by William Cook
“That's wonderful news! Have you decided on a honeymoon?”
“We're talking about going to Hawaii toward the end of next winter. We'll take a few days off after the wedding to move into a new apartment.”
Whitehorse was beaming at her like a proud father. “If there's anything we can do, just let us know.”
Chiara hesitated. “Well...there is something. I don't know if you guys would be willing...”
“Spit it out,” said Esperanza, as he leaned forward in anticipation.
“Well, you know my dad passed away last June. I was wondering if you guys would walk me down the aisle. I mean, I couldn't choose just one of you, and it would be a little different with you guys on each side of me, but I think it would be cool. What do you think?”
Whitehorse's eyes went wide. “What do I think? I think it’s terrific!”
Esperanza followed suit. “It would be my privilege. Thank you, darlin'! Diana will think it's a hoot.”
“Chloe will love it, too.”
Chiara kissed them both on the cheek. There were tears in her eyes. “You've made me very happy. I can't wait to tell Sammy.”
“Chloe's never seen me in a tux. It'll give her a preview of our special day.”
“Which is...?” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.
“September twenty-eighth. We're working on the official invitations right now.”
Esperanza's smile looked as if it would split his face. “Well, if it wasn't 8:15 in the morning and we had a full day of work ahead of us, I'd say this calls for a drink. As it is, let's take a rain check on that.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. Then Whitehorse looked at Chiara.
“Wait a minute. Are you old enough to drink?”
“Only when the police aren't looking,” she said with an impish grin.
Just then the phone rang. “Driftwood Police Department. How may I direct your call?” She knit her brows and exhaled. “Just a moment and I’ll connect you.” She put the call on hold and looked at the policemen. “Which of you would like this? An upset mother—a Mrs. Harriett Carmody—calling about her missing daughter Patricia.”
“I’ll take it,” Esperanza volunteered. He lifted the phone on his desk as Chiara forwarded the call. “This is Officer Tony Esperanza. How may I help you, Mrs. Carmody?”
“My daughter’s gone missing. I haven’t heard from her since the day after Christmas.” It sounded as though she were choking back sobs.
Esperanza looked at the calendar on his desk. “So it’s been almost two weeks. Is it unlike her to go this long without contacting you?” He heard hesitation on the other end.
“No, but it’s not like her to ignore my phone messages. I bet I left more than a dozen on Thursday the twenty-seventh, but nothing. And now her phone doesn’t even ring. It goes right to her voicemail, which is full now so I can’t leave any more messages. So I thought I better call the police.”
Those remarks elicited a frown from Esperanza. “Shall I come and visit you so I can take a detailed statement?”
“Not likely.” He heard a mirthless chuckle. “I live in Rhode Island. My daughter moved out to Oregon last summer.” She pronounced it like an Easterner—“Or-eh-gahn.”
“Your daughter’s name is Patricia? And where has she been living?”
“In Neskowin. She said it was a little village right by Driftwood. That’s why I called you. Forty-Fifth Parallel Apartments. Number 107.”
“I know the place. Tell me more about her.”
“She’s 21. Working at Surf’s Up Pizza. Said it was a cute place right by the water.” Her voice was getting huskier.
“Boyfriends? Girlfriends?”
“Some boy she was about to dump. She didn’t mention any other friends.” She was crying now. “She’s an artist. I told her to stay and finish her scholarship at the Rhode Island School of Design, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
“The boyfriend? Do you have his name?”
The voice paused. He imagined her grimacing. “I can’t remember.”
“OK. Anything else we should know? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“The last time I talked to her, she was sounding crazy. Said she was auditioning for a movie that Steven Spielberg was directing. At some warehouse in Depoe Bay. That Meryl Streep would be there, too. Have you heard anything about that?”
“No, I haven’t, Mrs. Carmody. We’ll go check her apartment. If you think of anything else at all—especially that boyfriend’s name—please call. Also, please give me her date of birth and Social Security Number so we can subpoena her Facebook and email accounts. Oh, and I’ll give you our email. Please send us a recent picture of her.”
The call concluded and he hung up the phone. “Where’s Charley?”
“While you were on the phone, we got a call from Driftwood High School. Some kind of disturbance over there. He went to check it out.”
“Man, I can’t wait till we get a larger force. We’re pulled in a hundred directions at once.”
“Our little town is growing. Thank goodness the bond measure passed.”
“It’s hard to imagine a ‘real’ police station here—with a chief, a couple more patrolmen, a couple detectives. Word is they’re trying to recruit a new chief as we speak.”
“And don’t forget the new station,” Chiara added. “A new building without a leaky roof.”
He chuckled. “The repairs are holding so far. No buckets on the floor like last year.” He looked at the notes he had been taking while he had been on the phone. “I’ll head over to Forty-Fifth Parallel Apartments and see what I can dig up. Meanwhile, why don’t you prepare the paperwork so we can subpoena all her stuff—phone, email, Facebook, Instagram, whatever.” Before he walked out the door, he turned back to her. “Say—you hear anything about movie auditions in Depoe Bay with Steven Spielberg and Meryl Streep?”
“Hell, no! I would have been all over that!”
“I’ll bet you would’ve. OK. See you soon.” As he reached for the door, he added, “Hey, just so we dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’, would you take a look and see if there are any other unsolved missing person cases along the coast?”
“Roger that.”
3. Calling a Ghost
By Wednesday, the iconic image of the Johnny B. Goode impaled on the boardwalk stanchion had made national news. Charley turned up the volume of the TV as he played back the news program he had automatically recorded from earlier in the evening. He had been late getting home from work, and Kaitlynn was out with her friend Tessa. Chloe was in the kitchen, heating up leftovers for supper.
The scene was surreal. Banks of lights had been positioned on the beach in a broad semicircle, starkly illuminating the doomed ship against the starless night sky beyond. The tableau evoked a feeling of loss, as though a splendid living creature hung slain by a sword thrust through its heart. An enormous crane, with the logo Driftwood Marine Salvage emblazoned on its garish yellow side, arched high over the boat, ready to snatch it from its awful resting place. Dangling from its line were the straps of an enormous boat cradle, the kind used to lift a boat into and out of dry dock. Parked alongside the crane was a truck that proclaimed Out-on-a-Limb: Trees Trimmed and Felled, with the bucket of a cherry-picker tucked behind the cab.
Laurel Bandon, in a white scarf and red knit hat, spoke into the camera. “Lester, as you can imagine, safely removing a crabber the size of the Johnny B. Goode from where it now hangs is an enormous undertaking. I'm here in Driftwood with Henry Webber of Driftwood Marine Salvage to tell us how he'll do it. Mr. Webber?”
“Thank you, Laurel. Well, of course, our first concern is safety, both for the people involved and for the fragile environment of our bay and coastline. We can't tell yet how compromised the structure of the hull is. If we get the cradle around the Johnny B. and attempt to lift it off the pillar, will it break in half? Crumble? With that in mind, our first priority will be to drain the diesel fuel from its tanks so we don't have
a spill to contend with. I'll go up in that cherry-picker to manage it from there, with the help of my crew on the beach. Once the ship is clean, we'll get that cradle under it and hope for the best.”
“It sounds dangerous.”
“It is. But almost everything about crabbing is dangerous, so why should this be any different?”
“Well said, Mr. Webber. We wish you and your team the very best. Back to you, Lester.”
Charley turned from the TV and whistled. “I wondered how they were going to do that. Glad it's not me on that crew.”
“Me, too. Oh, did I tell you? I saw Darby yesterday, and I got on the GoFundMe page just before I left work. Decided we could postpone our birthday weekend in San Diego and gave them the money we had saved up for it. OK with you?”
“It's the least we can do.”
“And just a reminder. The Barnacle is hosting a crab-feed on Friday after the memorial service, with all the proceeds going to the two families. I think we should go.”
“Sounds good, honey.” He turned off the television and walked back into the kitchen, unwilling to see or hear any more news. “What time's the memorial?”
“Four o'clock. At Driftwood Heights Church over on Northwest Coho. I'll meet you there.” She brought over a plate mounded with a steaming serving of lasagna and set it before him. “I did a small salad for each of us, too.”
“It's better the second day, isn't it?” He inhaled the fragrant aromas of marinara sauce, mozzarella, and parmesan and smiled at her.
Chloe brought her own meal to the table and sat next to him. She grasped his hand and said a quick Grace. “Lord, bless this food to our bodies. And bless Holly and Heidi and their children in this terrible time. Comfort them. In Jesus' name. Amen.”
They ate in silence for several minutes.
“How's Tony?” She thought of Esperanza often. The old expression “tough as nails” suited him, though the former college football player was the gentlest of men beneath his muscled veneer.
Charley finished a savory mouthful and turned to her. “He's OK, but I think he gets more headaches than he used to.”
“Since the gun shot last year, you mean?”
“Yeah. He denies it—says he's fine—but I don't know.”
“That sure scared the hell out of me—seeing him in the hospital. All those bandages.” She shook her head and sighed.
“For a while, I thought we were going to lose him. Don't know what I would have done then. Can't imagine doing my job without him.” He poured himself another glass of Sangiovese and motioned the bottle toward Chloe.
“No thanks. I confess I had a glass when I got home from work.” She finished the last of her pasta and dabbed her lips with a napkin.
“Hey! I've got some good news for you. Chiara is getting married this summer, and she wants Tony and me to walk her down the aisle.”
“Guns drawn?” she said with a smile.
Charley gave her a playful slap on the arm. “She's serious. I think it’ll be really neat.”
“And I'll get to see you in a tux before our wedding!”
“I thought you'd say that,” he chuckled.
Chloe started to clear her dishes to the sink. “There's another thing I wanted to ask you about. I know you don't like talking about work, but...oh, I won't bother you with it now. It's not important.”
“Let me guess. You saw the news tonight about that missing girl?” Charley put down his fork when he saw Chloe nod. “Patricia Carmody. Twenty-one. Worked at that cute little pizza shop in Neskowin. The one we ate in last summer. Never made it back to work after a break she took at Christmas. Haven't found her car yet.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to her?”
“Nope. Her employer told Tony she had a habit of taking off. Just walked away from her two previous jobs. We haven’t been able to track down any friends yet. She has no family here. Parents and two sisters live back East. We’re hoping her mother gets back to us with the name of her boyfriend.” He took a final bite of lasagna and a sip of wine. “We’ve entered the info we have into the missing person file of the FBI's National Crime Information Center. Nothing yet. It’s like she fell off the face of the earth. We’ve subpoenaed her Facebook and email accounts, her cell phone records. We’re hoping the news release will jump-start people's memories and generate some tips.”
“Anything yet?”
“You know Reggie—the guy that runs the liquor store? I stopped in there on my way home tonight. He told me he knew Carmody. She was a regular customer. Said she came into the store Wednesday night, the day after Christmas. He remembers because the fog was so bad he was surprised that anybody was out in it. She told him she was going to be auditioning for a part in a big film project the next day. He said she seemed happy, like she wanted to celebrate.”
“I never heard about any movie auditions around here.”
“Me neither. And it's the same thing her mother told Tony when he talked to her on the phone. Supposed to have involved Steven Spielberg and Meryl Streep, if you can believe that. Sounds crazy.”
“How about the girl’s cell phone?” Chloe was rinsing their dishes and arranging them in the dishwasher.
“Nothing. Mother said she called her several times on the morning of the twenty-seventh, but her daughter never answered. Now it goes straight to voicemail. It’s either out of battery or it’s been destroyed. Either way, the phone’s a goner.”
“Cell phones do that—keep going to voicemail even if they’re ruined?”
“Yep. Phone company has to follow call completion rules. They can’t let it ring on this side if it’s not ringing on the receiving end. Run over by a truck, dropped in a lake, out of battery. It’s all the same. Of course, once the mail box is full, you can’t leave any more messages. But it won't stop until the carrier terminates the number.”
Chloe stopped what she was doing and grimaced. “That's creepy. Like you're calling a ghost or something.”
“I hate to admit it, honey, but that may be exactly what we're doing.”
4. Running on Empty
Holly and Heidi elected to have a joint memorial service for their husbands at Driftwood Heights, the nondenominational church that Holly attended every Sunday. It was a contemporary church with a great circular stained-glass window in the rear of the sanctuary. The window, about ten feet in diameter, had been a source of controversy from the very beginning. Created by a local artist who had donated it to the church, it was an abstract impressionistic piece of brilliant primary colors. “But what is it?” was the question of every newcomer to the church. Some said it was a depiction of the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles in tongues of flame at Pentecost. Others said it was a dramatic portrayal of the Risen Christ bursting from the tomb. Still others had less savory interpretations. There were op-ed articles about it in Beachtown News every Easter, when church attendance spiked. The artist herself wasn't telling, but she always appeared to be smiling when she sat in the front row.
Today the gathering was decidedly somber. Neither man's body had been recovered, and it pained both women that there wouldn't be a grave site they could visit—that place of quiet, set apart from the hurry and noise of the world, where each might commune with her lost husband, tell him how his children were growing, unburden herself of the sorrow that might suffocate her otherwise. They sat together silently, looking straight ahead, holding hands, their children like bookends on either side of them.
A tall man in a black suit, white shirt, and blue silk tie walked up to the lectern. His face was kind but not soft, his sandy blonde hair, neatly coiffed. His deep blue eyes conveyed a wisdom beyond his forty-five years. He took a breath and nodded to the families, wives and children expecting a healing word, some balm for the hurt that filled every corner of body and soul.
“Dear friends,” he began, looking over the congregation, “we are gathered here today to honor our fallen comrades, Derek Lea and Rick Perrins, who lost their lives doing what
they loved. They have left behind grieving families who will need our support over the coming weeks and months as they reorganize their lives without the precious men who led them. You may know that the body of the third man, Carl Hamisu, was flown back to California today by his grown children.”
He cleared his throat and looked back and forth over the people sitting before him. “Most of us in this church have been touched by death in some way—the loss of a parent or grandparent, a brother or sister, aunt or uncle, God forbid a child, a dear friend—we know the pain of that kind of sorrow. Truth be told, no amount of prayer or well-wishing from friends can heal that heartache.” He saw heads nod in agreement. “Grief counselors tell us that our grief comes in stages and that, with time, the knife-edge pain of the initial loss subsides to a dull ache that we learn to live with. For Holly and Heidi and their children, the world will be forever changed, without Derek and Rick in it, and they will live with that ache for the rest of their lives.”
He made eye contact with Holly first and then with Heidi. “What does our faith tell us? Not to grieve as those who have no hope. We are Resurrection People, living in the hope of the same resurrection that our Lord experienced first.”
Holly bowed her head and closed her eyes. As the eulogy continued, she leaned and whispered in her sister's ear. “I want this to be over. I want to wake up and find out it was all just a bad dream. I want to hear Derek yelling at me for overcooking his sunny-side up eggs again. Snapping at the boys to clean their rooms. Shooing me away from cleaning a crab so he can do it himself.”
A tear trickled down Heidi's cheek. “I want to hear Rick tell me and the girls how pretty we are. I want to sit next to him on the couch and watch a stupid romantic comedy together.” She began to cry in earnest and Holly put her arm around her. Soon she was crying, too, and they simply held onto one another like two women in a lifeboat, terrified of what lay ahead, uncertain they would survive. The children saw their mothers crying and began to weep also.
