When He Vanished

by T. J. Brearton

  She dials up the heat, increasing the warm air blowing from the vents. “Where was I . . . so — you don’t smoke, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. If you were holding — you know — I can be weak when it comes to cigarettes. All right, so Dixon says there’s another guy there, and he’s not happy about it. Maybe it escalated and Barnes protected himself. Or, maybe he planned this — to get the money for his sick wife.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “They’re trying some Hail Mary pass, some last-ditch attempt to help her. Like anyone would. And these are freelancers, you know — no health insurance. So, there’s an idea among my people that Barnes had this all planned out, but I don’t think so. I think he brings your husband there to show off. But then the thing escalates and now he’s got a witness to a murder he committed. And then after all the macho dust settles, it probably starts to sink in that Dixon’s absence is going to be noticed. The missing money is going to be noticed, and now Barnes is panicking. About the time he’s going through these motions is about the time I figure out who the guy in the car was — your husband. Barnes keeps a low profile but Rainey is a bit more outgoing and I’m able to find her. So about a week ago I roll up on her. Barnes doesn’t know. But she and I have a little talk and she tells me about your husband.”

  “And then you tracked us.”

  “Figuring Barnes is going to come around eventually, yeah, I put the tracker on your car Thursday night. Friday, you guys went and had your dinner date. From there it’s like I told you.”

  “But why follow us? You knew Bruce was the buyer, you said you talked to Rainey — what did John do? He was just there.”

  “We don’t just go around half-cocked, Jane. In my business you have to be certain. Barnes isn’t the only guy out there. We have rivals, competitors. We thought it was Barnes but I needed to be sure. I needed to talk to your husband. I believed John — he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He gave me Barnes’s cell number, let me set up the camera. Barnes was coming around your place, testing John, seeing if he was going to keep quiet. Probably threatening him. Then the night John disappeared, it came to a head.”

  “I still don’t understand why you didn’t . . . Why didn’t you stop Bruce before he did this to my family?” I’m past the tears, but still have to clasp my hands together to stop them from shaking with anger.

  She gives me another look with her bright eyes. If she wasn’t working for an international drug cartel I could see her as one of those sexy gladiators on TV. One I’d like to strangle for being part of this whole sordid business. “I tried, Jane. Barnes is slippery. He kept to public places, he dropped off my radar here and there.”

  I stare back and it slips through my thoughts that I’m having a psychotic episode. That to Karen, watching from the window, I’m just standing in the driveway, talking to myself. No SUV, no Olympia, no drug deal, just a missing husband who tottered off on a drunken whim and met with trouble.

  I’m not who I think I am when I look in the mirror. I’m not who I’ve pretended to be all of these years.

  That the fantasy of being mentally unhinged and delusional is preferable to the reality that speaks to just how low and dark things have gotten.

  When I talk again, my words are almost inaudible. “What happened to my husband?”

  She glances at the thumb drive in my hand. “There’s another file on there. It’s from the night they took John. On that one Bruce is sticking the bottle of Jim Beam in the cabinet — just his way of adding to the narrative that your husband was going downhill, likely to do something like this. But he put the gun in later, with you in the house. Why? Because he needed to hang onto the gun for another night. Because — and I’m sorry to say this — he used it on your husband.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE / AFTERSHOCKS

  The days that follow are like a dream. I answer all police questions about Olympia, including an intense session with a drug enforcement agent. I take the lie detector test Ridley once promised. Karen recommends a lawyer willing to work pro bono. None of it fazes me.

  Karen helps field the endless calls, most from reporters. They’ve set up camp outside my house. Eventually Karen has her husband Matt intervene. He gives Channel 5 a stern talking-to and they leave. After a little more time, the lawn is clear.

  Karen tries to cook for me, but I like to be in the kitchen. It keeps my mind off of the things I don’t want to think about — like holding a memorial service for John, or answering the questions that burn in Melody’s eyes, that Russ doesn’t have words for. We’ve all fallen into the routine — that’s the saddest part, really; even the kids are functioning a bit more like subdued clones of their former selves. I actually miss their bickering.

  After three more days of police protection, I convince Ridley to stand down. No one is coming for us because Bruce is in Canada and John is dead. We’re not in any danger.

  No one knows who Olympia really is — or at least, they’re not telling me. I haven’t heard about any apprehensions of a drug cartel employee, but maybe it’s gone above Ridley’s pay grade. Perhaps the Major Crimes Division or DEA play things like this closer to the vest. But, I don’t know. Something tells me Olympia wouldn’t have stuck out her neck the way she did if she was afraid of the police.

  The only silver lining is that her gift to me had the intended effect — Ridley viewed the video files and submitted them to the DA, who withdrew the charges against John. All that remains for her to close the case is to find John’s body and match the bullet that killed him with the gun Bruce put in my floor.

  I ache at times, full body aches that make my back pain seem like a distant twinge. My heart doesn’t beat the way it did — or so it seems. I’ll place my hand to my chest and can’t feel its rhythm. We can’t keep living like this. At some point the kids have to return to school. At some point we need to say goodbye to John and move on with our lives.

  * * *

  Melody sounds sleepy when I knock on her door at six in the morning. “What?”

  “Honey, pack your things.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re going to the lake house.”

  “What? Really?” She’s more alert now, even excited.

  Russ’s door is open. He’s overheard. “Will Dad be there?”

  “No, honey. Just us. Pack some pajamas, your toothbrush, a couple changes of underwear, okay?” I’ll have to repack everything, but it’ll keep him busy for a minute.

  Melody opens her door. “Are we going to stay there, like, for a while? Like the whole spring break, like we said? Or are we moving there?”

  “Just pack enough for the week. Spring break is almost over. If we need more stuff we’ll go into Watertown and go clothes shopping, okay?”

  The prospect of new clothes cracks her armor. She smiles as she opens a dresser drawer and starts riffling through it. “Good, because I have nothing.”

  The lake is a three and a half hour drive. If we leave within the hour we’ll be there in time for lunch. I can already see myself shopping at the little grocery store near the bay marina. I can smell the fishy air and imagine cooking on the ancient gas stove in the kitchen while the kids play in the yard overlooking the clear water.

  At least, that’s what I tell Ridley on the phone.

  “Mrs. Gable, I’m not really sure about this.”

  “I need to get away,” I confess to her from the porch. “I have to talk to my children. I don’t want . . . not here. I don’t want to do it here.”

  She’s quiet. “You haven’t told them.”

  “Could you?” I’ve gone numb to my own pain. What stings is when I think about them.

  “Okay,” she says at last. “Okay. But you have good cell service there? I need to be able to reach you at all times.”

  The service at Henderson Harbor is spotty and unreliable. But I know places where I can get a good signal. I don’t tell Ridley it’ll be intermittent; I can do without the obstructio
n.

  “Yes. It’ll be fine.”

  The sun has come out and is warming the day as I carry two bags to my car and pop the hatch. I sense the SUV up the street before I even turn to see it. It’s in the same spot. I can just hear the sound of its engine idling. A dark figure sits behind the wheel.

  I shut the hatch. I walk down to the end of the driveway — there’s no vehicle there, just my imagination.

  * * *

  We take the scenic route; Sackets Harbor is where the Saint Lawrence Seaway meets Lake Ontario. In the warmer months, ivy climbs the brick buildings that frame the open-air eatery of Tin Pan Galley, its amber lights festooned above the outdoor tables. Men drive silver sport convertibles with their fifty-something wives, each in polo shirts and his and hers black sunglasses. More ivy swarms the power lines crossing the road of the charming little downtown area as seagulls swoop and scree, scavenging from hidden dumpsters.

  But in early spring the town is subdued, minds still frozen in the grip of winter and dumps of lake-effect snow. Many seasonal houses remain dark and buttoned up. Elm trees, with their saw-tooth leaves, line the streets amid oaks and maples. The cedars edging the water take the shape of the wind.

  Henderson Harbor is even quieter. There’s no real downtown area. The road going in begins with big houses and large estates with names like Turra-Murra and Castle Bluff, then the road gets closer to the lake and the properties smaller until we’re passing the marina and bait shop. This is where the poorer people live — essentially in the boat parking lot for the big sailboats and yachts. This is where my grandfather built his modest little lake house, which was then inherited by my mother.

  * * *

  We get out of the car and I pull the key from my pocket and open the door. The inside smells like it usually does: musty and unused. I click on the lights and remind the kids not to drink the water from the tap — the sulfur content is too high. “Bottled water is in the garage.”

  I look around at the old furniture: embroidered couches, thin-legged end tables, my grandfather’s taxidermy fish adorning the walls. Some are my mother’s catches, too. It’s been over two months since I’ve been here — just the one time in mid-January to check on the place with John — but there’s evidence of his more recent visits: a tool bag sits on the front porch and the extension ladder lies on the gravel floor of the garage, not up against the wall.

  After we unload groceries and luggage, Melody and Russ head out to play. It’s a warm afternoon and the lake is calm and softly lapping, foam sliding over the smooth pebbles. A glow has come back into my daughter since we arrived and it’s the best thing I’ve seen all week. The kids chase each other in circles around the house then launch over the containment wall and scramble down to the water’s edge to skip rocks.

  “Be careful!”

  I hug myself as the wind pushes off the lake bringing fishy scents and I walk back to the road. We’re the only people around; just about every single place in this little neighborhood of a couple hundred people is not habitable in winter. The most eager arrive late April, but it’s not until the Fourth of July that it gets the most active. The height of summer, like when John and I got married.

  I face the lake house the way the wedding photographer was facing when she took the picture of John and me holding up our humorous signs. I raise my arms and use my hands in front of my face to form a makeshift frame. I’ve been over it in my mind a million times, piecing together the timeline for the night John disappeared, poking and prodding it to see what makes sense and what doesn’t.

  Olympia believes that the timing of Bruce stashing the gun means he held onto it long enough to kill John, otherwise he could have planted it earlier with the Jim Beam. Maybe so.

  In some ways I guess you could say Bruce fits the profile of a killer: he’s got that affinity for law enforcement you hear about some killers having, wishing they were cops; he’s a bit of a narcissist, certainly prideful; and circumstances made him desperate.

  But I have a hard time believing it. It feels more accurate that while he’s a hothead, maybe an opportunist, he’s not a cold-blooded killer. And if the drug-deal murder was unplanned, if Bruce has just been making this up as he’s gone along, it’s more likely he let John live. He just needed to stick John somewhere long enough to make his escape. And if he has a heart — and I think he does — he’d want John found eventually. So without the ability to send emails or texts or anything the police could track, he has Rainey leave a message in a notebook, something I would understand when the lights finally turned on in my mind.

  Cooking.

  Insurance.

  Clues to a photograph that showed John and I on our wedding day, showed the lake, part of the house and part of the shed.

  It’s made of corrugated iron, a long rectangle that resembles a storage unit on a cargo ship. That’s because my grandfather was a sailor and used to work the transatlantic ocean liners that came across the Erie Canal, up through the Great Lakes and all the way into the Saint Lawrence River.

  There are no windows and one end is a door with two bars intersecting at ninety-degree angles, padlocked where they meet.

  I pull out the keys again.

  The padlock disengaged, I drop it into the grass, grab the lever of the vertical bar and swing it back. The door makes a familiar clunk and then gives off a squeal as I pull it back and swing it out of the way. The smell emitted is instant and overpowering — dust and mildew and darker things, too.

  I grope for the dangling string and pull on the light. There are two kayaks, several bicycles, lawn furniture, yard equipment, life vests hanging from hooks in the ceiling, a stack of lumber, scattered tools, piles of boxes and stacks of old magazines.

  And at the very back, lying on a blanket and unmoving, is my husband.

  CHAPTER THIRTY / THEN

  Tuesday, March 5th

  “You need to go through something.”

  “Yeah,” John said. “Right.”

  “No,” Bruce said. “I mean it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You need to have a first-hand experience. Something authentic. And then you can write about it.”

  John looked at his old high school classmate with the ruddy complexion, gut gone soft in the middle — it looked like he was drinking too much. But his eyes had energy.

  John shook his head and turned away. “Dude, I have — you know, it hasn’t been easy lately.”

  “You got money problems?”

  It was the last thing he wanted to talk to Bruce about. “We’re okay. Jane makes a good living.”

  “But you could be doing better . . .”

  “My monthly income hasn’t hit four figures for over a year.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I mean, it’s the money, but it’s—”

  “No,” Bruce said, “I totally understand.”

  John was uncomfortable with that out in the open. But there was a sense of relief, too, unburdening. Besides, was he still in competition with Bruce? High school had ended twenty years ago. For God’s sake, it was time to let it go. Time to shrug the inferiority complex. They’d all just been kids — Bruce hadn’t known any better. Kids didn’t know the effects of shame. It was in the past, more distant every day.

  Besides, Bruce was no big success story. For all his bravado and boastfulness as a kid, here he was, approaching middle age and starting over, a new relationship, a return to his roots. People were just people.

  “How about you?” John asked.

  Bruce nodded his head and looked to the side. “Yeah. It’s been up and down, man. Life on the high seas.” He uttered a smoker’s cackle. “Mostly down, though. Mostly down.”

  A silence developed. John studied his hands and looked out of the window.

  “I’m serious, though,” Bruce said.

  “What? About having an experience?”

  Bruce nodded.

  It was awkward. “Yeah, well, that’s what I’m saying. I can�
�t just pick up and go climb Everest, you know.” He tried to laugh away his nerves.

  “I’m not talking about that. It wouldn’t cost you any money.”

  “Okay. I don’t understand.”

  Bruce folded his arms, leaned back against John’s desk and fixed him with a matter-of-fact gaze. “I got something going up here — security gig. It’s something I think you could . . . well you could do like a ride-along.”

  “What kind of security?”

  “Let me put it to you this way . . . When we had the crash in 2008, you know what the smart economists said? What they knew? If it wasn’t for the black markets, the whole country’s economy would have just collapsed. I mean, rubble.”

  “Black markets.”

  “A whole underground economy that props this country up, keeps it liquid. You have countries where drugs are legal. And if people get too deep into it, you know, they go to a hospital, they see their doctor. Meantime, the money is flowing. It’s all perspective.”

  John didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure whether Bruce was putting him on, whether he should just laugh it off — something about security and black markets and drug running? But Bruce looked serious. He’d always been a little edgy, but it was possible his mental health had taken a dive. Now, how to back out of this conversation and get him out of the house without it being too unpleasant.

  But Bruce held up a hand. “I know what you’re thinking . . . you’d be perfectly safe. Perfectly safe. For one thing, I’m strapped. Got a Glock 19 concealed carry and a SIG Sauer I keep on my ankle. And I know what I’m doing — been doing it for ten years. I know there’s a stigma, you know — all of that. But you wouldn’t be doing anything illegal, right? You’re just there in the car. You get a little taste of the life. And I guaran-fucking-tee you it will turn on all the lights in your head. Think about it. Here you sit, at your desk, day in and day out. What’s your life? Your life is taking the kids to school, making dinner — how are you going to write anything like that? You need to live, bro. And this . . . man, the fucking adrenaline you’d feel, the ideas you’d get.”