All The Hidden Pieces

by Jillian Thomadsen

  “We’re all here,” Weaver said. “Shut the door.”

  Martinez closed the door to the office and the three of them advanced closer to Weaver’s desk. They found bookcases and window ledges to lean against, forming an outer periphery to the inner circle that the seated gentlemen had formed.

  Eversgard cleared his throat and folded his arms across his chest. “We understand you’re looking for Steven Vance. You can call off your search; he’s under our protection. He’s been moved to a safe location.”

  Hobbs swallowed hard and sat forward. “Can you tell us why?”

  Eversgard looked up at Hobbs, over at the other Vetta Park police and then back at Weaver. “Steven Vance is an informant for us. He’s been giving us information about the Islava drug operation, based in Mexico City. He’s been working for us for almost two years. Last week, he gave us a particularly useful bit of information that helped our agents locate a cross-border tunnel. Our guys seized a few tons of marijuana and cocaine, and several AR-14 assault rifles. He also gave geographic details that allowed Mexican authorities to find and arrest Raoul Islava. That’s when we felt it was necessary to move him into hiding.”

  “Steven Vance has been working with you for two years and you never felt the need to bring it to the attention of the Vetta Park Police Department?” Weaver asked.

  The older agent leaned forward and made a steeple out of his fingers, which he laid against Weaver’s desk. “With all due respect sir, the Vetta Park police department has been looking the other way for years. Steven Vance has a known drug operation and somehow this city has allowed him to rise to the upper echelons of its elite. Just last year, he donated thousands of dollars of drug money to build a little league field and you all threw a party for him. His money is drug money. And he launders it right through this city.”

  The room was silent for a minute. Hobbs waited to see how Weaver would respond. She’d never before seen him face reproach and now the criticism was harsh and real – delivered in front of subordinates no less.

  But Weaver was not, by nature, an explosive man and he accepted the censure with a long single nod and a contemplative stance. He inhaled and opened his mouth as if to say something but nothing came out.

  Hobbs shook her head. She was aware of this notion about the Vetta Park police – that they were glorified traffic cops, bumbling about as though jesters in a slapstick comedy. And here were these agents with their arrogance and authority – who clearly shared this view without having to say it.

  “When did you first start talking to Vance?” Hobbs asked.

  “Like I said…” Eversgard responded. “Almost two years ago.”

  “Why?” Hobbs asked. “What happened almost two years ago?”

  “Someone came to see us,” Waldron answered. “Someone with a bit of knowledge about his inner workings. It wasn’t a perfect road map but it gave us enough to haul in Vance and get him to inform on his suppliers.”

  “Was that person Greta Carpenter?” Hobbs pressed.

  “For their own personal safety, we don’t reveal the names of informants, not even to police departments,” Waldron stated.

  Captain Weaver stood up and took a few steps towards his squad. “Hobbs, what are you getting at?” he asked.

  “It was Greta!” Hobbs exclaimed. “Don’t you see? It would have to be Greta. She lived in his apartment in her late teens; she would have seen some stuff. And almost two years ago is the date that Steven Vance’s people attacked John. And she must have gone to the FBI as retribution for it.”

  “We don’t reveal the names of informants,” Agent Waldron repeated.

  But there was a shift in his voice as he said it, an almost palpable air of acquiescence. Hobbs had figured it out and Waldron was neither going to agree nor try to fight it. She knew if the name were wrong, he would have said so with a manner of superiority. But the name was right, and the agents allowed it to be absorbed by the room.

  “You do know that she’s missing, right?” Hobbs asked. “She and her whole family…they’re gone.”

  “We are aware that they’ve gone missing,” Eversgard said. “We know you brought Steven Vance in for questioning on September 20. We told him that he didn’t have to subject himself to your interrogation but he insisted on coming in and speaking to you anyway.”

  “Why do you think he would come in if he didn’t have to?” Adams asked.

  “Well…” Eversgard shifted his whole body to the left until he was facing the three Vetta Park PD subjects. His eyes roamed over Hobbs – not in a suggestive way but in an appraising gesture, as though he were sizing her up. When he answered, he seemed to speak directly to Hobbs.

  “I don’t know what history you two had, but he said he wanted to try to get out some personal stuff. I don’t know exactly…clear the air, say good-bye. That’s why.”

  Hobbs met Eversgard’s stare but didn’t say anything right away. She thought about her off the record talk with Steven Vance in the back parking lot of the police station. At the time, if she’d only known he was about to go under witness protection, would she have acted differently? Hobbs thought about how she walked away during Vance’s apology – as though his words meant nothing to her. Just a few years earlier, that apology would have carried all the weight of the world and she never would have forgiven herself for walking away from it – leaving his explanations dangling in mid-air. But at the time, the world looked different, and it was even different still. Now she knew she’d likely never see him again. The partial apology before she cut him off was all the closure she was ever going to get from their little love story. It would have to suffice.

  Hobbs brought her mind back to the missing family. “At the time, we believed that Steven Vance had a connection to Greta Carpenter; he was our best lead for finding out what had happened to her and her family.”

  “But you were barking up the wrong tree,” Waldron said decisively. “Steven Vance had nothing to do with that family’s disappearance.”

  “How can you be so sure about that?” Weaver asked.

  “Several reasons,” Waldron explained. “First of all, there’s no real motivation. He doesn’t know who turned him in but let’s just say he thinks it might be Greta. Two years later, just about the time that he’s providing his most valuable insight to us, he also decides to make Greta and her whole family disappear, sabotaging any hope for freedom? Witness protection doesn’t exactly make you a free man but it’s better than being behind bars. Secondly, he’s been under our watchful eye for the past two years. We’ve monitored his calls, read his emails and listened in on his meetings. Not once has the Carpenter or Brock family come up. Vance has made no mention, given no inkling that they’re even a blip on his radar screen. Right now, quite frankly, he’s got bigger fish to fry than a Vetta Park paralegal, his wife and their two kids. And the third reason is just logistics. If he took them out or ordered a hit, he would have either had to do it without us knowing or we’d have to be involved, complicit. And before your imagination takes you to places you shouldn’t be going, I can assure you that that wasn’t the case.”

  Waldron’s phone buzzed and he stood up, leaned forward to shake Weaver’s hand and gave a polite wave to Hobbs, Adams and Martinez on the other side of the room. “We have to get back now,” he said, and just hesitated at the door long enough to allow Eversgard to give a hasty farewell and join him. Two minutes later, Hobbs looked out the window and could see them as figures in the parking lot – the husky and the lean sauntering through the rows, as if foils in a police drama. They got inside a black, unmarked SUV and sped off.

  Once they were gone, Adams closed the door to Weaver’s office and returned to his space against the bookshelf, while Hobbs and Martinez assumed the seats the agents had vacated.

  “Well, what do we think?” Weaver asked.

  His underlings were quiet at first, and Hobbs felt they had a good reason to be. It was as though the agents had sucked the competence out of the room –
as though they had diminished a once diligent, capable police force. They had appeared from mid-air to show neophytes what major leaguers looked like. Worse than just arrogant and didactic – they’d also stripped them of their biggest lead. Steven Vance was the family’s only connection to any type of crime syndicate and Hobbs had never been more certain of his involvement than when she’d learned – only three days prior – that he’d disappeared. Now his disappearance had a police-underwritten explanation and they were back to square one.

  When no one answered Weaver’s question, he tried a different tactic. “Let’s reassess the case,” he said. “If we assume that Steven Vance had nothing to do with this, who does that leave us with?”

  The room was quiet. Weaver allowed the stillness to settle into the room and then he said, “Talk to me about Griffin Brock.”

  “He has a solid alibi and no motive as far as we know,” Hobbs responded. “There’s nothing that indicates any anger towards the family, no behavior in the past month or so that was out of the ordinary. And he has nothing to gain by their death or disappearance.”

  “I see,” Weaver said. He exhaled a puff of breath and drummed his fingers on the top of his desk. “What about those investment bankers? The real estate guys in Chicago?”

  “Nothing,” Adams answered. “Also no motive. They haven’t dealt with Greta or even Griffin for years. They bought land years ago and then moved on.”

  “So what are we missing?” Weaver asked – in a voice low enough that Hobbs wasn’t sure if he was speaking to them or himself. She hated to admit that they were no closer to an answer than a month ago when she’d first inspected the Avery Place house with Martinez.

  There was only what amounted to an abandoned life, a black hole that had swallowed an entire family. They were now in a science fiction movie that left four intelligent, experienced members of the police department mute and uncertain.

  The rest of the day was an assignment of futility. She listened to the tip line they had established for the family and quickly ruled out dead ends. Adams and Martinez reviewed the files they had amassed over the month to see if anything new jumped out at them.

  At ten after six, Martinez ducked out and by ten after seven, Adams closed the file, rubbed his eyes and announced to Hobbs that he was done for the evening too. “There’s a Chinese food restaurant over on Centennial. I’m going to go and grab a bite.”

  He stood up and lingered for a moment by her desk. Hobbs wasn’t sure whether he was inviting her to join him but she felt silly inviting herself. After a second or two, Adams said, “Do you want to join me?”

  Hobbs said, “No, that’s ok,” and watched him leave. She had answered more out of instinct than desire. What she yearned for and what she allowed herself to do were at complete odds with each other – as they often were.

  She stayed for another hour at the police precinct but got nowhere with the tip line or the files. The Carpenter family disappearance was the most frustrating case Hobbs had ever taken on. There was no coupling of time spent with resolution of the case. Most of her cases had a linear bend; a point where she could justify the hours with the conclusion her work had revealed. Not this one.

  Hobbs left the precinct and got in her car, heading for home. But as she got closer to her house, she was overcome by the notion that this wasn’t where she wanted to be. She wanted to be back in Adams’ fold – talking with him about the case, cracking jokes with him, lying next to him.

  It was so difficult for her to turn the car around, to head in the direction where she’d just come, to rehearse the words she was going to say – but she did it anyway.

  She felt like she was taking a leap over a one hundred foot crevice – and this uncertainty left her with a dizzying, nauseous sensation. She could make it to the other side or she could fall into the cleft – emotionally drained and embarrassed – and there was no way to tell which way the conversation would go until she jumped.

  ***

  The host stand at the front of China Garden was abandoned, so Hobbs led herself to Adams’s table. The entire restaurant was a box-shape so it was easy to identify the only diner sitting by himself – his napkin folded formally in his lap, his chair arranged to face a poster of the Great Wall.

  Even in the dim lighting, Adams saw her approaching from the other side of the restaurant. He stood up as she neared and gestured towards the seat across from him, his mouth too preoccupied with a fried chicken dish to say anything.

  When Hobbs sat down and Adams finally swallowed, he cleansed his palate with a sip of water and said, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  A waiter appeared and Hobbs ordered a glass of iced tea and a pork dish. Once they were alone again, Hobbs said, “I came because I wanted to talk to you about my past. With Steven Vance. I wanted to give you the full story.” Adams was quiet for a moment so Hobbs added, “if it’s something you want to hear.”

  “Sure, I’d love to hear it,” Adams said. He put his fork down and leaned closer to her across the table.

  “Well…” Hobbs said. “I’m not sure what you already know but Steven Vance was my first real boyfriend. You probably already knew that.”

  Hobbs waited for an affirmation or denial from Adams but he did neither. He balled up his napkin, placed it on the table in front of him and waited. His eyes were fixed on her in a way that normally made her feel uncomfortable. She fought her instinct to shrink away from his stare, and instead, she returned the gesture.

  “It sounds very strange saying it out loud…well, not strange really but common, incredibly common. He was my first boyfriend and I was madly in love with him and I was already mentally picking out the tablecloths for our wedding registry when I caught him cheating on me. And then he dumped me. And ghosted me.”

  “Ghosted you?” Adams

  “He ignored me; it was like he couldn’t stand to be in my presence. And when I think about it now, I think he probably felt guilty and didn’t know what to say. Because somebody who just didn’t care…maybe that person would have accepted my calls or talked things through. I don’t know; maybe I’m being too gracious about his motives.”

  Tears spilled down Hobbs’s cheeks and landed on the tablecloth. They made fat juicy circles, a sprinkle of moisture that revealed the dark brown wood beneath.

  Adams had never seen Hobbs cry before and he reached forward and held out his hand. At first Hobbs crossed her arms but then she slackened and allowed him to take her right hand in his.

  “Over the years, he kept coming back to me and I kept taking him back. I know it sounds stupid but he allowed me to believe he’d changed and every time, I believed it because I wanted to believe it. During those years, I didn’t open myself up to anyone but him. I really thought that he was the one for me. But, of course, he’s a very damaged person and he didn’t treat me the way I deserve to be treated. I can’t tell you what it’s like to be in love with someone who thinks you’re not worth shit. It hurt a lot.

  “And then, a few years ago, I guess I just woke up and finally realized that was it. I needed to give up the idea of him. And this…epiphany…well, it changed a lot about the type of person I wanted to be. I couldn’t trust my judgment. I stopped thinking life was one big romance novel waiting to happen to me. A piece of me hardened that I didn’t think would ever soften again. I think that toughness is what you see…what a lot of the guys on the force see. I think that’s why I have a tendency to push you away when in reality…” Hobbs sighed and didn’t finish her statement.

  The waiter came back and brought Hobbs her food. She unwrapped a pair of chopsticks and pushed the pork around her bowl but didn’t eat anything.

  A few seconds passed, in which neither of them said anything. Then Adams leaned forward, scratched his chin and asked, “What’s the reality?”

  “What?” Hobbs had been staring down at her food but she looked up at him – into his eyes, a rich umber shade, seemingly darker than usual.

  “You were sayi
ng something…before the food came,” Adams said. “You said that you have a tendency to push me away but in reality…”

  “Oh…I don’t know,” Hobbs said quickly. “Sorry, I got distracted.”

  It was far from a measure of deflection or an attempt to put up a wall. Hobbs felt like words had been streaming out of her mouth unfiltered, like hallucinogenic rants. She felt the warring pieces of her – the part that wanted to be uninhibited, open and vulnerable pitted against the part that had learned the consequences time and again. She needed to be careful, defensive. She had sat in that seat before, even though the recipient of her affections was a very different person.

  Adams accepted her response and the silence returned. He looked around the restaurant while finishing what was on his plate. Finally, he placed his fork and knife together, sat back and asked, “When we brought Vance in for questioning, was that the first time you’d seen him?”

  Hobbs nodded. “Well, the first time in a few years. After the last breakup, for the longest time, I would imagine what it would be like to bump into him – maybe on the street or at a charity event. I would have imaginary conversations with him in my head – thinking about what I would say and how he’d react. Sometimes, I’d be tossing a drink in his face or slapping him across the face. I’ve been so angry about it for years…I didn’t even entertain the notion that I could see him again and be civil.”

  “But you were quite civil, actually,” Adams said.

  “I was – because it was different from what I imagined, once I finally took him off of that pedestal. He was no longer this larger than life local celebrity shining down on the proletariat. He looked…older and defeated…in a way.”

  “Not the invincible guy you had made him out to be?” Adams offered.

  “Not at all. I saw a desperate, lying con man whose empire was collapsing. I guess moving on allowed me to see through different eyes. Seeing him made me realize that there was nothing he could give to me that would make my life any better. He didn’t actually hold any cards. It was on me. I need to move past it…or stay angry and guarded forever.”