The next day was completely like any other day.
Cramwell retired that night thinking that perhaps the napkin and book incident
of the previous day had been just a fluke, almost a dream, but certainly not
reality! The following morning at eight o’clock, Cramwell awoke as usual, put
on his dressing gown, and calmly paced measured steps to the front door to
retrieve his morning paper. He tucked it under his arm and headed straight for
the kitchen, as he always did.
Cramwell
brought his breakfast to the table and kissed the marble face in front of him.
“Good
morning, Jelly,” he whispered. He unfolded the paper and began to read.
“HAVE
YOU SEEN ME?” The headline screamed. Beneath it was a picture of a young girl
with wavy brown hair, blue eyes, fair skin, and freckles. She was smiling.
“MYSTERIOUS
DISAPPEARANCE OCCURS AT CAFÉ,” the newspaper termed it. “Clarissa Forquist had
just finished her shift at the local café, and told her remaining co-workers
that she was going straight home, which was about a twenty-minute walk away.
Reportedly ten minutes after Clarissa left, friend and acquaintance Darla
Munroe noticed that Clarissa had left her favorite scarf—a
red-and-white-striped wool knit—hanging in the break room. “I knew she would
have been halfway home by then,” Darla says, “So I waited another fifteen
minutes or so, and then called her house.” But Clarissa never got the call;
authorities have searched the house and found no sign that Clarissa Forquist
ever made it home that night. She was last seen on the corner of Summer Street
and Fifth, by a passerby on their way to the tavern, just minutes before eight
o’clock PM. If you have seen Clarissa at any time within the last twenty-four
hours, or if you see her, please don’t hesitate to call the authorities.”
“Someone
will disappear at eight….Where is Jane? Look At The Clock! Where is Jane? Can
Dick Find Jane? Where is Jane? Where is Jane?”
Cramwell pushed his unfinished bowl of oatmeal away.
He suddenly had no appetite. His stomach knotted up and twisted inside of him,
so wracked with guilt was he. Guilt over what? He had been warned! He knew
someone was disappearing, but it had all seemed so petty when people were
invisible to him anyhow! The clock struck nine. Cramwell didn’t have the heart
to touch the paper again, for every picture was pretty, young Clarissa, so much
like his beloved Jelilah! Every headline pestered him, “Have you seen me?
Didn’t you see me? Were you even looking? You sit there at the café where I
work for half an hour every day, have you ever seen me?”
Cramwell
sat at the table until he heard the clock strike half-past-nine. He mused that
he would begin heading down into the town right about now, and the first place
he would go would be the café—could he still bear going there, with what he
knew now? Cramwell knew he would have to try; what else could he do besides
that which he had always done?
Cramwell
got dressed, grabbed his hat, cane, and basket—then upon impulse he grabbed a
notebook, too. Who knew if another napkin awaited him in his booth? He would be
prepared this time!
Cramwell
found it relatively easy to behave normally in the café. Of course people were
whispering all around him, but then, people always whispered all around him.
Cramwell checked the stack of napkins immediately upon entering his booth, but
none of them bore any markings whatsoever. Perhaps it was just the once, he thought with no small sensation of relief.
Once
the half-hour was up, Cramwell finished the last swallow of coffee and rose
from his booth. As he was getting up, one of the waitresses came by to wipe the
table and clear his cup; her nametag read “Cora.” Cramwell suddenly realized
that Clarissa may have cleared his cup on many mornings, but since he did not
know her name, she was “just another person” to him until she disappeared. It
gave him a sense of power to be able to name now at least two people in the
town of Precinct: Clarissa, and Cora. Cramwell stopped with a whim of perhaps
getting a glance of Cora’s face, but just then a woman blustered through the
door carrying a bright-red umbrella, and nearly tripped over Cramwell’s cane.
Before the woman could react in surprise or inconvenience, Cramwell left the
establishment and hurried to his next rendezvous, the library.
There
were still no new codebooks, so Cramwell returned to the Fiction aisles to
search for all of Jelilah’s favorite authors.
He
stopped short when he saw his own name—irregular as it was—spelled out clearly
on the spine of one of the books. The real title of the book was Cromwell, and it happened to be a book based on the life of
Oliver Cromwell, but a piece of paper with the letter “A” had been cleverly
affixed over the “O” to spell Cramwell. A sinking, dreadful feeling came over Cramwell as he slowly,
reluctantly pulled the book from the shelf.
Sure
enough, taped on the front cover was a piece of paper with another code! This
one was full of numbers.
Cramwell
pondered what the numbers could mean. A simple book code, perhaps? The typical
pattern for such a code, he knew, very often followed the “page-line-word”
form. He turned to the fifteenth page of Cromwell, and sure enough, the third line began with the word, “Now.”
The book was his key! Cramwell flipped
madly back and forth through the book, writing the designated words out in his
notebook. Finally, the page before him displayed the entire message:
“Now
you see him, now you don’t; someone you notice today will not be there tomorrow.”
Cramwell
rubbed his furrowed forehead in consternation. Another warning! How would he
prevent the abduction this time? Besides, the kidnapper had upped his game
already: he had addressed Cramwell by name. Whoever it was knew Cramwell, knew
his love for codes—but did not know how few people Cramwell actually noticed,
evidently. This time, Cramwell had a plan. He jumped up from his chair with
alacrity and promptly stumbled over a long, straight object. A child’s red
umbrella; Cramwell kicked it aside with a sneer and walked out the door.
After
picking up his bag of lunch at the diner, he set out to the City Hall instead
of the park. He kept his head down and his eyes averted as he requested from
the receptionist the most recent town census records.
Danielle,
the receptionist, found this sort of request extremely odd and totally
abnormal; but, then again, this was Cramwell Fornberg, widely regarded as the
oddest and most abnormal person in town, if not the whole country. In addition,
the Fornberg Estate had funded a large part of the businesses and
establishments in the town. Cramwell Fornberg was not one to be refused much of
anything in a town like Precinct. She scanned a copy of the census records,
carefully bundled it all in an envelope, and handed this packet to Cramwell.
He
accepted it without acknowledging her, and departed to the park to eat his
lunch.
Cramwell
was moderately pleased with himself. Armed with this list of names, he would be
able to know every resident without having to notice them personally. So far
that day, the only person he had actually noticed was Cora, the girl at the
diner. Would the kidnapper take another diner waitress? Surely not! Cramwell
was nearly confident that this would be a kidnapping the perpetrator would want
him to assume was totally random. Cramwell picked up his daily groceries and
returned to his house. He feasted on roast chicken and rice, fully assured of
the success of his plan.
After
dinner, Cramwell settled into the library with a map of the town, and the
census records. He made a list of all the places he visited during the day
(since the kidnapper seemed to have prior knowledge of Cramwell’s daily habits,
to leave him clues where Cramwell could find them), and referenced that with
all the names on the list of people who worked in those establishments.
No
less than fourteen individuals worked at the café, twenty at the library,
twelve at the diner, and six at the grocery store. The rest could likely be
seen at any time during his walk through the Square or during lunch at the
park. He looked carefully at the pictures accompanying the names of most of the
people (predominately the adults, not so much the children). Every face was
completely unfamiliar to him, but he made a point to match each name with the
face, so he would know whom to expect without having to see them. He would
outwit this kidnapper at his own game!
As
he charted out the people he would need to expect in each place he visited,
Cramwell thought about the kidnapper. Why would anyone just begin abducting
people? Was it someone who had lived in the town for quite some time now? How
long had he lived there before he began this terrifying onslaught of not only
absconding with innocent, everyday people but at the same time spooking the living
daylights out of the town’s most reclusive resident with the mysterious, eerily
specific, cleverly encoded messages?
Cramwell
thought about the message: “Now you see him, now you don’t…” Of course! The
message always contained a hint about the gender of the victim. This time, it
would be a male! Cora was safe, Cramwell was sure of it. He resumed his careful
studies, determined that none should slip by him the next day.
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