The Last Thing She Ever Did

by Gregg Olsen

  A look at her phone’s call record indicated twelve minutes. A dozen minutes.

  There was no way she could insist that she’d only turned her back for a second. Twelve minutes was long enough to go to the Safeway and back. Long enough to watch the news until the sports came on. Long enough to microwave four bags of popcorn.

  Too long.

  Long enough to call her parenting into question.

  Her pillow was soaked with her tears. David held her from behind, wrapping his arms around her shoulders as she cried quietly, steadily, into the fabric.

  “David,” she said, her voice a croak, “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” he said, pulling himself a little closer. “Everything’s going to be all right. I promise.”

  “Really?” she asked, although she knew the ridiculousness of such a promise. Whatever had happened to their little boy was beyond any promise. “He’s all right. He’ll be coming home, won’t he?”

  David tightened his embrace. “Honey, we have to have faith.”

  She started to move toward the edge of the bed, but he held her close. The divers searching Mirror Pond had found no trace of Charlie. Searchers also scoured the riverbanks on both sides but found nothing there. One ambitious young man with the local search-and-rescue team even dug into the beaver lodge on the off chance that Charlie had somehow become trapped inside.

  Dead or alive.

  He’d vanished without a trace. Chasing the heron and collecting pinecones and then gone.

  “He’s alive.” Carole shifted in the bed. “We have to do something, David. We have to go look for him. We need to get dressed and get out of here.”

  David loosened his embrace. “We have looked. Everyone is searching. Charlie is on everyone’s mind right now. Because of the police. The news. The Amber Alert. Someone must have taken him, Carole. Someone must have hidden him somewhere. I was scared that he might have drowned, but now I know that he’s alive.” David’s voice choked with uncharacteristic emotion and he repeated himself. “He’s alive.”

  Carole untangled his arms from her body and put her feet on the floor. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I have to go. Get up, David! We both have to go. You don’t understand. This is my fault. We have to find our son! I have to find him!”

  David watched his once-again frantic wife put on a pair of pants and a shirt. When he could see that she was serious, he did the same, but it was dark outside and he didn’t think there was any point in looking until first light. He followed her down the stairs to the front door. The air was cool and still. Only the Jarretts’ bedroom lights were on.

  The couple walked past a police car and an officer with a paper cup of gas station coffee.

  “We need to look,” David said to the young man behind the wheel.

  “He’s all we have,” Carole added.

  The officer nodded grimly, and they left him behind.

  They made their way toward the bridge, passing a “vacation rental by owner” notorious in the neighborhood for its parties. It was stone quiet just then. A clutch of amber glass beer growlers sat in a cardboard box on the sidewalk. A hastily rendered sign read: FREE TO A GOOD HOME. Except for a breeze shifting the leaves of an alder, it was as if time were standing still. Carole wished to God that it were, that there was a way to roll everything back to the previous morning.

  She leaned against the bridge railing while she and David looked upriver. A crane loomed above a construction site a few houses up from the edge of the playground.

  “Maybe he fell into a hole over there,” Carole said. “The excavator has a magnetic pull for little boys. You know that’s true, David.”

  He reached for her hand on the rail. “The police looked there, Carole. They told me.”

  Carole could not be deterred. It was plausible. She could imagine that when she turned her back, he’d gone in the other direction, then right over the bridge and up the river to the construction site. It could have been what had happened.

  “Maybe they didn’t see him,” she said.

  David held Carole by the shoulders and searched her eyes. “Honey, they used dogs. The dogs’ trail ended at the river. At the driveway. His scent was all over the place. And then gone.”

  Next they walked along the river and returned to the play area of Columbia Park. In the center of the grass space above the river was a pirate ship climbing structure that offered slides and various interactive games aligned with the pirate theme.

  “Charlie loved to find the treasure,” Carole said. The treasure was a grouping of six items on a spinning wheel that included jewels, coins, and other nods to the pirate theme.

  “Loves to,” David said. “He loves to.”

  Carole stopped. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

  “Mean to what?” David asked, though he knew.

  “Mean to say loved. Yes, loves.”

  A dog barked in the distance and a car drove by. Other than that, it was only the two of them—the two of them minus their boy who had disappeared.

  “Where were you today?” Carole asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “When we tried to call you,” she said.

  David looked away. “Out with a supplier,” he said.

  “Don’t lie to me, David.”

  “I’m not lying,” he said. “Where is this going?”

  “You know,” Carole said. “I don’t want to fight about her. Whoever she is. At least I know it isn’t Amanda. At least not her alone. She answered the phone at the restaurant. Whoever you’re screwing . . . you know I don’t even care. I don’t. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “You should be,” David said, refusing to allow her to bait him. Baiting him was a favorite pastime of Carole’s. She did it whenever she drank too much or was angry with someone else. “Our son is missing,” he said. “Let’s focus on that.”

  “I needed you,” Carole said. “Charlie needed you.”

  David didn’t speak for the longest time. He processed her words. She was looking for a way out of what she’d done: an act of carelessness that caused what he hoped was not a tragedy.

  Her eyes were cold, unblinking. “Just who are you screwing these days, David?”

  David stopped walking. “Are you seriously going to go there? Our son is gone. I’m not screwing anyone. God, Carole. Let’s focus on what we need to focus on. Getting our son back. Undoing your mistake.”

  Carole gave her husband another hard, cold stare.

  “I knew you would blame me,” she finally said.

  “I don’t blame you,” he said, although his tone contained a hint of uncertainty. She deserved that. “I don’t.”

  “Liar,” she said. “You are a terrible liar.”

  “You always said I was a good liar.”

  “About fucking,” she said. “Yes, a good liar. About things that matter to me, though, not at all.”

  David could feel his blood pressure escalate. Carole could make him feel as though he were some kind of a voodoo doll that she could prick with words. There were a million reasons why he put up with it, of course.

  In fact, more than a million.

  “Were you drinking this morning?” he asked.

  Carole threw her hands up in the air and shook her head slowly, emphatically. The remark was a direct jab.

  And a familiar one.

  “Are you always going to go there?” she asked, careful to contain her anger. “Goddamn you, David. I haven’t had a drink since before Charlie was born and you goddamn know it. You do. You of all people shouldn’t put that on me.”

  “Really, Carole?” was all he said.

  It was all right for her to question his fidelity. It was her go-to accusation whenever and wherever she seemed to feel the need. Sometimes he hated her so much that he would do anything to hurt her. He’d kept his mouth steel-trap shut. That was how he saw himself. Yet, every now and then, David Franklin could no longer hold his tongue. Carole deserved a jab from time to time. The
drinking problem was the only thing he could grab on to at the moment. Maybe ever. He’d been in AA for ten years. He’d never so much as had a single drop of alcohol since the day he quit drinking. Never the slightest threat of a relapse. Carole had tempted him with mojitos, Manhattans, and merlot for years.

  “Why’d they take your blouse?” he asked, focusing on her eyes.

  She spun around and started for home, and he hurried behind her.

  “Where did the blood come from, Carole?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Did you lose control?”

  “Don’t even dare say another word,” she said. “You know better. You know me.”

  “And you know me,” he said. “I’m not playing around on you. It’s over. I promised you.”

  “Over? Really? I doubt you and your whore are done.”

  “It is over,” he repeated. “Believe me.”

  Now back on the footbridge over the Deschutes, Carole and David faced each other once more.

  “Look,” she said, speaking in a near whisper. “I’m not an idiot, David. I smell her on you sometimes. I do. I really do. And for you to say those things about me being a drunk or some kind of monster . . . I don’t think I even know you. I really don’t.”

  David stood his ground. “Let’s focus on what we both know to be true,” he said, trying to reel in all the ugly words that had crossed his lips. “Charlie. Let’s focus on Charlie.”

  Carole pulled her jacket tighter. “A minute ago you suggested I might have had something to do with whatever happened to him.”

  David tried to hold her but she shoved him away. “I didn’t mean it, Carole. I know you better than that. I know you. Whatever we have isn’t perfect and hasn’t been great for a long time, but we’re solid in knowing each other. That counts for something.”

  A fish jumped, startling Carole and shifting her focus. “The blood on my blouse was mine,” she said. “From my ear.” She touched her scabbed-over earlobe and winced. “I tore my earring out when I was calling 911.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I know. The cops know too. They are just doing what they are supposed to do: eliminate the possibilities. Exclude us. And they need to do that.”

  “Right,” she said. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I said.”

  “Me too. Me too.”

  “Charlie’s out there, David. He’s scared. He’s cold. He wants to come home.”

  “We’re going to find him. I know we are. Keep thinking positive thoughts. Know that our boy is only lost, not gone. Not gone forever. He’ll come home.”

  The Franklins had done a good job of keeping their voices as low as possible, but the surface of the river is a good conductor of sound.

  Someone could hear every word they were saying.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  MISSING: FIFTEEN HOURS

  Owen watched his wife. Out of it. Finally he shook her hard. Harder than he needed to. Nothing. His heart was pounding so hard inside his chest that he was all but certain the police officer planted across the street could hear it jackhammering. Maybe at that very moment the officer was calling some suspicions in to the police department.

  “Liz,” Owen said, now hovering over her in the dim light. She’d drunk herself into a puddle of tears and booze. The smell of alcohol was heavy on her breath. The pills he’d fed her had left Liz’s eyes somewhat vacant. He wondered what he’d ever found attractive about her in the first place. She was a mess.

  “We need to get going,” he said when she finally stirred and looked up from the sofa.

  “What?”

  “We need to get out of here now.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked, her eyelids suddenly snapping open as she remembered what had transpired that day. “We can’t run, Owen,” she said. “They’ll find us.”

  Owen grabbed her by the shoulders with such force that she winced. He yanked her to her feet. “We aren’t going to run, Liz. Goddamn you, wake up and pull yourself together. We have to get rid of it.”

  It.

  Charlie was no longer a boy. He was now an it. A body. Something to be discarded.

  Liz started to cry. At first it was the sound of a hurt animal. A dog with its leg in a hunter’s snare. A weak dog. A dog that knew that in a few more breaths it would die. Then Liz started to get louder.

  “Don’t you do this, Liz. You need to get your shit together. The cops outside will hear you. Get that? They will hear you. They’ll think I’m beating you up or something. Jesus! You’ve screwed up big-time. The biggest colossal screwup in the world. Do you know what’s going to happen if they find Charlie in our garage? Do you know how long you’ll survive in prison?”

  On her feet, wobbly but able to stand, Liz looked her husband directly in the eyes. She saw the terror behind his threats. The gravity of what she’d done nearly sent her sinking down to the floor. Her pockets were full of fishing weights. Her chest was wrapped in the lead blanket of the dental office. Just then she felt immobile.

  He hurled more at her, but all she saw was the movement of his lips.

  “Women get raped in prison too . . .”

  Liz stood there, fighting to stay on her feet as she thought of Charlie and what she’d done. Passing out had brought a respite from the trauma of the day before. Trauma she knew was of her own creation. Silent tears fell down her cheeks and watered the floorboards, but no words came from her lips. She wanted to go and get him—not it—and carry Charlie over to Carole and David’s. She’d throw herself down on the walkway and plead for forgiveness.

  While she went through this mental process, Owen was in her face, giving her a steady stream of reality wrapped in blame. He offered it all up in a loud whisper. Owen could be like that. He’d make a big show at the table in a restaurant when the server was out of earshot, letting other diners know what kind of imbecile the waiter had been, but never loud enough for the offender to hear. Confrontation Owen-style was always directed in an environment that he could control. If he was angry at Liz for something she had done, he’d save it for the middle of a car ride when he could berate her, bring her to tears, and then reel it back, tell her how none of it was her fault.

  He raised his voice a notch. Not to yell. Only to make certain that she could feel his anger. “You were drugged up. Everyone will look at you as a woman who killed the neighbor kid and then did not do one goddamn thing about it . . .”

  Liz caught only fragments of Owen’s tirade. Her mind raced ahead as she planned what she would do. She’d drown herself in the river. It wouldn’t be a cry for help but a deliberate act to rid the world of the likes of her.

  “Come on,” he said, tugging at her shoulders once more. He’d watched her unravel enough and softened his tone. But not his request. There was no way that he’d do that. All of this was, in fact, all her fault. “I can’t get rid of it by myself.”

  “Where are we going to go?” she asked.

  “Somewhere out of town. I don’t know. We can’t leave Charlie in the garage.”

  He had said the boy’s name.

  “I don’t think I can do it,” she said.

  “I don’t see how you have much of a choice, Liz. I need someone to watch and make sure no one sees me. You think I can drive the car, find the spot, get out, dump it, and risk being seen?”

  Back to it.

  “Well,” she said. “I can’t. I can’t.”

  “You’ve got to. You killed him, Liz. You’ve got to help me or we’re both going to prison.”

  “But you didn’t do anything.”

  “I lied for you. I’m in this mess because of you. I’m an accessory after the fact.”

  “But it was an accident.”

  “It stopped being an accident the second you put that kid under the plastic tarp in the garage, Liz.”

  She fumbled for a jacket from the hook near the door.

  Owen told her that he’d open the garage door so he could back in the RAV4. They’d put the body in the back an
d cover it up with the stack of Bend Bulletins that had been left behind by her grandparents. Liz had saved them. They were at least thirty years old, and she thought the historical society might want them. She’d told Owen a thousand times they couldn’t be tossed into the recycling bin. But not that night. That night the newspapers would be used to cover the biggest mistake she had ever made.

  “If the cop or anyone else asks us what we’re doing, we’re going to the recycling center.”

  She nodded. “Right. The recycling center. Is it even open?”

  Owen swung open the door and held it for her. “It’s open twenty-four hours.”

  “We’re not leaving him there,” she said.

  He put his fingers to his lips. “No,” he whispered. “We’re not.”

  Liz got in the car while her husband pulled open the garage door. She maneuvered the RAV4 around and backed it inside, keeping her eye on the street in front of their house and the Franklins’.

  “The police car’s gone,” she said, mostly to herself.

  Owen closed the garage door and opened the hatch in the back. He pushed down the seat while Liz watched him through the rearview mirror. He grunted a little as he hoisted Charlie’s body into place. The light was shadowy, but for a second Liz was sure she’d seen the little boy’s arm dangle from under the tarp. The sight, real or imagined, nearly made her vomit. Every mistake she’d made that day had a moment when she could have done the right thing. This was another one. She could stop what Owen had insisted they do and plead for Carole and David’s mercy.

  But she didn’t. Fear had gripped her. Not the fear of going to prison but the fear that came from knowing she’d be a pariah for the rest of her life. That there would never be a way back in.

  A second later, the hatch slammed shut and Owen opened the garage door, motioning for her to pull out of the garage. He shut the door and jumped in on the passenger’s side.

  “Get on the highway and head south,” he said.