“Matilda might be missing?”
said the police officer. “She has a mysterious caller?”
“We
see him regularly,” said Barth, a city transit driver, who was growing
increasingly concerned about her whereabouts. “Bernie and I do the evening run,
seven days a week. That man is in and out of her place almost every
evening. He takes the bus to her condominium and catches the last bus, at
midnight.”
“Others
on the bus have seen this caller too?” continued the police officer. “And
Matilda is about fifty-five, you say?”
No
one suspected anything was wrong, until Barth realized that no one had
seen Matilda for a long time. They assumed the mysterious caller was
Matilda’s friend.
“He
always wears a black leather cap, jacket, jeans and boots. He carries a black
leather backpack, too,” said Bernie. “We would have captured him on the video
camera had we suspected something was wrong.”
“Do
you think Matilda is being robbed?” asked Barth.
“She
might be,” replied the police officer. “Do you know who her relatives
might be, or where they live?”
“If
she has any they never come to visit her.”
“But,
we only work evenings,” replied Bernie, apologetically.
“It
may not be too late to catch him,” suggested Barth. “It's my day off. Bernie
and I could make a videotape of him when he is on the bus tonight. I could sit
down beside him and ask him some questions.”
“He
might recognize you and suspect something was up,” responded the police
officer. “I have a better idea. A plain-clothes, city transit officer will ride
the bus tonight.”
That
night, the plains clothes officer began to question Matilda’s mysterious
caller, as soon as he entered and sat down on the bus.
“Hey,
I know you. You are Matilda’s friend. How is she doing, anyhow?”
“Matilda
does not like meddlers,” the man responded, angrily. He immediately stood
up, pulled the cord and got off at the next bus stop.
“You
were right to be concerned,” he told Bernie. “There is something wrong.”
This
time, the mysterious caller was captured on video.
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