The Spellman Files

by Lisa Lutz

  I put the faux bottom on top of the desk and looked into the shallow compartment that remained. Inside was an unfamiliar red leather book. Its shiny cover and crease-free spine indicated that it was a relatively new acquisition. It appeared to be your basic scrapbook. At first glance, there was nothing out of the ordinary—just a collection of candid snapshots of the family. It was the second glance that offered a different opinion. The angles were just too high or low, the image too grainy or obscured—by a chain-link fence or a dirty window. At second glance, one could see this was a collection of surveillance pictures doubling as a family photo album.

  The first few pages were dedicated to Uncle Ray—primarily high-angled shots of him stumbling out of a cab followed by a rigorous test of fine motor skills (putting key into lock)—his average post–-2:00 A.M. ritual. Then she moved on to Dad. Hand-in-the-cookie-jar-type photographs—literally. Dad had been claiming to diet for years and secretly snacking late at night. We all knew. I suspect Rae photographed his dietary indiscretions to use as barter at a later date. There were pictures of Mom smoking cigarettes with Jake Hand on the back porch and a long, cloudy shot of David and Petra walking down Market Street, hand in hand. Of course, I wasn’t off the hook. Rae covered the first three dates I had with Daniel and managed one embarrassing shot of me, shirtless, in one of my car-changing episodes. There were similar all-too-candid images of her friends and schoolteachers; I would have been concerned had my concern not been already occupied.

  Nothing compelled me to the end of the book, but I continued turning the pages. It was like everything else I had done in the past month. I did it because it was the only thing I could do. I could have missed the photograph altogether. Nothing stood out. Two men shaking hands, shot through a telephoto lens. I recognized my father’s brown-and-green plaid shirt, the frequency of its circulation hinting at lucky status. There was no reason for me to look at the other man, but I did. Then I looked closer and then I pulled out a magnifying glass and studied his grainy but now familiar features.

  Inspector Henry Stone.

  Inspector Stone shaking hands with my father.

  There was no date on the photograph, but my father’s recent haircut offered a timeline, and clearly it had been taken prior to Rae’s disappearance. There they were together. Inexplicably.

  One could argue that I was jumping to conclusions. One could argue that I was not in any condition to think rationally. But I had a sudden, uncontrollable suspicion that Rae’s disappearance was a setup. Conspiracy theories often arise when logical explanations are unsatisfying. This explanation worked better than the others. In this explanation my sister did not silently slip away, taken so quickly she couldn’t utter a sound. In this explanation my sister was alive and eating Froot Loops, duplicitous in a horrible deceit. In this explanation I had no choice but to expose them all.

  I phoned the precinct and asked when Stone would be off-duty: 8:00 P.M. I parked outside the station and waited. He must have used the gym, as he arrived at his car an hour later, hair wet (all three-quarters of an inch of it) and wearing street clothes. He drove straight home, which didn’t surprise me. This was not a man who struck me as having a full social life. I sat in my car four houses down, watching the lights turn on and off in his house. I remained there for two hours with no plan or purpose. I could have walked up to his door, rung the bell, and asked what he had done. But who asks questions these days? Two hours later, I was about to return home and concoct another plan, but then he moved.

  Back in a suit, Stone exited his home and got into his police-issued sedan. I could have followed him, but judging from his attire, he was working a case.

  Instead, I circled his house, looking for an open window or an unlocked door. There was no easy access, so I picked the deadbolt and barrel lock on the back entrance. I was out of practice, so it took about a half hour. It should have occurred to me that breaking into the home of a police inspector was probably a bad idea, but sleep deprivation trumps common sense.

  I justified my lapse into the habits of my past by convincing myself that, inside this unbearably tidy bachelor pad, I was going to discover that the inspector was merely a pawn in my father’s master plan. The truth had to be in here, didn’t it? It had to be somewhere. This place was as good as any.

  Once my eyes adjusted to the dark, I deciphered the layout of the apartment—your average San Francisco two-bedroom flat. Two entrances. Front. Back. Back door leads from pantry to kitchen. Front door from foyer to living room. The bedrooms and bathroom off to one side. Usually you can guess how long a place has been inhabited based on the accrued clutter. But Stone’s space was all clean lines and empty countertops, a place for everything and not a single nonutilitarian item in sight. It was sad, in its way.

  I roamed the apartment, searching for the unknown, something that could prove what I knew had to be true. What would this evidence look like? And if I found it, what would I do? Would I go to the police? Would I silently enact further revenge? Would I continue the war?

  Stone’s bedroom had the warmth and lived-in quality of a high-end hotel. The quilt on his bed was perfectly tucked in and symmetrically aligned.

  “You better have one hell of an explanation,” Inspector Stone said upon entering the room.

  I was too angry to be surprised. “Oh, I do,” I responded smugly.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  I didn’t at first, but then he shot me a look that I translated into “If you don’t sit down immediately, I will arrest you for breaking and entering.” So I sat down. Stone paced back and forth, presumably while he formed his reprimand. But I struck first.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Isabel, you just broke into the home of a police inspector.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Tell me why you’re here.”

  “I had to prove you were in on it.”

  “In on what?”

  “You know.”

  “In fact, I don’t.”

  “On Rae’s disappearance.”

  I could almost see Stone’s indignation deflate. “You think I was involved?” he said.

  “You and my parents.”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “No. But that’s a good idea.”

  “What’s going on, Isabel?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I saw the picture of you and my dad.”

  “What picture?”

  “I don’t know. Rae took it. Maybe a month or two ago.”

  Stone appeared unfazed by my discovery. “I don’t know why there would be a picture, but I met with your father a few months back to consult on another case. It was unrelated. We can go to the police department and I can show you the file, but you need to listen to me now. I had nothing to do with your sister’s disappearance and neither did your parents.”

  Even in the miasma of sleep deprivation I knew I had been mistaken. It slowly sank in that I had no more answers today than yesterday and the day before that. My sister was missing and there was no logical explanation for it.

  I stared down at the floor for what seemed like forever. Stone must have thought I had fallen asleep. He tapped my knee to wake me.

  “Isabel, you don’t really believe we could do something like that?” Stone spoke calmly and almost sympathetically.

  “It’s better than the alternative, isn’t it? Anything is better than believing she is dead.”

  “I suppose so,” he said. The fact that he didn’t say any more, the fact that he didn’t tell me it was going to be all right, that he accepted my statement as a valid point, made me know for certain that he was not my enemy. It would have been so much easier if he was.

  “Are you going to arrest me?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “And sorry for, you know, br
eaking into your home.”

  “Apology accepted. But could you promise me you won’t do this sort of thing again?”

  “I promise I won’t break into your home again.”

  “Not just my home. Any home.”

  “At the moment, I can’t make that promise.”

  Stone and I sat in silence. I think he expected me to make a run for it, but I had nowhere to go. This place was as good as any.

  “Can I get you anything?” Stone asked.

  “Got any whiskey?”

  Stone silently left the room. He returned some minutes later and handed me a mug. I took a sip of the beverage and spat it out.

  “That’s the worst whiskey I’ve ever had.”

  “It’s herbal tea.”

  “That’s why.”

  “Isabel, why don’t you take a nap?”

  I’m still not sure why the nap was suggested. Like a child, I was led into the guest room, the covers were pulled back, and Stone shut the door behind him as he left. I removed my shoes and socks, jacket, and watch, and slid under the covers, thinking I’d pretend to sleep since I couldn’t think of anything better to do. But the stress of the day exhausted me and sleep took over.

  I was jarred awake shortly after midnight by the ringing of a telephone. I slipped out of bed and walked over to the doorway. If I had ever possessed physical grace, it had evolved into stealth. I quietly opened the bedroom door and my bare feet silently passed through the hallway and followed the sound of Stone’s voice into the kitchen.

  “…I understand, Mrs. Spellman. But she is fine and she is here. Yes, I’ll keep an eye on her…no. I don’t need to. I don’t need to ask her. I assure you, Mrs. Spellman, she had nothing to do with Rae’s disappearance…”

  I returned to the bedroom, slipped on my shoes, grabbed my jacket and watch, and ran out the front door. I could hear Stone chasing after me but couldn’t make out the words. His words didn’t matter. The fact that my mother thought I was capable of doing something so outrageously cruel stung beyond anything I could measure in my past. It didn’t matter that I had mentally accused her of the same.

  I got into my car and managed a getaway before Stone had a chance to catch me. I still had the internal map of Uncle Ray’s galaxy of motels. Calculating proximity and general cleanliness, I opted for the Flamingo Inn on Seventh Street.

  I checked in and got a room on the second level with a view of nothing and a king-size bed. There’s something comforting about those cheap, spare rooms with the enormous gold-leaf comforters as the centerpiece. The unfamiliar walls allow you to breathe, to feel like you have escaped. I imagined moving in permanently, wondered what the weekly, monthly, or perhaps yearly rates were. I imagined living in an alternative motel universe, where the past was erased.

  But you need money to live in a motel, and it had been three weeks since I had earned a paycheck. The cash in my account was slowly draining and I had never been one for saving. I paid for the room in cash, but I knew that I probably had only two motel nights left in my account.

  Once I settled in the room (i.e., threw my bag on the bed and took off my jacket), I ransacked my wallet, pulling credit cards and calling customer service to check my available balances. I would sustain this anonymous lifestyle as long as I could. Between my checking account and two credit cards, I had fifteen hundred dollars to my name, not to mention the emergency card I had stashed in the lining of the wallet. I reached into the worn leather wallet, slipped my finger into a two-inch-wide hole in the lining behind the billfold section. It was empty.

  I searched the wallet a half dozen more times, the entire contents of which were eventually splayed across the bed. But the card, the emergency card, was not there. I couldn’t call for a replacement, because I didn’t have the card number. I had those written down on a slip of paper that I hid on the underside of my desk at the office—the office where I no longer worked. I would have to break into my parents’ house the next morning.

  I set the alarm for 5:00 A.M. and tried to sleep. I tried to count sheep but discovered that counting the holes in the stucco ceiling was far more satisfying. But neither induced sleep. I was out of bed, showered, and dressed long before the alarm buzzed. Within twenty minutes I had parked around the corner from my parents’ house, entered the backyard through the alleyway, climbed the fire escape up to my old bedroom window (which has a pulley on the latch so that I can open it from the outside), and entered my old apartment. In my best imitation of a cat burglar, I worked my way downstairs to the office. The door was locked, but I still had my key and apparently they had not gotten around to changing the locks. I found the sheet of paper with all my identification numbers on it and quickly slid out the office window and made the phone call from my car.

  My sister had been missing for five days.

  THE FINAL BATTLE

  Isabel Spellman” checked into the Motel 6 by the San Francisco airport five nights ago. It was approximately a half-hour drive from the house, but it seemed like only seconds had passed in transit. When I arrived, I couldn’t move from my car. I sat frozen, trying to calculate my next move. What I knew in my heart to be true, I had to see for a fact. And I had to document everything that would follow.

  I pulled my digital recorder out of my purse, turned it on, and stuck it in my jacket pocket. I got out of the car and walked across the street toward the motel.

  And that is when I saw her. Rae. Crossing the street right in front of me. In her arms was an unruly bundle of snacks (of the sugared variety), which she presumably bought from the convenience store across the street. Within a moment, she saw me approach and the look on her face was like a thousand-word essay of the truth. A package of Ding Dongs fell to the ground, and she didn’t try to collect it. Instead, she stared at me, paralyzed, scared, her eyes a slide show of guilt. And I knew then for a fact that my sister’s disappearance was not hinged on foul play or any other sinister option. And I knew that she wasn’t a runaway. And I knew her memory was fully intact. And I knew that for the last five days she had been safe and sound, consuming vast amounts of sugar.

  And what I knew above all else was that she had kidnapped herself. And I knew why. Her intentions were to unite the family. Her intentions were to bring me home. Her intentions were to force the concept of a tragedy so horrific that our family would suddenly become the kind that didn’t follow one another, bug one another’s rooms, listen in on phone calls, interrogate relentlessly. Our family should only do that to others.

  Rae used my credit card so that I would find her. Her disappearance was to leave a mark on everyone. But it was a message to me. I was responsible for everything that happened. It was my fault.

  Rae sustained her frozen stare from across the parking lot, her arms still cradling the forbidden stash. The moment I knew that my sister was alive, I said to her, “You’re dead.” I doubt she heard my words through the hum of traffic, but she got the picture when I sliced my index finger across my throat.

  Rae’s emergency provisions scattered around her as she made a run for it. With six inches on my sister and the adrenaline of sheer rage on my side, I managed to make up the fifteen yards and caught her just as she reached the front door to room 11.

  Her hand grasped the doorknob as I swung my right arm around her waist. I lifted her off her feet and disengaged her grasp. I threw her down on a small grassy section in front of the building, a ten-by-fifteen-foot concrete-enclosed area with a bench and seesaw, impersonating a playground.

  The transcripts read as follows:

  ISABEL: You are dead.

  [I pinned Rae’s arms and legs to the ground as she thrashed about.]

  RAE: You gave me no choice.

  ISABEL: You are so dead.

  RAE: I did it for you.

  ISABEL: Did you hear me? Dead.

  RAE: I love you!

  ISABEL: Don’t you dare say that!

  RAE: I had a very good reason.

  ISABEL: I have a very good reason to kill
you.

  RAE: Let go of me.

  ISABEL: Never.

  RAE: Please.

  ISABEL: You’re going back to camp.

  RAE: Let’s negotiate.

  ISABEL: And private school.

  RAE: That hurts!

  ISABEL: Say good-bye to the Froot Loops—

  RAE: Ouch!

  ISABEL: Lucky Charms—

  RAE: Help!

  ISABEL: Cocoa Puffs—

  RAE: No!

  ISABEL: You’re going on a macrobiotic diet. [Rae’s body went slack.]

  RAE: Okay, I give up.

  I released my grip and rolled off to the side. Rae took that opportunity to attempt another escape. I caught her foot and launched her back to the grass and once again climbed on top of her, trying to pin her like before. But her arms flailed wildly, occasionally making contact with my face, charging my anger.

  I rolled her over on her stomach and pulled her arms behind her back.

  ISABEL: Don’t try to escape.

  [Just as I got control of Rae, two police officers came up behind me and wrenched me off her.]

  OFFICER #1: Ma’am, I’m going to need you to calm down.

  ISABEL: Accept your fate.

  RAE: You would have done the same thing if you were me.

  ISABEL: Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what you put us through? You’re dead.

  [I strain against the tight grip of the first officer.]

  OFFICER #2: Ma’am, if you can’t control yourself, we’re going to have to cuff you and take you in.