by Jodi Compton
“Yeah?” I said without interest.
“Admitted to hitting and burying the dog, too. Cried when he told us about it-um, you want to be left alone, don’t you?”
“Sorry,” I said, looking up. The faxes had recaptured my attention. “I’m kind of distracted right now.”
Vang nodded. “Well,” he said. “I should go, then. The missing-child task force is meeting.”
“Oh, yeah.” Were I not on leave, I’d be going, too, as Genevieve would have.
But Vang’s voice told me he wasn’t finished, and again I looked up from my paperwork. “What?”
“Look, Prewitt got in touch with the medical examiner,” he said. “He told him about the situation. You might be getting a call if they’ve got a likely John Doe in the morgue.”
“I already did.”
“Really?” Vang said. “That was fast. I should have called you last night and warned you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
But it was too late. I’d managed to put Rossella out of my mind, but suddenly he was a figure on my mental landscape again. I thought about the way he’d called me Mrs. Shiloh when we were in the morgue, not Detective Pribek, and his private smile after he’d thanked me for coming in.
The sergeants to whom I’d answered in my career generally had to move stuff off their spare chair before someone could sit down: manila folders, papers.
Lieutenant Prewitt had a real office, although a small one, and his guest chair was vacant. He had audiences often. Genevieve had reported to him; I did now, in her absence. But since taking over her responsibilities, I hadn’t really had the opportunity or need to talk to Prewitt.
“You wanted to see me?” I said, standing in his open door.
Prewitt looked up from his work. He was a young 55, with all his hair yet. It was salt-and-paprika now, instead of the carroty red I’d seen in pictures of him in his uniformed days.
“Please,” he said. “Come in and sit down.”
I did as he asked.
“I saw your report,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
I ran a hand through my hair, a gesture I thought I’d outgrown, and summarized.
“Shiloh was supposed to leave for Quantico on Sunday on a two-thirty flight,” I said. “He never made it. His things are still at the house. He hasn’t called, he left no note. I’ve checked the usual sources-hospitals, the highway patrol-and haven’t found any suggestion of an accident.”
Prewitt nodded. “Have you talked to his friends?”
“I’ve spoken to Genevieve recently-I mean Detective Brown-and I’m sure she hasn’t talked to him. And Shiloh was kind of tight with Lieutenant Radich, but he hasn’t heard anything, either.”
“Those are the only people you asked?”
“Well, no,” I said. “I spoke to the FBI agent he worked with on the Eliot case, and neighbors, of course.” It didn’t sound like a whole lot of people, now that I thought about it. I chewed a bit of dry skin on my lower lip. “Shiloh wasn’t…”
“He wasn’t what you’d call real sociable, was he, Detective Pribek?” Prewitt said.
“No, sir,” I said.
“Family?”
“Shiloh and them really didn’t talk.”
Prewitt lifted his eyebrows and nodded to himself. I’d said nothing untrue, but felt angry with myself, as though I were exposing the most dirty corners of Shiloh’s life to Prewitt, who wasn’t even his superior. Shiloh was MPD, not Hennepin County.
“How was your relationship?”
“It was good.”
“Was Shiloh drinking?”
It doesn’t matter how high you go. Cops are blunt.
“He doesn’t drink,” I said.
Prewitt sighed, like a doctor who couldn’t find anything wrong with the patient before him and had six more in his waiting room. “So,” he said, “what are we going to do about you.” He said it flatly, not like a question at all.
“I’m going to keep investigating.”
“That’s a conflict of interest. I thought we were granting you personal leave.”
“You are. And I know it’s a conflict,” I said. “But it’s not the kind of conflict of interest we usually see. It’s not as if I’m investigating a case in which a family member of mine is a suspect, or being sent to arrest someone who committed a crime against someone close to me.” I paused to collect my thoughts. I wasn’t used to speaking this plainly to superiors. “Shiloh is missing. I can’t just let other people look for him.”
Prewitt nodded and tapped his desk with a pen. He looked back up at me. “Believe me, Detective Pribek, I’m not insensitive to your… to your situation.”
I wondered what unspoken word or words he had tripped over.
“But if you want to be involved unofficially, it has to be just that. Unofficially.” Then he tapped a pen against a folder. “I’m not naive. I realize that your shield may aid you in your search for answers. I can’t expect that you won’t use your status with this department. For that reason, you need to consider yourself, personal leave or not, a representative of the Sheriff’s Department. Your comportment must reflect that.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Another thing, I’m not sure how much support we can give you.”
I didn’t know what to say, and Prewitt, fortunately, went on.
“Shiloh lived-lives-in Minneapolis,” Prewitt said. “It’s MPD’s case to investigate. Generally, we don’t get involved in cases like this, a single missing adult male, when it’s in their jurisdiction.” He didn’t elaborate. “Moreover, unfortunately, we’re down two people now in our investigation division. You and Brown.”
“I know,” I said.
“We’d like to offer you more help, but in light of that, we really can’t.”
“I know,” I repeated.
“Of course, his report’s gone out. Everyone knows he’s one of ours. I’m sure there’s more than the usual concern out there.” He paused. “Did he really not own a car?”
“He used to,” I said. “He’d just sold it a week ago.”
“I see,” he said.
I heard dismissal in his tone and knew I should stand, but there was something else I wanted to say.
Prewitt must have seen it on my face. “What is it, Detective Pribek?”
“It’s something that…” I was trying to step carefully, “… something that I would bring up to you if it happened in our department. In-house. But it’s not, so I’m not sure I should pursue it.”
Prewitt’s eyebrows dipped slightly. “That really doesn’t tell me very much.” His words were a little sardonic, but there was curiosity in them, too. I’d said too much to call the whole thing off; now I had to move on.
“I was in the morgue last night,” I said. “A forensic assistant called me in. He wanted me to make a visual ident on a body he thought was Shiloh. It wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Prewitt said. “It happens.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But Shiloh had a scar on his right palm. It was part of the description in the missing-persons report. Clearly that wasn’t checked. I’m wondering if I should go over there and bring it up with someone.” Over there was the medical examiner’s office. I could see that Prewitt understood, but his face said he didn’t agree.
“It sounds like simple negligence to me. It’s unfortunate that you had to go through that, but mistakes do happen.”
I sat silent, once again missing my cue to take my leave. I wanted to tell him something that had only recently coalesced in my mind: Rossella had said he was sorry I’d had to come in, but now I had the opposite impression, that he was secretly glad. But I couldn’t tell Prewitt that. Feelings were just feelings; I couldn’t expect anyone else to use them as a basis for action.
“Is there something else you’re not saying?” he asked.
I touched the copper wedding ring on my hand. “He said he’d broken some fingers to take prints.”
“It’s very unusual,” I said. “As far as he knew, he was talking about my husband. I’ve never heard a pathologist or a forensic assistant say anything like that in the presence of a relative.”
“He may have felt he could speak that openly to you because of what you do for a living. Sometimes people who work closely with police officers overestimate the thickness of their skin; they may even feel the need to speak in raw terms to cops, to impress them,” Prewitt said slowly. “I think it very likely that he meant no offense. Relatives of the dead are sometimes too quick to see innocent behavior as inappropriate.” He paused, and then said, “I don’t think it’s something you should pursue… although that’s up to you, of course.”
“No,” I said. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Well done, Sarah, I thought, angry with myself. Your husband is missing. What would make you feel better? I know! Screwing up the career of a forensic assistant. At least I hadn’t mentioned Rossella by name.
I stood up, to take my leave. But now it was Prewitt’s turn to prolong our meeting.
“Detective Pribek,” he said, catching my attention as I was at the door. “I’m really not impervious to your pain.” It was what he’d meant to say earlier.
“Thank you, sir,” I said.
Alone in the stairwell, I reviewed the conversation in my mind.
Prewitt had been concerned with how I was going to comport myself while I looked for Shiloh; he was preoccupied with the personnel problem that my absence posed for him. He’d made a small effort to sympathize. I’m not impervious to your pain. Vang hadn’t even said that much when he’d heard.
I appreciated Prewitt’s words. But he had also asked the pertinent questions, made the relevant points. Was Shiloh drinking? he’d asked. How were you getting along? he’d wanted to know. I knew what he was really getting at.
Grown men rarely go missing, as a rule, Genevieve had taught me. I knew from experience that was true. They disappear on purpose, leaving town to escape debts and romantic entanglements gone wrong.
That was the unhappy truth behind Vang’s embarrassed silence, Prewitt’s questions. They both believed Shiloh had left me.
chapter 11
I spent the afternoon in more routine procedures. Looking at paperwork first, sitting on the couch with documents spread out on the low, scuffed coffee table.
Shiloh’s credit-card statement showed only one charge to an airline: $325 to Northwest Airlines. That was accounted for. In the absence of a charge to Amtrak or Greyhound, I went to those terminals in person. No ticket agents recognized the photo of Shiloh.
An investigation, when it is fruitless, makes increasingly wide circles. What cops don’t like to admit is that the outer circle of an investigation can be like the uppermost layer of the earth’s atmosphere. It’s thin and unrewarding. There’s not much out there to run across. Usually. But you ignore it at your peril.
For me, that outer layer was going to be our neighborhood, which I would walk once again. Looking, thinking, retracing the steps Shiloh might have taken. I sensed it was useless even as I took a hooded jacket off the peg in the front hallway and went out the door.
After Shiloh’s sixteen weeks of FBI training, when he’d received his first assignment to a field office, I was going to pack up and join him. It was nearly impossible that he’d be assigned back to Minneapolis. Shiloh had been almost apologetic when he’d told me this.
“Hey,” I’d said, half kidding, “I’m a lowly cop. Who am I to stand in the way of the important work you’ll be doing: catching fugitives, hunting down terrorists-”
“Pretending to be a thirteen-year-old girl on the Internet,” Shiloh had interjected. “I’m serious. New agents rarely get desirable assignments. It’s likely that we’re going to live in an economically depressed second city. You’ll be on a drug or gang task force somewhere, if the local cops are hiring at all.”
“I’ll find something,” I’d said.
“Life there is going to be a lot different than it is here,” he’d insisted. “And you’ve lived in Minnesota a long time.”
“Then it’s time I saw someplace else,” I’d said.
Shiloh had painted a dark, if vague, picture of the city we’d live in after he got his first assignment. But had it been this neighborhood, the one he’d called home for years, that had somehow turned on him? Shiloh had owned no car at the time of his disappearance; Mrs. Muzio had seen him out on foot during the time I’d been downstate. The evidence suggested that whatever had happened to Shiloh had happened here.
The course I was following had taken me across University Avenue, one of the main roads through Northeast. Now I paused and looked down a wide, paved back alley that ran behind a Laundromat and a liquor store. A girl rode past me on a pink bicycle with high handlebars and a banana seat, wobbling slightly as she stood in the pedals to get more speed out of her efforts, taking a shortcut home.
The alleyway, like everywhere else I’d walked, looked wide-open and safe in the light of day. I had difficulty seeing it-or anywhere nearby-as the scene of a violent crime, even at night. Ours was a neighborhood with streetlights and foot traffic. It never got truly dark, truly isolated.
But that was a fallacy a lot of civilians bought into. They believed that total seclusion and darkness were necessary for crimes to be committed. It wasn’t true. Smash-and-grab robberies, assaults, even murders, took place in semipublic places, with people not so far away.
A robbery gone wrong was perhaps the most likely scenario.
Had Shiloh been carrying a serious amount of money with him when he disappeared? It seemed unlikely, and it probably didn’t matter. Money was only a risk when people had reason to believe you had it on you. Shiloh didn’t dress like money, and he knew better than to let people see large bills when he had them. But people got jacked every day, rich or not.
What would Shiloh do then? I couldn’t honestly say. I could imagine a calm and practical Shiloh who’d hand over his money and appease a nervous teenager with a gun or a knife. But I could also imagine a contrary Shiloh who’d resist, the same one who’d refused for months to give up on his theory that Aileen Lennox was Annelise Eliot, the one who’d picked a fruitless argument with Darryl Hawkins.
Either way, he could have gotten killed for his efforts, his ID disappearing along with his money into a stranger’s bloody hands.
So where was the body? I could visualize the rest of it, but I couldn’t see a mugger disposing of the body. He’d just gotten away with robbery and murder. The worst thing he could do was stay with the body a moment longer than he had to. The smartest thing would be to run.
“ ‘Disappeared without a trace’ is a cliché,” Genevieve told me early in my training. “ ‘Nobody disappears without a trace’ is my anti-cliché. It’s the golden rule in Missing Persons.”
The one case that seemed to be proving Genevieve’s saying wrong was the one I was personally involved in. That in itself was suspicious. Maybe I was doing something wrong. Maybe I was too close to it. Was that what another cop would say? What Gen would say?
There were another seven hours left in my thirty-six-hour window, but it didn’t matter to me anymore. There was something I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to wait.
At five Wednesday evening I was at the Lowes’ farm again, outside Mankato.
I could have called Genevieve. Technology has changed a lot of things. You can’t turn on the TV anymore without a wireless company selling you the idea that you can trade stocks and give presentations from the top of a mountain in Tibet. Cops are among the few people who still understand the need for face-to-face communications. I’d strongly felt that this conversation with my partner wasn’t something I could do over the phone.
I needed Genevieve. She’d taught me. I had to believe she could help when I didn’t know what else to do. Eating up Highw
ay 169 at 71 miles per hour, a borderline safe speed in case of patrol cars in the bushes, I’d rehearsed how I would explain things to her.
In the back of my mind was the idea that this would help Genevieve as much as me. She needed to be doing something other than hiding in a century-old farmhouse, grieving for her daughter. She was good at this work; surely it would help.
When Genevieve came to the door, she looked unsurprised, like I lived across town.
“Come in,” she said, and I followed her inside. But once inside, she didn’t seem to know what we should be doing.
“Where’s Deborah and Doug?” I asked.
“Doug will be home soon,” she said. “He sometimes stays at school to grade exams. Deb’s gone to Le Sueur. She coaches the girls’ basketball team and they’ve got an away game.”
When she stopped speaking, Genevieve simply stood and waited for me to take the lead again.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
“All right.”
I glanced to the side, into the living room. It seemed like the place Genevieve would take a guest who’d come to talk, if she had been thinking like a host. It seemed she wasn’t.
“Do you want to make some coffee or something?” I said, awkwardly taking her role.
We went into the kitchen, Genevieve trailing me. When I started looking for coffee and filters, she took the initiative of reaching up to a cabinet over the refrigerator and bringing down what I needed. The sleeves of her T-shirt fell away, revealing the smooth muscles of triceps and deltoids. She hadn’t lost all her work in the gym, not yet.
I took the cream from the refrigerator. There were eggs in the door of the refrigerator, smooth and brown, and I remembered the Lowes’ henhouse outside.
“The eggs are from the chickens outside, aren’t they?” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“They must really be fresh, they must-” For God’s sake, Sarah, this is not a social call. I turned to make eye contact with Genevieve. “Shiloh’s disappeared,” I said.
