by Lisa Lutz
“This ain’t the bathroom!” Milo shouted through the wall.
I entered without an invitation.
When Milo saw me, he said, “Look what the cat dragged in.”
“Can’t you say something nice?”
“We’ve been missing you around here,” he said reluctantly.
“That’s what happens when you fire someone,” I replied. I used an empty CD case as a coaster and put my beer on Milo’s desk.
“How you been, Izz?” he asked. “Not great, based on the looks of you. You getting enough sleep?”
“Considering I don’t have a job and I’m being blackmailed, I do okay.”
“Glad to hear it,” Milo said. He’s known me too long to find the previous comment worthy of a follow-up question.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked.
If you’ve read the previous documents you know that Milo has accused me of being self-involved. I’m working on that.
“I’m thinking about moving to Arizona.”
“Why?”
“I’m in love.”
“With a cactus?”
“No, Isabel, a woman.”
“So where does Arizona come into all of this?”
“That’s. Where. She. Lives,” Milo said slowly, as if he were speaking to a four-year-old with ADD.
“How did you meet a woman who lives in Arizona?”
“Online.”
“But you use dial-up.”
“I’m patient,” Milo replied.
I’ll spare you the rest of the conversation, but suffice it to say that months back, Milo joined an online dating service, 1 began e-mailing a woman named Greta Grunch (I know, I know), and after a few months they decided to meet—first on her territory, then on his, and finally on neutral ground. How I missed this entire phase of Milo’s life, I cannot say. 2 I’m sure he kept things from me in the interest of avoiding answering my natural follow-up questions:
Are you practicing safe sex?
How does her husband feel about you?
Are you sure she isn’t just trying to get her American citizenship?
The idea of losing another friend to a warmer climate dulled my mood. I listened to about twenty minutes of Milo gushing over his paramour and then I made my way back to David’s house. I could hear a few of the remaining revelers chatting and listening to music indoors, but my careful scan of the periphery allowed my quick entry into the apartment. It had been a long day. I brushed my teeth and washed my face by moonlight, went straight to bed, fell fast asleep, and woke up two hours later to the sound of footsteps pacing overhead. When I finally realized that David wasn’t planning a raid on his extra apartment, I took some nighttime cold medicine. During the half hour before the medicine took effect, I came to grips with the fact that my new living situation would probably not be viable long-term. I determined that I’d have to move. And then I remembered that I’d need a real job to do so. Shortly after that, the medicine kicked in.
THE RANSOM AND OTHER STUFF
I n the morning I phoned my mother to try to negotiate down the museum visit to something a little more, well, fun.
“Could I go to the zoo instead of SFMOMA?”
“I think you have the wrong number,” my mother said.
“How many times do I have to tell you that it’s not funny when you do it ?”
“Isabel?”
“Thank you,” I replied.
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t feel like going to the museum; I’d rather go to the zoo.”
“Have you been drinking?”
It was actually a reasonable question. My voice was hoarse and my throat was beginning to get sore. Was it possible that the cold medicine was giving me a cold?
I answered my mother’s question: “It’s nine A . M . Of course not. 1 Will you just answer the question?”
“What was the question again? Also, you should identify yourself when you call people. It’s more…adult. You know, there’s no caller ID on the kitchen phone.”
“Could I go to the zoo instead of SFMOMA?”
“I don’t see why not,” Mom replied.
“Thank you,” I said. “And for being so agreeable, I’d like to share some dirt I’ve got on Rae.”
“I don’t know if I can take any more dirt.”
“Okay,” I replied. “Call me when you’re ready.”
“Don’t hang up!” Mom shouted.
“Oh, are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Rae didn’t cheat on the PSATs,” I said.
“Yes, she did.”
“No. She didn’t. Henry says she threw the second test. She didn’t like all that four-year-university talk, so she took action. She’d rather take a couple weeks of punishment now than four years of punishment later.”
Silence.
“Mom?”
“Why can’t I just find marijuana in her room and have the ‘This is your brain on drugs’ talk? I don’t know what to do with this kid.”
“You could ground her,” I suggested cheerily.
“She’s already grounded.”
“Are you going to cancel your disappearance?” I asked.
“Now I’m not so sure,” Mom said, but then she changed her tune. “No. No, I’m not.”
“Then what are you going to do about it?” I asked. “I mean, you have to do something.”
“Not sure. I need some time to come up with a plan.”
“Well, if you need any help, call me.”
“Just keep an eye on things this weekend. And when you’re done doing whatever it is with the GPS, please return it. We only have two, you know.”
I’d borrowed the one GPS, but had returned it. If the other one was missing, it was probably being used by Rae. It didn’t take me long to figure out what she was doing with it. To double-check, I pulled up the map on my computer screen (I have the link to both GPSs on my computer) and there was the dot, parked right where my car was last seen. Of course, this is how she was able to find my car at a moment’s notice. I should have figured it out, and I would have if there weren’t so many other things in my life to figure out. The good news for me was that my own days of car hunting were over. And I had my revenge to look forward to.
CASE #001
CHAPTER 9
O ther than continuing my surveillance on Linda Truesdale and Sharon Bancroft, I wasn’t sure where else I could go with the investigation. One thing that I found a bit odd while looking at their vital statistics was that there was a three-year age gap between the two women. Usually childhood friendships are forged by people closer in age.
I had never asked Ernie about his wife’s childhood, so I phoned him that afternoon to acquire some background information. Ernie continued to be a reluctant participant in my investigation. I couldn’t help but admire him for that. Still, I got him to talk. Even if Ernie could stop investigating his wife, I couldn’t.
I was intrigued to learn that Linda had grown up in the foster care system in Detroit. Her mother was a drug addict who abandoned her when she was five. She had no siblings or any other family to speak of. If the two
women had met in school, it was an unlikely pairing. I needed more information. When the investigation began, it all seemed irrelevant; if you want to learn whether a wife is cheating on her husband, you don’t look into her childhood for the evidence. But now I was convinced that this mystery I couldn’t even name was tied to the past. I finally had concise questions to ask.
“Ernie, do you know the name of the school where Linda and Sharon met?”
“Probably had some president’s name in it.”
“Can you find out which president?”
“How would I go about doing that?”
“Well, you could ask,” I suggested. But I realized that I wanted more information than the name of Linda’s high school. For the next ten minutes I coached Ernie on how to interrogate his wife and gave him a page-long list of questions I wanted answered. Ernie told me he’d casually bring up the subject at dinner. 1 The following morning he called me with this information:
Linda went to Benjamin Franklin 2 High, which is where she met Sharon, in a Spanish class. And the tuna casserole was a big disaster, but Linda appreciated the effort.
“That’s all you got for me, Ernie?”
“Linda doesn’t like questions,” was Ernie’s reply.
Having known so few people in my life with an unqualified regard for privacy, I discovered a newfound respect for Ernie. I tried to imagine what life might be like without a current of suspicion running through me at all times. I traced backward in my life, hoping to pinpoint a time when that current wasn’t active, but I couldn’t remember it.
Respect or no, my suspicion remained and my investigation continued. Now that I knew where Linda had grown up, I was able to run a more complete background check on Ernie’s wife. She was forty-five, and the criminal databases in Michigan go back only ten years. My parents have associates in different states with whom they trade local information. I dropped by the house, laid out the facts to Mom and Dad, and explained that I wasn’t ready to let this case go. With all the information presented to them—the Harkey angle certainly helped matters—my parents agreed to cover the costs and, more importantly, sanction the investigation, allowing me access to their contacts.
Of course, once I laid out the few but incongruous facts, they couldn’t help but begin offering their own angles. No Spellman can resist yanking on the loose threads that make a mystery, and despite our job’s reputation, we know that mysteries are rare. I believed it was too soon to theorize about the secret that the women shared (which we agreed was the heart of the case) and whether that secret was even the reason behind Harkey’s investigation. But my father cannot resist parlor games, and my mother can’t resist being Dad’s heckling audience. I’ll share with you the least helpful portion of my afternoon:
DAD: I have an idea.
ISABEL: Why don’t we hold off on the ideas until we have something to work with?
DAD: Let’s say Sharon had a marriage before the congressman and Linda was his mistress. When they both discover the other person, they conspire to commit murder. Only years later, the body turns up—
MOM: [annoyed] Stop. That’s mostly the plot to a movie 3 we watched on cable last week. Remember?
DAD: No.
MOM: Remind me to ask Dr. Fisher to do some kind of memory evaluation on you.
ISABEL: Mom, I hope you see the faulty logic in that.
[Long pause.]
MOM: Oh, right. I’ll remind myself.
Once our “business” discussion came to a close, I got the lowdown on other family matters. I was delighted to learn that Rae was grounded for three months. Plus, in light of her recent PSAT scandal, 4 Rae’s baseline GPA (a B-minus standard set years ago) was raised to a B-plus. If Rae could not maintain the B-plus average, then she would lose the sort of privileges in the house that make life worth living for a teenager (television, telephone, Internet). And then, if she could not raise her grades after her first warning, she would lose the things that made life worth living for her in particular (anything containing high-fructose corn syrup).
As I was leaving the Spellman household, I announced my zoo excursion to see if I could get any company and also to ensure that my blackmailer knew I was meeting her demands. My dad took me up on my offer, which I regretted almost immediately.
While observing the delightful antics of the lemurs, Dad reminded me that my one-month clock to decide my entire future had ticked down to less than a month. As the giraffes snacked on leaves, Dad mentioned that he’d be willing to work in a retirement plan to sweeten the deal. As the African lion lounged about, which I suppose reminded my father of me, he said, “You can’t just sit around and do nothing all day long.” I then suggested lunch, since I figured the only time I could ensure he wouldn’t be talking was while he was chewing.
After lunch, we spent another hour roaming the grounds, got sort of lost on our way out, argued over who was more responsible for our loss of direction, and when we were finally back in the car without the distractions of caged animals, I kept the conversation under my control. Since I was curious how they were going to handle the upcoming disappearance in light of Rae’s grounding, I asked the obvious question:
“How will you monitor Rae’s grounding when you’re in a different city?”
“David’s spending the weekend at the house with Rae.”
“David?” I asked.
“You know, your brother. The handsome one.”
“Why did you ask him?”
“Your mother thinks David and Rae should spend more time together.”
“Why? Because I’m such a bad influence?”
“You’re not part of the equation, Isabel. Don’t make this about you.”
“It’s just strange that Mom would ask David to spend the weekend when she could ask me.”
“If you think about it, it’s not so strange.”
“Why?” I asked, bracing myself for some new assault on my character.
“Well, the last time you and Rae stayed in the house together, you left a banana in the hall closet.”
“Still with the banana!” I loudly replied. 5
“Three weeks!” my dad shouted. “Isabel, it took us three weeks to identify where the odor was coming from.”
Rather than continue defending myself over an honest mistake, I let the subject drop. No new subjects arose until Dad dropped me at my apartment. Unfortunately, this was very inconvenient for me, since A) it wasn’t my apartment anymore, and B) I didn’t even have the key to the foyer to fake it being my apartment anymore.
“Thanks, Dad. It’s been fun. Tell Mom I wouldn’t mind going to the aquarium next time, if this is thematically the way her blackmail is going to take us.”
“I meant to say something earlier,” my dad said. “I really don’t think your blackmailer is Mom.”
“You might have mentioned that before we spent three hours at the zoo.”
Dad ignored my comment and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
“I know you’re low on cash,” Dad said, offering me a stack of bills.
“I’m okay,” I replied, waving off the money. (I kind of was okay. Not paying rent really helps, and I did have a small amount of savings beforehand.)
“I know you’re not. Your phone was shut off, which means your Internet was s
hut off. You can live without a landline, but—”
“Right,” I said, remembering that disconnecting my utilities was a side effect I hadn’t anticipated. Most people were in the habit of using my cell number. Dad’s one of those people who will call you on every number he’s got.
“Don’t be proud,” my dad said, forcing the money into my hand.
I thanked him quietly and exited the car. Right before I shut the door, I heard, “You’ve got two weeks, Isabel. Two weeks.”
Correction: I had two point five weeks.
DISAPPEARANCE #4
(THE WINE COUNTRY)
F riday afternoon, just after Rae got home from school, my parents packed their car and began the two-hour drive north from San Francisco to Napa Valley.
My mother asked me to keep an eye on Rae during the afternoon while David was still at work. I used this time to make contact with the Detroit PI—Gus Nordvent—to see what information he could come up with on Linda Truesdale. An hour later, Gus phoned me back.
“Your girl has got a record,” Gus said optimistically as soon as I got him on the line. The truth is, PIs love finding dirt. For us, it’s good news. Plus, it makes you feel more justified in getting paid.
“What did she do?” I asked.
“Wrote some bad checks when she was nineteen. A forgery charge when she was twenty. Looks like she was siphoning money from a restaurant where she worked. She’s also got a juvie record, but, you know, that’s sealed.”
“Did she do time?”
