The Vanished

by Tim Kizer

  “Richard!”

  He leapt to his feet.

  ”Richard! Why did you do it?” Laura's voice sounded very close. “Why did you kill her?”

  Queasy with apprehension, Richard wheeled around, searching for Laura. She was out of his sight, and it made him quite nervous. Panting, he stepped into the bushes and shouted, “Laura! Sweetheart, I'm not going to hurt you! I promise! I didn’t kill anyone. Someone planted that jar. You have to believe me! I’m not a killer.” He fell silent, giving his sister time to process his words.

  He turned around. No sign of Laura.

  ”Laura, I'm leaving! We’ll talk about it later, okay? I'm going to leave now.” He returned to the footpath and headed for the road. ”Call me when you get home.”

  Richard was walking at a brisk pace, peering into the thicket to his right and his left. After a hundred yards, he stopped and looked back. The forest was mute and motionless. Richard walked up to a sumac bush and was about to go around it when Laura jumped out of the shrubbery and charged at him, swinging the knife.

  “What are you doing?” Richard yelled, trying to catch her hand that held the knife.

  With a wild roar, Laura clutched at his neck with her free hand, the blade of the knife pointed at his carotid artery.

  ”Let me go!” she shouted. Her eyes opened wide and became as big as baseballs; they seemed to be ready to pop out of their sockets. ”Let me go!”

  Richard snatched the knife from her hand and knocked her down on the grass. Laura fell clumsily on her back, her arms spread out.

  ”You lost your mind!” Richard looked at the knife, then at his sister. “You almost killed me!”

  ”Richard, you're sick.” Laura began to rise from the ground, her fierce glare fixed on Richard. ”You don’t understand what you're doing!”

  She pounced at him, screaming heartrendingly, with her hands stretched forward. Deafened by her shriek, Richard froze. Seconds later, he felt his sister's body slide off his chest. The sight of Laura's face distorted by rage (Laura resembled a demonic character from Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings) had stunned him so deeply he dropped out of reality for the brief time she clung on to him, attempting to bite through a vein on his neck.

  Richard was a little puzzled about what had happened. One moment Laura was looming before him, and the next moment she folded like a rag doll, silent and limp. She didn't even have time to bite him. Richard rubbed his neck, checking for wounds. He wiped Laura's saliva from his skin, then lowered his eyes to the ground. Laura was lying at his feet, her body twisted in a grotesque position. There was a large blood stain on her blouse, below her chest, which was expanding.

  Richard relaxed his hand and let go of the knife.

  “Laura,” he muttered, bending over the body. “Are you okay?”

  The final convulsion shook Laura's body, and then the woman became stock-still.

  “Are you alive?” Richard knelt down. Making sure that blood didn't get on his clothes or skin, he lifted his sister's head. “You're dead.” Richard shut his eyes.

  2.

  He met Mary the day he killed Laura.

  He left Laura’s body in the woods. He did not bury it—not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t have a shovel with him. He was not going to report the incident to the police. Yes, his sister’s death was an accident, but chances were very slim that the jury would believe his account of what had happened.

  As he walked to his car, he debated with himself what he should do about Laura’s Honda. He believed it would be too risky to tow it: he was going to be in a lot of trouble if it emerged that he’d been towing the car Laura had driven the day she had vanished. He rejected the idea of burning the Honda down.

  Could he afford to leave Laura’s car in this forest? He figured that he could. What was the worst that could happen? The police would stumble upon the Honda and then search the nearby woods. He could live with that. Laura’s body was going to be found sooner or later, anyway. He was not linked to the car, so it would not implicate him in the killing of Laura.

  On the way to the highway, Richard decided not to proceed to Danville: he was no longer in the mood to shop for antiques.

  By the way, he should get rid of the jar with fingers mentioned by Laura. Hopefully, she hadn’t moved it to another place.

  He ran into Mary as he drove out of the forest. He literally ran into her. When she popped up in front of his car, he did not react in time because he was looking in the driver’s side mirror, checking to see if there was anyone behind him. He slammed the brakes and a moment later heard a woman scream, “What the hell!”

  He jumped out of the car and hurried to the edge of the road to see the person he’d just hit. He told himself that her injury couldn’t be too bad since he had been going at thirty miles per hour, tops.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  The victim was a young athletic woman with short auburn hair, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. She was sitting on the ground, touching her right leg, a grimace of pain on her face—her very cute face. Richard noted to himself that the woman had green eyes.

  “What do you think?” she replied.

  “Mary, are you okay?” a man shouted behind Richard.

  Richard turned around and saw a man in his twenties running from the highway toward them.

  “I’m really sorry,” Richard said to the woman, scanning the injured leg. There appeared to be no blood. He sighed with relief: she would live. “Let me take you to the hospital.”

  The man stopped next to Mary and then bent over her. “Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

  The guy had a shaggy beard and moustache, and sported a small beer belly. A red rose tattoo decorated his right forearm. He gave off the vibe of a good-for-nothing boyfriend that moms warned their daughters about. He probably was a big fan of weed, Richard thought.

  “I think my leg is broken,” Mary said. She issued a groan.

  “Where the hell did you learn to drive?” The man gave Richard a furious look. “We need to call the police.” He pulled a cellphone from his pocket.

  Richard’s stomach clenched. State police were the last thing he needed right now. He cleared his throat and said, “Is it necessary? How about I take her to the hospital and then have my insurance company pay her medical bills?”

  “And that’s it?” the man asked. He aimed his cellphone at the front bumper of Richard’s car and snapped a picture. Richard thought that he must have taken a photo of the license plate.

  “Plus, I’ll give you a thousand dollars,” Richard replied.

  “Seven. Seven grand. We don’t know how long Mary’s going to be disabled.”

  Richard licked his dry lips and nodded. “Sure. Seven thousand it is. What’s your name?”

  “Bob. Can I see your ID?”

  “Sure.”

  After scrutinizing Richard’s driver’s license, Bob helped Mary get into the back seat of his car.

  “Are you on a hike?” Richard asked Mary.

  “No. We ran out of gas.”

  “Where’s your car?” Richard looked toward the highway and saw a dark blue sedan about fifty yards from where he was standing. It was hard to tell the make and model of the vehicle.

  “There.” Bob stabbed his finger toward the sedan.

  “You have a stain on your shirt,” Mary remarked. “It looks like blood.” She pointed at Richard's chest.

  “Where?” Richard looked down at his shirt. ”Why do you think—”

  There was a two-inch long red stain near his breast pocket. It must be Laura’s blood. Richard made a humming sound and said, “It's not blood. It's ketchup.”

  “Can we borrow some gas?” Bob asked.

  “Do you have a hose?”

  Bob nodded.

  “Sure.” Richard climbed behind the wheel, started the engine, and said to Bob, “Get in.”

  He drove up to Bob and Mary’s car and switched off the ignition. While Bob was siphoning gas from the tank, Richard
asked Mary, “Where are you headed?”

  “Richmond. Do you live in Richmond?”

  “Yes. My name’s Richard. And your name is Mary, right?”

  “Uh-huh. How far is the hospital?” Mary turned her head to her right, and Richard saw her graceful profile.

  “There’s one half an hour from here.” Richard sighed. “I’m very sorry about what happened. I just got distracted. I understand it’s a bad excuse. Are you in a pain?”

  “Yes, I am.” Mary winced. “Can I trust you, Richard? You’re not going to disappear on me, are you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Mary studied his face for a moment, and said, “I believe you. Most people are liars, but you seem trustworthy to me.”

  He seemed trustworthy! That was funny.

  “So we have a deal? You get seven grand, and we leave the police out of it?”

  “Yeah. That’s what Bob said, isn’t it?”

  Bob patted the door of the car and announced, “Okay, I’m done. You can go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  As he pulled into the road, Richard asked, “Is Bob your boyfriend?”

  It crossed his mind that the picture Bob had taken of his license plate might have a location stamp. He was sure it had a date stamp. Potentially, this photo could be used to prove that he had been in that forest the day Laura had gone missing.

  “He’s my brother.”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  Interestingly, Richard was pleased to hear that Mary was single. Again, he noted that Mary was very beautiful. He wouldn’t mind if she made a move on him.

  One day, Mary or Bob might happen to learn that his sister’s body had been found in that forest. He wondered if he ought to be worried about it.

  She did notice the blood stain, didn’t she?

  If he were a ruthless cold-blooded monster like Freddy Krueger, he would have killed them both to eliminate any risk. But he was not Freddy Krueger.

  3.

  When he pulled up in front of the hospital, Mary said, “I think we're going to become friends.”

  She proved to be right. They got married three months later. After spending one and a half years in Mexico, they moved to Mill Creek, a small town twenty miles north of Seattle. Bob moved to the Seattle area, too. For five months after they had first met, Richard wondered if Mary suspected that he’d had something to do with Laura’s disappearance. As far as he knew, his sister’s body had never been discovered (he religiously searched the news on the Internet for any information on Laura for a year; he stopped doing it because every time he had performed a search, he had relived Laura’s death). However, Richard was willing to bet Mary believed that Laura was dead.

  Something was telling him that he should not let Mary out of his sight. Since she was good in bed, living with her was a pleasant proposition.

  By the time they moved back to the States, Richard did not feel disquieted anymore. The memory of Laura’s death had faded and settled at the bottom of his consciousness.

  Eighteen months after their arrival in Mill Creek, he buried Mary’s body in the woods.

  CHAPTER 3

  1.

  “Hello!” Richard waved to Jim Dystel, his next-door neighbor, who stood on the porch, smoking a cigarette. Jim nodded in response. Richard took the mail out of the mailbox and went back into the house. He tossed the mail on the coffee table in the living room and proceeded to the kitchen, where he grabbed a can of beer from the refrigerator. Sipping beer, he returned to the living room and sat down on the sofa. He was home alone. Mary was probably at a beauty salon: yesterday she had complained that she looked like an electrocuted poodle.

  When Richard was about to start sorting through the mail, the phone rang. He checked the caller ID and saw that the number was blocked. Lowering the volume on the television, he picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”

  “Can I talk to Richard Brower?” a man’s voice replied.

  “Yes. I’m Richard Brower.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Is your wife home?”

  “Can you tell me who you are?”

  “My name’s John. I have important information for you. It’s about your wife.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.” Richard pressed the mute button on the TV remote.

  “Is your wife home? I don’t want her to overhear us.”

  “I’m alone.”

  “Good. Your wife is cheating on you, Richard. Did you know that?”

  No, Richard did not know that.

  “No, I didn’t. Who is he?”

  He leaned back and crossed his legs.

  “I could give you the guy’s name and address. For a price.”

  “How much?”

  “Five thousand dollars.”

  “Do you have proof that he’s fucking my wife?”

  “Yes, I do. So you’re interested?”

  “I am. But I’m not sure I can pay you five grand for this.”

  “How much can you pay?”

  “A thousand. If you give me the proof.”

  “Let me think about it. I’ll call you tomorrow.” John hung up.

  Richard put the receiver down on the cradle and then folded his arms on his chest, staring blankly into space.

  He was still getting used to the idea of Mary cheating on him. He was not shocked or astonished, though. He did not find it hard to believe that Mary had been sleeping with someone else. He had read that people were genetically programmed to cheat, so he was not going to make a big deal out of this. He was not going to go ballistic or get depressed like most cuckolds.

  She might be with that guy right now. She might be riding his cock at this very moment.

  Richard drew a deep breath and took the can of beer from the table.

  What should he do? Should he interrogate Mary now or wait until he had her lover’s name?

  He ought to wait. He needed to see what kind of proof John had. What if John was simply playing a practical joke on him? Or trying to besmirch an honest woman?

  Suppose it’s true. Suppose Mary is actually cheating on me. What then?

  It depended on whether he loved Mary.

  Did he love her? It was a difficult question. In the beginning, when he had decided to marry Mary, he had been attracted to her because she was pretty and easygoing. There had been a certain fondness, but it had mostly been sexual in nature.

  Had he fallen in love with Mary over the years?

  Mary was a beautiful woman, there was no denying that. However, beauty alone was not enough. To fall in love, Richard needed to have a spiritual connection with a woman. And he had to trust her, too. He felt no spiritual connection with Mary, and he didn’t trust her. The conclusion was clear: he had never been in love with Mary. But it didn’t mean he was unhappy living with her.

  Anyway, if she wanted to sleep with other guys, let her do it, it was a free country, after all. He was not going to treat Mary like his property. He would not stand in her way.

  But what if she decided to solve her financial problems by blackmailing him? What if one day she came up to him and said, “Richard, I just found out that there was a series of horrible murders in Cincinnati eight years ago. You lived there around that time, didn’t you? I think it was you who killed those people.”

  She could certainly do that. She hated to work. Her whole family hated to work.

  Richard closed his eyes and imagined Bob Logan sucking marijuana smoke out of a bong.

  And she might tell her lover about her suspicions.

  Mary, fucking traitor. Was she really capable of this?

  Richard grimaced with pain. Then he told himself that he shouldn't get anxious. Care killed the cat, as they say.

  Richard did a few breathing exercises to calm down his nerves.

  Why did he think that Mary knew about the killings?

  The damn blood stain—she may have figured out how it had gotten on his shirt.<
br />
  She hadn't taken that stain seriously when she had seen it, and it was highly unlikely that she still remembered it now, over three years later. She had never followed the news, both local and national, so the odds were she didn’t know about those murders in Cincinnati.

  Richard walked up to the window.

  Besides, she would never voluntarily live under one roof with a serial killer, even for the sake of money. She was a woman, a fragile, weak thing.

  Richard crossed his arms on his chest, and a small smile touched his lips. He was going to have a chance to play a jealous husband. It might be fun.

  He would make lemonade out of this lemon. He was going to get the last laugh, he was sure of it.

  2.

  That night, Richard stayed in the living room until three o’clock. As he walked down the second-floor hall, he strained his ears, listening for sounds indicating that Mary was awake. Moving as quietly as a burglar, he entered the master bedroom and approached the bed. He observed Mary for a few seconds to make sure that she was asleep, then took her cellphone from the nightstand and went to the study. There, he installed on the cell the spy application he had purchased on the Internet two hours after John’s call. According to its developer, the app could record all incoming and outgoing calls and allowed its user to read all sent and received text messages. The software was completely undetectable by the owner of the phone on which it was installed.

  When he returned to the bedroom, Richard was pleased to see that Mary was still in the arms of Morpheus. He put the cellphone back on the nightstand and got into bed. He fell asleep half an hour later.

  CHAPTER 4

  1.

  While eating breakfast, Richard decided to stay home until John called. He regretted not having given John his cellphone number. He checked the spy application control panel every thirty minutes after Mary left for the mall at half past eleven. By two o’clock she had received three text messages, all of which were from Bob Logan, and sent two text messages, both of which were to Bob Logan. Mary came home at ten minutes past three. While she was in the kitchen, making herself a salad, Richard went to the study and checked the control panel once more. He saw that someone had called Mary about fifteen minutes before she had returned from the mall. Richard stuck the earphones in his ears and opened the audio file for the phone call.