Free Disturbed Ground by Carla Norton Page A

that Bert preferred the city? She didn't want to say anything to upset Bill, but there was something strange going on here.
    Distantly, the muttering commenced again in her subconscious, a muffled rumble, like indigestion in her intellectual tract. She said good-bye to Bill Johnson and left, but the muttering followed her out the door and dogged her the rest of the day. It persisted through the week, greeting her in the mirror, following her during rounds at work, nagging through dinner. Finally, very early Saturday morning, it shook her awake.
    She stared into the darkness, listening to her mind tick, wondering why this business about Mexico troubled her so much, debating whether she was being irrational. She looked at the clock and saw it was 5:00 a.m. Dorothea had said she was always up before five, that she liked to garden early in the morning. So she'd already be up. Very well. Judy would call her.
    She dialed the number, and sure enough, Dorothea answered, clear and alert.
    "Good morning, Dorothea, this is Judy Moise," she said, affecting a casual tone. Without even apologizing for phoning so early, she simply inquired, "I wondered, how's Bert doing?"
    If Dorothea was startled, she didn't show it. "Oh, Bert's in Mexico," she said cheerily. In an effusive rush, she told Judy the same story she'd told Bill Johnson: her brother-in-law, the doctor, with the nice house in the country; the relatives who liked Bert so much that they'd insisted he stay. "They just love Bert," she cooed.
    Judy didn't voice her doubts, but she was having a hard time believing that Dorothea's family would be so enamored of Bert that they'd welcome him into their home. He was sweet and even-tempered, true, but he was still mentally ill, and such people were hard to place even when the hosts were paid to take them in.
    Now Dorothea was saying that he was just doing wonderfully. "He likes it down there so much, he's been calling me three times a week just to talk about what they've been doing."
    Calling? Bert placing international calls? Judy tried to picture this, but it just wouldn't come. Maybe Dorothea's relatives were dialing for him.
    Dorothea was volunteering more details about her family in Guadalajara, but Judy cut her off, saying, "You know, Dorothea, I'm kind of uncomfortable about Bert being down there without you. I mean, what if he gets lost? What if he wanders away from your sister's place and can't find his way back? He'd never be found again. And since he's Spanish-speaking, no one would believe that he's American. He'd never make it back across the border."
    In truth, this was exactly what Judy feared had happened: Dorothea had taken Bert down there, he'd wandered off, and now she just couldn't admit that he was lost.
    But Dorothea laughed this off. "That would never happen in that area, it's rural. Besides, now everyone down there knows him, and they'll keep an eye out for him. Please don't worry, Judy. Anyway, he'll be back next week."
    "Next week?" a glimmer of hope.
    "Well yes," Dorothea was saying. "You know that if he's out of the country more than two weeks, he'll lose his Social Security. So he'll be back by then."
    So Dorothea knew it was illegal for Bert to be gone for more than two weeks! Judy took this as a good sign. She rang off, her apprehension lifting like an untethered balloon. Bert would be back in a week. Everything would be all right.
    But when Judy called a week later, Bert still wasn't there.
    "Oh, there was a fiesta that he wanted to stay for," Puente said breezily. She apologized, promising again that Bert would be back within a week.
    Judy had little recourse but to implore Puente to have Bert call as soon as he returned. The landlady agreed, and Judy was left to wait.
    But no call came.
    By now Judy's muttering disquiet was a constant buzz in her head. Given the nasty rumors that had floated around about the old woman's past, she was beginning to worry that maybe Dorothea had intentionally "lost" Bert so