Then She Vanished

by T. Jefferson Parker

  I was surprised by her concentration. Grip firm at nine and three, gloved fingers nimble on the paddle shifter. She kept the RPMs high. Didn’t look away from the road and said little. Squint lines on her face. Gradually, the camera came close in and I realized that Terrell was treating his subject with the same absolute attention that Natalie was giving the road. The ukulele seemed to serenade her as she drove.

  Next came a sequence of Natalie at a desk, dressed as she had been for the car shoot—a flattering black business suit and a turquoise blouse. At first I thought this was her dealership workstation but the campaign posters on the wall behind her said otherwise. Distorted guitar came in.

  Terrell had positioned himself across the desk, his camera and his mother at eye level. Gone was her chipper breakfast demeanor and her sales-pitch energy for moving Bimmers. This Natalie had gravity, not joy.

  INT. CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS AFTERNOON

  TERRELL

  (offscreen)

  Your husband is a California state assemblyman. What are you doing for his reelection campaign?

  NATALIE

  Politics is ninety percent about raising money and ten percent about spending it smartly. This is what I try to do for Dalton Strait.

  TERRELL

  Does it take more than money to win an office?

  NATALIE

  After money, attention and anger get a candidate elected. Attention for himself, and anger aimed at his opponent. I’m talking about everyday anger, the anger that’s in the air we breathe. This anger is up for grabs and the candidate who directs it toward his opponent will almost certainly win.

  TERRELL

  That seems very strategic. You seem to have given this some serious thought.

  NATALIE

  I’ve been Dalton Strait’s chief fund-raiser for four elections. I knew nothing about it at first, and really, I did it the same way I do everything—by the seat of my pants. I also believe what Mom told me years ago. She said, Natalie, do things like they count a lot or they won’t count at all. Counting meant a lot to us Gallands. It meant do things that matter. It meant don’t waste anything. Ever. We never had an extra dollar.

  TERRELL

  Like at breakfast today when you said to make it count if you sign up to raise a family?

  NATALIE

  Yes! It’s so nice to be interviewed by someone who actually listens!

  Their conversation continued as Terrell’s camera zoomed in and slowly panned across his mother’s desk. It was almost covered by handled boxes of mail, mostly letter-sized envelopes. Natalie’s out-box was almost full as well.

  I saw vividly that a mail bomb addressed to the Strait Reelection Committee might very likely have been opened by Natalie.

  I paused the video and considered. She had gone missing only one day after The Chaos Committee’s first mail bomb had exploded in city hall. In some ways, she would be an even better target than Dalton. She was a perfect victim of terror: innocent, unsuspecting, and easy to attack. Like anyone else working on a reelection campaign.

  The camera pulled back to show Natalie gesturing at the mail with a look of pride on her face.

  NATALIE

  (holds her right index finger to the camera)

  Paper cuts from the mail I open. We’re being outspent four to one this time around. But look at this. These contributions come from the moms and pops of this district, the seniors, the working people. We’ve got plenty of retired military, and Dalton works hard for them, too. It takes faith to put a check in an envelope and send it off. You have to believe it’s going to count!

  TERRELL

  There you go about counting again, Mrs. Strait.

  Natalie’s smile changed from a deployed campaign gesture to a spontaneous display of delight. And pride at a mother’s job, well done.

  The next few minutes of video followed Natalie from the reelection committee headquarters to the supermarket, then on to a gym and a huffing workout on the stationary cycle. She pedaled away, talking about her childhood in Ramona, her young girl’s dreams of having horses and maybe falling in love with a cowboy, her great affection for her sister, Ash—short for Ashley—and how they’d walk home from high school with a group of friends. Which was where she’d first seen Kirby Strait.

  NATALIE

  (still on the workout cycle)

  Kirby was this gangly redhead with a great smile. Totally full of himself but he had this way of making you feel noticed. Maybe even special. He started showing up on our way home from school, so us girls went another way and he’d be there, too. He just showed up at the house one day with a handful of flowers he’d pilfered from the neighbors. Mom and Dad couldn’t stand him. Said the Straits were lowlifes. Like we Gallands were born better. We still didn’t have two nickels to rub together. When Dalton came over with Kirby one day, Mom and Dad tried to tolerate him. Me? I was interested in him right off. Dalton was the opposite of his brother. But the Straits had that reputation. The dad got shot and messed up in the Better Burger holdup later. Archie. Such a nice guy.

  Natalie churned along, breathing hard and wiping her face with a towel, hair up and skin shining. Her widow’s peak sharp and slanted like an apostrophe. A muscled young man stopped to say he saw her hustling a new red M3 on TV and he was going to come buy it from her. She gave him a splendidly dimpled smile, said she’d be in tomorrow at eleven so bring that checkbook. He smiled, too, but mostly at the camera.

  Then dinner at the Strait household, minus Lee who was at practice. Dalton ate almost wordlessly, lost to his phone, a large goblet of red wine at his place; Natalie looked tired doing dishes alone, glancing occasionally at the camera while Freddie repositioned himself for prime begging angles.

  The next cut was abrupt and startling:

  INT. STRAIT LIVING ROOM NIGHT

  Mom sits alone in the living room, facing the fireplace. She wears the same flannel robe in which she cooked breakfast. Freddie lies beside her. The lights are off but there is a good fire and her facial features are clearly dramatized by the flames and surrounding darkness.

  TERRELL

  (offscreen)

  Mom, can you talk to me about the darkness and the light?

  NATALIE

  (in the moody firelight we see that Natalie is pensive and subdued, her hair down and long)

  Oh. Well. So different, Terrell. But they’re two halves of the same thing.

  TERRELL

  Of the same person.

  NATALIE

  Tell me what you’ve seen. In me.

  TERRELL

  Your light. Like earlier today when we filmed your life. It’s obvious. People see it. But on other days there’s no light. Only darkness on your face and in your spirit. Then, you vanish.

  NATALIE

  I have bipolar disorder, which always includes a manic-depressive subset. The manic is the light. Depression is the darkness. These are my names for them, not scientific ones. The light and darkness have been here my whole life but in the last few years they have been more pronounced. I’ve always tried my best to hide them. It’s easier than it might sound. Your father didn’t quite get that something was wrong until about a year and a half ago when I had this break. They call it a break.

  TERRELL

  What breaks?

  NATALIE

  (petting Freddie)

  You turn inside out. You lose your usual behavior and most of your memory. I went to Las Vegas and gambled away lots of money. I drank in excess and abused some prescription painkillers for my knee. There might have been other misdeeds but I don’t remember them. Just that everything was so dark. Like it was taking place at night. Like there was only night all day long, even in a bright place like Las Vegas.

  TERRELL

  Have you had another break since then?

  NATALIE

  No. I have medica
tion and take it every day. When I feel the darkness trying to get into me, I dispel it with strenuous exercise, hard work, and hot baths. When I feel the light around me I try to grow it with a sunny attitude and gratefulness for all the beautiful things in my life. Such as Freddie and Lee and you, Terrell. I love you all very much.

  TERRELL

  And dad?

  NATALIE

  Dad, too. So much. Of course.

  By then, Freddie had awakened and climbed into Natalie’s lap. She lifted him from the couch to the floor. Then studied her son with a weary expression.

  NATALIE

  How did I do?

  TERRELL

  Just beautiful, Mom.

  The last scenes of A Day in a Life briefly took us back to the kitchen, where the movie had begun. But there was no Natalie, no family, no Freddie, and no sound, except for the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” playing faintly in the background. Just the empty breakfast nook, places set.

  Ditto the BMW dealership, campaign headquarters, the gym, the market, the Strait dining room, and finally the living room, now with a cold fireplace. No Mom. A day in a life emptied of life. I wondered at young Terrell’s patience in refilming these sets without humankind—his vision of a world without his mother.

  The outtakes that Terrell had mentioned weren’t labeled as such but I saw the change in her. Natalie was more relaxed and humorous at home in her living room or on the back patio than at work, or at campaign central. She had a self-deprecation that was winning, calling herself a “spaz” without reservation or condemnation, and she seemed to look on most people and things with an optimistic and blameless eye. Maybe from seeing the weakness in herself, I thought. In how fragile a mind can be.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The next morning Dalton and I sat at a long table in the conference room of the Valley Center sheriff substation. Facing us was Lieutenant Lew Hazzard of the Special Enforcement Detail, and homicide detective Tony Proetto. Hazzard was tightly packed into his uniform, thick arms surrounding a folder on the desk. Proetto wore jeans and a golf shirt and a baggy blazer. Hazzard eyed me with the same robust hostility he’d offered when I had watched the CSIs work Natalie Strait’s dust-covered BMW X5 out on the Pala Reservation. Proetto was distant.

  “We found some interesting things in your wife’s car,” said Hazzard. “And got some solid information in our field interviews. And a call on the tip line just after your conference yesterday. No smoking gun, but we know more now.”

  “Good, Lew, good,” said Dalton, looking at the lieutenant and fiddling with the cuff buttons on his dress shirt. “What exactly?”

  “You’re sure about the PI being in on this, sir?” he said as if I wasn’t there. Then a ham-faced assessment of me.

  “Pretty damned, Lieutenant,” said Dalton. “We fought in Fallujah together.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “I actually don’t have all day, Lew.”

  “We appreciate you being here,” said Proetto. “We’ll keep it short. A witness saw two male subjects getting her out of her BMW and into a white Suburban—out there on the reservation, where she left her SUV. A black man and a white man.”

  Brock Weld? I wondered if they’d found Marcus, the young man I’d talked to while being escorted from Tola Strait’s marijuana farm. Maybe he’d come forward, trying to help.

  “We already know that,” said Dalton. “But how did two men get into her Bimmer in the first place?”

  “A woman called our tip line after your press conference,” said Proetto. “Our luck. Tuesday morning she saw a late-model blue SUV and a larger white SUV with a flashing red light, both on the southbound Valley Parkway shoulder. Looked like they’d just pulled over. She saw a brunette white woman behind the wheel of the blue SUV. She saw a white male subject standing at her window with a clipboard or a citation book. She saw a black guy driving the white SUV. And one passenger, maybe. It all went by in a flash. It was around nine-thirty, not long after Natalie left the restaurant. That’s the direction she’d be heading for work in Escondido. The BMW was in front, indicating she’d pulled over and stopped for what she assumed was law enforcement. When we asked if the white SUV had a law-enforcement emblem she said no, it did not.”

  Hazzard gave Dalton a placid, blue-eyed stare. Proetto watched Dalton closely, but I could read no emotion on his face.

  “And not long after,” said Proetto, “as we know from Mr. Ford, Natalie Strait is seen out in Pala with two men—one white and one black—exiting her BMW and getting her into a white Suburban. Natalie had gotten there in the back seat of her own vehicle, likely followed by the Suburban that pulled her over. But we found no signs of struggle in her car. No blood, no abraded tissue or skin, no clots of hair or damage to the interior.”

  “She didn’t write ‘Help’ in lipstick just for the fun of it,” said Dalton. “Maybe they had a gun. Maybe she figured cops are cops and you do what they say. Maybe they were cops.”

  Hazzard absorbed the cop possibility with a stoic expression. Straightened the folder on the table before him and tapped it with his fingers, as if this finalized something. Proetto nodded noncommittally.

  “Assemblyman Strait, do you and Natalie own a horse or horses?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you or your wife own clothing or crafts or decorations or accessories or art or furniture or anything that might contain horsehair?” he asked. “Specifically, horsetail hair?”

  “No. Not that I know of.”

  “Does she transport friends, relatives, or business associates who might be around horses?” asked Hazzard.

  “I suppose it’s possible but I really don’t know,” said Dalton. “Why?”

  “Because we found horsetail hair in her vehicle. One fiber—black, thick, and straight. Cut at both ends. Some kind of adhesive at one end. Someone in her BMW very possibly brought it in. Maybe part of a belt. A purse. Some accessory that makes use of horsetail.”

  “You mean a woman kidnapped her?” asked Dalton.

  “Why not?” asked Hazzard. “And men can have a horsehair bracelet, or accents on a coat, right? Again, we assume a third person—someone driving the white Suburban when Natalie was transferred to it. The FBI is looking at the hair for me, but it’s going to take time. A lot of time, with The Chaos Committee out there sucking my up resources.”

  Dalton sat back, shaking his head, likely scrolling through his memory for horse-owning acquaintances.

  “Mr. Strait, do you own a dog?”

  “Freddie,” said Dalton. “He’s Natalie’s. She found him running loose one day, dirty and hungry, no tags. Doesn’t care for me, but he votes Republican.”

  “We found a fair amount of short, curly white hair in her car,” said Hazzard.

  “That’s him,” said Dalton. “He doesn’t shed much.”

  “Where does he ride?”

  “Jumps the seats. Bounces all around. He’s a maniac.”

  “Did you get any prints from the BMW that weren’t Natalie’s or Dalton’s?” I asked.

  “I’ll get to that,” said Hazzard. Then did. “They lifted two nice fingerprints off the child-proof door and window toggles. Not Natalie’s prints, and not yours, Mr. Strait.”

  The driver’s, I thought, keeping Natalie from getting away.

  “No,” said Dalton. “No reason for Natalie or me to use the child-proofer with grown boys.”

  “We sent them to ATF and the FBI,” said Hazzard. “But again, The Chaos Committee is slowing things way down.”

  Dalton made a fist and touched it lightly to the table. “The California Assembly’s job one is to find those bastards and get ’em in the ground.”

  I wondered if Dalton campaigned in his sleep.

  “Yesterday a cop up in Adelanto got shot in the back, long-distance,” said Hazzard. “Going to be okay, but another in Fres
no got shot at, too. Two cops in one day. That happens just about never in this state. Proof that there are fools out there, taking these Chaos assholes seriously.”

  Hazzard looked at Dalton, then at me, placid blue eyes in an angry pink face. “So put as many of them in the ground as you can, Mr. Strait.”

  “You know I will,” said Dalton.

  “I’ll help any way I can,” said Hazzard.

  “Then give me your vote in November, Lieutenant.”

  Hazzard nodded his big head.

  “Otherwise it looks to us that the interior of your wife’s car was wiped down for prints,” said Proetto. “We found an unusually small number of everyday latents. They found small shreds of paper snagged on the dash and armrest controls—like a paper towel would leave.”

  Hazzard slapped open the folder, stared down at the top sheet. “Okay. Natalie wrote ‘Help’ in lipstick on the back of the front passenger seat. She was cool and smart and got away with it. In their hurry they apparently never saw it. She also left this in the map pouch that ‘Help’ was written on.”

  He took out a sheet of printer paper and slid it to face Dalton. A close-up photograph, enlarged. The focus and color both good. Against a dark background I saw a faintly shining circle with a faceted pyramid attached.

  “Her bridal set,” said Dalton. “A carat and a half combined, white gold.”

  He stared down at the copy. “Another signal to us,” he said. “Another warning.”

  Dalton lifted the paper for a different angle. A grunt’s stare, a thousand yards foreshortened. And a long moment.

  “We also got the recent destination settings from the navigation unit,” said Hazzard. “Which are right here.”

  He set another photocopied picture in front of Dalton, the X5 computer screen in its recent-addresses mode: