by Simon Wood
He returned to the kitchen and opened up the fridge. It was low on supplies with little to no food in it. He sniffed an open carton of milk. It had gone sour, and he dumped it down the sink. The only interesting item in the fridge was an unopened bottle of champagne with a red ribbon tied around its neck. Sarah had certainly planned for his arrival in one respect.
The mail slot was in the garage. There wasn’t a car in the garage, but there was a whole bunch of uncollected mail in the basket. Most of it was crap—junk mail, coupon books, and supermarket and department store flyers. He examined the postmark dates on the envelopes. Allowing for transit, he guessed that Sarah had been away from home for three to four days. He knew it wasn’t longer. They had spoken last weekend, and that was five days ago.
Weekends were the best time to talk. The eight-hour time difference between England and California limited the window of opportunity. A call from the United States at five in the afternoon made for a 1:00 a.m. wakeup call in London. But they had the weekends. On a Friday or Saturday night, they could afford to talk well into the wee hours of the morning.
Messages stacked up on the machine, uncollected mail, and an empty fridge…Had she gone away? She wouldn’t have done that without telling him. There was no way she’d leave him high and dry like this. Not a chance.
He checked the closets and dresser. He couldn’t tell if Sarah’s clothes were missing. If she had gone anywhere, she was traveling light. He did notice one thing missing. When they’d met in Costa Rica, she had been carrying a small San Francisco 49ers sports bag. He’d seen it the last time he’d been over, just before they got married. Though she could have dumped it when she moved, he couldn’t find it now. A couple of roller bags and an Eddie Bauer backpack, yes, but no 49ers bag.
There was one way of knowing whether she had packed for a trip—the bathroom. He didn’t find a toothbrush, makeup, or any other toiletries.
She’d gone somewhere. She knew he was coming, so why would she disappear on him?
The doorbell rang.
Sarah.
The doorbell rang again, this time sounding more urgent.
He ran through the house, grabbed the flowers, and hurried to the front door. He called out, “Hold on a sec. Coming.”
He stopped abruptly at the front door. If Sarah was back, why was she ringing the doorbell? Wouldn’t she have a key or be coming through the garage to park the car? Still believing in his heart that it was his wife, he opened the door and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun, with only a screen door for protection. Instinctively, he raised his hands.
A short, muscular black woman dressed in a Christmas tree–green windbreaker was at the other end of the gun. Embroidered on her jacket was a five-pointed gold star with Santa Rita County Sheriff’s Department emblazoned on it.
“Don’t move a muscle,” she said. “You’re busted.”
Terry nodded.
She removed a supporting hand from the revolver and eased open the screen door. “Now back up and turn around. Put your hands behind your head, interlacing your fingers.”
The dining-area patio door squeaked. Terry craned his neck. A second person from the county sheriff’s office entered the house, this time a man, much older than the woman.
“You’d better do as the officer tells you, son.” His words were calm and smooth, comforting, in fact. The gun he held was not.
Terry dropped the flowers and did as he was told.
“You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Oh Sarah, Terry thought, where are you when I need you?
CHAPTER TWO
“Obviously, you can understand the confusion. To a passerby, you did look like a burglar,” the sheriff said.
The confusion had taken its time getting resolved. Terry’s protests had gone ignored while his arrest had been processed and he’d been reduced to a line of cop statistics—age: thirty; height: five nine; weight: one hundred and sixty-five pounds; hair: brown; eyes: blue. When they got around to taking his statement, the cuffs finally came off.
The sheriff had been the kindly man with the gun who’d entered his home through the back door. Now he held Terry’s green card up for inspection yet again, and turned it around to look at the magnetic strip. For a moment, Terry half expected the sheriff to lick his green card, as though its taste would give him a better clue as to its authenticity.
“I suppose,” Terry mumbled.
He massaged his wrists. The handcuffs had been off twenty minutes, but he still felt the ghost of their existence. The removal of the cuffs had given him the illusion that he was free. But he was in an interview room, and the sheriff liked to give his gun a touch now and then, as if to remind himself and anybody in the vicinity that he still knew where to find it. The gun was an awesome weapon, rivaling anything Dirty Harry toted. No one needed to be reminded of its existence. The gun possessed plenty of personality.
While the sheriff studied Terry’s paperwork, Terry studied him. Sheriff Ray Holman was just like Terry imagined a sheriff to be, but not a modern-day sheriff. He belonged in the Old West. Holman was a hundred and fifty years out of time. He was tall, eclipsing six feet with ease, and lean, with a weather-beaten exterior that only triple-digit summers could inflict on a man’s skin. His face was deeply lined with the flesh pulled taut against his skull, accentuating his cheekbones and razor-sharp jawline. His blond hair bordered on red and his moustache wouldn’t have been out of place on a seventies porn star, but on him, it was nothing but masculine. Holman dripped testosterone.
“I’m still not sure I understand what’s going on here.” Sheriff Holman put down Terry’s documents. “So why don’t you tell me?”
Terry frowned.
“Just so I fully understand.” Holman flashed a smile that would have been at home on a shark. The smile tightened his features.
Terry sucked in a deep breath and let it slide out. “I left England to come to the US. As you can see, I have all the correct immigration paperwork.”
Holman nodded.
“My wife was supposed to meet me at the airport, but she wasn’t there.”
“Your wife’s American, right?”
“Yes.”
“She lived here in California and you in England, correct?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a funny setup, isn’t it?”
Terry sighed. “I know how it sounds, but with immigration laws these days, normal isn’t possible. To get through the system, you have to do some things to keep everything moving.”
“Hmm. I see. Do you want a coffee or something?”
“No, thanks. I just want to go home.”
“So how long have you been married?”
“About six months.”
“And where did you marry?”
“Las Vegas.”
Holman’s eyebrows climbed halfway up his forehead. “Vegas?”
Terry sighed again. It was another of those elements that smacked of tackiness. Getting married in Vegas had been Sarah’s idea. They’d joked about having an Elvis wedding. It had been funny at the time, but now, in a sheriff’s windowless interview room, it wasn’t so amusing.
“The reason we got married in Las Vegas was for simplicity. We were going to get married in the Caribbean, but immigration sometimes doesn’t recognize marriage certificates outside of the US. So Las Vegas it was.”
Holman frowned at Terry, unimpressed with his fast-food approach to holy matrimony. Terry swallowed at something sour in his throat.
“Why didn’t you stay in the US after you were married?”
“Sheriff, what has this got to do with my arrest?”
Holman thought for a second. “Not a lot, I suppose. I guess I’m being nosy. My mother, God rest her soul, was always saying I should keep my beak out of things. I apologize, Mr. Sheffield.”
“Am I still under arrest?”
“Technically, yes
.”
“Can we get this over with so I can go?”
“Apologies again. I’m sure you want to get back to your wife.”
“I want to find her,” Terry corrected.
“Okay, back to the questions.” Holman picked up his notebook and flicked back over his pages.
Terry walked the sheriff through events from the airport to his arrest. He went into minute detail, just so that he wouldn’t be asked again.
“Okay.” Holman turned the page in his notebook. “One last thing.”
Someone knocking at the door interrupted Holman’s last thing.
The female officer who’d stuck the gun in Terry’s face poked her head through the door. “Sheriff, I have that information for you.”
“Come in then,” Holman replied.
The deputy stood in the corner farthest from Terry, and Holman joined her, his lanky form towering over hers. She held a sheaf of papers for him to examine. The deputy kept her voice low, but Terry could still hear.
“The house belongs to Terry and Sarah Sheffield. They’re listed as co-owners.”
Holman nodded. “Good. Thanks, Deputy Pittman.”
The deputy flashed Terry an examining look on her way out. He saw the doubt in her eyes. Sometimes evidence just isn’t enough, he thought.
Holman spun on his heels and clapped his hands together. “It looks like I’ve got all my answers, and you’re free to go. I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but we can’t afford to let these things go unnoticed. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Terry said bitterly.
Holman opened the interview room door. “I’ll arrange for a ride home.”
“Hey, hold on a second.”
“Yes?”
“Who tipped you off that I was in the house?”
“You should count yourself lucky, Mr. Sheffield. You have some conscientious neighbors. They believe very much in neighborhood watch. Come along, Mr. Sheffield. I think our business is concluded.”
Terry remained rooted to his seat. “No, it isn’t.”
Holman’s face creased and his blue eyes lost their sparkle. Suspicion consumed his expression. Terry knew where the sheriff’s mind was going. He was thinking about a wrongful arrest suit, but that was the furthest thing from Terry’s mind.
“What’s outstanding, sir?” Holman asked with a sharp tone.
“My wife.”
“What about her?”
“I want you to find her.”
“You want to report her as missing?”
“Yes.”
“But we don’t know that she’s missing.”
“Yes, we do. She wasn’t at the airport, and I have about a week’s worth of unopened mail. What more do you want?”
“She could be waiting for you at home right now. You said yourself that she packed a bag.”
“Yeah, and she could be in trouble.”
“Look, Mr. Sheffield, I understand you’ve had a traumatic day, but I’m guessing by the time you get home, she’ll be there to meet you.”
Terry stood. “And if not, then what?”
“Then come and see me in the morning. At this point, I think your fears are unfounded.”
“Aren’t you listening? She’s been missing for days.”
“You have no proof of that,” Holman said. Terry opened his mouth to speak, but the sheriff stopped him with a raised hand. “You have a pile of unopened mail and a missed appointment. It’s not enough for us to call out the cavalry.”
Terry shook his head.
“Mr. Sheffield, you’re tired. Go home and wait for your wife. Like I said, if she hasn’t made it home by morning, call me and I’ll file a report.”
Terry wanted to object, but Holman was ushering him out of the interview room and along the corridor to the front door. At least Terry could be thankful he wasn’t being escorted to the cells.
In the reception area, Deputy Pittman glanced up from her PC terminal when her name was called.
“I’m releasing Mr. Sheffield, but he needs a ride home. Can you take him?”
“Sure thing, Sheriff.”
At the end of a silent twenty-minute ride, the deputy pulled up in front of Terry’s house. He was glad it was over. But even without leaving the car, he could tell he wasn’t arriving to a rousing homecoming. The sheriff’s department had kept him so long it was dusk. Every house had its lights on except one—his.
“Thanks for the ride,” Terry said without much gratitude.
“Take it easy, Mr. Sheffield. And don’t get into any more trouble.”
A bit late for that, Terry thought. “I’ll do my best.”
The deputy watched him walk up the path to the front door before driving off.
Slipping his hand in his jeans pocket, he fingered his pocket change before realizing his mistake. He whirled back toward the street in the hope of catching the deputy, but she was already turning onto the next street.
“I don’t have any damn keys,” he called after her.
Terry tossed the orange tree branch onto the patio for the second time that day and slipped through the patio door. He hoped he wouldn’t have to enter his house this way every time. He switched on the dining area lights.
“Sarah?” he called and got no answer, as expected.
Some homecoming. This was supposed to be his happy home. This place didn’t feel like home. He felt like an intruder, a stranger.
“You don’t know your arse from your elbow, Sheriff.”
Terry spent the next ten minutes rummaging through the house for a set of keys. While digging around he found a garage-door opener with a dead battery before finding the spare bunch of keys in a kitchen drawer. He made damn sure they were in his pocket before the cops could come calling again.
He called Sarah’s cell and got voice mail yet again.
He left the house and knocked on the doors of his immediate neighbors. He introduced himself and asked them if they’d seen Sarah. They remembered seeing her, but couldn’t recall exactly when.
He couldn’t wait for Holman to get his machine rolling. Sarah was in trouble. He knew it even if the sheriff didn’t. What to do next was the problem. He could comb the streets calling her name like she was a lost dog, but how far was that going to get him? Sarah had a four- or five-day head start on him. She could be anywhere. Even out of the country. Why hadn’t she called him? It had to be serious. There was no excuse otherwise. Maybe she’d run out on him. He didn’t want to admit it, but the facts were there in front of him—the unread mail, the unanswered phone messages, her switched-off cell, and the most damning of all, a packed bag. He refused to believe she’d abandoned him. If she’d had second thoughts about their marriage, she could have easily phoned him with a Dear John story. She didn’t have to hide from him. And if she planned to run out, why pack only an overnight bag and not clear the house out entirely? As easy as it was to believe in the simplest solution, he couldn’t. If he needed proof of that belief, he didn’t have to look any further than the fridge. He pulled open the fridge door and removed the bottle of champagne. As well as the ribbon, a greeting card hung around the bottle’s neck. He opened the card and read it: Welcome home, baby. This is going to be great. Yes, Sarah had skipped out on him for a reason. One so serious she hadn’t had the time to call him.
I just wish you’d tell me what’s going on.
If she couldn’t, maybe somebody else would. He returned the champagne to the fridge and went into the bedroom Sarah had converted into an office. He flicked on the computer and went through her desk while the machine booted up. He found an address book in a drawer.
He flipped through the pages, staring at names and numbers he didn’t recognize. He’d heard about some of Sarah’s friends as part of some anecdote, but he’d never met them. And naturally, all Sarah’s stories involved first names only—John did this and Karen did that. With so few opportunities to see each other over the last couple of years, they’d been selfish with their time
together. They came first. Everyone else could wait.
It wasn’t like he could even call Sarah’s family. She was an only child and her parents had passed away, her father of a heart attack and her mother of breast cancer.
The computer finished its boot-up cycle, and Terry opened up her e-mail program. She might not have left a phone message, but her e-mails might explain what was going on. He felt like a voyeur for going through Sarah’s e-mail, but he had no choice. It was better he did it than Holman.
Skimming her outgoing and incoming e-mails, it seemed to be the usual combination of spam, personal and work-related communications, and, of course, their e-mails to each other. Nothing screamed an explanation for her no show.
No matter. He might not have any e-mails that could clue him into Sarah’s disappearance, but he did have one thing—Sarah’s e-mail address book. He composed a new message to everyone in it. It was the quickest way to get the word out to everyone.
Hello Sarah’s friends,
I’m Terry Sheffield, Sarah’s husband. Sarah is missing. She wasn’t at the airport today to pick me up, and it looks as she might have left town for a couple of days, but I don’t know where she’s gone. If you know where she is or how to get in contact with her, please let me know.
Thanks,
Terry
He read his message. It was as alarmist as hell considering the e-mail would be going out to friends, business acquaintances, and strangers, but this was the situation he found himself in. It would prove embarrassing if this revealed a totally innocent and understandable explanation, but he was willing to accept having egg on his face.
“Please, let this be a sign of me overreacting,” he said to himself and hit SEND.
Hopefully, someone would have some insight.
Sarah’s e-mails might not have told him anything, but maybe her browser history would reveal something. It did. She’d cleared both her browser and search engine histories. Was that habit or a sign she was covering her tracks?
He turned his attention back to the names, addresses, and phone numbers in Sarah’s address book. None meant anything to him. They would all have to be called. With over fifty names listed, it was a daunting prospect. He checked the time on the computer’s clock. It had gotten late. He doubted many would appreciate a call from him at this time of night. Besides, his mind and body were still on London time. Despite being hopped-up on fear, jet lag was getting its teeth into him. He put the address book down. His e-mail plea was enough for tonight.
