He Was Not There

by P. D. Workman

  “Are you still there?” the duty officer asked eventually.

  “Yes.”

  “I guess you’d better give me her name and any other information you have. The year of the offense. If you have a file number or the name of the officer who opened it. Anything else.”

  Zachary dutifully gave her Heather’s name and birthdate, and the date of the assault. “She didn’t have the file number or the name of the officer. She was only fourteen at the time. It would have been her foster mother that had that information.”

  “Poor kid. Well, this will be enough to start, but it may take a while for us to find the file and evidence and get it back here. Are you in town?”

  “No, but I’m in Vermont. I’ll come in once you find it.”

  “Don’t expect a lot,” she warned again.

  “I know. I’ve told Heather not to get her hopes up. But if there is anything… I have to at least try. See if I can bring her some kind of peace. If we can get the guy who did this to her behind bars, or keep him behind bars…”

  “If it was investigated at the time, they would have run down all of the leads. It could have been someone who lived out of town, even out of the state. And if there is any evidence left, it might be completely degraded by now. You don’t know if it will be usable.”

  “Yeah.”

  There was the tapping of keys and Zachary didn’t know whether he should say goodbye and get off of the line, or wait for her to say something else.

  “I am getting a hit on our archives catalog,” the duty officer offered. “So we do have something at the warehouse. That’s good news. That means that at least you called the right police department. You wouldn’t believe the number of times when people don’t even know what police department a file was opened with. We spend hours looking for a ‘lost’ case, only to find out that it was opened in another county. Or even another state.”

  “Memories are faulty,” Zachary acknowledged. “Especially if it’s someone like Heather, who was only a child at the time. I don’t remember the details of a lot of the homes that I was in. If they move a kid to another city to get away from a bad influence, he might not even remember a year or two later.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Her voice was distant, as if she weren’t really listening to him.

  “So, you’ll put in a request for that file and then let me know? And I’ll come in to talk to whatever officer it’s assigned to and we can work through what evidence there is and if there are any other leads to pursue?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Who exactly are you?”

  Her tone made it sound like she had suddenly discovered he had told her a lie or was trying to pull something over on her.

  “Uh. My name is Zachary Goldman. Heather is my sister…”

  “But who are you? You’re not a reporter…?”

  “No. I…” he wondered if she recognized his name from the news and was trying to place it. “I’m a private investigator, actually. That’s why Heather thought I might be able to help. Find a lead that hadn’t been considered before.”

  “Oh, you’re a PI. Well, that changes things.”

  “I don’t see how. I’m just helping my sister out, like I said.”

  “Our department doesn’t work with private investigators.”

  “I’m looking into it for my sister. I’ll bring her along when the officer is ready, if I can, but she’s traumatized. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to get her in. If I can’t, do you need her to fill out an authorization or something to talk to the officer?”

  “We’ll definitely need her written authorization. And I don’t know if they’ll accept it if it’s for a private investigator. Like I said, we don’t deal with PIs.”

  “I’ll deal with whatever forms you need me to. I’m Heather’s brother.” It was obviously going to be a tricky situation, and he was actually grateful that the duty officer had tipped him off to it before he had to deal with the officer who would be in charge of the file when it was brought out of storage. He wouldn’t mention to them that he was a private investigator, just Heather’s brother.

  Zachary had been checking his social networks when an alert came up on his computer and he saw that he had an incoming video call. It was Lorne Peterson, his former foster father and probably his best friend, so he couldn’t turn down the call without a good reason. If he were in the middle of something important or a conference with a client, that was one thing, but he had just been taking a break to look at his email and social networks, and Lorne had probably seen that he was online in a status line. Zachary let it ring for a minute while his mind jumped ahead, trying to script the call. He clicked to answer it.

  He would have turned off the video and just done a voice call, except that the whole reason Mr. Peterson was calling using video chat was so that they could talk face-to-face. Zachary had promised that they could see each other more often that way so that he didn’t have to make the two-hour drive to see Lorne and Pat for them to see that he was okay. So he let the video load, and in a minute was looking at the round face and fringe of white hair that was so familiar and important to him. He couldn’t help smiling at Mr. Peterson’s cheerful smile.

  “Hi.”

  “Zachary! Believe it or not, I actually set up the call myself this time.” He gave a self-satisfied nod, as if he had conquered a difficult task. “I’ll get the hang of this yet!”

  “Great job.” Zachary rubbed his face and scratched at his stubbly skin, looking at himself in the smaller picture in the corner of his screen. “I don’t actually look as bad as this video makes me look, trust me.”

  “It’s just good to see you. You don’t have to get all dressed up for me.”

  “Yeah, but I could have at least combed my hair and washed my face.” Zachary rubbed his slightly-bleary eyes. At least with the buzz cut, he didn’t really have to do anything to take care of his hair. And he had splashed water on his face; that had to count for something.

  “So tell me what’s new. I can’t believe how fast the time goes by. It seems like you were just here, but it’s been weeks.”

  They had, at least, talked in that time, so Zachary didn’t have to feel guilty about not having gone to visit Lorne and Pat during that time. “I saw Tyrrell yesterday. He says ‘hi.’”

  “Oh, I’m glad to hear that you got together. He’s such a nice young man. Tell him ‘hi’ from me too. How is he doing?”

  “Seems to be doing pretty well. He actually called me because one of my sisters wanted to meet me. Heather.”

  “Really? Zach, that’s fantastic. How was it?”

  “It was nice to see her again. She’s… a lot older.”

  Mr. Peterson laughed. “I would guess so!”

  There was movement behind him on the screen and, in a moment, Pat was leaning over Lorne’s shoulder to look at Zachary. “Hi, Zachary! How’s it going?” Pat was younger than Lorne. Not a young man anymore, looking more distinguished with some gray at his temples, but still vigorous and fit.

  “Good, Pat. How about you?”

  “Can’t complain. I’ll leave you two alone. I just wanted to make sure that Lorne hadn’t run into any problem and that I got to say ‘hi.’”

  “Thanks!”

  Pat withdrew again. Mr. Peterson watched him leave, smiling fondly. “Okay, where were we? Oh, your sister. Which one?”

  “Heather. Second-oldest.”

  “Right. How did that go? Did you have a good visit?”

  “Well, it wasn’t really much catching up… she had T contact me so that she could talk to me about a cold case she wanted me to look into.”

  “Oh.” Mr. Peterson’s eyebrows climbed upward. “What kind of a case?”

  “She was assaulted as a teenager. They never caught the guy who did it, and she’s thinking that now with the technological advances, maybe they’ll be able to, and she can rest a little easier knowing that he’s off the streets.”

  “The poor girl. Do you think you’ll be able to help
her? It’s been so long.”

  “I know it’s been a long time, but with DNA testing and some of the other forensics they can do now, I think there’s at least a good chance that they’ll be able to make some kind of break on the case. It’s worth looking at, anyway. And there might be other leads on the file that I can follow up on. Sometimes just a fresh pair of eyes on a case…”

  “Well, I hope it works out. After this long, I’m sure she’d be glad to get a little justice. But it was a long time ago…”

  “Yeah. We’re all trying not to get our hopes up about everything just falling into place and being able to pin it on someone.”

  6

  Zachary gave it a few days before calling the police department of Clintock again, hoping that they would call him back and let him know that the file had arrived. But there was no word, so eventually, he called again to find out if they had made any progress. Sometimes he just didn’t hear from people until he started to make some noise. There was a different officer on duty on the main phone number, and he muttered under his breath while he tapped information into the computer, trying to get the system to spit out the status of the case that Zachary had requested. Not complaining about Zachary, just a steady stream of search terms, talking to the computer, and cursing the makers of the software and computer for making it so difficult to find what it was he was looking for.

  “Okay… Heather Goldman, is that what you said?”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “Looks like there was a request to pull the file. I just have to jump over to another database to see where it is in the system…” More muttering. “Looks like we got it. It should have been assigned to an officer. Why isn’t it showing up on the damn system?” The duty officer pounded the keys, frustrated and trying to beat an answer out of the computer. “There’s the file in the log, so whose desk did it end up on? Just a minute. Can you hold?”

  Before Zachary could answer, the man was gone and he was listening to some easy listening version of U2. Zachary rolled his eyes and put down his phone, switching it to speaker phone so he could keep himself occupied while the officer tried to track down the file. Several songs played, and he was getting sick of whatever station they had it tuned to. It had to qualify as some kind of torture to have to listen to that music for more than a minute. Zachary checked his email and went through the next few bits of spam and responses on other files. It would be ironic if he got an email from the officer who had been charged with Heather’s case while the duty officer was trying to track down that information. But no such luck.

  “Hello? Are you there?”

  “Oh, hi.” Zachary tapped the phone off of speaker mode and picked it back up. “I’m here. Were you able to track it down?”

  “I was able, and he is Able.”

  “What?”

  “It’s been assigned to Detective Able. I’ll put you through. Do you want his number in case you have to call back later?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The Duty Officer read the number off to him and Zachary jotted it down. Then he was ringing through to Detective Able without another word. Zachary didn’t know whether the Duty Officer had already talked to Detective Able to give him a warning that he was putting a call through or not, so he again prepared to start from the beginning.

  “Able.”

  “Uh… hi, Detective Able. I don’t know if anyone told you, but I’m Zachary Goldman and I’m calling about a file that has apparently been assigned to you. A cold case for my sister, Heather Goldman.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. Goldman…” He made a noise for Zachary to wait while he apparently looked through his inbox or a stack of files that had ended up on his desk. “Yeah, here it is. Heather Goldman. This is a dusty one!” Able sneezed. “Nineteen eighty-nine. Really?”

  “Yes, really. She was only fourteen at the time. It would be nice if we could find something that would help her to move on.”

  “Who’s going to find something after this long?”

  Zachary hoped that he wasn’t assigned too many cold cases to review, if that was his approach.

  “You never know. There have been a lot of advancements in technology,” Zachary started again, “There might be—”

  “Technology isn’t going to be able to help us much in this case.” There was the sound of turning pages as Able looked over the file.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that all I’ve got here is paper. Maybe there is a police sketch or something that they could age-advance, but other than that, about the only technology that’s going to be used in this case is eyes on paper.”

  “You didn’t get the physical evidence? Maybe it was transferred to your medical examiner or forensic department…?”

  “No physical evidence here,” Able agreed. “If they transferred evidence to another department for testing, there should at least be a sticky on the file, and I don’t see anything. There is no physical evidence on this file.”

  “But a rape kit was done.”

  “No, it doesn’t look like it.”

  “I think Heather knows whether there was a rape kit done or not. They take several hours and she has a very clear recollection of it.”

  “Witness recall is often faulty. She might have had to go to the hospital for some follow up and thought that they did a kit. But there wasn’t anything sent back with the file.”

  7

  Zachary went to Clintock without Heather. He wasn’t about to drag her all that way just to find out that they hadn’t managed to find the forensic evidence that had been collected all of those years ago. She had been as traumatized with the collection of the evidence as she had been by the assault itself, and he understood better than anyone how it would feel for all of that evidence to be lost after the ordeal it had been to collect it in the first place. He’d wait until he had something concrete to tell her.

  The town brought back memories. He had lived there for most of his growing-up years. The shape of the place had changed; there were new buildings and broader streets and other indications of the progress of time, but he recognized a lot of what he saw. The hospital, the skyline, though it was much more crowded now. The residential streets that he had walked or been taken over by bus or social workers or foster parents. He passed one of his old schools, and tried hard not to be sucked into the memories. He had been at a lot of different schools, and he didn’t remember specifically anything that had happened at that one, but that just meant a flood of unfiltered memories rose up around him, threatening to drown him in flashbacks. He kept driving, refusing to be distracted, trying to keep them all at bay.

  Because of Heather’s case and the time he had spent thinking about it, memories of school bullies and foster families who had threatened or assaulted him were at the forefront, pressing for him to remember what he had worked so hard to forget. He stared at the road and reviewed his route to the police station in his mind, trying to keep everything else out. How was it going to help Heather for him to remember what had happened to him as a kid? He might be able to be sympathetic to her, but that didn’t help to solve her case.

  It was a little better once the school was out of sight again, and he pressed forward, finding the police station and looking for the public parking.

  It was a building that he knew. He hadn’t been there as Heather had, reporting the assault that had happened to her. Instead, he was pretty sure it was the station he had been taken to that first December after the fire. With the first anniversary of the fire looming large ahead of him, he had run away, and had, for a day at least, joined up with a group of older, more experienced street kids and learned some of the ropes of street life.

  It was cold and he’d left home without the clothing he would need to get through the bitter nights on the street. He had worn the coat that he would wear to get from the climate-controlled house to the warm car, not the kind of gear he would need to keep warm all day and all night outside. Unfortunately, he and his partner in cri
me had been caught shoplifting warmer clothes, and he had been taken to the police station where his social worker had picked him up.

  He could clearly remember sitting there on a bench with older criminals around him, waiting for Mrs. Pratt to pick him up, unsure where he would go or what he would do once she arrived.

  As it turned out, he hadn’t been able to handle it when she took him back to his foster family, and she had eventually taken him to Bonnie Brown, the children’s secure care facility, where they could keep him safe for the next couple of weeks until he could get past the anniversary. It had been a relief to get away from the Christmas tree, candles, and wood-frame house and to know that he wasn’t going to be caught in another fire on Christmas Eve. But unlike Scrooge’s Christmas Eve visitors, those ghosts had continued to haunt him all through his life, whenever the anniversary approached again.

  Zachary swallowed and had a drink of his cold coffee. He got out of the car and went to the front doors of the police station. He wasn’t a child anymore. He was a grown man and no one there would have any idea of his past history. Not that they would care, even if they knew. He wasn’t a master criminal. He was just a guy who’d had a troubled childhood.

  He waited at the front desk and then introduced himself, explaining that he’d set up an appointment with Detective Able.

  Detective Able called Zachary’s name and motioned him to follow. He was an older cop, maybe riding a desk until retirement. He had dark hair with plenty of gray. He was a little too heavy, not in the same shape he’d been as a patrol officer on the streets.