Vanished

by Sheela Chari

  She found the link to the address database and clicked on it. Just then, she heard a tapping sound on the wall and froze. Then she remembered, Matt had said something about rapping twice. After starting the program, she searched for Lynne Rao.

  There were zero results.

  Surprised, Neela stared at the screen. She had been so sure Lynne would be in the database. Had she gotten the name wrong? But she was certain of the spelling because Lynne’s last name was the same as Neela’s favorite brand of spaghetti sauce.

  She cleared the search and tried Hal. Still nothing. But she had already known that. It was hard to believe she had reached another dead end so quickly. Behind her came more raps, this time three muffled ones. Neela looked up, alarmed. Three knocks already?

  She had to hurry. What if she searched by location? Didn’t Lynne live in Somerville? That was what she’d written in her notebook. She typed Somerville by itself, and this time she got three records:

  Maurice Linden

  Ester Linden

  Harold Wyvern

  Neela stared at the last record: Harold Wyvern. Just like Veronica! She clicked the name, which brought up a street address and phone number, as well as his job title: retired minister.

  Outside, she heard the quiet but distinct sound of voices approaching.

  Quickly, she found a blank sticky note and jotted down the details from the screen. The voices were getting closer. She could hear, not too far away, the phsst phsst sound of Mary’s shoes. Neela wrote faster.…She was almost done.

  But now there was really no time left. The voices were outside the door, and they sounded like Mary and Matt. She shut off the screen, slid down from her chair, and hid under the desk, just as the door opened.

  “I’m not sure how much more I can help you, son,” Mary was saying. “The class is downstairs with a big sign on the door. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to close the office.” She tried to block his way, but Matt was too fast for her and slipped inside.

  “Sometimes I have trouble with directions,” Matt said, as if he had no idea Mary was trying to kick him out. “My mother got a book for me, Following Directions for Dummies. But you know, I have trouble following directions, so how can I follow a book about directions?”

  Mary gave the kind of sigh that Ms. Reese gave when Matt said something exasperating. “Even so, you have to leave. The office is closed.”

  Matt pretended not to hear her, and walked farther inside. From under Julia’s desk, Neela held her breath, trying not to make a sound. Her mind was still on what she had written down. Harold Wyvern, if that was Hal, had the same last name as Veronica. What did that make him? Husband? Brother? He was too old for either.

  Just then, she caught Matt’s eye as he walked past Julia’s desk. He had been looking for her. He looked surprised but said nothing.

  “Do you have a handout?” he said to Mary. “Handouts are good. I just read them over and over, and then I know what to do. Unless I lose them. Which happens sometimes. Actually, all the time. Which is why I try to get two handouts of everything, and…”

  “All right, all right,” Mary said impatiently. “Maybe I can find a schedule.”

  Neela remembered the newspaper article on Veronica—her father was a retired minister. Just like Harold Wyvern. Which meant…She was so excited she wanted to yell out to Matt, but she didn’t dare make a sound from underneath the desk.

  “Does the church offer other classes, too?” Matt asked. “Because I love art. My teacher says I should be an artist. She says I’m naturally talented, but I need plenty of inspiration. What could be more inspiring than an art class?”

  “Do you always talk so much?” Mary asked wearily. “Maybe you ought to come back tomorrow, because I really have to go now and…Wait a minute.” Mary stopped. And when she stopped, it seemed like a whole bunch of things stopped at the same time: Matt’s feet, all movement in the room, Neela’s heart. There was one thing unfortunately that had not stopped.

  “I know I turned off Julia’s computer today. And yet now I hear it running.” Mary began walking toward the desk.

  “Can I get one of those schedules?” Matt tried desperately.

  “Just a minute, son.”

  Neela saw Mary’s shoes—the ones that went phsst phsst—come around the corner of the desk. Then she saw Mary right in front of her, as she huddled under the desk, with no place left to go.

  “Sometimes,” Matt called out across the room, “you can press the restart button by accident instead of the shutdown button.” His voice rang out in the office as he waited to see if Mary would believe him or not.

  She stopped. “Oh?”

  Matt crossed the room and came quickly around the side of the desk. Now Neela could see his shoes next to Mary’s, a pair of worn-out sneakers with faded stripes. He bent down, looked straight at Neela, who stared at him mutely, before standing up again. “Yep. That’s what you did. We have a bunch of computers at home, so I know all about them.”

  “Well, I’m no wizard,” Mary murmured, apparently buying his logic. “Computers are so complicated these days. Safety features, viruses, people breaking into your computer!”

  Which is closer to the truth than you know, Neela thought, inches away from Mary. She swallowed hard.

  “That’s why I didn’t want one of the girls working here today to turn the computer on and troll the Internet,” Mary said. “But she turned on the machine anyway. I will have to speak to her tomorrow. Well, I better shut it down again.”

  “I’ll do it for you,” Matt said quickly. He reached down and pressed the power switch until the computer turned off.

  Mary frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to log off first?”

  “Sometimes it’s okay to press the power button. That’s why it’s there, right?”

  Again Mary considered his words, then sighed. “You kids are so smart these days.”

  Neela watched (and heard) Mary’s squeaky shoes disappear around the desk.

  Thank goodness. Things weren’t over yet, but at least Matt had prevented a complete disaster from striking. Now, if he could just manage to get Mary out of the office without Neela getting caught…She was dying to tell Matt what she had just figured out.

  Mary flipped through some papers on her desk. “And here. An art class schedule.”

  Matt feigned excitement. “Oh, wow. My first art class.”

  Mary cleared her throat. “Glad to see such interest.” She turned off the lights.

  “It’s always been my dream,” Matt said. “You know, Picasso, Renoir, Van Gogh.”

  “Come along. The office is closed.” Her voice was firm. She grabbed her coat from the rack and closed the door behind her and Matt. All was silent in the office again; the sound of phsst phsst disappearing in the distance.

  Neela crawled out from the desk and stretched out her legs.

  Hal was Veronica’s father. He had to be. This was the biggest discovery Neela had made so far. And if Hal was Veronica’s father, then it explained a lot of things, like why he wanted the veena so much and why he was willing to go all the way to India for it.

  It didn’t explain everything, though. Because even if the veena had once belonged to Veronica, how would Hal have known he was stealing the right one? When had he had a chance to see the veena and confirm it was the same one before he stole it?

  Just then, Neela heard a light rapping on the door, followed by an odd whizzing sound. She shrank back under the desk, worried Mary was back.

  “Neela?” a voice called softly.

  She climbed out. “Matt,” she whispered, relieved. She stared at the open door. “Did you just slide the lock?”

  “So I don’t get rusty,” he said, sticking a card back in his pocket. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They closed the door behind them and hurried down the hall. A few minutes later, they were outside, blinking against the brightness of the fallen snow. It had stopped snowing at last.

  “Did you find the
address?” Matt wanted to know.

  “Yeah, and a lot more.” Neela told him Hal’s full name.

  “Wow!” Matt said, amazed. “What about Mary? And the crest?”

  “Mary has to be related to him. Maybe his wife? Or his sister? I don’t know.…”

  “Which is why she would be protecting him. This is totally a whodunit mystery.” Matt was excited. “So, are you calling him?”

  Neela slowed down as they reached the snowy sidewalk. “Call him, just like that?”

  “Wasn’t that your plan? To stop him?” Matt pulled out his cell phone and offered it to her.

  Neela did want to stop Hal, but that was before she knew who he was. She thought about that day in the church, and the far-off look in his eyes when they were talking about her instrument. He must have been remembering his daughter. “I don’t know,” she faltered.

  “Call,” Matt said. “Call before you change your mind.”

  He was right. Neela took the phone from him and dialed the number on the Post-it note. As she heard the phone ring, something surprising started to happen: her knees began shaking as if she were about to give a performance. Stage fright? Or in this case, phone fright?

  This had never happened before, not even that day she phoned Govindar, and she was nervous then, too. The phone continued to ring, and Neela gripped it hard as if that would somehow lock down her knees. When she didn’t think she could wait anymore, she heard the click of an answering machine come on. And then it was Hal’s voice, the same one with the heavy Boston accent, and it seemed as if he were inside her brain, talking to her.

  The strangeness of it almost undid her as she strained to make sense of the message. When it was done, she snapped Matt’s phone shut and handed it back to him.

  “What? What happened?” Matt asked.

  In a daze, she repeated the message on Hal’s answering machine: “We’re on vacation. Call back at the end of December.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Maybe his wife?”

  Matt smacked his forehead with his palm. “Man, you were so close. That bites.”

  “Yeah,” Neela said, trying to understand the mixture of emotions inside her. She was just as disappointed as Matt—at least, she ought to have been. Then why had her knees stopped shaking as soon as she hung up the phone?

  She watched as Matt scooped up snow from the ground and hurled it in the air until bits of snow fell down around them. “You’ll have to nab him in India, then,” he said.

  Neela wondered just how she would do that. She still didn’t know if Govindar would wait for her before giving the veena back to Hal. Who would he think more worthy? A girl who barely knew how to play? Or the father of a famous dead musician? Suddenly the task of getting back her veena felt daunting. And just a few hours ago she had been so sure of herself.

  They walked in silence until they passed the inflated snowman on Winthrop.

  “That snowman is butt-ugly,” Matt said.

  “I kind of like it.”

  “I had nightmares when I was little. Seriously. Attack of the killer snowman.”

  “My dad thinks it looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

  “Attack of the killer doughboy. Same difference.”

  They stopped to watch the snowman sway from one side to the other in the wind, its enormous head bobbing up and down as if it were nodding at them.

  “Isn’t it strange,” Neela said, “how different people can see the same thing and have completely different ideas about it?”

  “Yeah, like completely wrong ideas,” Matt said.

  “But it’s good, isn’t it? We wouldn’t all want to be scared by the same thing.”

  “I’m not scared of it anymore.”

  “I’m just saying hypothetically.”

  They walked until they came to the end of Winthrop, where they had to continue in opposite directions. Neela couldn’t help thinking that if Matt had been Pavi, she could have invited him over to her house now. But imagine what Neela’s mom would do if she showed up with an orange-haired guy at their door. She’d probably say his hair was bad luck and do an aarti.

  Matt kicked the curb with one of his scuffed-up shoes. “I guess you’re headed out to India in a couple of days.”

  She nodded. “My best friend will be there. You haven’t met her. She goes to Pilgrim. Her family’s visiting at the same time.”

  Matt shivered and rubbed his hands together.

  Behind him, Neela saw a figure approaching in the distance. She was coming from an adjoining street, turning onto Winthrop. Neela stared, trying to get a better look. Was it who she thought it was?

  Amanda was wearing a powder-white quilted down jacket that would have made her blend in with the snow if it weren’t for the brown suede of her winter boots. She stopped when she saw them. “Hi, Neela,” she said. She glanced at Matt but didn’t say anything to him. “I was on my way to your house, but I might as well give this to you now.” She opened her book bag. “Here,” she said gruffly. “I thought you might need it, and my mom had extras anyway.” She handed over the copy of Boston Living that was brought to class. “I guess my mom didn’t bother to make sure she was borrowing the veena from the right girl for the photo shoot, huh?”

  Neela stared, unsure of what to say. “Thanks,” she finally stammered, taking the magazine from Amanda’s gloved hand.

  Even Matt, who normally had insults ready to hurl at Amanda, said nothing. It was as if he also knew he was witnessing a rare event. He gave Neela a small salute. “I’m taking off,” he said. “So long, and stay away from the snowman.” Neela could hear him whistling to himself as he walked away.

  She and Amanda looked at each other.

  “I remember this snowman,” Amanda said. “Once in kindergarten, I walked home with you and your mom, and we pretended he was secretly Santa Claus, filled with presents.” Before Neela could answer, Amanda turned away and walked off, her boots clomping quickly through the snow. Neela looked on in amazement, wondering what had come over Amanda.

  She turned toward home, thinking through the events of the day. In more ways than one, the afternoon had ended on a high note. Now Neela just had to worry about the bigger issue at hand—“nabbing” Hal, as Matt put it. What would she say if she found him in India? Excuse me, can I have back that veena you think belonged to your dead daughter? Just thinking that gave her stomach a funny sideways ache. It was as if everything in her head had turned upside down, and all the things she once thought were true about the veena and herself had changed. Who did the veena really belong to—Hal, her grandmother, or her?

  The next few days there was a flurry of activity as the Krishnans got ready for India. The day before their trip, Mrs. Krishnan dropped Sree off at his friend’s house and took Neela with her to the bookstore.

  “Lalitha Patti wants a book on gardening,” her mother said. In the home-and-gardening aisle, they found rows and rows of books. “How am I supposed to pick one?”

  “Get a bunch,” Neela said. She hated shopping with her mother. It always took forever because her mother would get sucked into a black hole of indecision.

  “Did you see the size of these books? How will we carry more than one in our suitcase?” Mrs. Krishnan stared at the titles as if the answer would come to her.

  “I’m going to the kids’ section,” Neela announced. She figured it would be a while before her mother escaped from the black hole.

  She was actually not in the mood to read, so she wandered through the store instead. She was too preoccupied with all she had found out in the last few days. Until she learned who Hal was, she had not even thought much about Veronica—who she was, how she’d lived, how everything had ended so suddenly for her. But now her mind was filled with images of the brown-haired woman posing in Sudha Auntie’s photos with her flowing kurtas and crooked smile.

  As Neela walked past the magazine rack, she spotted a tall man with poofy hair standing in one of the aisles, looking at one of the magaz
ines. It was Professor Tannenbaum from the veena concert last month. Tannenbaum continued reading, engrossed in an article. Every now and then he chuckled and turned the page. He seemed to be enjoying himself, his whole face lighting up when he laughed. Neela remembered the comment he’d made about her string. She was embarrassed by the whole thing now, especially since she had overreacted by running away afterward. He looked pretty friendly, actually.

  In fact…Neela drew in her breath. He was someone who knew Veronica Wyvern. She remembered his quote from the article: “She will be missed as a musician and as a friend.”

  If he had known her as a musician and a friend, he would know Veronica’s veena if he saw it. If only Neela had the magazine with her. Then her eyes went straight to the magazines covers along the aisle until she saw Boston Living peeking out from one of the shelves.

  What were the chances she’d run into Tannenbaum in a bookstore and with a copy of Boston Living nearby? She snatched up the magazine and walked slowly to him, her heart beating.

  “Professor Tannenbaum?” she asked, holding the magazine tightly in her hand. He was so tall she had to crane her neck to look up at him.

  Tannenbaum turned to her in surprise. He took off his glasses. “Yes. Can I help you?”

  Now she had his attention, she didn’t know what to say. She fumbled over her words. “Um, I’m Neela, Sudha Rajugopal’s student.”

  He waited, still puzzled by the sight of her.

  Neela sighed inwardly. “I’m the one with the snapping string,” she said.

  Tannenbaum’s face shone with instant recognition. “Oh, yes! Dear heavens, hello!”

  Again, Neela felt the embarrassment of her performance weigh down on her, but she decided she had more important things to talk about.