City of the Sun fb-1

by David Levien

  “What is it?” he asks, glancing out to see if Pomeroy is on his way back.

  She doesn ’ t answer, but as she reads her face contorts, as if she ’ s suffering deep internal bleeding.

  “There ’ s some kind of man-hour log in his file. Work hasn ’ t been done on the case in weeks — weeks. Oh, god…” Her finger scans the page. The door swings open and Captain Pomeroy steps back into the office. Moving hurriedly behind his desk, he takes the file out of Carol ’ s hands.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Gabriel, but this is department property. And confidential.”

  She holds up her own version of the Jamie file. “What the hell is this, then?” She slams it down on the desk. “A joke apparently — ”

  “That ’ s a copy of certain information that you requested, a request that we granted, although we didn ’ t have to. It ’ s not our policy to do so.”

  Paul moves in his seat. He feels the weakness of his position. If this man harbors ill will against them, then nothing will be done. He attempts to defuse the situation.

  “Car, you know we have to be patient. An investigation like this is difficult.”

  “Exactly,” Pomeroy says, retaking his seat in a territorial manner. “You know that from your private efforts. And we know it because the FBI ’ s skunked, too.”

  “Time? Time?” Carol shouts, starting to unravel. “There have been twenty-two and a half man-hours logged on the case, total. Not even two hours for every month he ’ s been gone.”

  This stops Paul cold. “What?” he bleats.

  Pomeroy looks embarrassed.

  All the calculations start to add up for them: Jamie ’ s age when he disappeared. How old he would be now. How little time has been spent looking for him.

  “Read it for yourself,” she croaks. Carol grabs the folder out of Pomeroy ’ s hands and flings it across the office to her husband.

  Papers fill the air and then settle.

  Pomeroy pulls himself up. “Mrs. Gabriel, you may not want to accept it, but there are other cases that this department is dealing with. Right now, for instance, I have — ”

  At this, Carol loses her composure and rushes out of the office, slamming the door loudly behind her and running through the squad room.

  The men look at each other. Pomeroy shrugs. If the guy didn ’ t have a gun on to show he was a cop, he couldn ’ t sell you on the idea, Paul thinks.

  Paul takes his copy of the Jamie file and exits after his wife.

  Patrolman Carriero glanced up at the sound of the door slamming. His heavy brows knit in concern at the sight of a slight, bent woman rushing from Captain Pomeroy ’ s office. He recognized her but couldn ’ t grab her name. A moment later the husband came out. Tall guy. Worried looking. Gabriel. He ’ d taken their statement…a long damn time ago. Missing kid. He sat on their house the first night and remembered it was a nonevent, no ransom call, no nothing. He ’ d hoped, as he always did, that it ’ d turn out to be a medical. That the boy had fallen and hit his head, been knocked down by a car, or had taken ill and become disoriented. Then he ’ d turn up in an emergency room days, or even weeks, later and they ’ d unravel who he was and return him home. That was the best you could hope for, Carriero had learned in his seven years in uniform. He ’ d done an initial canvass and a followup that hadn ’ t yielded much, and then he ’ d been pulled off and put on a string of burglaries.

  Carriero was feeling hollow-pitted in the stomach with shame. After the burglaries, he ’ d moved on to other cases without any further thought of the boy. That never would have happened during his first few years on the job. Now, he knew, the boy ’ s information rested frozen in the cold case file, only to be pulled out and warmed up when the parents made inquiries or visited. The best they could hope for was a body turning up and ending the waiting. He stood without thinking further and crossed the squad room. He caught the man just as he neared the door.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Gabriel?”

  “Yes?” The man stopped and regarded him. A low-wattage flicker of recognition came to his face. “Oh, yeah, how are you, Officer?”

  “I took your statement a while back. Good while back. I ’ ve looked into your son ’ s case…”

  “Yes?” A hunger leaped into Gabriel ’ s eyes. “Have you found out anything about it?”

  Carriero chided himself for his careless phrasing. “No, I…I don ’ t know quite how to say it without seeming disloyal.” He stopped. He knew this wasn ’ t team play, not good for business, as they say, but he couldn ’ t help it.

  The father looked at him pleadingly.

  “There ’ s a man. He ’ s an investigator. I used to work with him. It can cost some money, but he ’ s…I don ’ t know what good it ’ ll do, but personal attention to this might be worth the cost.” He held out a worn business card. “He may not even be available,” the young patrolman continued, “but you never know.”

  Paul felt himself deflate. He was hoping for some hard information, but a business card just didn ’ t help right now. His thought was to tell the officer about the two investigators they ’ d already tried, the sizable piece of their nest egg that they ’ d gladly spent but which had yielded only monthly meetings at a coffee shop as the investigators tried to pad their lack of results in thickly worded, laser-printed reports. Instead he just took the business card.

  “Thanks. I better find my wife.” Paul pocketed the card and went off after her.

  Carol sat, nearly catatonic, in the darkened living room. Night descended silently without her even noticing. The only light in the room flickered from the silent television. Her fragility was such that any disappointment at all had a gross weight and power.

  The door opened and Paul walked in with Tater on a leash. He unclipped the dog, then walked over and switched off the television.

  “Carol, let ’ s go on up to bed.”

  Though she seemed not to hear him, she got up and walked toward the stairs, with Paul right behind her.

  At the foot of the steps, Paul clicked on the switch illuminating the front of the house for Jamie, as they did every night.

  Carol looked at him and then turned off the lights before going up.

  FOUR

  Paul skirted the city and its afternoon traffic, taking County Line until he hit Mitchner. Indianapolis was only a couple hours ’ drive from where he and Carol had gone to college, and also from where they ’ d grown up, and he had originally been drawn to the city for its many corporate and technological parks full of businesses and executives to whom he could sell insurance. The chance to buy a house of his own on a tree-lined street was an added bonus back then. Now he worked his way south into Warren and neared the Windemere Homes neighborhood, where the streets had been getting drab for the last several minutes. Lawns were not well tended there during the summer, much less in midwinter. Shrubbery was nonexistent. Most houses were on the one-more-year plan as far as repainting went. Even though the address was all the way out, Paul had decided to drive over without calling first. He couldn ’ t bring himself to go through it all over the phone, and this way, if he changed his mind at any point, he could just drive on.

  He glanced over at the copy of Jamie ’ s file resting on the passenger seat. He checked the worn business card in his right hand as he drove. Frank Behr, the investigator ’ s name, had been familiar, but he hadn ’ t been able to place why, so he had Googled the man ’ s name. What came back was a story he remembered reading many years ago.

  A man named Herb Bonnet, who worked at a trucking company, had become aware of the smuggling and selling of stolen farm equipment, and money laundering, by the owners of the company. Bonnet had gone to the police, and when the owners were indicted and word got out that he was set to testify, he was beaten badly by two anonymous attackers. It was like something out of the movies. Even though he was put in the hospital for a week, Bonnet didn ’ t relent on his plans to talk in court. One afternoon, while sitting guard duty outside Bonnet ’ s room, a patrolman, Fra
nk Behr, looked down the hall through a glass-paneled door. A man was coming toward him, wearing a black pea coat and looking “all wrong and out of place,” Behr had been quoted as saying.

  The patrolman leaped up and pushed a swinging door into the man in the pea coat, who turned out to be a gunman coming for Bonnet. Officer Behr put him into a wall, knocking over a cart of housekeeping supplies, as the man drew a. 38 with a taped handle. Officer Behr then disarmed him and wrestled him into custody. The would-be gunman, a distant relative of one of the owners of the trucking company who had been paid ten thousand dollars to kill Bonnet, ended up with a broken wrist. Officer Behr had become a local hero behind the incident. There were commendations. He was promoted off patrol to uniformed detective.

  A decorated cop, even if it had been more than a decade ago, seemed worth the effort of a drive. A patch of two-story cement buildings with gray facades passed by outside Paul ’ s window, and the cars parked on the streets didn ’ t look like they ’ d been started lately. He slowed the Buick to a crawl and began checking addresses on the low buildings that looked like double-wide trailers sunk onto cinder-block foundations.

  Paul pulled over and parked, taking the file with him as he got out of his car. Number 642 was either a depressing office or an even more depressing two-family residence. A dump truck passed in front of him and hit a pothole with a sound much like an explosion. The truck left Paul in a swirl of brick dust and exhaust, which cleared to reveal a homeless man on his knees, rummaging through several bags of garbage, on a patch of brown grass and dirt in front of 642. Half a pizza, coffee grounds, rotting ribs, a broken jar emitting rancid mayonnaise surrounded the man. Paul could smell it from five yards away. He walked past him to the door and knocked repeatedly, getting no answer. He suddenly saw the downside of just driving over without calling as he turned to look for another entrance. He didn ’ t see one and considered heading back toward his car.

  “Who ’ re you looking for?” the homeless man on the ground asked in a clear voice.

  Paul turned and regarded him. “Frank Behr. You know where I might find him?”

  The man clambered to his feet, which took a long time, since he was so large. He was squared off all over, too, from hands to shoulders to jaw. He had a slightly ruddy face and a bushy mustache. The bridge of his nose showed he had worn a football helmet for several years of his life.

  “I ’ m him. Who ’ re you?”

  Paul spent a moment more than a little surprised. “Paul Gabriel. I might want to hire him…you.”

  Behr slung a heavyweight bag of trash over his shoulder and gestured toward another. “You want to give me a hand with this? We ’ ll go inside and talk.”

  “Bring the garbage inside?”

  Behr shrugged. Paul hefted a bag and they walked toward the door.

  The place was both office and home to the investigator, and it had all the charm of a brake-shop waiting room. A plaid recliner and a television tray covered with empty bottles were in close proximity to the television. The setup was that of a man who liked to watch sports and drink beer. Across the room, a crowded desk bearing an old computer, phone, and fax, a battered desk chair, and bulging file cabinets gave the impression that Behr liked his work but hadn ’ t gotten enough of it lately.

  Behr dropped his bag in the middle of the floor and Paul followed suit. The investigator motioned for Paul to have a seat and left the room. A moment later he returned carrying two cans of soda.

  “What ’ s with all this? If you don ’ t mind my asking.” An odor of sour milk and tuna fish began to permeate the room.

  Behr handed Paul a can. “Trash archaeology. It ’ s Derek Freeman ’ s.”

  “The Pacer?”

  “Yeah, the power forward. I paid a guy I know twenty bucks to get it for me.”

  “You must be a real fan.”

  Behr looked at Paul, the slightest glint of humor in his eye. It wasn ’ t a confidential case. He decided to explain.

  “The Trib hired me. Freeman ’ s suing them for libel over their report of him having an affair. You can learn plenty from someone ’ s trash. Receipts, empty prescription bottles. Discarded papers. Gambling receipts. Phone bills. Strange DNA on Q-Tips. Condoms when their wife is on the pill. They ’ re hoping I ’ ll prove their story. At least enough to keep them out of court. And I will.” Behr shrugged and popped his soda can open. If he was at all embarrassed about picking through refuse, he didn ’ t show it. As Behr drank off half his soda, Paul noticed the man ’ s hand was the size of a brick.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Paul fiddled with his own soda can and took a breath. “I think I need…I need a detective. My son. He ’ s twelve. He was twelve and a half. He ’ s almost fourteen now. He ’ s been gone a year and two months.”

  A darkness came over Behr and seemed to fill the room, as if an eclipse was taking place in the sky outside.

  “Gone?”

  “Went out on his paper route end of last October. Didn ’ t come back.”

  “Police?”

  “We ’ ve been to them, of course.” Paul raised the manila file folder by way of explanation.

  “Of course. Amber alerts. Neighborhood canvass. They papered the runaway shelters, then pulled the manpower. You don ’ t know if they ’ re incompetent or don ’ t care.”

  Paul was a bit taken aback at the man ’ s directness and let the file resettle in his lap. “All of the above.”

  Behr sat back and thought. “Over a year and the trail will be cold. Ice-age cold.”

  Paul was quiet. He glanced around the place. Bookshelves were filled with nonfiction hardcovers. A glass gun case held several rifles. Law enforcement plaques hung on a paneled wall near the desk. They were awards for community service, distinction in the line of duty. The dates ended several years back.

  Behr stared at him and Paul came out and said it. “I ’ d like someone to look into it. You were recommended.”

  “I can ’ t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “The cops aren ’ t incompetent, and they do care. It ’ d be a thousand to one finding anything…and even then you wouldn ’ t like what I found.”

  Paul couldn ’ t help feeling a foolish sense of rejection and a sudden desperation, a swirling vortex of helplessness threatening him. “But…” He gestured at the trash on the living-room floor. “You can ’ t be so busy — ”

  “It ’ s not about that,” Behr half barked. Something close to anger sounded in his voice for a moment, then departed. “Listen, how ’ s your wife coping?”

  “Well, I guess. In her own way…but badly. Real bad.”

  Behr nodded with knowing. “What other way is there?”

  Silence took over, and neither man seemed willing to tamper with it for a long while, then Behr spoke again. “It ’ d be very costly, you know. Not just the hourly, but also the expenses. And time-consuming.”

  Paul shrugged.

  “I see. You ’ re willing to pay. Anything you ’ ve got.”

  “That ’ s right.”

  “Put your house up. Sell everything.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But even then…Look, Mr. Gabriel, for most people hope ’ s a beautiful thing. For you and your wife it ’ s dangerous. I don ’ t want to take you through anything more than you ’ ve been already.”

  Paul stood. “There ’ s nothing that could be worse than not knowing. Not even…nothing.”

  Behr seemed to understand but averted his gaze.

  “I ’ m sorry, buddy. I can ’ t do this. There are plenty of other investigators and I ’ m sure you ’ ll find a good one. Now I ’ ve got some garbage to sort.”

  Paul put his unopened soda can down on the television tray and headed for the door.

  Behr knelt on the floor and went about his business, not noticing that beneath the soda can rested a manila folder.

  FIVE

  Carol answered the door late on a Thursday afternoon and found a heavyset woma
n in her forties with dyed black hair standing outside.

  “Hello, Mrs. Gabriel?” she said through the screen door.

  “Yes?” Carol caught an almost magenta hue coming off the woman ’ s hair.

  “I understand you have a missing boy.”

  Carol ’ s heart instantly pounded and she felt herself go weak. “Yes. Do you know something about him?”

  “I might be able to help. My name is Ms. Raven. I ’ m a spiritualist. I ’ ve worked on these cases before.”

  Carol ’ s heart began to slow. If this had been last week even, she would have probably said No, thank you. Instead she swung open the screen door. “Umm…Why don ’ t you come in? My husband will be home soon.”

  When Paul arrived, he found them sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Ms. Raven held Jamie ’ s Colts cap. Paul joined them and learned how she had come to them.

  “I have a friend down at the station who I confer with on certain cases. He told me about yours and I thought I would try.”

  “Well, we appreciate it, but…” said Paul.

  “Do you believe?” the woman asked.

  “In what?” Carol said aloud. Paul gave her a look.

  “Psychic powers. It helps if you believe. I get stronger sensations that way.”

  “Oh, well. We don ’ t not believe. We don ’ t really think about it, I guess.”

  “We want to believe.” Paul gave it a try. “Is there anything we can do?”

  Ms. Raven closed her eyes and sat back, feeling the baseball cap.

  Tater, curled up across the kitchen, looked up from time to time.

  The kitchen had fallen silent, and just when the quiet threatened to go on forever, Ms. Raven spoke. “I see a van,” she said with conviction.

  “We have a van.”

  Carol glanced at Paul, not wanting his talk to mess the woman up.

  “And a bicycle. A blue bicycle.”

  “Yes. Jamie ’ s bike was blue.” Paul spoke again. Carol ’ s stomach turned over at the possibility that this woman ’ s vision was real.

  “You ’ re on a trip. Down south. Jamie has gone for a bike ride.” Ms. Raven became agitated, her breathing short and sharp.