaching for her laptop.
“Dortman,” I said. “Thomas Dortman. He lives here in Seattle. I already Googled him.”
Mel did several quick keystrokes and then studied her screen. “And he has a new book coming out at the end of the month, The Whistle-blower’s Survivor’s Guide. Want me to order you a copy from Amazon.com?”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “From what I read in the article, Tony Cosgrove was supposed to be a whistle-blower. Or maybe he would have been, if he hadn’t disappeared when Mount Saint Helens blew up.”
“So obviously Cosgrove didn’t live long enough to benefit from the book,” Mel observed.
“No, he didn’t,” I agreed. “I sent Dortman an e-mail asking him to give me a call, but it’s the weekend. I’ll give him until Monday before I try doing anything else about finding him.”
We were still waiting for Scott and Cherisse to show up when the phone rang. Caller ID identified the call as coming from Kelly and Jeremy’s place in Ashland.
“She took off,” Jeremy blurted the moment I answered.
“Who took off?”
“Kelly.”
“Where did she go?” I asked.
“That’s the problem,” Jeremy answered, “I have no idea. She tried to grab the car keys out of my pocket. When I wouldn’t give them to her, she lost it. She screamed something about the kids and me being better off without her, then took off on foot. What am I going to do?” Jeremy added miserably. “I can’t take care of these two little kids all by myself. I wouldn’t know where to start. What’s the matter with her, Beau? What’s going on?” He sounded utterly mystified and despairing.
“Are you saying you think she’s left you for good?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” he returned. “I told you what she said, but I don’t know what it means. Do you?”
From the sound of things, it was probably a good thing Kelly wasn’t behind the wheel of a vehicle.
“Did the two of you have a quarrel of some kind after you got home?” I asked.
“How could we argue?” Jeremy said. “She wasn’t even speaking to me.”
Yes, I thought. I know how that works.
“Before you left Seattle then?” I asked. “Did something happen while you were here that upset her?”
“You saw how she was,” Jeremy answered. “She was upset the whole time we were there—upset and on edge. The thing is, what am I supposed to do now? Go looking for her? Let her go and hope she cools off? Call the cops?”
I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what to tell him.
“What’s going on?” Mel asked in the background.
“It’s Jeremy,” I explained. “Kelly cried all the way home from Seattle back to Ashland. Now Jeremy says she told him he and the kids would be better off without her and took off on foot.”
“Let me talk to him,” Mel said. I handed over the phone. She switched it to speaker mode. “How long ago did she leave?”
“A few minutes,” Jeremy answered. “I called as soon as she was out the door.”
“So she’s probably still in the neighborhood somewhere,” Mel said. “Take the kids with you, get in the car, and go find her.”
“But—”
“And when you do, take her straight to her doctor and tell him exactly what’s going on.”
“But what is going on?” Jeremy asked.
“Have you ever heard of postpartum depression?” Mel asked.
“Yes, but I always thought it was some kind of joke.”
Jeremy’s thinking on the matter wasn’t that far from my own. As far as I knew, postpartum depression was right up there with mother-in-law jokes as fodder for stand-up comedians.
“It’s no joke, Jeremy,” Mel told him. “It’s serious, and it can also turn deadly on occasion. If that’s what’s going on, Kelly needs to see her doctor right away so she can be diagnosed and treated.”
“She’s not crazy or something, is she?” Jeremy asked. His voice was subdued. And scared. The deadly seriousness of Mel’s demeanor had me scared, too.
There was a call-waiting alert on the phone, but Mel ignored it and so did I. “Kelly may be acting crazy,” Mel countered. “But having a baby is hard work. It probably left her internal chemistry totally out of whack. Since she’s not nursing…she isn’t, is she?”
“No.”
“Then having her doctor prescribe medication to counter that chemical imbalance shouldn’t be a problem, but you’ll have to find her first.”