An Expense Code Led The Search To A Locked Packing Shed

DB-4 meant nothing to me. To the woman sorting Creed's company accounts, it meant a water bill.

She had found a payment for $86.22 under that same code in records already supplied for the city audit. The service address was a closed packing shed south of Mobile, near Theodore.

The company's chart of accounts called the site Dry Bay Four.

I learned that later. At the time, I sat in a protected room while Mercer stepped into the hall to take calls. I could hear shoes on the floor but couldn't make out words.

"Is she there?" I asked each time he came back.

"They're checking."

That was all he could give me.

On the table lay my written account of the offer. Mercer had asked me to read it and mark any errors before signing. I changed "ten" to "about ten" where I had guessed how long Nora spoke.

"Does that make it weaker?" I asked.

"It makes it yours."

I signed beneath the correction. Creed wanted my name on a page that would hide a woman. I put it on one that described how he had tried.

At 10:30, Creed called again. With Mercer beside me, I said the notary was delayed and asked for until one.

"You think I can't find another tuner?" Creed asked.

"I think you need this tuner's signature."

He breathed into the phone.

"One. Then the offer ends."

After the call, I took out my felt plugs. I rolled them between my fingers, the way I did before working beside a loud reed rank.

"You don't need those in here," Mercer said.

"My hands need something."

He brought me a clean sheet of paper.

"Write what you're worried you'll forget."

I wrote Nora's first words. Tell my sister I'm here. I wrote that her voice had sounded dry. Then I stopped. None of it would open a door.

At 11:47, Mercer came back and sat down before speaking.

"They have her. She's alive. She's going to the hospital."

My breath came out so hard the paper moved.

"Pruitt?"

"In custody. One paid guard too."

I put my plugs in the case. I missed the lid twice before it closed.

Later, Ruth told me what had happened. Officers had watched the shed while a judge reviewed the search request. Pruitt's truck arrived. When a guard opened a side door, an officer saw Nora being pulled back from it.

The team went in. Ruth reached Nora in a small office behind the packing floor. She had been locked there since Tuesday night, with water, packaged food, and no phone.

Nora had kept asking to call her sister. Pruitt had kept saying after the hearing.

There were no grand speeches when she came out. She asked for a bathroom and her own shoes.

Creed's lawyer never received a signed retraction. Instead, officers met Creed at his office with an arrest warrant supported by the recording, the phone calls, the search findings, and the rescued woman's first account.

I wasn't there to see his face.

I was glad of that. For several days, I had imagined a moment when he would understand what he had done to me. When it came, I only wanted to know whether Nora could call home.

At four, Mercer took me to the hospital after Nora asked to see me. Her sister sat beside the bed with the blue folder on her lap.

Nora wore hospital socks and looked smaller than I remembered. I stayed at the door until she waved me in.

"You look awful," she said.

"I was going to say you looked well."

"Don't start lying now."

I laughed, and then I had to sit down.

She told Mercer that Pruitt had grabbed her after she went to Calder to question its bookkeeper about missing relocation checks. Creed had been waiting in the freight bay. She had heard him order Pruitt to keep her until the city released the money.

The conversation under my test tones had happened shortly after she was locked upstairs.

"I kept trying to stomp," she said. "Did you hear that?"

I had heard several dull thuds. I had marked them possible handling noise.

"I didn't know what they were."

"You knew enough."

Ruth came in after Mercer finished. She stood at the foot of the bed while Nora's sister thanked her. Her coat sleeve had a tear near the cuff.

I wanted to touch her hand. I kept mine on my knees.

As we left, Nora called us back.

"They're set to gut the theater Wednesday," she said. "He told Pruitt to clear the basement first."

"Why?" Mercer asked.

"That's where he stored the original tenant forms. I saw the boxes on my way through. Blue tape, marked Sable payroll."

She pointed to her sister's folder.

"Get those boxes before someone turns them into dust."