I pause outside the door. This is a big moment, I know. In all of your cases, the police statements define the narrative. They are the frame the rest of the story hangs on. Today, I will spur the police to action. They will start their investigation. They will quiz your parents, your brother, Jed. They might even interview me. Your story will be on record, and I will be that much closer to finding you.
I feel unequal to the task. I know so little of what happened. I wish Jed were here. He could provide details of the day you left, your state of mind. But he left the ranch at five o’clock Friday, roaring past the house like he wanted your mother to know about it. I may not know as much as he does—but I care more. I won’t let you disappear.
A bell clangs over my head as I walk in. The officer doesn’t look up. The station is quiet. It doesn’t look like a station. It looks like the intake office at an airport car rental company.
“Hello?”
The officer pulls away from his phone one body part at a time: eyes, shoulders, chest, chin. And then he looks hard at me, like I am the next in line on a prank that has lasted eons.
“I need to report a missing person.”
His jaw moves once, twitching over imaginary tobacco. His name tag reads Officer Hardy.
“Rachel Bard.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t grab a pen to take notes. Doesn’t even blink.
“Don’t you want to know how long she’s been missing for? When she was last seen?” I am ready with these details.
“It’s not a crime to be missing.” He rolls his jaw. “Especially not if you’re a Bard.”
“But—what if she’s been kidnapped? Or murdered?” My voice rises on the word. I sound silly, hysterical. And for a second, I’m the busybody, the crazy old woman. (She has to be old, because to a man, there are only two things a woman can be: young or crazy.) I can see that person in his eyes when he looks at me, and I curl in on myself and I want to go, I want to hide and I want to disappear but I won’t, I can’t, and I insist, “Her mother thinks she’s dead.”
He pinches his pink face, stands back. “Who are you? I know you’re not from around here,” he says like that’s the bigger crime.
“I’m her cousin.” It may not be a good idea to lie to a police officer, but it’s the only way I can express my closeness to you, the authenticity of our connection.
“The Bards don’t have cousins.” He says this gently, to my surprise.
“I’m her best friend.” My neck burns. Am I? I know we haven’t met but I’m the only one, the only one looking for you, the only one who cares. I have even considered that you might have left your MMC Pack with me and searched my own belongings.
He leans on his elbows. “I want you to listen. I don’t know how you know Rachel or if you even know her, but this girl has gone and disappeared about forty-five times. The first time, she was maybe fourteen. We were worried then. But then she kept on going missing. It became something of a local joke. It got so people didn’t even care. Some people just want to be missing. It’s better than being wherever the hell they are.”
I put my hand on the counter. He jumps like I threw my fist. “She didn’t want to be missing. She was terrified of it.” I know you were; we both were. This is why we are obsessed by it, by Murder, Missing, Conspiracy. Because we always knew it could be us. This man is wrong about you. This man can’t understand what only we knew. “You need to open a file. You need to be investigating. I’m telling you, something bad has happened to her. I know.”
Suddenly I’m angry. Because isn’t this just typical police? Isn’t this just the police we know? Again and again. They miss the clues. They come in too late. They wait until the case goes cold, the evidence is compromised and corrupted, then flap around ineffectually, pin the crime on whoever is weak enough not to put up a fight, while we, the people who care, we burn.
He steps back. “You’re new around here, so I’m just gonna let you know, we used to get a lot of noise from that Bard woman.” He flaps his hand. “She used to bother us all day. Thought this whole town was out to get her. Everyone had something against her. Then she went quiet. So we’re just not gonna mess with that.” He puts two hands up.
My thoughts click. “When did she go quiet?”
He wipes the sweat from his pink brow. “I dunno, few weeks ago.”
“But that’s when Rachel went missing! Don’t you see? There might be a connection.” Do I think Addy is involved? I have promised myself not to jump to any conclusions, but Addy is in prime position.
“We don’t investigate connections; we investigate crimes.”
“But what if something did happen?”
“Then it happened. I’m a cop, not a time traveler.”
I shake my head, filled with disgust, your disgust, our disgust. “So you just sit here on your phone while people go missing, get murdered? And you call yourself a cop?”
He covers his ears. “My God, it’s like that woman all over again.” That shuts me up. Once it is clear that I have shut up, he takes his hands off his ears and puts them back on his phone. Finally, he says, “If you can provide me with something concrete, a reason to believe a crime has occurred, something beyond whatever all nefarious ideas you got twitching up in your little brain . . .”
“I’ll find your evidence, and when I do, you’ll be sorry you never listened to me.”
He looks up, and our eyes connect, and his voice softens as he says, “Hey. You want some advice?” He cracks his neck. “Get as far away from the Bard family as possible.” His chin drops and he mutters to himself, “Now, I consider that going above and beyond the call of duty.”
* * *
—
I don’t want to go back to the church, can’t stand the close feeling of it. If your mother finds out I left early (how could she?), if she questions me about it (why would she?), I will tell her I felt sick. It isn’t a lie. My head is still dizzy from the drive and my guts are twisted from the visit to the police station, so I walk past the church and into a wide park that opens onto the river basin.
I walk down a wet trail to the bank, then perch on a rock above the water and watch ducks slide in and out on the opposite side. I work my hands, testing my aching joints. I almost wish for windows to clean, for something to do, just to stop feeling so useless, helpless, nowhere near you.
Maybe I am imagining things. Maybe you haven’t disappeared. Maybe you did run away. Maybe you are far away and happy now, free in your new life, but for some reason, I can’t believe it.
I check my phone but I have no service. I want to call my ex but maybe it’s better that I can’t. He will just tell me I am getting carried away. He won’t believe I’m doing well, won’t care how hard I’m working at my job, how I’m keeping everything together, even all the way out here, where I could fall apart and nobody would know, nobody real would know.
I burn a little more fire, thinking about the police and how they don’t care, and then I burn a little more, thinking about Jed and how he doesn’t care.
Then I start up the lawn. I see Clementine and her daughters on a picnic bench. I think how strange it is that Clementine is my age and her daughters are teenagers. They sit across from her with the same rapt expression: her lips, her lashes, staring back at her. And I wonder if seeing herself reflected in the faces of her children tricks her into believing she has a higher purpose, like it wasn’t a purpose she herself selected, like she couldn’t walk away at any time.
I swing wide to avoid being seen by them, cut through the brush on a trail that thins until I’m bushwhacking through reeds.
I finally make it to the parking lot. As I approach my car, Clementine appears, walking up the wide path from the park. Her daughters don’t flank her. Your brother is nowhere to be seen. It’s just me and her, alone.
She plucks white fuzz from her purple top. “You’re out at the ra
nch,” she says like she needs double confirmation. “Do you need a ride back?”
“No. I have a car.” I gesture. “Where do you live?”
“We have a place in Happy Camp.”
“Addy said Jed’s house . . .”
“They wanted us to move in but”—her mouth chews unspoken words—“it wasn’t a good fit.”
“I’m not stupid,” I blurt. I am frustrated with the police, and I am taking it out on her. But I want her to know that I know everyone hates your mother and father. I know that. I am not naive, and I am not a fool, like the police and everyone else seem to think.
She is startled, confused. “I’m not saying you are— I’m sorry. I think maybe there’s been a miscommunication.”
“Sorry,” I allow, although I hate to apologize to anyone. One day, I realized that I apologized too much and so I decided to stop—but sometimes it’s hard to know when an apology is earned. “I just—I know it’s not a great job,” I say like I’m embarrassed to be blue-collar. “I’m here for a story, actually.”
She smiles. “Oh, you’re a writer! I teach at the high school. We’d love to have you come in,” she says like I am Stephen King. I haven’t even been published. I don’t have any intention of being published. I’m not even a writer, except that I tend to get creative with my own reality.
“Maybe,” I say, because it’s the nicest way to say no. “I better get back.”
She nods like she knows exactly what I mean. And I think: Clementine is nice. And I think: I want to be her friend. And I think: Were you?
And I know it’s not smart, but I have to ask her, “Did you know Addy’s daughter?”
“Rachel?” Her smile smears. I nod. “Well, of course I knew her.”
“Were you close?”
Her nose wrinkles. “When we were younger, but everyone was friends when they were young.”
“Did she have many close friends? I thought it might be nice to meet some people around my age,” I add when I realize how strange this must sound.
“I’m your age,” she says, but she doesn’t seem like it. She must have had her daughters when she was a teenager. She has that completed look of a woman with children, like someone switched the lights off on their way out. “But Rachel, Rachel wasn’t really close to anyone. Except Bumby. Her cat. He was probably her best friend.” I think: What an offensive cliché of a single woman. And I think: You’re being too sensitive.
I fake a laugh and I get into my car.
“See you next week!” she calls.
I wave out the window, and I catch Homer’s face in the glass door behind her. He has dimples even when he frowns. He shoves the door open. The gesture looks odd with his wholesome figure; the scowl doesn’t fit on his happy-go-lucky face.
“I thought I told you . . .” But his words dim as he gets closer. And I can’t reverse, so I pull away, back down the twisted trail toward the ranch.
The wheels turn and my head swells, and I think about what she said. I think about the pictures of Bumby you posted on Instagram and Twitter. Yes, there are about three dozen cats on the ranch with the same coloring as the dead cat I found on that first day. I try to remember if it had a collar, but I’m not sure. I assumed it was Bumby immediately. I didn’t look closely. I was afraid to get my hands dirty. And I scold myself: Details, details—you always told me to remember the details. What gun did they carry? What gloves were they wearing? Where were they at two o’clock on Thursday afternoon?
Your mother said she would bury the cat in the pet cemetery. She also said the trash collector comes once a week.
* * *
—
The trash bin is on the other side of the lodge, out of view of your parents’ house. It’s boxed behind a latticed fence, to hide it from the guests. I slip inside the fence and shut the gate behind me so no one will see. The stench of garbage fills my nostrils, but underneath it something else lurks, something every living thing recognizes instinctively.
Bang! A shot fires. I jump back against the fence, heart pounding. I scratch my cheek on the splintered wood. I remind myself it came from the shooting range, but it felt as if a shot was fired right behind me, the way the sound surrounded me.
When I drove in I saw Jed marching up the hillside, carrying a rifle, with an oddly fixed expression, like it was something mental he was about to take aim at. Your parents’ house was quiet as I drove past. Your mother didn’t come out to scold me about being late like I thought she would, and I wonder how much of her character is a product of my own imagination. Am I being paranoid? Does she care what I do, or is she really just trying to protect me?
Another shot cracks, pops the air open so everything looks sharp and bright. Then the ranch goes quiet. I am wearing the rubber gloves I use to clean the windows. I grab the edge of the trash bin, and I bounce, one, two, and spring up, but I am not as athletic as I imagined and I lose my balance, put out my arms to catch myself. The bin rattles and warm trash cushions my fall.
I wade through evidence of everyone. There are a surprising number of empty beer and whiskey bottles I assume are from Jed. Empty cleaning product containers. Receipts for flashy cowboy gear. And my own minimal waste. I sift through, dig deeper as the smell swells. My stomach lurches, but I order myself to be cool, to stay calm, to do something. Find something, finally. My fingers press into a scrim of skin.
I find the cat inside a trash bag, a tangle of fur and folded bones. His face is looking up at me, mouth twisted down by death, milky eyes still slightly open. I run my fingers down his stiff head, and I feel the hard ridge of his leather collar. Vindication gushes through me, and I slide my fingers around it, lovingly, until I reach the metal buckle and move to unfasten it. The stench has dropped in volume, as if we are getting to know each other now. The buckle releases, and I pull off your cat’s collar.
I enter it into evidence.
One leather cat collar
Fountain Creek Ranch dumpster
Found by Sera Fleece
My heart flutters when I see the name, in loopy script, the same stamping system you used on the horse’s tack: BUMBY. And around it is a small metal tube, where you’re meant to keep emergency details—address, phone number—in case your pet goes missing. I slip out the tiny roll of paper. I pinch the end and roll it out carefully.
There is no address, no phone number.
Instead there is a list of names. You did leave clues.
Episode 37:
The Ideal Roommate
Thirty-year-old Gina Love was last seen on Monday morning, May 22, 2017, at seven fifteen a.m., by her female roommate. She was on her way to work. Her coworkers never flagged her disappearance, never contacted the police when she didn’t show for the next three months. She had no close friends. Her roommate didn’t feel comfortable searching her bedroom.
“I didn’t know her that well,” she said. “She was so random. She liked to be alone.”
So it was only after three months, when her roommate was clearing the room for a new tenant, that she discovered that Gina had left behind her purse, her wallet, her house keys, her ID.
“I feel like a lot of people blamed me,” her roommate said. “But I was just respecting her privacy.”
BANG! Another shot ricochets through the valley. My knees wobble. I am heading up the perimeter trail to the shooting range. I am going to find Jed.
Part of me thinks I should continue my search alone, but another part of me accepts that I can’t. I have been alone for the past year, trapped on my bed in my room, listening to you. I have accomplished nothing, apart from memorizing your every word. And now you are gone and no one is looking.
I know I shouldn’t trust Jed. I shouldn’t trust anyone. But the truth is, I don’t believe in myself. I don’t believe I can do this alone. And given the choice between your mother and your father and Jed, he is the only choi
ce.
I find him alone on the range, rifle balanced on his shoulder. His back is rigid and he swings around, eyes wild. It takes him a second to lower his gun. “Lord! Don’t you know not to sneak up on someone holding a gun?”
“What are you afraid of?”
He grimaces, wipes his brow. I think of the bottles in the trash bin, and I notice the evidence on his face: the looseness in his lips, the shadows under his eyes, the soft sheen on his forehead. “What are you doing up here?” He sets his gun nearby and leans against a tree.
“Where have you been all weekend?”
He shrugs. “I had to get out,” he says like he hasn’t only been back for a few days. “I just bummed around, went to the Bigfoot Museum in Willow Creek.” With his accent he says it Willa. Willa Creek. “I wouldn’t recommend it.” I imagine him walking alone around a deserted Bigfoot exhibit. It’s so sad that it’s kind of endearing.
“I found something.”
“What’d you mean, you found something?”
“First I need to ask you a question: Why is there a dog in your freezer?”
He pulls down his hat, to hide the red spots on his cheeks. “The fuck were you doin’ in my freezer?”
I made a mistake. I was so excited by this new evidence that I forgot myself. Of course I shouldn’t have been in his garage. Of course I shouldn’t be snooping. Wasn’t I mad at your mother for doing the same thing to me?
I take a risk. “Before you came. The freezer in my cabin wasn’t working. Addy said I could use yours.” It’s a total lie and it burns coming up, but I have no choice and I hold still. I have a feeling he will accept anything I blame on your mother.
He exhales, carefully, like he has to swerve around the prickly parts. “That’s my dog. Had her for seventeen years. She didn’t last a week here.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. I’ve never had a pet, specifically because I’d be afraid to lose it. “That’s terrible”—I try to be delicate—“but why is she in the freezer?’
If I Disappear Page 10