georgia price was wearing a leotard, and her forehead glowed with perspiration. i guess she had been dancing, practicing steps or something. she looked at me, and her eyes widened when she placed me. she took an involuntary step backward and i followed her into the room. she started to say something, then stopped and went to turn off the music. she turned back to me, and she looked scared and guilty. i didn't think she had much cause for either emotion, but i decided to press.

i said, "you're from tallahassee, aren't you?"

"just outside."

"price is a stage name. your real name is prysocki."

"how did you-"

"there was a phone here when you moved in. it hadn't been disconnected."

"i didn't know i wasn't supposed to use it. i thought the phone came with the room, like a hotel or something. i didn't know."

"so you called home, and you called your father at his store."

she nodded. she looked terribly young, and scared to death. "i'll pay for the calls," she said. "i didn't realize, i thought i would get a bill or something. and then i couldn't get a phone installed right away, they couldn't send someone to connect it until monday, so i waited until then to have it disconnected. when the installer came he just hooked the same phone up, but with a different number so i wouldn't get any of her calls. i swear i didn't mean to do anything wrong."

"you didn't do anything wrong," i said.

"i'll be happy to pay for the calls."

"don't worry about the calls. you were the one who ordered the phone disconnected?"

"yes, was that wrong? i mean, she wasn't living here, so-"

"that was the right thing for you to do," i told her. "i'm not concerned about a couple of free phone calls. i'm just trying to find a girl who dropped out of sight."

"i know, but-"

"so you don't have to be afraid of anything. you're not going to get in trouble."

"well, i didn't exactly think i was going to get in trouble, but-"

"was there an answering machine hooked up to the phone, georgia? a telephone answering machine?"

her eyes darted involuntarily to the bedside table, where an answering machine stood alongside a telephone.

"i would have given it back when you were here before," she said. "if i even thought of it. but you just asked me a couple of quick questions, what was in the room and did i know paula and did anybody come looking for her after i moved in, and by the time i remembered the machine you were gone. i didn't mean to keep it, only i didn't know what else to do with it. it was here."

"that's all right."

"so i used it. i was going to have to buy one, and this one was already here. i was just going to use it until i could afford to buy one of my own. i want to get one with a remote, so you can call from another phone and get your messages off it. this one doesn't have that feature. but for the time being it's okay. do you want to take it with you? it won't take me a minute to disconnect it."

"i don't want the machine," i said. "i didn't come here to pick up answering machines, or to collect money for calls to tallahassee."

"i'm sorry."

"i want to ask you a few questions about the phone, that's all. and about the machine."

"okay."

"you moved in on the eighteenth and the phone was on until the twentieth. did paula get any calls during that time?"

"no."

"the phone didn't ring?"

"it rang once or twice but it was for me. i called my friend and gave her the number here, and she called me once or twice over the weekend. that was a local call so it didn't cost anything, or if it did all it cost was a quarter."

"i don't care if you called alaska," i told her. "if it'll put your mind at rest, the calls you did make didn't cost anybody anything. paula's deposit came to more than her final bill, so the calls were paid for out of money that would have been refunded to her, and she's not around to claim the refund anyway."

"i know i'm being silly about this," she said.

"that's all right. the only calls that came in were for you. how about when you were out? were there any messages on her machine?"

"not after i moved in. i know because the last message was from her mother, all about how they were going to be out of town, and that message must have been left a day or two before i moved in. see, as soon as i figured out it was her phone and not one that came with the room, i unplugged the answering machine. then about a week later i decided she wasn't coming back for it and i might as well use it, because i needed one. when i hooked it up again i played her messages before i set the tape to record."

"were there messages besides the ones from her parents?"

"a few."

"do you still have them?"

"i erased the tape."

"do you remember anything about the other messages?"

"gee, i don't. there were some that were just hangups. i just played the tape once through trying to figure out how to erase it."

"what about the other tape, the one that says nobody's home but you can leave a message? paula must have had one of those on the machine."

"sure."

"did you erase it?"

"it erases automatically when you record a new message over it. and i did that so i could leave a message in my own voice when i started using the machine." she chewed at her lip. "was that wrong?"

"no."

"would it have been important? it was just the usual thing. 'hello, this is paula. i can't talk to you right now but you can leave a message at the sound of the tone.' or something like that, that's not word-for-word."

"it's not important," i said. and it wasn't. i just would have liked a chance to hear her voice.

"i'm surprised you're still on it," durkin said. "what did you do, call indiana and shake some more dough out of the money tree?"

"no. i probably should, i'm putting in a lot of hours, but i'm not getting much in the way of results. i think her disappearance is a criminal matter."

"what makes you think so?"

"she never officially moved out. she paid her rent one day, and ten days later her landlady cracked the door and the room was empty."

"happens all the time."

"i know that. the room was empty except for three things. whoever cleaned it out left the phone, the answering machine, and the bed linens."

"and what does that tell you?"

"that somebody else packed the stuff and carried it off. a lot of rooming houses furnish bed linen. this one didn't. paula hoeldtke had to supply her own linen, so she would have known to take it with her when she left. someone else who didn't know might have assumed it was supposed to stay with the room."

"that's all you've got?"

"no. the answering machine was left behind, and it was hooked up to continue answering the phone and telling people to leave their messages. if she'd left on her own she'd have called and had the phone disconnected."

"not if she left in a hurry."

"she probably would have called in somewhere along the line. but let's say she didn't, let's say she was enough of an airhead to forget it altogether. why would she leave the machine?"

"same thing. she forgot it."

"the room was left empty. no clothes in the drawers, nothing in the closet. there wasn't a whole lot of clutter around for things to get lost in. all that was left was the bed linen, the phone, and the answering machine. she couldn't have not noticed it."

"sure she could. lots of people leave the phone when they move. i think you're supposed to leave the phone, unless it's one that you bought outright. anyway, people leave them. so she's gonna leave her phone. so the answering machine- where is it, it's next to the phone, right?"

"right."

"so she looks over there and she doesn't see something separate, an answering machine, a household appliance, keeps you in touch with your friends and associates, ends your worry of missing calls, di dah di dah di dah. what she sees is part of the phone."

i thought about it. "maybe," i said.

"it's part of the phone, it goes with the phone. and, since the phone stays, it stays with the phone."

"and why doesn't she come back for it when she realizes it's missing?"

"because she's in greenland," he said, "and it's cheaper to buy a new machine than to get on a plane."

"i don't know, joe."

"i don't know either, but i'll tell you this, it makes as much sense as looking at a phone and an answering machine and two sheets and a blanket and trying to make a kidnapping case out of it."

"don't forget the bedspread."

"yeah, right. maybe she moved somewhere that she couldn't use the linen. what was it, a single bed?"

"larger than that, somewhere between a single and a double. i think they call it a three-quarter."

"so she moved in with some slick dude with a king-size water bed and a twelve-inch cock, and what does she need with some old sheets and pillowcases? what does she even need with a phone, as far as that goes, if she's gonna be spending all her time on her back with her knees up?"

"i think somebody moved her out," i said. "i think somebody took her keys and let himself into her room and packed up all her things and slipped out of there with them. i think-"

"anybody see a stranger leave the building with a couple of suitcases?"

"they don't even know each other, so how would they spot a stranger?"

"did anybody see anybody toting some bags around that time?"

"it's too long ago, you know that. i asked the question of people on the same floor with her, but how can you remember a commonplace event that might have taken place two months ago?"

"that's the whole point, matt. if anybody left a trail, it's ice-cold by now." he picked up a lucite photo cube, turned it in his hands and looked at a picture of two children and a dog, all three beaming at the camera. "go on with your script," he said. "somebody moves her stuff out. he leaves the linen because he doesn't know it's hers. why does he leave the answering machine?"

"so anybody who calls her won't know she's gone."

"then why doesn't he leave everything, and even the landlady won't know she's gone?"

"because eventually the landlady will figure out that she's not coming back, and the matter might get reported to the police. cleaning out the room tidies a potential loose end. leaving the answering machine buys a little time, gives the illusion she's still there to anybody at a distance, and makes it impossible to know exactly when she moved. she paid her rent on the sixth and her room was found to be vacant ten days later, so that's the best i can narrow down the time of her disappearance, and that's because he left the machine on."

"how do you figure that?"

"her parents called a couple of times and left messages. if the machine hadn't picked up they would have kept calling until they reached her, and when they didn't reach her no matter what time they called, they would have been alarmed, they would have thought something happened to her. in all likelihood her father would have come to see you two months earlier than he did."