Lifeline

“Come on, kid, we’re going!” I said, sweeping the legs of the rookie cop off the top of the desk where he was reposing with a nap and the kind of smile you get when you’re dreaming of mom’s apple pie or the girl friend who’s dyed her hair shocking pink to impress you with her sense of fashion.           

“What say? Going where?” he asked groggily as he tried to collect himself and rise to the call of duty.

“Making a welfare check.”

“We’re writing a check or delivering one?” he asked, struggling to his feet with a lack of balance.

“Neither. It’s what we call checking a house or household where something seems to be going wrong enough to require investigation.”

“I’m with you there,” the rookie said confidently.  

“Not quite. Zip your fly, straighten your tie, and you will be.”

On the way, I described the mystery of the case, beginning with the fact that Mrs. Willoughby’s friends and relations were worried why she wasn’t messaging them or answering the messages they left for her.

Her closest neighbors told us it had been a while since they had last seen the kindly senior walking her mischievous barking dog Lulubelle or driving the dated Oldsmobile which she liked to call “my antique on wheels.”

The amount of clutter on her front porch was another sign that all was not well within. It led some to knock on her door, attempt to peer through her shuttered and curtained windows, and ponder whether she had left town and forgotten to inform the post office of that fact. The number of such concerns led us to investigate and determine whether the normally sociable and congenial widow had suffered a health setback from which she needed to be rescued or whether a case of foul play had put her beyond recovery.

“You can usually tell what you’re going to find in such cases,” I told the rookie, “but you also have to keep an inquiring mind on those occasions when the usual causes aren’t in evidence.”

We began with loud knocks and persistent doorbell ringing that elicited no response. We then put our amplified bullhorn to work with an overloud statement of the fact that, given her unresponsiveness, we would have no choice but to make a forceful entry that was both justifiable and legally approved. 

“I imagine she’ll be glad to hear that if she fell and can’t get up,” the rookie theorized.

“Assuming she’s still conscious, which I very much doubt.”

We quickly gained entrance into the house and found no sign of any disturbance, nothing out of the ordinary and no sign of the missing woman. Nor did her dog greet us with its customary barking.

“The silence of the dog could be a clue,” I pointed out.

“Maybe the two of them took off in the Oldsmobile for an unannounced holiday,” the rookie speculated.

“It’s still in the garage,” I shook my head.

As we searched the ground floor, we began to hear the sound of a distant voice repeating a message at intervals. It led us to an upper floor and a room where the missing widow was comfortably ensconced at a businesslike desk with pen in hand and a blank sheet of paper lying before her. She seemed poised as if to take a message, but given her motionlessness and voicelessness, it was unlikely she would be able to respond to one.

“No, she’s not dead,” the medic said, “but on the other hand.—well, I don’t know what to call it. Her vital signs are there, but she isn’t.” 

We stared at the woman as the party on the phone kept repeating her message at precisely timed intervals.

“Your call is very important to us. Please continue to hold and your call will be answered by a representative in the order in which it is received unless the order becomes disordered through no fault of our own, in which case we ask you to continue holding, and caution you that if you choose to do otherwise, we may take certain necessary precautions in order to ensure compliance.”

“What’s that she’s saying?” the rookie asked.  “Sounds like a threat.”

“Just the usual business jabberwocky,” I said. “You know how it is nowadays with all the devices AI is marketing to help keep customers on the line—-and help businesses ensure profitability.”

“She’s still holding? She couldn’t hang up?”

“The question for us is whether we can–or should–break the connection. On the one hand, we need to do it. On the other, we have to ask ourselves if this is something more than suspended animation or stolen attention span.”

“So if we hang up, does it bring her back or cash her out?”

As if to answer his question, the voice rang out with renewed urgency.

“Continue holding! Continue holding! If you find it too difficult to do so, we will continue for you with the aid of our new communication system that will ensure you never lose connection and remain entitled to all the bargains and discounts that makes you the smart shopper we know you are….” 

“So what happened to the dog?” the rookie asked.

“Let me guess: dognapped by an irate neighbor.”

“But the old lady didn’t have an enemy in all the world, or so we were told.”

“Maybe she didn’t. The dog is another story.”

“Is that why we don’t hear her howling?”

“Unless you have a better explanation?”

He didn’t, but what happened next gave us the answer we were looking for.

“What’s this dog doing here?” the late-arriving inspector asked irritably when he found the non-barking Lulubelle lying rigidly under Mrs. Willoughby’s nearby sofa where it had gone to sleep or to hide. “Why are you guys standing around and doing nothing but staring? All right, leave it to a professional. Don’t nobody move or talk until I figure this thing out!”

As he wished, none of us moved or spoke. Was it merely obedience to the inspector’s order or was it because the advanced technology of the new communication system worked so powerfully that we had lost the ability to do anything but stand and stare?

Crouching in a squat, the inspector began tickling the dog’s ribcage in the hope that Lulubelle would awake and begin barking to break the spell.

And now, locked in his crouched position, the inspector finds himself unable to move and has become strangely mute.

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