Idyll Fears

by Stephanie Gayle

  “Yup.”

  “Hmm. I can come by tomorrow and take a look. You’re up on Cotswold Road?”

  “Yeah, 148,” I said.

  He nodded. “Anything else?”

  I pictured my black-and-pink-tiled bathroom, the stupid cabinet pulls, and the nonfunctioning fireplace. “Yeah, but let’s start with the floor.”

  “Tomorrow morning okay? Work is busy today.”

  Of course. Tonight was New Year’s Eve. Biggest bar night of the year.

  “It can wait a few days,” I said.

  “How about 9:30 a.m.?” Apparently Nate didn’t believe in time off.

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.”

  After I’d done a punishing series of crunches, push-ups, and pull-ups, I took a long, hot shower. Then I settled myself into my recliner and toasted myself with a drink. Praising my own wisdom in having taken New Year’s Eve off. Let the others handle the drunks tonight. I reviewed a copy of Sharon Donner’s finances. The money puzzled me. She hadn’t touched her credit or ATM cards. What was she living on? How was she paying for food or gas or toothpaste? They’d been gone over a week. I checked her November credit card statement again. Gas charge, movie rental, restaurant bill, dry cleaning, craft store, gas station.

  Then I reviewed her November bank statement. Groceries, house insurance, auto garage, church donation, pharmacy, groceries. Nothing unusual. She’d continued to pay her bills as if she’d continue living in the house that she’d abandoned. Property taxes, insurance. Nothing that signaled she planned to up and leave. The feds had searched the place and found no luggage and lots of empty hangers in the closet. Not everything was gone, though. The place still had plenty of belongings, from kitchen mixers to jewelry to pancake-batter mix.

  I turned on the TV and watched as New Year’s Eve celebrations swept across the world. There were fireworks and musical artists and actresses in tiny dresses shivering in the cold with bright smiles pasted onto their faces. Young men I didn’t recognize sang and danced and wished everybody a fantastic 1998. 1998. God, where did time go? The year 1988 felt like it was behind my shoulder, about to tap me, but it was far behind and long ago. I sipped the last of the Scotch. It was too early or too late to be getting maudlin.

  “No one likes a maudlin drunk,” Rick used to say.

  I once asked him what sort of drunk did everybody like, and he said, “Ah, Tommy. You ask the big questions, you do.”

  Rick. Dead. As dead as 1997 now. I’d have toasted him, but my drink was empty and that would have been disrespectful. Only thing worse than a maudlin drunk is a disrespectful one.

  As promised, Nate arrived at 9:30 a.m., a battered metal toolbox in hand. He carried a thermos in the other. His eyes hopped from the peeling linoleum to the world’s ugliest avocado fridge to the kitchen table with the scarred edge. He didn’t say a word. He set the thermos on the counter, the toolbox on the floor. He bent and examined the yellow-and-white linoleum. “I’ve seen this before. In my auntie’s house, years ago.”

  Sounded about right. My house had a lot in common with many aunties’ homes.

  He crab-walked forward and tugged at a peeling linoleum strip. It came up another quarter inch. “Hmph. This will take time and patience to remove. What have we here?” He peered at the exposed floor beneath the linoleum. “Hmm. Looks like hickory. That’s good.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you can get this crap off without destroying the wood, you could have yourself a real nice hardwood floor. Assuming you like wood.” He paused. Chuckled. Was he making a joke? He held a hand up. “Sorry. That came out wrong. Or right. Anyway, what else you got?”

  “I hate these things,” I said, pointing to the cabinet pulls. “Keep scraping my knuckles on ’em.”

  He stood and examined them. “They’re shallow. Whoever lived here had little hands. These’ll be easy to replace. MacDowell’s over in Willington sells hardware. Doorknobs, drawer pulls. You might start there.” He surveyed the room. “What else?”

  “You ready for the world’s worst bathroom?”

  Nate rarely smiled. His poker face was permanent, but he looked intrigued. I led him down the hall to the bathroom. The black and pink tiles, the pink soap dish, and the round glass vanity lighting did it. Nate’s mask cracked. His eyebrows twitched and he bit his right index finger. “This is amazing.”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  “This place belongs in a museum.”

  “Thanks, Indiana Jones,” I said.

  He shook his head. “You don’t have another bathroom do you?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because when you redo an entire bathroom, you need to find another place to shower and use the toilet.”

  “Hadn’t thought about that.”

  “Not surprised.” He caught my look and said, “I mean, how can you think in here? It’s so loud.”

  “You get used to it after a while.” I had. I’d lived here almost a year. The pink no longer made me flinch when I turned the lights on.

  “Okay. Let’s leave this room. It’s gonna take me some time to think about.”

  We returned to the kitchen. Nate looked at the floor. My eyes were on the fridge, calculating whether I needed to visit the grocery store. Eggs, cheese, and suddenly my thoughts skipped a beat. Sharon Donner wrote checks at the grocery store. And at the pharmacy.

  “Nate, how many checks do you write a month?” I stared at the fridge’s metal handle. It was loose at the bottom. Had to be careful I didn’t yank the sucker off each time I opened the fridge.

  “Checks?” He tugged again on the linoleum. “Not many.”

  “If you paid for most everything with checks or credit cards, why would you withdraw so much cash each week?”

  “Huh?” he said.

  Why hadn’t we seen it sooner? If Sharon Donner didn’t need her weekly ATM withdrawals for food or gas or medicines, what was she spending it on? I moved into the living room and began rifling through the bank statements. They went back ten months. She’d begun the weekly withdrawals in late August. Two hundred dollars each week. For twelve weeks. That was, what, $2,400? Not enough to go underground for long, but it would give her a start. Had she been planning it since August?

  “She’s been working this for months!” I shouted.

  “Chief, I’m gonna head out.” Nate’s voice seemed far away. “Looks like you got another problem to solve.”

  She’d been stockpiling cash so that she’d have it available once she took Cody.

  “This is gonna break it open,” I muttered.

  “Bye, Chief!” Nate called. I waved at him, my mind miles away.

  I moved to my recliner and thought, rocking a little, trying to work it out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  On the twelfth day of 1998, I found myself mired in paperwork. Agent Waters had taken all the information about Sharon Donner’s finances and was using it to construct a timeline. Other agents were pursuing sightings. That meant I was back to regular work, sorting through the station’s citizen complaints. There’d been a marked increase. Some were a by-product of the holidays. People got upset about things like tickets and even warnings issued by the police during the happiest time of the year. When I’d finished those, I found myself facing something I’d been putting off. My car graffiti. Finnegan told me he was still pursuing his own line of inquiry, but his slumped shoulders and voice told me he hadn’t had luck fitting any of our callers into the frame. My suspect list was down to three names.

  Burns

  Dix

  Klein

  All were left-handed, or, in Klein’s case, ambidextrous. I stared at the names. None of the men hated me. Not openly. But that’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? Striking at me from the shadows. Attacking me the way my prank callers did, under a veil of anonymity. I tapped my pen against the list. One of these men had spray-painted “FAG!” on my car. Had put a magazine with naked men in my mailbox. The coll
ege edition. Had that been a dig at my family of college professors? Or simply the issue he’d found at the local gas station? My hand stopped tapping the pen, the idea making itself known to my fingers first. The college edition. What was the issue month? December. I’d gotten it in October. That issue wouldn’t have hit the newsstands yet, which meant my guy had a subscription or access to one.

  The names shimmered before my eyes. I slammed a fist onto the desk. It hurt, but not enough. I wanted to break glass. Instead, I tucked the list into my drawer, finger-combed my hair, and stepped into the hall. Yankowitz nearly collided with me, his arms around a cardboard box. Jinx trotted behind him. “Hi, Chief,” he said. “Bringing some things in for Jinx to work with. Sniff tests.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Jinx stopped at the sound of my voice. Tilted his head. I walked past, unable to take comfort in the dog. I needed to do this first. He sat at a desk, filling out a report on a car accident. “Hey,” I said. He looked up, his dark eyes surprised.

  “Need me?” he asked. He stopped stabbing the keys with his index fingers.

  “Yes.” I turned and walked to my office. He followed. “Close the door.”

  He did. I sat. His eyes darted to the chairs. He didn’t sit. “What’s up?” he asked. He stood, hands together, as if uncertain what to do with them. Those hands. They’d stolen evidence and used it to deface my car. To insult me and embarrass me.

  “I know you did it.” He had to lean in to hear me.

  “Did what?” His voice was good. Not nervous. His eyes were another story, and if he squeezed his hands any harder he’d break a finger.

  “You put the Playgirl in my mailbox and you defaced my car.”

  “What? No, I—”

  “Klein, don’t add lying to your list of sins.”

  He flushed. It wasn’t admissible evidence, but it worked for me.

  “You stole evidence from the Evidence room and used it to spray-paint hate speech on my patrol car. You defaced police property.”

  “I . . . it was a joke. Not a good one, but—”

  “Stop.” My voice was big. Loud. They’d have heard me, out there. “I don’t care why you did it.”

  He looked to the window, toward the winter sun. I pictured him as he must have looked when he’d first joined the force. Eager, fresh-faced, like Billy. He’d wanted to protect and serve. To feel good, like he had at the bank. To be a hero.

  “It was a joke,” he said. “The magazine. I thought it was funny. That it would get some laughs. But one of the guys saw me do it, and then, I had to,” he swallowed. “I had to tag your car in case he thought—”

  “Thought you owned the magazine?” I asked.

  He bobbed his head.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I said. He hadn’t. He could’ve told me about the magazine, or told the other cop to fuck off. He hadn’t needed to spray-paint “FAG!” on my car. “You’ll resign, immediately.”

  He stumbled back, as if I’d pushed him. “But, I—” He gulped. “Chief, I’m sorry. Really, I am. I know it was stupid, but, please, don’t fire me.”

  “I’m not firing you. You’re resigning. If you don’t, I’ll press charges. You could do time. Maybe not. I don’t think you want to take that gamble.”

  “When would I leave?” Would, as if he had options, choices.

  “Today. You’ll leave my office, give your notice to Mrs. Dunsmore, and turn in your gun.”

  He bit his lip. Those nice teeth. Good for smiling. He didn’t have much to smile about now. “What about the guys? What will I tell them? Do I have to tell them—”

  “The truth?” I imagined Klein announcing he’d been the one to tag my car. Pictured the men’s reactions. Awkward silence, a few raised brows, and some strained well wishes. “No,” I said. “You can tell them you have a family emergency.”

  “Don’t you want to know who the other cop was?” he asked.

  “Did he spray-paint my car?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then, no, I don’t.” Better not to know.

  “What—” he stopped. His hand went to his belt. It would be weeks, maybe months before he stopped reaching for things on it that weren’t there: his walkie-talkie, his gun. You gave all that up when you retired, or got kicked out. Klein hitched his shoulders. “Okay then.”

  He was the only other gay cop on my force. Or had been. Within minutes, he’d be unemployed.

  “Good-bye, Klein,” I said. “Good luck.”

  He checked me for sincerity. Didn’t find it lacking. So he turned and opened the door and walked out. I counted to eleven and then punched the desk again. This time I scraped a knuckle and felt my chest loosen, a fraction. Enough to breathe.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Things change, bit by bit, but looking back, time compresses it all and it seems as if things were always the new way. Klein’s absence was noted, gossiped about, discussed, conjectured. Finnegan and I had a brief conversation about it. He came to my office and asked, “Klein? Really?”

  I said, “He admitted it.”

  He jammed his hands into his pockets and toed the carpet. “I never would’ve thought. Well, I guess you showed me, huh?” He looked up, ready for my I-told-you-so.

  “I wish I hadn’t,” I said, and we’d left it there.

  After nearly three weeks, it quieted, and the space that used to contain Klein was no longer empty. Not because we’d filled it, but because no one saw the Klein-shaped hole anymore. It was as if he’d never been.

  Sweet Dreams was closed. Valentine’s Day was approaching, and the store had been dark since January 20th. The rumor mill had it that the owners had broken up, and they were fighting over who owned the store. I drove past it, the freshly painted interior dark, the candy growing stale, the front door sign reading “Back in Ten Minutes!”

  Cody Forrand was still here, even though he’d been gone six weeks. Outside local shop windows, his smiling face greeted you. You couldn’t visit the post office, the library, the schools, or our station without being confronted by that wide grin. There was a billboard on Route 84 with his giant smiling face on it, startling me as I drove to Home Depot. I saw his face at Suds and at the grocery. I noticed the posters, wind-torn, water damaged, and sun-faded, yellowing, their edges curled with age and exposure. News stations had stopped running the story. The Idyll Register’s coverage dropped to a paragraph. When I spoke to the Forrands, their voices no longer spiked. They were in the gray zone, expecting the worst but hoping for the best despite knowing the odds weren’t good.

  Outside their house, trees were wrapped in yellow ribbons. Wright told me yellow ribbons had been wrapped around Idyll trees back in the Gulf War, a symbol to soldiers, a prayer for their safe homecoming. Other trees in the neighborhood sported similar ribbons. They snagged your eye like a fish hook, the bright fabric unexpected and sharp in the dull afternoon light. The Christmas decorations were down. The ribbons stayed up.

  The feds had moved back to New Haven yesterday, the first of February. They were still assisting, but their aid came in the form of phone calls and faxes. On the phone, I could feel Waters’s anger. “Where the fuck did she go?” she asked. “She didn’t have enough money saved to disappear for long.” I had nothing to give her. We’d found no proof of Jane Forrand’s involvement in the kidnapping plot. We were stuck, like dinosaurs that fell into those pits and stayed there, forever. Our minds were on Cody, always. Waters told me she had a couple dreams where she’d almost found him. I told her I tailed a car one day, certain the kid in the back was Cody. I drove sixteen miles before I got a good look at him. I then drove back sixteen miles, cursing all the way.

  Cisco and I no longer saw each other. We’d met up at his hotel the last night of his stay there. He told me he had an early morning the next day. Subtext: go home, Thomas. I took the hint and left. I’d suggested we meet for drinks. He’d said he’d call. He hadn’t. He probably had someone back in New Haven. Several someones.
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br />   Things change by inches. Like the vinyl flooring of my kitchen. I sat, my back against the lower cupboards, cutting the linoleum, shallowly, with a box cutter. I’d moved the living room TV so I could watch it from the kitchen floor as I pulled up strip after stubborn strip. Nate had showed me how in a ten-minute demo that he’d made look easy. Half the time, my strips tore in half, the glue exerting its ancient grip. I dug my knife in, too hard. Pulled it back toward me. I was supposed to cut away from my body, but I found it impossible. What’s the worst that could happen? The knife would yank toward me? Sever my jugular? I’d die as I’d lived, with a crappy fucking floor.

  On TV, an actor playing a cop kicked a door in. A front kick, using the flat of the ball of his foot. “Idiot.” I scored the linoleum. “Back kick exerts more force.” You could break your foot kicking the door the way he had.

  The linoleum peeled up and away, exposing the cracked, brown glue below. I’d have to wash it up with soap and water, according to Nate. Several times. No wonder I’d never seen my parents engaged in the art of home repair. They were smart people. Also, they’d always had a super in their building.

  A new show came on. One of those true-crime dramas with terrible re-creations of crime scenes. I found these harder to watch than the make-believe nonsense. I set the box cutter down. A face I knew came on screen. Blond hair, brown eyes, more makeup, and a slightly fuller face, but it was her, Jane Forrand. Why? Ah, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. I turned the volume up. The man beside her outlined the circumstances of Cody’s disappearance. Cody’s picture came on screen, the one I saw every day. If we never found him, he’d be locked in amber, smiling forever. This was the picture that defined him. It seemed wrong. That a boy’s life should be reduced to one picture, a picture he’d probably hated dressing up for and having his hair spit-combed for. It wasn’t him. It was an ideal.

  “Please, if you have any information, call the number down below.” Mrs. Forrand looked good. It was television, of course. They had hair and makeup pros. I’d seen her at her worst, sleep-deprived and anxious. This was the first time I saw her as others had: pretty, charismatic. She’d wanted to be an actress, to be on television. What a terrible way for her to get there.