The Drowning Child

by Alex Barclay

  ‘Did they say what the arguments were about?’ said Ren.

  ‘They didn’t always hear everything, but the general sense is that it was about Caleb keeping in line, not talking back, that kind of thing,’ said Ruddock. ‘We also saw something at the house – scuff marks on the bottom of Caleb’s door. On the inside. Like it had been kicked at. And the doorjamb looked damaged, as if someone was trying to open a locked door.’

  ‘They lock him in?’ said Ren.

  Ruddock shook his head. ‘Both parents said the door was never locked, and that they had never even seen a key.’

  ‘We only have the father’s word that Caleb was alive and well yesterday morning,’ said Ren. ‘No one else can confirm that. What if something went down the night before? The father locks Caleb in, Caleb goes nuts, the father goes too far. And if that happened Sunday night, that would have given him a lot of time to figure out a plan to get rid of the body.’

  ‘No traces of blood were found anywhere in the house or in the garage,’ said Ruddock. ‘Plus no one saw John Veir leave the house Sunday evening, which of course, doesn’t mean a whole lot, but he hasn’t come up on any of the traffic cams yet.’

  ‘And what about yesterday?’ said Ren.

  ‘There aren’t a lot on that route,’ said Ruddock, ‘but we have him at a 7-Eleven on I-5 at 14.05. Bought a bottle of water, some gum.’

  ‘Any dramatic eyeballing of the security camera?’ said Ren. ‘Any sense that he was trying to time-stamp his activity to prove he couldn’t have been elsewhere?’

  ‘Well, he looked up when he walked into the store,’ said Ruddock. ‘But he could have done that anyway.’

  ‘Did he always stop on his way to work?’ said Ren. ‘Like, I hate doing that – I want to get in my car – bam – arrive in work, no stops.’

  ‘Guess it depends on how long the journey is,’ said Ruddock. ‘His is an hour. But I didn’t ask him. I didn’t think it was significant.’

  ‘Clearly you still don’t,’ said Ren, smiling.

  Ruddock smiled back.

  Lovely smile.

  ‘What have you done in terms of a search?’ said Gary.

  ‘As much as we could in darkness last night,’ said Ruddock. ‘We have a search organized to start here at midday. We wanted to make that appeal at the press conference too, maximize volunteer numbers.’

  ‘What about the missing inmate?’ said Gary. ‘Could he be connected to this?’

  ‘Too early to say,’ said Ruddock. ‘His name is Franklin J. Merrifield – he’s eighteen months into a thirty-five year sentence for robbery, homicide, rape, and arson. He was admitted to Salem Hospital on Sunday because of a seizure, and escaped while he was there – the guard watching him was sleeping, but may have been drugged. Whether the seizure was faked, and this was all planned ahead of time, we don’t know. And seizure activity doesn’t always show up in EEGs. He had an appeal rejected just last month. His buddy cut a deal with the prosecution and had his sentence reduced to seventeen years.’

  ‘On what grounds was the appeal?’ said Ren.

  ‘Merrifield has maintained his innocence throughout,’ said Ruddock. ‘He admits to the robbery, but denies all other charges. He says he was going along for the ride, didn’t know his buddy was carrying a firearm. His appeal was on the grounds that the jury was poorly instructed on accomplice liability.’

  ‘When was Merrifield reported missing?’ said Gary.

  ‘Five p.m., Sunday,’ said Ruddock.

  ‘Do they believe he had help from someone in BRCI before he ever got to the hospital?’ said Ren.

  Ruddock nodded.

  ‘Any incidents between him and John Veir?’ said Ren.

  ‘Nothing we know about,’ said Ruddock.

  ‘Could we take a look at the Veirs’ questionnaires?’ said Gary.

  ‘Sure,’ said Ruddock. ‘I’ve got them right here.’

  He handed them the forms that every parent of a missing child fills out as soon as they make the initial report. Gary and Ren scanned them.

  John Veir, fifty-seven years old; born and raised in Tate, Oregon; joined the military in 1977, US Navy – 00D, married Teddy Veir in 2000; did one tour in Afghanistan; three tours in Iraq; one son – Caleb, born 2004; left the military in 2009, worked in different businesses around Tate, employed as a corrections officer in BRCI since 2010; mother deceased, father living in Madison, Wisconsin; one sister – Alice Veir, lawyer, living in Spokane, Washington.

  Teddy Veir, fifty-four years old; born and raised in Tate, Oregon; married John Veir in 2000; one son – Caleb, born 2004; works part-time in Gemstones, Tate, suffers from anxiety, no family living in the US, but has a brother and sister-in-law in Australia.

  ‘What’s 00D?’ said Ren.

  ‘Double-oh Delta,’ said Gary. ‘He was a navy diver.’

  Part of the questionnaire asked parents to name anyone they might want law enforcement to take a look at; anyone who might have given them a bad feeling or may have an issue with the family.

  ‘Teddy Veir’s written the names of five men she thinks we should take a look at,’ said Ren. ‘And John Veir has ten.’ She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Well, some of his include former inmates at BRCI,’ said Ruddock. ‘We’re going through the list.’ He glanced at his wall clock. ‘The press conference is about to start. Let’s walk.’

  ‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘I was wondering – I saw a couple of black ribbons on the trees on the drive in …’

  ‘That’s not about Caleb,’ said Ruddock. ‘Two young boys died here – one in January, one last month.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Ren. ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘Aaron Fuller – he was only eleven years old – drowned in Lake Verny. And a couple of weeks later, little Luke Monroe choked on a sandwich,’ said Ruddock. ‘Seven years old.’

  Jesus. ‘That’s heartbreaking,’ said Ren.

  ‘And in such a small community,’ said Ruddock. ‘And now this …’

  ‘Well, let’s hope there’s a favorable outcome to this,’ said Ren.

  The conference room was packed with police officers, reporters, photographers, Tate residents. Three tables were lined up at the top of the room. Mounted behind them on a whiteboard at the center was the Missing poster of Caleb Veir, blown up to four feet by three feet. There were twenty rows of chairs, divided by a central aisle. Gary and Ren stood toward the front, close to the wall, neither aware that they were in the exact same pose – arms folded, stiff, frowning.

  Ren turned to Gary. ‘What a sad little face that boy has. There’s pain in those eyes.’

  Ruddock walked over to them. ‘We’ll be starting soon.’

  A man appeared suddenly in front of them, no hellos, no introductions, no eye contact with anyone. He had a buzz cut, a scowl, and flaming red razor burn on his neck.

  ‘Just so you know,’ he said to Ruddock, ‘both parents have refused to take polygraphs.’

  What an extraordinary voice. Like it’s being scrambled.

  Ruddock turned to Ren and Gary, irritated. ‘This is Lieutenant Gil Wiley – FBI agents, Ren Bryce and Gary Dettling from CARD.’

  Ah, the sharp upward nod, thank you, Mr Wiley.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said Ren, shaking his hand. Gary stayed silent but shook Wiley’s hand. Wiley said nothing to either of them.

  Ren looked at Ruddock. Beneath the endearing, doughy face, his jaw was tight.

  5

  Shannon Fuller gripped the edge of the bar like she was about to do a push-up, her head bent over the newspaper, her broad back hunched. She stared at the photo of Caleb Veir under the headline MISSING FROM TATE. Her chest tightened. She thought of her son, Aaron, and how he had been in the lake in the pitch-black all night. But his body had gotten lodged in a shallow spot, where the water was clear, so he was found. He wasn’t MISSING. She was lucky.

  Lucky … her only child, found under an icy, glassy surface, like a sleeping beauty who might wake up. But it was
better than being down in the grim depths, rock bottom, decomposing, flesh falling from his bones. A shiver crawled up her spine. She reached out to grab a cloth, a pen, a beer mat, anything to take her mind along a different path – another useless pursuit. So many useless pursuits.

  She’d replayed that evening on a loop ever since. Aaron had been at his middle school dance, she had been in The Crow Bar alone, feeling sorry for herself, drinking herself into oblivion, crying into beer after beer after beer. She had chased it all down with a row of shots to remind her of times when a broken heart was something other people got. She had staggered into the house behind the bar, fallen asleep on the sofa, never knew her baby hadn’t made it home.

  She sucked in a breath, stood up straight, shoulders back, head high. She figured all bars were a desolate place in the early morning, but when she bought The Crow, she thought that would change. It didn’t. And, now, without Aaron, the desolation had seeped into every cell of her body too; she felt a part of the bar, as worn as the timber, as faded as the drapes, as stained as the surfaces.

  She remembered walking into The Crow Bar seven years earlier, with four-year-old Aaron, and sixteen-year-old Seth, who she could feel was already pulling away from her, already worrying her with his behavior, and his friends, and his recklessness. Her sweet, handsome, loving, affectionate little nephew had turned into someone she couldn’t understand. He had effectively been her son since he was eight years old, when her sister, Jessie, was killed in an instant by a brain aneurysm. Seth’s father had OD’d when he was six months old, and the only family he had left was Shannon who had always adored him, and adored him still, even in this troubled teenage incarnation. She wanted to give Seth everything her sister had dreamed of for him.

  Shannon hadn’t known that Jessie had been saving for years, and along with her insurance policy, had left Shannon quite a large sum of money. Shannon had added to it, and by the time the battered and abandoned thirty-five-year-old Lake Verny resort was put up for sale, at its knock-down price, she could afford to buy it. It made sense to her: she had spent time there as a child, she worked in a bar, Aaron loved the water, and Seth used to love it. He used to be a champion little swimmer, and Shannon wanted to reintroduce him to what was once his passion. She also wanted to employ people in town, bring business to Tate, she wanted to do good in Jessica’s honor. That day, she said yes to the real estate agent, yes to the Lake Verny Resort with its twenty brokedown cabins, yes to The Crow Bar, and yes to years and years of struggling to make ends meet. But she also said yes to something that brought her joy … until now.

  In the six weeks since Aaron had died, along with thoughts of beautiful boy, along with her tears and her paralyzing grief, she was struck with hot stabs of shame when she thought of how she must have looked to Pete Ruddock and Gil Wiley that morning, captured, as she was, like a shabby Polaroid with Bad Mom scrawled on the white strip underneath – hanging out of the doorway of a bar, puffy-eyed, messy-haired, liquor-soaked, unaware of her only child’s whereabouts, neglectful, undeserving, trash.

  Tears slid down her face. She thought of her pain, she thought of John Veir’s, she thought of Teddy’s. She pictured Gil Wiley and Pete Ruddock walking up to the Veirs’ front door, as they had walked to hers, with their white faces and their terrible news.

  Then, for a guilty moment, Shannon thought of John Veir and how his hands felt on her body, how his lips felt against hers, how she loved him, how she feared she always would.

  They had gone their separate ways before, found their way back to each other, until the last time – the time that sent her diving, heartfirst, into an alcohol haze. Now here they were, through tragedy, entwined again.

  6

  Ruddock appeared at the top of the conference room and silence fell. He paused to guide John and Teddy Veir ahead of him. John Veir pulled out the chair for his wife as he passed. He was a muscular, hard-looking man with a stern face, thick eyebrows and a solid jaw that he was clenching and unclenching. His wife was a delicate skinny-limbed woman. She had clear skin, huge brown eyes, and wavy light-brown hair. She shifted in her seat, pulling her cardigan closed over a floral blue-and-yellow shirt dress, holding her hand there in a white-knuckle grip.

  You fragile thing. This environment is all wrong for you. But is this you as you always are or you as the mother of a missing child?

  When the Veirs were settled beside the photo of Caleb and their three faces were lined up in a row, Ren could see that though Caleb had his mother’s eyes, the steel in them came from his father. John Veir’s stare was moving around the room like a drunk looking for a fight.

  Ruddock tapped the microphone, once, twice, and started to speak.

  ‘Thank you all for coming,’ he said. ‘We’re here today to appeal for information on the whereabouts of Caleb Veir, who has been missing from his Burton Street home in Tate since seven forty-five yesterday morning. Caleb is five feet tall, weighs one hundred pounds, and is of medium build. This photo beside me was taken two weeks ago. Yesterday, Caleb was wearing the same gray Puffa jacket, blue denim jeans, a navy-blue long-sleeved sweatshirt with a red-and-gray graphic print, and white-and-red Nike sneakers. You will find photographs of all these items of clothing pinned to the noticeboard at the back of the room.’

  Teddy Veir was rigid, her elbows pressed tightly to her body, her ankles crossed underneath the table.

  ‘To my right here are Caleb’s parents,’ said Ruddock. ‘John and Teddy Veir. Teddy would now like to say a few words.’

  Teddy shifted the chair forward. ‘Thank you, Chief Ruddock.’ She looked up, her lost and panicked eyes blinking quickly before she focused on a point on the floor three feet ahead. ‘Our son, Caleb, has been missing since yesterday morning. Caleb is only twelve years old. Caleb, we want you home with us, we want you to come home. To your mom and dad. We miss you, and we love you very much. Please … come home.’

  She welled up so quickly, and the pain robbed her of her voice so suddenly, that everyone else on the platform was thrown; they weren’t ready to break in, to rescue her.

  Someone help!

  John Veir kicked in, putting his arm around his wife, sliding the microphone that was in front of her toward himself, knocking over a glass of water as he did. The piercing sound of feedback erupted in the room.

  ‘Caleb is a good boy,’ said John. ‘Just a … good kid, who is … good to everybody … and everyone … and helped his mom and me out, and …’

  No one prepared you. You weren’t planning on speaking.

  ‘Please bring him home,’ said John. ‘Whoever has him, if someone has our son, please bring him home. We love him so much.’ His voice started to crack. ‘He’s our son.’ He broke down. He briefly raised his head to say: ‘No matter what. We want him back. We love you, Caleb. I want you to know that. We love you very much.’

  No matter what? He’s our son, no matter what? Or no matter what, we want him back?

  A sudden smell – powerful, stale and liquor-laced – struck Ren.

  What the … whoa …

  She turned to see a man take a few steps, then stop abruptly. He was dressed in a faded black sweatshirt with unraveling cuffs and crusted white stains. His pale jeans had two stripes of filth down the center, his sneakers were gray, the laces half undone. His eyes did a full sweep of the room before he walked any further.

  Now, who might you be?

  He took two steps closer.

  And what bar’s supplies have you recently depleted?

  He walked past Ren. She put her hand to her mouth and swallowed.

  Jesus. Christ. Wow.

  I probably smell the exact same …

  In a flash, Wiley was striding their way. He struck Ren hard with his shoulder as he passed.

  Dickhead.

  He grabbed the man by the arm, effortlessly dragging him toward the exit. The man’s face was pinched in anger, his expression childish, petulant. There was tutting, eyerolling and nose-wrinkling from locals who
seemed to know him.

  The man opened his mouth wide, looked ready to speak, but he took in all the stares and his face fell and he didn’t say a word.

  You are a hurting man. You know you’re a sideshow to these people.

  Just as he was about to go through the door, a burst of courage delivered his voice:

  ‘Lake Verny!’ he shouted. ‘You need to look in Lake Verny! Tell Ruddock. Tell Ruddock! You tell him Clyde Brimmer says that lake’s a killer!’

  Ren looked around at the crowd, gauging their reactions. There was no sense that the man’s words held any meaning, that they were anything other than a terrible thing to shout in a room where two parents were hoping to reach out for a son they wanted to believe was alive and well – not sucked down into the depths of a lake.

  7

  Gary, Ren and Ruddock stood in the shelter of the back door of Tate PD after the press conference. Ruddock pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  ‘Do you smoke?’ he said, extending the pack toward Gary, then Ren. Gary declined.

  ‘For one night only,’ said Ren. Filthy habit.

  Ruddock lit it for her, lit his own.

  ‘Sounds like Mom thinks Caleb ran away, and Dad thinks he’s been abducted,’ said Gary.

  Ren turned to Ruddock. ‘Could he have run away?’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know,’ said Ruddock. ‘All I know is something is not quite right with the Veirs.’

  ‘It seems like they’re blaming each other,’ said Ren. ‘They weren’t even touching when they walked in. What vibe did you get from them when you first met?’

  ‘It was tense,’ said Ruddock, ‘but under the circumstances, that’s to be expected. Even if John Veir thinks his son was abducted, I agree – he sure is acting like he blames his wife for something.’

  ‘Maybe for not being there yesterday morning,’ said Ren. ‘But, surely, that wouldn’t have made a difference. It wasn’t like we know that Caleb was snatched from their home while she was distracted. And John Veir had his phone on silent. Maybe that’s what’s bothering his wife.’ She paused. ‘What was John Veir’s “no matter what” about?’