When He Vanished

by T. J. Brearton

  “Your blood type is the one we’ve found in the Subaru, not—”

  “I heard you, I just don’t understand. It has to be from someone else with the same type, then.”

  Silence from Ridley. “Jane, you cut your hands, isn’t that right? When you fell.”

  “I cut my . . . What? That can’t . . . How does that matter?”

  “We’ve got a serologist studying the pattern, determining projected versus passive blood stains. At first blush, it could be droplets from someone with cuts on their hands. Like we talked about.”

  “Right, that John fell. That he got hurt . . .” I walk backward a few steps so I can look down the hallway. The bathroom door is still closed, Karen hopefully out of earshot.

  “Jane, consider it from my perspective for a minute, okay? Either your husband fell and injured himself in a way similar to you and somehow our lab messed up the ABO testing or—”

  “Or what?” I feel cold. I’m shaking and I can’t stop. Anger, bewilderment, or something else? Guilt? I ask Ridley if she thinks I’m lying.

  “Maybe not lying, Jane, but perhaps confused.”

  That word again. Like sit tight. Sit tight, Jane, as we make sense of your confusion.

  “Confused about what? I was at work, and I came home, and my—”

  “Well your colleagues said it was a busy night and—”

  “What does that mean?”

  “And you left at one point to get a wallet or something. You went to the main hospital and were gone for a little while.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Ridley’s voice is cool, calm, distant, as if coming to me down a long tunnel. “Jane we’re not saying you did something while at work.”

  The implication is deafening.

  “My husband wasn’t here when I got home. Period. We found his car miles away. How would I have . . . I don’t understand this. Obviously there was some other person in the car. It wasn’t me.”

  She’s silent for a moment. “There’s something else. It’s early in the lab work but, as you’ll know from your nursing experience, certain drugs can show up in the blood for one to two days after use, or longer, depending.”

  “Drugs?”

  “From your blood draw, not from the car blood — we’ve only been able to get a type on that. But the blood you gave us . . . it tests positive for PCP.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, try to find a clear line of thought amid the shifting pieces of my exploding life.

  Ridley says, “I’d like to do a urine screen.”

  “Fine. I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “And a lie detector test.”

  “This is insane!”

  “Well, it may seem so, but as a medical person you’ll understand we have to follow the facts, follow the science. It’s about ruling things out. Let’s rule out everything we can, okay?”

  “Rule me out. As a murderer. That’s what you’re saying.”

  “Jane?” Her voice is hard now, like a stone.

  “What?” I sound shrill.

  “I’m going to ask you not to leave the area for a little while.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY / A CONFRONTATION

  I don’t tell Karen about the blood. Her heart is in the right place but my mother didn’t raise a fool — Karen is only human and has no reason to be loyal or keep secrets. Nor would I want to put her in that position. Instead, I tell her what she wants to hear.

  “I’m going to try RJ now. And I’ll check the Everetts’ place for that SUV.”

  “Now you’re talking. I’ve got the kids. I’ll watch their movie with them, make some snacks. You take your time.”

  “Thank you, Karen.”

  * * *

  The Everetts are just up the road. I stop the car in their empty driveway and sit for a minute watching the house, thinking.

  My blood? A lie detector test? Ridley warns me to stay in the area?

  I need answers more than ever.

  Straight ahead of me is the Everetts’ garage, the windows reflecting the overcast sky. I get out of the Toyota and walk briskly but casually until I can see inside. There’s a riding mower in there but no vehicles, no dark SUV. If they own one, it’s in use. So much for that.

  RJ lives ten minutes from the heart of town in a trailer park where he’s built up his own double-wide trailer to be something bigger. There’s no siding on the exterior but there are silvery insulation panels that say Celotex.

  A TV blares inside. Footfalls approach the door after I knock and it swings open. A young guy with a sleepy look answers. “Hello?”

  “RJ?”

  “Yeah?” He’s bearded and his hair sticks up at the back.

  “I’m Jane, John Gable’s wife.” His eyes widen as he recognizes our names, either from the news or the local gossip. “Oh, hey.”

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure, yeah. Come on in.” He holds the door open.

  “Oh — okay, thanks.” I smile and squeeze past him.

  A dog clicks across the linoleum floor and gives me a sniff while wagging its tail.

  “Candy,” RJ says, “leave her alone.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Go on,” RJ says to the dog. “Go on, lay down.”

  The copper-toned retriever bobs her head a few times then lowers it and lopes off into the living room, her paws silent over the carpet.

  “Sorry about the mess,” RJ says. The kitchen has a horseshoe-shaped counter dividing the living room from what looks like an office. There’s a hallway that goes back presumably to bedrooms and a bathroom, the way littered with clothes and tools. The air smells like dog food and coffee.

  “You should see my house,” I say.

  He nods toward the brew pot on the counter. “Can I get you a cup?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He’s barefoot and in a sleeveless blue T-shirt and either boxers or gym shorts, I can’t tell. He grabs his own mug and looks at me. “You want to sit in the living room?”

  “I’m okay right here. I just have a couple things I want to know if you can help me with and then I’ll get out of your hair.”

  He scratches his neck. “It’s no problem. I don’t go in to the Head until four o’clock. This is sort of my morning.”

  “So you work at the Trailhead as your main job? As a bartender?”

  “I worked for DPW for a while — highway maintenance, bridges — but then I hurt my shoulder and I had to stop. So I went full-time at the Trailhead. I help do maintenance there, too.”

  “A guy working on the roof gave me your name.”

  “Oh, Larry. Yeah. He comes and goes. Gets hired for minor repairs and whatnot.”

  “So the police spoke with you about my husband . . .”

  “They did, yeah.” RJ leans against the counter and regards me with soft blue eyes. “That has to be . . . I can’t imagine what you’re going through. Is there anything . . . Have they found anything?”

  “They’re trying.”

  He looks down and scratches his neck some more.

  “RJ, have you ever met my husband?”

  “Um, I think so — I mean I’ve seen him. Around town, and stuff. Maybe at the Fourth of July barbeque?”

  “But never at your bar.”

  He takes a sip of coffee, shakes his head. “No. Never.”

  “The Knotty Pine . . . do you know who works there?”

  “I pretty much know all the bartenders in town. Not many of us. There’s me, there’s Corey Reber, Kelly Ashton—”

  “Could you write their names down for me? And if you have a number for them, could you write that down, too?”

  He doesn’t move for a moment.

  “It would really help me out,” I say.

  “Yeah, sure. Of course.” He moves deeper into the kitchen.

  Candy lifts her head from her paws and cocks it to the side, watching. The flat screen beside her plays the morning news.

&n
bsp; RJ scrolls through his phone contacts and scribbles down some numbers. “That should be everybody.” He hands me the piece of paper.

  “Thank you.”

  He sees me to the door. “Hey,” he says. “Good luck.”

  * * *

  There’s one liquor store in town. I walk in and approach a woman about my age with a large mole on her cheek. I show her a picture on my phone. “Have you ever seen this man come in here?”

  “You police?”

  “I’m his wife.”

  She flips a hand. “I’m just jokin’.”

  She suppresses a grin as she looks at the photo. Maybe she doesn’t watch the local news and thinks I’m a woman trying to catch her husband in the act of infidelity. Doesn’t matter.

  “I’ve never seen him in here,” she says and glances up at me. “Just you.”

  It takes me aback. “Me?”

  “You don’t remember me. Just a couple of nights ago . . . you came in for some wine?”

  “Oh.” My heart is thudding. “Right, of course.” I put the phone away and look at the camera in the corner. “How many people work here? Besides you?”

  “Um, there’s three of us. And the owner.”

  After convincing her to provide me their names and numbers, I’m looking at the camera again. Now I’m thinking about my own face captured on camera as much as John’s. “How far back do your videos go?”

  “Huh?” She follows my gaze. “Oh that. Yeah, that’s just for show. Don’t tell anybody.” The smile still plays at the corners of her mouth.

  “Your secret is safe with me,” I tell her, relieved when I shouldn’t be. “Do you sell Jim Beam?”

  “Yeah. Think so, right over there.”

  I follow the aim of her finger and walk to the shelf. The bottles look like the same size as the one in John’s office. Same label, too.

  I spend the next ten minutes in the car outside the liquor store, watching the people come and go, some of them without a care in the world, some showing obvious signs of affliction — twitchy eyes, sallow complexions. There’s no reason I should be feeling guilty about having been to the liquor store recently, but my chest is tight anyway.

  Once I get home and relieve Karen I go through the numbers I’ve amassed between RJ and the clerk. Of the seven people, three answer. All three are aware of my husband’s disappearance. None of them saw him either at a bar or purchasing a bottle of Jim Beam.

  I leave four messages with my query and contact information then I send a single text.

  It’s to Bruce Barnes.

  If you want to talk, I’ll be home this afternoon.

  * * *

  Bruce’s big pickup truck comes rolling into the driveway a half hour later. He’s wearing a hockey jersey and jeans and boots and looks pleased as he nears the front stoop.

  “Jane, I’m so glad you called.”

  “Hi, Bruce.”

  He leans in for an awkward hug, one hand on the small of my back. There’s a smell on him I can’t quite place, like he just came from a restaurant, perhaps. A little grease mixed with something sweet, like syrup. His face is open, his eyes shining.

  “So are you okay? What happened last night?”

  “I’m sorry about not responding to your texts.”

  “It’s all right. I can come on a bit strong.”

  “It was my stepbrother, Leland Chase.”

  Bruce raises his eyebrows.

  “They questioned him. Already eliminated him — he’s got an alibi for the whole past week because he was miles away with his . . . ah — his partner. And he’s back home now.”

  “Still, probably should keep an eye on him.”

  “Police say they are.”

  He doesn’t look convinced. I tell him about visiting RJ and trying to get in touch with anyone serving John drinks or selling him bottles of liquor.

  “That’s a great idea. Cops should have been all over that. Jesus.” He shakes his head.

  “Bruce, I have to be honest with you . . .” I’ve been nervous since he pulled in, but I have to press forward. “Ridley said that you told her you didn’t hold any grudges against John. Is that true? Did he do something? Hurt someone? I need to know.”

  Standing two steps below me, just off the stoop, Bruce has a wounded look. “Jane, I was a messed-up kid. I can own that, you know? I got a little . . . I guess defensive when it first came up. I felt like I was in a corner. And then when I talked to the cops it was, you know, pride, I guess. There I was talking to someone supposedly looking for your husband and I didn’t want to get into how I was a bully, right? Because I was. And I’ve been trying to make up for that.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  Bruce holds up his hands. “I also want to come clean about something. When I told you I was looking for property. It’s true — it’s just touchy right now. We don’t know how things are going to go with Rainey. We’re trying to stay positive. But getting mortgage preapproval and all that . . . she’s, you know, she told me to back off of it.”

  “Bruce, I’m so sorry about Rainey.”

  “We’re going to make it through. Okay? In the meantime, I just want to help you. Because let me tell you, from what I’ve heard, people think John had some kind of mental episode. Or got boozed up and had a plan to leave you guys. That’s why I was careful about what I said to that detective. Because they’ve got nothing, and that’s the problem. That’s why we — you and me — need to figure this thing out.”

  I sniff a little, on the verge of crying. “They also think he could be running from something, some sort of debt, some kind of trouble.”

  Bruce’s eyes lock on mine. “If he was in trouble, got to a safe distance, a safe place, he’d reach out and let you know.”

  “That’s what I’ve told myself, but . . . he could still be lying low or something, you know?”

  Bruce looks away and dips his head side to side. “Maybe.”

  “You really think he . . . These cops, Bruce, they’re looking at me like I’m the cat that swallowed the canary. That my husband is a drunk, some high-maintenance celebrity type. Or they think I’m not telling them something. They’re even asking me to take a lie detector. And when I went to the liquor store today, I . . .”

  He faces me. “That’s nuts. See? They don’t know. They don’t have anything, that’s why they’re doing all that. Making you question yourself. Christ! It’s easier for them to just push it off, hang it on you, otherwise they’ve got to run out the suspects, follow all the leads, and they’re paid by the hour, you know? That’s why I was always in the private sector. I got paid because I did a good job, not because of taxes.”

  “There was blood in the car. First they assumed it was John’s, now they’re saying it’s my type. They don’t even seem to be considering the possibility of a third person, even though my blood type is fairly common.”

  “Then they don’t know whose blood it was.”

  “No, but they tested the sample I gave them. I had no idea they were going to do that. Now they’re saying it tested positive for drugs.”

  “Drugs? Like what?”

  “I take medication. Tramadol for my back. And I’ve been using sleep aids. They can both be false positives for other drugs and Tramadol can even be a false positive for PCP. They’re running more tests to determine whether the blood is mine but right now they think I’m some drug addict who . . .” I sit down on the stoop, hard, because I can’t stand up anymore.

  When I look up at Bruce he’s staring off at the ridge of mountains to the south. “Fuckin’ cops. If this was my deal — I’m telling you I would’ve handled things differently from the get-go.”

  “Bruce, you can stop pitching to me. I need help.”

  He smiles but his eyes stay serious. “How much blood did they find?”

  “Not much. A few drops. Like John could have been cut or scratched. But, they’re saying it’s not his, so . . .”

  Bruce frowns. “Okay, so if
it’s not yours . . . whose do you think it could be?”

  I answer with my eyes: at this point anything is possible.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what,” Bruce says, “first things first. Let me go rummage around in John’s office, give everything a fresh look. Fresh pair of eyes. And then I want you to give me the names and numbers you got. Let me follow up on that. The last thing you need is to be running around doing the job of the police.”

  “Thank you, Bruce.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  I’m about to say something else, something about the relief I feel having someone on my side, when the front door bangs open, causing me to jump. Russ comes bounding out, recognizes Bruce and his eyes light up. “Hey, hi!”

  “Hi, bud. How you doing?”

  “I’m good! How is your bullet hole?”

  Bruce laughs.

  I actually laugh, too, and it feels good.

  * * *

  A little later I have to take Melody to her piano lesson. Bruce has gone through my house, first with me, then on his own while I made the kids a late lunch. I heard him sitting and talking on the phone, chasing down the bartender and liquor store leads on my list, trying them again in the hope they’d pick up this time.

  He asks me to step aside while they eat and we move back to the front stoop, our makeshift HQ.

  “Okay, so, as for the stuff in John’s office . . . I’ve come up with pretty much what you have — nothing really that indicates foul play, not overtly, and we’re really short on any clues besides the entry into Canada thing. So that’s that part. For the other thing, I managed to get two more of those folks on the record, and one of them — a liquor store clerk named Penny who saw the press conference — she told me John bought some liquor from her. At least twice. She works the day shift, so I guess that makes sense — it’s happening while you’re away at your job.” He drops his head and pulls air through his nostrils. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that.”

  “Okay.” It is what it is.

  Bruce looks up. “I would do more but right now I’ve got to head down to Albany. We got Rainey in there with a specialist and we’re going for our first appointment. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. But when I get back I’ll take another run at this thing.”

  “Bruce, thank you. And I know you’re all about staying positive, but I just want to say . . . you’re both in my prayers.”