In Absentia

by Melissa F. Miller

  “No, I really didn’t. I’ve been cursing my mobile carrier all day!”

  He explained the origins of the Green Bank Observatory and the NRQZ while she stirred the sauce and sipped her wine.

  “So, the people who live here full time—it’s like they live in the past?”

  He considered the question for a moment, then he said, “Yeah, sort of. Anyway, I know there’s a phone fit for a time capsule in one of the boxes in the basement.”

  She checked the time and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “In that case, let’s time travel. You wait here.”

  She jogged down the stairs, her flagging energy renewed by the prospect of contacting the authorities and saying good night to the kids and Connelly.

  She eyed the tower of boxes. They were unlabeled. She reached up and pulled down the top box in her eight-box-high, two-row-wide barricade. Ski equipment. She set it aside. The second box held old tax records. She found treasure in the third box, a cream-colored, corded trimline, push-button phone like the one she had in her bedroom in middle school. She remembered pacing around her room with the handset in one hand and the cradle in the other, her ability to roam limited by the tether of the cord.

  She lifted the lid to close the box and return it to its place in the stack. Then she noticed the framed photograph, face down on the bottom on the box. Curiosity got the better of her, and she picked it up and turned it over.

  It was a picture of a woman. She had dark hair, dark eyes, and a wide, open smile. Her blue headscarf was a gorgeous robin’s egg color that set off her eyes. She was turning toward the photographer, and the wind was lifting the end of her scarf. Judging by the trees in the background, the picture had been taken in the woods outside the cabin.

  More curious than ever, she tucked the framed picture under her arm and took it upstairs with her.

  “Did you find it?”

  “I did.” She raised the phone in her left hand and then pulled the picture out from under her arm. “And I found this. She’s gorgeous.”

  She stood the frame on the kitchen’s long breakfast bar, where he sat, nursing his glass of Chianti.

  “She is,” he agreed. “That’s Liv. Aliviyah.” His throat sounded scratchy.

  Aliviyah Amini. Her mind flashed back to her conversation with Connelly.

  The timer sounded to announce that the pasta was done cooking. She was grateful for the interruption. It gave her time to think. She needed to proceed gingerly. Clive was in a fragile physical and mental state. If she pushed too hard, she might break him.

  She drained the pasta water and plugged the phone into the wall.

  “Let me just make this call and then we can eat. And talk about Liv.”

  He’d picked up the frame and was holding it, white-knuckled, as he stared at it. He nodded, but she was sure he hadn’t heard her.

  She lifted the handset and listened for the dial tone. Then she called Connelly’s cell phone. It immediately rolled to voicemail. She frowned but left a message, reading off Clive’s telephone number from the handwritten sticker on the base.

  She replaced the handset on the cradle and returned the phone to the side table, with an uneasy feeling lodged in the pit of her stomach.

  She dished out the pasta and poured them each a tall glass of ice water. She helped herself to more wine. They ate without conversation, side by side at the breakfast bar. The only sound was the clinking of forks.

  Finally, she cleared her throat. “Is Liv, um, Muslim?”

  He nodded, sipping his wine.

  She watched his face for a hint of something, but he was a million miles away.

  “Is she from here? West Virginia, I mean?”

  “Yes. She was born here. Her parents immigrated from Syria when her mother was pregnant. Her dad worked as a chemist for one of the big chemical companies. I met her one day on the ski slopes. And everyone says this, but it was love at first sight. Is that how it was for you and your husband?”

  “Not really. I met him when I let myself into the apartment of a man who’d just been murdered. Connelly pulled his service weapon on me, and I broke his nose and one of his fingers disarming him. Then we went out to the dumpster behind the apartment building to find the corpse.”

  He gaped at her for at least thirty seconds, with his fork suspended over his plate. “Uh ….”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s not the stuff of fairy tales. You should eat. Your pasta’s getting cold. So, what happened? To the two of you?”

  “Her parents didn’t really like me. They wanted her to marry a Syrian man. We kept dating in secret, but when her mom died, her dad remarried into a family of … I guess you’d say they were fundamentalists. I think they’re mixed up in drugs, too. I don’t know. It wasn’t safe for us to see each other anymore.” The mournful note in his voice brightened. “But, we have plans to run away together after I resign from Recreation Group. So, soon we’ll be together.”

  Sasha scrubbed her hands over her face.

  “What’s wrong?” Clive asked in some alarm. “You look distressed.”

  “Clive, do you think maybe Liv’s family is behind your abduction? I know Omar was talking about missing money, but that may be a ruse.”

  “It must be a ruse. I don’t know anything about any missing money … unless …. No, no, no.”

  “What?”

  He covered his eyes with his hands. “I’m a moron. The two million dollars in those teddy bears. You don’t think that was Liv’s family’s money, do you?”

  She stared at him.

  23

  Leo clutched the six-pack of beer under one arm and jabbed at the doorbell with the pointer finger of his free hand. Again.

  While he waited, he worked his jaw. He could hear the television blaring inside. He could see two silhouettes sitting in a pair of recliners in front of the TV. He could smell stale beer every time one of the silhouettes belched. The stale beer smell was a sensory detail he could’ve done without, and it made him wonder just how much squalor Tannerville’s chief of police lived in.

  He raised his hand again, but instead of pressing the bell, he pounded on the door and barked out, “Department of Homeland Security. Open up!”

  Just inside the door, he heard someone furiously whisper, “Exactly how much trouble are you in, kid?”

  “I’m losing my patience, Chief Clinton,” Leo called. “I’m obliged to inform you that the department will not reimburse you if I’m forced to use a battering ram on your door.”

  Leo hoped the police chief didn’t hear the snicker that escaped before he could hold it back. There was exactly one part of his empty threat that was true: DHS certainly wouldn’t be footing the bill if he busted down this door.

  The door swung open.

  A washed-up police officer straight out of central casting stared out at him bleary-eyed. As if he’d been listening in on the call with Dill, the man wore a limp-looking undershirt and a pair of boxers and was scratching his belly through the ribbed shirt.

  The houseguest was a bit of a surprise, though. An adult son maybe? Leo smiled at the young guy and hoisted the brown paper bag.

  “May I come in? I brought beer.”

  Chief Clinton stuck out his lower lip and nodded approvingly. “That’ll get you further than a battering ram, Slick.” He stepped aside and ushered Leo into the dimly lit house.

  Leo sat on the police chief’s broken-down sofa and tried to ignore the spring that was poking him in the butt. Chief Clinton and his friend, whom he’d introduced only as Jamie, sat in the twin recliners and stared at him, mutely, waiting.

  The chief refused to turn off the hockey game but demonstrated a willingness to compromise by muting the volume.

  Leo twisted the cap off a beer and took a long pull. Then he said, “I might as well start at the beginning.”

  The police chief’s eyes flicked to the TV set for a second, but he nodded his agreement. “Might as well.”

  “My wife’s a lawyer in Pittsburgh. One
of her clients had a sentencing hearing yesterday in federal court, but he didn’t show up.”

  “That sucks,” Jamie volunteered.

  Leo continued. “This client, a man by the name of Clive Bloch called her from his cabin up on Alpine Road yesterday morning and said he was on his way. That’s the last anyone’s heard from Mr. Bloch.”

  He paused here, because the police chief was staring daggers at the kid. “What were you just telling me, Jamie? I think you might want to bring Mr. Connelly up to speed.”

  Jamie cleared his throat and stared down at his hands. “So, uh, I’m gonna start my story at the end, I think.”

  The police chief apparently approved equally of both narrative techniques, because he said, “Might as well.”

  “I need a place to hide because I witnessed a murder today.”

  Now, here was a story that started off with a literal bang. Leo leaned forward. “Who was killed?”

  “My buddy, Donny. See, we sometimes do odd jobs.” He glanced at Chief Clinton.

  The police chief clarified, “By odd jobs, he means he and Donny were paid by someone whose name Jamie isn’t quite ready to share to pick up pills that had been diverted from the inventories of two local pharmacies as well as the bi-county hospital and deliver them to a compound owned by one Zayed Al Sharqi.”

  “The guy with the interstate drug distribution empire,” Connelly offered.

  “That’s the one. Tell him about the chick.”

  “Last week, we were dropping off some pills from the Burr Hill Drugstore when this lady answers the door. So, first thing, like all the times we’ve been there, we never dealt with a chick.”

  “Woman,” Leo corrected him. Met with matching blank expressions, he shook his head. “Never mind, go on.”

  “Right, so she thanks us for the delivery and tips us, which sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Just depends who opens the door. And then she says, how would you guys like to earn a little extra money? She says Mr. Al Sharqi has a freelance job that he’ll pay top dollar for. We say we’re interested, so she gives us a name and address.”

  “It was Clive Bloch on Alpine Road, wasn’t it?” Leo guessed.

  Jamie nodded, sadly. “She says Mr. Al Sharqi wants this Bloch guy to get snatched up and held for, like, a day or two, max. He just wants him to miss some appointment. But she doesn’t know exactly when Bloch will be in town, so we give her Donny’s number and she’s supposed to call us when he’s at the cabin so we can grab him up.”

  Leo took another long swallow of beer. “So, you ambush Mr. Bloch and take him … where?”

  “Dude, to this nasty sh—crappy shack across from the railroad station.” Jason shudders at the memory.

  Despite the fact that this man kidnapped Sasha’s client, Leo felt something akin to pity for him. He handed him another beer.

  “Thanks, dude. So, we beat him up, bring him to the shack, and oh yeah, we take his car, too.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. We thought we’d make it look like he skipped town by parking it at the railroad station, but Mr. Al Sharqi really did not like that plan, at least according to the la—woman. And also she was really fired up that we hurt him. Like, pissed.”

  “So, now, we’re stuck in the gross old house with Bloch overnight until two of Al Sharqi’s guys show up this morning. Donny meets them at the train station right by Bloch’s car the way they agreed. We’re supposed to give them Bloch and the car. They’re supposed to give us the money. Easy enough, right?”

  Leo nodded. It did sound like a relatively simple transaction.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t. I don’t know what went wrong, but I’m out in the backyard with Bloch when they get back ‘cause I gotta … pee and there’s no working bathroom in the shack. So, I’m doing my thing and Donny comes back with these two Middle Eastern dudes, one on each side of him. He’s looking down at the envelope full of money, like flipping through it, and gets a couple steps ahead of the guys. Then he tries to say we aren’t splitting the money fifty/fifty and I got mad. I go to confront him, but before I get a word out, bang, bang! The one guy pulls out a gun and shoots Donny right in the back of the head. He goes down. Clive hits the deck, too, to get out of the way. I jump over the fence, run through the yards, and boogie out of there.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “That’s it. The end. I don’t know what happened after that because I went and hid in an even nastier house until it got dark. And then I ran into the chief.”

  The police chief squinted at Jamie. “If you weren’t looking for me and you weren’t looking for your cousin, why were you headed to the Hi-Life, anyway?”

  “I was looking for beer, man. And news. I didn’t hear any sirens or anything all day, so I didn’t know if you found Donny’s body or arrested the Middle Eastern guys or what.”

  “So, you don’t know where Clive Bloch is?” Leo asked, just for clarification.

  “Nah.” Then his eyes lit up. “I mean, I know where I’d go if I were him and I got away in all the chaos.”

  “Where?”

  Jamie reached into his jeans pocket and fished out a key. “Back to my cabin.”

  “That’s stupid. You’d have to be a dummy to go back when you know the guys who snatched you still have the keys,” the police chief informed him.

  “You’re right, it is,” Leo agreed. “But it’s so profoundly stupid that if you were very smart and trained to solve problems, you might also go there because nobody would expect you to.”

  Jamie and the police chief frowned at Leo for a moment. Then Chief Clinton shrugged. “What the hell? Let’s go. I’ll get my pants. The fed drives, though.”

  “You got it,” Leo said, springing to his feet.

  24

  Clive was resting on the couch while Sasha was ostensibly cleaning up the kitchen. What she was actually doing was driving herself to distraction by calling Connelly’s cell phone every two minutes and hanging up on his voicemail message.

  Suddenly, she turned off the water and froze where she stood at the sink. Listening hard. She felt the threat before she heard it. But a few seconds later, the faint sound of a car’s engine floated up to the house on the night air.

  Clive pushed himself up to a seated position. “Sasha?”

  An instant later, bright headlights arced over the front windows as a vehicle made its way up the steep driveway and parked.

  Clive whimpered. Sasha grabbed the chef’s knife out of the knife block and took up a position at the sidelight window to the right of the door. She planted her feet in a solid fighting stance and clutched the knife, breathing hard, but ready and willing to carve up Omar, Youssef, or whoever else was in the … she peered out the window … SUV that she’d recognize anywhere.

  She recognized it because she saw it sitting in her driveway every day.

  Connelly stepped out of the driver’s side, followed by a man she’d never seen before, and Jamie from the shack. She lowered the knife but kept it in her hand. Connelly had better have a good explanation for this.

  Once everyone was inside the house, the barricade re-erected, the knife back in its slot in the block, and introductions made all around, people started talking over one another as they pieced together the overlapping pieces of the massive jigsaw puzzle they’d been working on separately.

  Sasha received assurances from Connelly that the twins were safe, sound, and sugared-up with Uncle Hank and his crew. Jamie received assurances that Clive forgave him, which seemed like a stretch to Sasha, but apparently Clive really was that big-hearted.

  Nobody knew where Omar or Youssef had gone.

  Jamie told the story of the woman who hired him and Donny to grab Clive. Sasha went and got the framed picture of Liv Amini. As soon as she handed it to Jamie, he nodded sadly.

  “Yeah, that’s her. Real pretty eyes, and she was wearing that same headscarf,” he said in a gentle voice.

  “It’s her favorite color,” Clive ex
plained.

  “I’m so sorry, Clive,” Sasha said. She tried to imagine how he must feel. Liv Amini had used Clive shamelessly, and then she’d had him abducted.

  Jamie cleared his throat. “You should know, we weren’t supposed to hurt you. Donny was all keyed up. She was really mad about that. I think that’s why those two Middle Eastern dudes killed Donny and want to kill me.”

  “Yeah,” Clive said absently.

  Sasha was pretty sure he hadn’t listened to a word Jamie had said.

  Chief Clinton fake-coughed. “I would still like to know who gave Jamie and Donny the drugs to deliver to this Aliviyah Amini lady, er, woman.”

  Four heads swiveled toward Jamie, who stared down at the table.

  “Jamie?” Sasha prompted.

  Jamie searched out Clive’s eyes. “I guess I owe you this.” Then he turned to the police chief. “You’re not going to like what I’m about to say.”

  Chief Clinton lowered his chin. “Spit it out.”

  “Uh, can you give agent Leo your gun? Just till I tell you this.”

  Sasha and Connelly exchanged a look that said what now?

  Jason Clinton growled low in his throat but he unholstered his weapon and slapped it into Connelly’s open palm. “Now will you spit it out?”

  Jamie gulped. “It’s Chelsea. My cousin.”

  “Chelsea, my senior detective?”

  “Yeah. She, um … you know my mom—she …” he trailed off helplessly.

  The police chief maintained his composure, but Sasha could see the effort. “She overdosed.”

  Jamie nodded. “Chelsea blamed the pharmacist at Burr Hill Drug. Like for a long time. And she promised her mom, my Aunt Lee, that they’d pay for what they did to my mom … you know, her sister.”

  “So, how did that turn into drug running?” Sasha prompted because it was clear Jamie was losing the plot.

  “Uh, when she went in to confront the pharmacist, he offered her twenty grand to let it go.”