Possession

by Rene Gutteridge

  “How?” His voice was barely audible.

  “Someone called my mother.”

  “Joan?”

  “Yes. She’s here. In town. Came to help us unpack.” Lindy laughed. “Horribly ironic, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t understand what this has to do with Joan.”

  “I don’t either. Someone called her. Presumably someone working with Joe. Told her you’d never been to therapy. And you know what a grand fan she is of you. She sped two hours to break the news to me.”

  Vance stared at the ceiling. His fingers tapped against his belt like they played the ivories. “This is getting more bizarre by the minute.” He looked at her. “Who would call your mother? Who would know your mother?”

  “She said it was an anonymous call. A woman.”

  “What good would it do to tell someone that? What is the angle here?”

  “Maybe you should stop thinking like a detective and think more like a husband.” Lindy tried not to but teared up anyway.

  Vance’s shoulders slumped and his expression softened. “I’m sorry.”

  “I was scared last night,” Lindy said, wiping her tears. “I mean, I stood up to him and everything, but I was really scared.”

  “I should’ve been here.”

  “Where were you?”

  Vance paused for a moment. Lindy searched his eyes for any untold answers. Finally he said, “Ever since the snipers, I’ve been different, Lindy. You know this. It changed my life forever. And I’ve learned to live with it. But sometimes it’s unbearable. I grieve. I panic. And then I get over it.”

  “Was that what happened yesterday? Was that why you disappeared?”

  “Sometimes it takes a glimpse of what your life would be like, without all that you love, to help you regain perspective. That’s what I got yesterday. Perspective. And a new will to fight.”

  “Fight for what?”

  “For us. For our new beginning. I’m going to find Joe and I’m going to get us our possessions back.”

  “I don’t care about those.”

  “I am not going to let a guy like that take away your dream.” Vance’s eyes glistened. “I took years away from you, Lindy. It’s your turn to live like you’ve always wanted. I am going to make sure that happens.”

  “Aren’t you hearing me? Everything I want is in this house.”

  “You’ve always been there for me. You never gave up on me.” He pulled her into a hug.

  Lindy buried her face in his chest. This was it. This was all she wanted. Why couldn’t he accept that?

  He lifted her chin. “If today were a normal day and we’d moved out here with no problems, what would you be doing?”

  She tried to stop her tears with a finger under each eye. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on. Tell me.” His voice had turned playful.

  She shrugged. “Maybe scouting out more places for the deli. I like the one down the street, but the lady hasn’t called me back yet. And maybe I don’t want to look out the window every morning and see it.” She smiled.

  “I’m going to take Conner for a few hours. The kid needs to get out of the house. We’ll go to a park or something. I want you to go find your perfect place.”

  Lindy drew in a breath. She wanted to get out of this craziness. She needed to. But could she really play make-believe for a day, wandering Redwood City in search of property for a deli that was most likely not to be?

  “We’re not going to be victims, Lindy. Not again.” His jaw tensed, but inside his stern gaze she saw his vulnerability. Lindy knew instantly that perhaps what had caused the most damage to him in Maryland was the idea that he, like each body he stood over, had become a victim.

  Conner returned, grinning widely like he always did after he brushed his teeth, hoping they sparkled and shined like in the toothpaste commercials.

  “Cereal again?” he lamented. “What about a cheese omelet, Mom?”

  Vance cupped her shoulder. “You need a break. You know you do.” He smiled and brushed the back of his hand against her cheek.

  “Yeah. I guess so,” she sighed. “Just for a little while. I want us together tonight. Let’s order out. Play a game.”

  “Sounds awesome. Now, get dressed and go find your dream shop.”

  She got dressed, put on makeup and even some jewelry.

  But she had no intention of scouting out shops.

  15

  “Dad, when are we going to the park? This place doesn’t look like a park.”

  “In a little bit, buddy. Just hang with me, okay?”

  “Does Mom know you let me sit in the front seat?”

  “No. And don’t tell her, or you’ll be in the backseat with a booster.”

  Conner nodded, rolling down his window. “That would be horrible. Luckily I have no friends here to see that.”

  Vance smiled. “School will start and you’ll have plenty. We’ll go to the ocean soon. I went there yesterday and it was beautiful. You’ll love it. We’ll build lots of castles.”

  “You were gone all day, Dad. You don’t even have a job anymore. You can’t be gone all day. Unemployed people stay at home in their pajamas.”

  Vance cracked up. “Yeah. Well, we can have a pajama day later. Right now, I’m looking for something.”

  “What? The park? I’d say head toward the trees and the fresh air, Dad.”

  “Let’s pretend we’re on a stakeout.”

  Conner raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who is the bad guy?”

  “A thief.”

  “Cool. Can I have a weapon?”

  “Sure. All good detectives carry a weapon. And a badge.” He pretended to hand them over.

  “And handcuffs?”

  “Sure. Take mine.” He grabbed the key out of the console and handed it to Conner, who unlocked the glove box and took them out. Conner’s grin nearly fell off either side of his face.

  While Conner toyed with the cuffs, Vance kept an eye out for any sign of that bright yellow truck or Joe.

  While Conner and Lindy were getting dressed, Vance had told them he was going for a short walk. But instead he rounded the corner where Lindy said Joe had disappeared, looking for any and all clues he could find.

  He didn’t expect much.

  But he found something. It was a heavy oil spot, still fresh, just out of sight of their condo and right against the curb. And a line of spots continued down the street. He’d followed it on foot for two blocks, then went back for Conner, and now they were fresh on its trail.

  Sort of. He kept having to get out of the car at stop signs to look and see where it went. Told Conner he was checking the air pressure of a tire. It was nice to have an eight-year-old who believed everything he said.

  If he could just catch a glimpse of something, he could come back later, sans Conner, and investigate.

  He figured the oil trail would run dry once it led to the highway or a major street. But instead they were only eight blocks from the condo in a pseudo–industrial park that looked mostly abandoned. Junkyards. Tire yards. Warehouses. Mechanic shops that looked to be in business, barely.

  This made sense. A good place to hide. The smell of oil.

  And then, like that, the trail ran dry. He pulled the car to the side of the road and backtracked. It was hard to tell now, with so many oil slicks on the road, what was fresh and what was not. Or what was even from Joe’s truck or car, whatever he may have used. Lindy said she didn’t remember smelling the exhaust or hearing the roar of the truck engine. And if he had to guess, Joe had probably acquired a car and didn’t want it identified.

  He wondered if Joe had known he was gone that night.

  He hopped back in the car, took one more good look around, then drove away. He couldn’t do anything anyway. Not with Conner in the car.

  “Off to the park, buddy.” He smiled.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know you’re lying to me.�
�

  Vance glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Our stuff is gone, isn’t it? And it’s not coming back.”

  * * *

  Of course, the hotel was Redwood City’s finest. Lindy was glad she had some slacks and a blouse handy. She’d packed them in case she needed to meet hastily with a real estate agent or a banker.

  The morning was perfect in temperature. They sat at a small table for two, with a white umbrella shading them from what was not yet a hot sun.

  Nearby, crystal blue water glistened inside the pool. But the smell of chlorine, mixed with sunscreen, caused her to wish she were elsewhere.

  But if she had to be honest, it was another smell that bothered her more.

  Chanel No. 5. Always. Just enough to taunt, to make a statement, to remind Lindy of a childhood she wished she could forget.

  “Egg white omelet?”

  “Sure,” Lindy replied and watched her mother order for her like she was a small child. She didn’t have the stomach to tell her no—or even to eat. She wasn’t here to cause an argument, so she just let things roll as her mother wished.

  “And where is Conner?”

  “With Vance.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I wanted to talk to you. About Vance.”

  Her mother’s penciled-in eyebrow, the left one, rose a half inch on her Botoxed forehead. “Oh?”

  “Don’t you think we should?”

  “Naturally, but you’ve never seemed to want my advice.”

  “It’s not that. It’s that I’ve lived this, you know? I watched you and Dad. I watched him walk out the door. I didn’t want the same for me.”

  The sharpness in Joan’s eyes shrank. “I didn’t want that for you either.”

  “I never told you this,” Lindy said, “but I understand now how hard marriage is. You can’t possibly know until you’re in it. There are a lucky few who dance through it. The rest of us have to crawl.”

  Joan’s eyes, nearly always dull thanks to the colored contact lenses she insisted upon, shone with tears. She reached her hand across the table, her long fingers beckoning for Lindy’s. Lindy hesitantly slipped her hand into her mother’s, which was cold as ice. But her eyes, for once, were warm.

  “Darling, all I ever wanted was for you to be happy. Perhaps a mother’s worst trait is the instinct of wanting to keep her daughter from her own mistakes.”

  Lindy wanted to say she knew Joan meant well, but that wasn’t always the case. Besides, she was about to be vulnerable enough. She withdrew her hand.

  “I wish I could say we moved out here and everything has been fine, but it hasn’t.” She sipped her coffee, hoping to appear like she wasn’t falling apart inside. “The news you told me—that Vance had never seen the therapist—is apparently true. I called the doctor’s office.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Joan leaned over the table, unmannerly in a way she normally wouldn’t be. The waiter returned with their meals, but Joan didn’t sit upright.

  “He disappeared all day yesterday. Wouldn’t answer his phone. But then this morning, he seemed fine.” Lindy struggled with the next words. “Is it okay for me to accept this? To understand that maybe a little piece of him died years ago?”

  Joan took a moment to answer, her long fingernails gliding over the tablecloth, the motion so fluid it seemed she might be cutting right through it. “You were five when your father worked a case involving a six-year-old girl. She was kidnapped right out of her house at night. The parents were poor. The dad had a history of drinking and had a domestic violence charge against him ten years before. They kept interrogating the father. A day and a half later they found her mutilated body on the side of the road. Turned out it was a pedophile who’d made parole a month earlier.”

  “I never heard that.”

  “You wouldn’t have. Your father never spoke of it again. Not once.”

  “Did you ask about it?”

  “No. I could see it in his eyes. He would not talk and never would.” She sighed and regained the composure she loved. “Anyway, it was to his demise. I told him once that if he didn’t talk about it, it would eat him alive from the inside out. Turns out I was correct.”

  The eggs, which hadn’t sounded appetizing to begin with, started to make Lindy’s stomach turn. She pushed them out of the way. Sipped her coffee.

  “My dear, I will tell you something, and they don’t teach this in the psychology books. But a wife has an instinct. Perhaps it’s given to her on the day she weds. But she knows.”

  “Knows what?”

  “Knows.”

  “That’s the whole problem. I don’t know. I don’t know at all.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Mother, please. Don’t play head games with me.”

  She leaned in. “You know.” She set her napkin on top of the table. “If you don’t, then someone does.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There’s a reason I got an anonymous phone call. There’s a reason someone felt compelled to call. Not only that—to call me. Not you.”

  Lindy threw her own napkin on the table.

  “Linda, you may think of me what you will, but I came here to speak the truth to you. And I am still speaking the truth to you.”

  Instead of retorting, as she so often did, Lindy kept silent. She tried to ponder what Joan was saying. If there was anything she knew about Joan Webster, it was that she was not one to say anything but the truth, even when the truth was perfectly inappropriate.

  The waiter came, filled their orange juice glasses, and left.

  “If that’s his only secret,” Lindy finally said, “maybe I should just live with it.”

  “But I sense,” Joan said, “that it is not.”

  * * *

  “Dad, I’m hungry. I thought we were going to the park, anyway.”

  “Yeah. Okay. We can go.” On their little adventure down the side streets of Ghost Town, Vance had ended up telling Conner the truth. Or at least the partial truth—it was unlikely that they’d get their stuff back.

  “But I’ll try my best, kiddo,” Vance had said, grinning as he tried to believe it himself. Conner stuck his head out the window of the car, and it’d been out there since. Until now.

  He ducked in and Vance laughed. His hair was sticking straight up like he’d been electrocuted.

  The street on which they drove was empty. No tumbleweeds, but lots of trash blowing against the curb. A couple of abandoned or dilapidated shops were there, but not much else. Except a few bums.

  “What do you feel like—?” Vance quickly pulled the car to the curb.

  It was just a glimpse, and he couldn’t be sure of what he really saw. These days he knew reality often betrayed him.

  “Dad, what are you doing?” Conner asked as Vance threw the car in reverse. His years driving patrol cars on courses gave him an advantage, although there wasn’t another car around to dodge.

  “Just a second,” he said. He stopped the car right in front of what might’ve been a mechanic or tire shop. Peeking around the corner of the building, between two air-conditioning units on the side, was a slice of yellow.

  “Stay here,” he instructed Conner. “Lock the doors.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it!”

  Vance got out of the car and Conner obeyed. Vance had no intention of letting Conner out of his sight, but he thought he could at least snoop around a little. See if it was indeed the truck.

  An old El Camino sat out front, rusty and looking utterly exhausted. Didn’t look like it could even get its motor started. He peered in its windows, seeing nothing that indicated it was often or recently used.

  He wanted to go around back, but then he’d have to leave Conner alone. He glanced at the car. Conner stared through the driver’s-side window, his nose pressed against the glass.

  No, he wouldn’t leave him. He’d snoop around, look through the shop’s front windows, and then leave. He’d drop Conner off and come
back without him.

  Vance stood by the El Camino, trying to take in everything. The windows of the shop were covered with something that looked like soot, probably not even clean enough to see through. He noticed a flimsy chain-link fence with an even flimsier double gate locked only with wire.

  But wide enough to drive a truck through.

  Vance walked to the gate, keeping his attention focused, alert to sight and sound. Even smell.

  Oil. Gasoline. Rubber from tires. It smelled like a junkyard.

  He squatted, keeping Conner in sight, and examined the tire tracks in the thick dirt. Large. Semitruck large.

  Even from the gate, he couldn’t get a good glimpse of the back of the building, where he suspected the truck was. But there was that strip of yellow. It could be anything. But it could also be a truck. Behind the building were train tracks, so nothing else backed up against the property.

  The park was going to have to wait. Conner needed to be safe before Vance did what he needed to do.

  He was walking toward his car when he heard a sound: metal scraping against metal. The front door of the old building was slowly opening, like it weighed a ton or maybe didn’t fit the frame anymore.

  Vance reached instinctively but knew immediately that he didn’t have his gun. It was in his car.

  And then Joe appeared, his attention focused on the door and nothing else. He wore a trucker’s hat with a John Deere logo. He cursed as he kicked the door, trying to get it to shut again.

  Vance was only about five yards away, unsure what he should do. But he knew he had to do something. And he had to do it before Joe knew what hit him.

  It ended up being quite a hefty tackle. Vance ran fast toward him, and Joe glanced up, his face lighting up with fear just as Vance threw a shoulder into his stomach, sending them both hurtling to the ground. They rolled once and Vance landed on top. He gave him a good punch across the cheek, just to make sure Joe knew he was in no position to fight. Joe tried to squirm away, and Vance decked him again.