Connor asks me about the case I’m working on.
“It’s a missing college student,” I tell him. “His name is Remy.”
“His name,” my son repeats. “I thought only women went missing.”
That’s troubling, but I can see why he’d think so. The big media blitzes almost exclusively happen for missing children, teen girls, and adult women. White and pretty, preferably. It’s rare to see the major networks covering a missing young woman of color as a priority.
And almost never young men of any race, even though they can and do go missing too.
Connor’s still curious. “Did something happen to him?”
“Maybe. He disappeared one night when he was out with his friends.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be found?”
“College students don’t run away,” Lanny says. “They already ran away from home. Legally.”
“Sometimes they run from other things,” I tell her. “Life. Responsibility. Problems with relationships. And it’s also possible he could have gotten involved with bad people, or gotten into drugs, or had a mental break. Maybe even an accident, though that’d be unlikely under these circumstances. It’s impossible to tell right now. That’s why I’m going to talk to his mom, to get a better picture of who he was and what could have happened.”
“Can we come in with you?” she asks. She hates being left out, and I have to admit she’s certainly got a case for being able to handle serious issues. But her behavior this morning concerns me. I don’t know what’s going on in her head right now.
“Sorry, no. I can’t,” I say. “I’m on the clock, and it won’t help my client trust me if I bring you guys along. So . . . I was thinking that I could take you both to that zip line place you like so much—”
“Navitat?” Connor beats Lanny to it by a couple of seconds. “Cool.”
“Yes, Navitat, and let you guys off on your own for a couple of hours; then I pick you up. Lanny—”
“I’m in charge,” she said. “Like I don’t know?” But she’s not displeased. Neither is Connor, come to that; my kids have pulled together recently, where they’d been pulling apart before. And they both nag me regularly for a little more autonomy. Navitat’s a safe place with good security, and I can trust them that much.
I don’t want to, though.
It’s just for a couple of hours, I tell myself, and try not to think of all the people out there who’d love to terrify, hurt, or even kill my children. On top of the usual child predators, there are more personal enemies who’d jump at the chance to “avenge”—their word, not mine—Melvin Royal’s victims by taking out his own family. Some of them have at least some reason to feel that way, because they lost their own loved ones. Most of them just like an excuse to indulge their constant and free-floating hatred.
But my kids are at an age where a little freedom can help them feel more confident in their own abilities. It’s part of growing up.
Much as I hate it.
We arrive in Knoxville. It’s an interesting place. The winters can get cold, but snow’s typically rare; ice is a much bigger problem. Today’s a sweetly sunny day with temperatures in the high sixties, and it gives the city a shine it doesn’t altogether deserve.
For an otherwise typical small southern city, it’s had a fair number of truly awful murderers. And as we drive through, I start identifying nondescript locations where bodies were found, crimes committed, murderers caught. It isn’t that I want to know these things. I just don’t really have much of a choice. After Melvin, after his abductions and murders of young women were carried out under the roof of the home we shared . . . I needed to understand why he was what he was. So I looked deep and long into a very dark abyss. I can’t say I’m any wiser for it, but I am far more . . . aware.
Knoxville—and Nashville even more—will always have a darkness under the shine, at least for me.
Thankfully, Navitat—which specializes in nature trails and zip line adventures—doesn’t have much in the way of horror stories, and it’s well managed and guarded. I give Lanny and Connor spending money and make them promise to not lose sight of each other, ever, and I quiz them on emergency procedures. They know the drill. Scream and run. Emergency calls on their cells. Attract attention and get help. Never let anyone get them off alone. I keep reinforcing it, even though I know kids will always find a reason and a way to break rules and take risks. If I can make them hesitate for a second, think just a little more, that’s all I can ask.
“Panic buttons?” I ask them. They both show me their key chains. The buttons activate an alert on my phone, plus an ear-piercing alarm that I hope to never have to hear again in person. “Okay. Be safe, be smart, be—”
“Careful, yeah, we know,” Connor says, and slides out of the SUV. He looks back inside. “Thanks, Mom.”
“I love you.”
He’s at that age where he just nods. Saying it back feels wrong. It doesn’t matter. I know he loves me too.
Lanny gives me a quick hug and is gone in seconds.
I idle at the curb until I see them pass through the security gate, and then I look up the address of Remy’s mother.
Fifteen minutes away.
I head that direction, and find myself sliding not into middle-class suburbs, but bustling streets crowded with apartments. I know Remy’s mother moved to Knoxville, but this isn’t a place a middle-aged woman fits in. Every person I see is well under thirty, most loaded down with backpacks and heading to or from the university.
It hits me then. She’s living in her son’s old apartment. He’s been gone for three years, and she’s paying the rent and . . . waiting. I take a breath. Think about what I’d do in the same situation after the police gave up and the case went cold. If Connor disappeared and I couldn’t find him, would I be able to give up a place he’d once called his home?
No. That would be like giving him up too.
The address takes me to a not-very-impressive apartment block that screams that it was built in the mid-1980s, but has at least been repaired and repainted on a regular basis. The unit number in my notes is 303.
I park and climb the stairs. Someone on the second-floor landing has a nice fern soaking up sun, and it gives me a welcome scent of damp earth to replace the faint odor of dust and age and wood rot.
I knock on the faded brown door with the tarnished number 303 on it.
“Who is it?” A shadow darkens the peephole.
“Gwen Proctor. I work for J. B. Hall; I believe she’s already been in contact with you to let you know I’m coming. I’m a private investigator,” I say. “I’d like to talk to you about your son, Remy.”
I don’t make it a question. I’m not a tentative person. And she responds, after a few seconds, by inching the door open. “Do you have ID?”
I silently produce my wallet and show her my private investigator license and photo ID. She opens the door fully and steps back, and I cross the threshold.
It’s like stepping into a tomb someone lives in. Everything looks right—the lamps are burning, the blinds are open. But this place has a young man’s style imprint everywhere, from the sports posters on the wall (soccer is a favorite) to a frayed plaid couch that most women would put right out on the curb. A gaming console near the big-screen television. Two controllers perfectly positioned on the coffee table, like monuments. There’s still a hoodie thrown over the back of a gaming chair, and a pair of tumbled sneakers nearby.
As if he were just here. Just stepped away, and this life here is like a game on pause.
The thing that’s out of place is the woman standing in front of me. She’s older than me by at least ten years, but looks older still; there’s an indefinable grayness about her, as if she’s the ghost that haunts this place, not her son. She’s wearing plain black pants, a soft pullover with the University of Tennessee seal on it. It fits a little snugly, and I wonder if it belongs—belonged—to Remy. The thought makes me feel both sad and a little wary.
I don’t know why she’s assumed I’m a Mrs., but I correct her quickly and efficiently. “Either Ms. or Gwen is fine,” I say, and leaven it with a smile. “Haven’t been Mrs. for a while, and I prefer it that way.”
“Oh,” she says, and then doesn’t quite know what to follow up with. I realize she honestly doesn’t recognize my name at all. She must have lived her life in a hazy bubble of nice things happening to nice people, until her son’s disappearance dropped her with brutal suddenness here in the real world.
I’m honestly grateful that I’m just a regular person to her. And more than a little sad it doesn’t happen more often.
“I’m here to ask about your son,” I tell her, and she nods. She seems awkward and flustered, as if she’s forgotten how to talk to strangers at all. “Could I trouble you for a glass of water, ma’am?”
It gives her something to do, and while she’s filling the glass, I study the apartment some more. Not that it will tell me much on the surface except what I already know.
She hands me the glass, water beading like jewels down the side, and I take it and drink. It tastes surprisingly chemical to me. I’m used to rural water, and in Norton and around Stillhouse Lake, our water tastes delicious. City water . . . isn’t. I drain a couple of mouthfuls and find a coaster to set it on as she motions me to sit. I take the gaming chair as she settles on the couch. It’s an odd feeling, as if Remy’s still sitting in it with me. There’s a comfortable, worn-in feel to the back and seat. I can picture him here—no, wait, I’ve actually seen him here in this chair. Pictures on his social media, with his long legs stretched out to rest on that coffee table. That game controller in his hand.
I lean forward, not eager to sink into that sadness, and take out my phone. “Mrs. Landry, do you mind if I record this? It helps me focus if I’m listening, not taking notes.”
“Of course, anything,” she says. I believe her. There’s a feverish light of hope in her eyes. I’m the first person who’s been here in a long time, who’s asked her to invoke her son and bring him back to reality. “Where should I start?”
“Let’s start with the last time you spoke to him,” I say, and I see her flinch a little. Tender territory. She looks down. Her skin is sallow, a healthy Louisiana tan fading to pallor. Dry and uncared for, as is her hair. I’m not criticizing her, even in my mind; I’m just noting details. I’ve seen photos of her before his disappearance, and she took good care of her body and appearance. She’s abandoned all that now as wasted effort.
“It wasn’t such a good conversation,” she says. “I wish—well. Wishing doesn’t help, now does it?” I don’t answer, and she rushes on. “My Remy was a good boy, he was just—you know, not willing to listen so much to his momma anymore. I can’t blame him. He grew up, and he thought he knew best.”
I wait. She’s getting to something. And sure enough, she finally blurts out, “We had a little bit of a fight, I’m afraid.”
“About what?” I ask.
“About this girl he liked.”
“What was her name?”
“Carol,” she said. “From somewhere up north.” She dismisses the entire north with a wave. “City people.”
I don’t tell her she’s living in a city. I just nod. “Okay. Did you ever meet Carol?”
“No. He just talked about her some. He said he was going to help her out. I didn’t think that was a real good idea; seemed like she was a drifter of some kind. Real religious.”
“Was she his girlfriend? Were they dating?”
“No. He said she was just a friend who needed help. But I don’t know if that’s the real truth. He’d been dating this girl named Karen Forbes, she was a nice one but I don’t think she liked him as much as he liked her. She was a junior at the university. Biology, I think. Real smart.”
“Do you have Carol’s last name?”
“No, he never said, and since she wasn’t his girlfriend I didn’t really ask.”
“Any pictures of her, or maybe some contact information for Karen Forbes you can give me?”
“I’ll go look.” She rushes off toward what I assume will be the bedroom. She’s sleeping in his bed. Wearing his clothes. Man. This isn’t good, and I wonder if her husband understands the depth of his wife’s obsession. But I’m not here to play counselor. I’m here to find her son, and if I understand anything at all about Ruth Landry, it’s that her cure will be the answer to what happened to her son, living or dead. This limbo is a living hell.
She comes back with a framed photo—Remy, with his easy grin, and his arm around a young woman. She’s blonde, tall, curvy, and has a magazine-cover smile. Pretty and lively. The picture tells me nothing about her other than that, but I take it, position it on the coffee table, and take a photo for the records. Then I turn the frame over and pull the picture out, hoping for a note on the back, but it’s just smooth photo paper. I put it back and hand it to Ruth. She repositions it on the coffee table and stares at her son.
“He was pretty serious about her,” she says. “More than he ought to have been at his age. I wanted him back home. His father wanted Remy to inherit the business and run it. But he just wasn’t interested in all that. I think he was going to ask Karen to marry him. But I don’t know that she would have said yes, or if she did, if they’d have made it for long.”
“What kind of business does your husband have?” I ask her. It’s probably in the records, but it’s something to keep her moving. She can’t seem to look away from her son’s face.
“Cars,” she says. “We’re the biggest distributor in our parish. And boats too. Do a good trade in those as well. A few RVs, mostly used, though.”
I nod. I can’t imagine she’s been out of this apartment for quite a while, so when she’s saying we, I understand that means my husband. Her job now is tending this graveyard. “Okay. Thank you, that’s very helpful. Now, let’s talk more about Remy, if that’s okay . . . Your last conversation was about this Carol, is that right?”
“Fight,” she corrects. “Well, more or less. I didn’t like him being around someone who was in trouble, like Carol was.”
“What kind of trouble?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t really know. He didn’t give me any details about that, and he got sharp with me when I tried to find out. Then we fought about how he wanted to spend Thanksgiving with Karen and her family, can you even imagine? In Connecticut. I put my foot down and said, ‘No, Remy, you come on home. You let that girl go be with her family and you come be with yours.’ He didn’t like that, and he told me he’d think about it.” Her eyes are welling up with shimmering tears, and her face is reddening under the pressure of her grief. Her voice takes on an unsteady shiver. “Thanksgiving was just a week away when we had that conversation, you know. I was already planning the meal. He told me to keep on like I was doing while he thought about it, so I did. Even after I couldn’t get hold of him to be sure he was coming, I cooked dinner. I thought he’d just show up. Or at least call. But we sat there at the table and just . . .”
She breaks. I can see it in my mind—the family gathered at the table, the empty place, the food cooling in the bowls while they stare and wait and wait until it’s obvious there will be no Thanksgiving miracle, no Remy knocking on the door, flashing them that easy, wonderful grin and telling them he was sorry to worry them.
I push a box of Kleenex on the table toward her, and she takes a handful and presses them to her face as she sobs. It takes a while, and as I wait I begin to smell something baking. I wonder if it’s coming from the other apartments around us, but then a kitchen timer dings, and Ruth gasps and jumps up, loose tissues fluttering toward the coffee table as she drops them.
She heads into the kitchen. I follow and stand at the door
way as she pulls on oven mitts and takes a tray of cookies from the oven. She places it on the stove and shoots me a trembling smile. “Remy’s favorites,” she says. “Peanut butter chocolate chip.” She moves the tray to the kitchen counter under the window, slides it open, and I feel the breeze drift in. “Want one?”
“Sure,” I tell her.
She expertly slides one from the baking tray onto a little plate and hands it to me. “Coffee with that?”
I nod, and she pours me a cup from an already-brewed pot. We sit down at the small colonial kitchen table with our coffee and cookies, and Ruth says, “I make these every week now. Every day, when I first moved here. I keep thinking . . . I keep thinking that if he smells those fresh cookies, he might just come home. I open the window so he can smell them from out there. Wherever he is. I know I should stop, but I can’t. Stupid, isn’t it?”
I take a bite of the cookie. “It’s delicious,” I tell her. “And no. It’s not stupid at all. Desperate, maybe, and painful, but that’s normal, Ruth. You need a little hope.”
“I do, yes.” She takes a deep breath and drinks some coffee, visibly steeling herself. “Do you think he’s dead, Ms. Proctor?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her, which is the truth, but not all of it by any stretch. “I’m starting from scratch right now. I’m going to go over everything. The police are good at this, but they also have lots of priorities, lots of cases on their desks. It isn’t that they don’t try, but that when clues dry up, they have to move on to the next critical window for another family. The reason we’re able to do more is that we just have more time to devote to you. And I promise you, I’ll take this as far as I can.”
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