Question about the ending [SPOILERS]

This question is only for those who’ve seen the movie.

After we see Barney (Sinatra) step on the gas pedal while he’s driving through the storm, which has covered the windshield after Barney has turned off the wipers, there is a cut to the Tuttle home and a phone call from an unspecified source (Police? Hospital?) telling them that Bob (Alan Hale Jr.), husband of Fran (Dorothy Malone), has been in an accident. Now, when we last saw Bob, he was telling Barney, who wanted to drive Alex (Gig Young) to the station in Fran’s car so he could talk to Alex alone, that he—Bob—would volunteer to be dropped off at the drug store to buy cigarettes and wait there for Barney to pick him up on the way back from the station. Okay, so an unspecified amount of time has passed between Bob being dropped off at the drug store (off-camera) and the family getting the phone call about the accident. I’m guessing at least 20-30 minutes would have passed. In all that time, wouldn’t Bob have simply called the house from the drugstore pay phone and asked if Barney had forgotten about him? We know enough about the hyperactive, self-important Bob to realize he wouldn’t like to be kept waiting like that. Also, when the family gets the phone call, no one asks where Barney is. They’ve all completely forgotten about him. And when they get to the hospital and realize it’s Barney and not Bob, no one asks, “If it was Barney who was in the car, then where’s Bob?”

So my question is: Did I miss something?