Vanishing Act

by Barbara Block

  “So is the end of the world. You have nothing substantive with this,” he pointed out when I was through. “Melissa’s clothes, Jill Evans’s death, the hit-and-run. All coincidences.”

  “But ...”

  George held up his hand. “Let me finish. I can think of lots of other explanations, but let’s say you’re right. Maybe Tommy West was involved. It doesn’t matter, because you can’t prove it.”

  “But the police could.”

  “Do yourself a favor and don’t go there.”

  “They could test Tommy’s car.”

  “For what?” He drummed his fingers on the table impatiently. “Believe me, if what you say is true, by this time that car has been repaired and repainted.”

  I knew George was right. I just didn’t want to admit it.

  “Anyway,” he continued. “Even if you could prove that Melissa knew that her boyfriend had hit that guy—which you can’t—so what? What do any of those factors have to do with Melissa’s disappearance?”

  “It offers a motive for her disappearance. Maybe she told Tommy she couldn’t stand it anymore and was going to the police.”

  “After a year? Why?”

  “Guilty conscience?”

  “Anything is possible, but if it were me, I’d go back and talk to Beth and her boyfriend again.”

  “Why’s that?”

  George smiled for the first time since I’d walked through the door. “Do the math.”

  I gave him a blank look.

  “Three is an inherently unstable number.”

  I was about to reply, when the doorbell rang. George sprang off the sofa and ran to get it.

  I followed.

  George flung the door open.

  A cop was standing on the porch. He had his hand on Raymond’s collar. Blood was running down the kid’s forehead.

  Chapter 31

  The cop was a square-faced burly guy. He filled the door frame with his presence. His complexion looked yellow under the streetlights. Beside him, Raymond looked small and fragile, a frightened, skinny fourteen-year-old wearing clothes two sizes too big for him, who’d finally met reality and didn’t like what he found.

  The cop pointed to Raymond with his free hand. “He says he lives here.”

  “What did he do?” George asked, enunciating each word. I couldn’t read his voice. It was tight and controlled and devoid of emotion.

  “I was with you all night, tell him I was with you,” Raymond pleaded.

  “I’m talking.” And the cop yanked on Raymond’s collar, using a little more force than necessary.

  It was, I noted, the kind of maneuver dog trainers use on dobes and shepherds when they needed to get their attention.

  “He and his friends stole a car earlier this evening.”

  George pointed to the gash on Raymond’s forehead. “How’d he get that?”

  The cop looked George square in the eye. “He probably hit his head on the steering wheel,” he replied without missing a beat.

  George stared back at him. “I see.”

  I wondered who was going to blink first.

  Raymond’s hand went out to his uncle. “He whacked me, man. He whacked me hard.”

  The cop gave George’s nephew another shake. “I told you to shut up.” He handled the kid as if he were a rag doll.

  “What happened?” George demanded, his eyes still on the cop.

  The cop shifted his weight from one leg to another before replying. “He and a couple of his buddies took a Dodge up around the university, isn’t that right?” he asked Raymond. When Raymond didn’t answer, he continued. “Guess what else they had? A forty-five.”

  “The trunk was opened,” Raymond whined. “Don’t you be trying to pin something like that on me.”

  “The owner says it’s not his. Now, why do I believe him and not you?”

  “How would I know?” Raymond retorted. He was beginning to get his confidence back.

  George interrupted. “Anyone hurt?”

  The copshook his head. “Not this time. They crashed the car into a tombstone at Oakwood. Next time, who knows?”

  “What time was the car reported missing?”

  “The owner called it in around nine o’clock.

  Raymond bit his lip. I reflected that if his forehead was hurting, he didn’t show it. “I was with you, George. Tell him I was with you then. Tell him I just went out ’cause I wanted to get a slice.”

  The cop looked down at Raymond. “Then how come you ran when I asked you about the car, hunh? Answer me that?”

  “Because I was scared. ’Cause you don’t look like no Officer Friendly.”

  Raymond was a little like me. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut even when he knew he should.

  “Why were you scared if you didn’t do anything?” the cop demanded.

  “Because I’m black, that’s why. Something goes wrong, pick up the black kid. What you guys got, a quota or something? So many A-f-r-o-Americans a week or they dock your ass?”

  “That’s enough,” George snapped at Raymond.

  “It’s—”

  “Be quiet,” he thundered.

  Raymond stopped talking. For a moment, all I heard was the cackle of the radio from the patrol car parked by the curb.

  “You get the other ones?” George asked.

  “Just him.” The cop glanced at Raymond the way you would an unappetizing piece of meat. “I’m hoping he’ll tell me who his friends are.”

  “We was just getting something to eat,” Raymond said to his uncle. “Honest.”

  I was surprised he didn’t choke on the word. The kid was lying. That much was obvious. But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him anyway. Maybe because the cop was so big and he was so small. I sure didn’t expect George to see it that way, though, so I was surprised at what he said next.

  He started to say something, changed his mind, stared at Raymond for a second, ran his hand over the top of his head and replied, “My nephew was here with me.”

  Raymond grinned. Christmas had arrived.

  The cop blinked. He obviously was having trouble believing what he was hearing. For that matter, so was I. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard what I said.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  George pointed to the gash on Raymond’s forehead. “That looks as if it’s going to need stitches.”

  “I told you, he probably cut himself on the car steering wheel.”

  George began rocking back and forth on his feet. “So you said.”

  “What’s the matter?” the cop demanded. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “I was out there. I know how these things go.”

  “I know you do. That’s why I was doing you a favor bring ing him here. I could have brought him downtown instead.”

  “He’s fourteen.”

  “Fourteen going on twenty-five. And I could have still brought him downtown.”

  “Well, thank you for bringing him here instead, Officer.” George gave the word officer a slight inflection. “I’ll take care of it now.”

  The cop shook his head in disgust and took his hand off Raymond’s collar. “You people are all the same,” he muttered. “That’s why things are the way they are.”

  George’s eyes flashed. “What did you say?” His voice had grown dangerously soft.

  “I didn’t say anything at all.” The cop turned and walked back to his patrol car.

  “See. See. I told you the guy was a racist pig,” Raymond said after the car had pulled out. He was practically dancing with glee.

  “Shut up,” George snarled. “Just shut the hell up.”

  For once Raymond did.

  Because it was a Thursday night, I’d expected the ER to be almost empty. Otherwise I would have brought a book. But it wasn’t. The hard dark blue plastic chairs in the waiting room were filled to capacity. A few of the men were watching the TV anchored overhead, but most sat their faces pinched with fatigue and pain, resigned to th
eir wait, while the women alternately comforted and yelled at their crying, fidgeting children, and the guard stationed by the door answered questions in bored monosyllables.

  I picked up one of the magazines lying on the table next to me. It was over a year old. I started to read it anyway.

  “I should have brought my work,” George said.

  “Me too.” I flipped the page. It was ragged from use like the beige paint on the wall, a too-gray brown that was marred with nicks and pits.

  So far Raymond, George, and I had been sitting there for the past three hours and we’d been told we had at least another half hour to go. Unless there was a real emergency, of course. In which case, we’d be here even longer.

  At this point, if I had a needle and thread I would have been tempted to stitch Raymond up myself.

  “You don’t have to be here,” George said to me for the hundredth time.

  I looked up from reading about last year’s ten hot new trends, none of which had materialized. “I know I don’t. I guess I just miss the place.”

  George didn’t even smile. Instead, he buried his head in his hands. It was, I noted, becoming his standard position. “Why did I say that?” he asked again. “What the hell is wrong with me?” he moaned. “This evening I just did something that goes against everything I believe in.”

  I closed the magazine and finished off the chocolate bar I’d gotten from the vending machine. “A gut reaction. A display of family feeling?”

  George grunted.

  “I’m throwing out words here, trying to help you. At least let me know if I’m on the right track.”

  “Maybe if he hadn’t hit him.”

  “You never hit anyone?”

  George lifted his head up and studied the backs of his hands. “Yeah, I have. I lost it a couple of times. I can even understand why he did it. Look at what I almost did to Raymond the other night.”

  “I remember.”

  George sighed. “You know there’s a ninety-nine-percent probablity that that little shit and his low-life friends took the car.”

  I’d put it at a hundred. “What about the gun?”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me either.” George straightened up. “Where is he anyway?”

  I pointed to the vending machine around the corner. “Over there. He was hungry. I gave him a dollar to get a candy bar. Tell me something,” I asked after a few seconds had passed. “I’m curious. If the cop had been black, would you have given Raymond up?”

  George scuffed the floor with the edge of his heel. “You know what I came away with from my seven years out there?”

  “What?”

  “That the system stinks. That nobody gives a shit. They say they do, but they don’t. They just make it worse.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. I wanted to know. I had a feeling it was important to our relationship.”

  “I realize that.” George closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “God, do I hate children.”

  A moment later Raymond returned. He nodded toward George. “Is he all right?”

  “I’m fine,” George said, opening his eyes and sitting up.

  “You can go back to your house if you want. I’ll do this by myself.”

  “No you can’t. You’re not eighteen.”

  Raymond sat down next to George and unwrapped the candy bar he’d just bought. “So,” he asked. “Are you going to send me home?”

  “No,” George said. “I’m not.”

  Chapter 32

  The sun was shining. The sky was blue. The snow was gone. God was taking callers. If you looked very closely and used a little wishful thinking, you could see buds beginning to swell on the branches of the willow trees. It was the kind of day that made you believe spring was finally on its way, I thought as I watched Chris Furst do a couple of laps around the outside track at the university athletic center. Beth’s boyfriend moved with an easy, confident stride, giving the impression that he was running for the sheer pleasure of the activity and that he would be happy to keep on doing it for miles.

  I cupped my hands and yelled out to him as he passed me by for the third time. He turned and trotted over, approaching me reluctantly, obviously unwilling to abandon his run.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said as he got within speaking distance. His voice was steady and strong. The back and sides of his gray T-shirt were streaked with sweat, as was the waistband of his sweat pants, but he wasn’t winded.

  “I have a question for you,” I told him, having decided to follow up on George’s observation about three being an unstable number. Perhaps George had been right. Perhaps I had taken a series of random events and turned them into something they weren’t.

  “And what would that be?” Chris asked, jogging in place.

  “It’s about Melissa and Beth.”

  “What about them?” He kept jogging.

  Watching him bobbing up and down was making me seasick. I asked him to stop and take a walk with me instead.

  “Sorry. I still have two miles to go,” he protested.

  “You can finish your run after we’re done.”

  “I can’t. I have a class soon.”

  “So cut it.”

  “I have a quiz.”

  “Make it up.”

  “What if that’s not possible?”

  “Then you can give your answers to the police downtown.”

  “Fine,” Chris growled, and he put his head down and strode toward the athletic building, pushing by the chat tering groups of T-shirt-and-jean-clad students dotting the lawn. “Have it your way.”

  It was all I could do to keep up with him.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me your question?” he flung over his shoulder after a few seconds had gone by.

  “I want to know how Tommy reacted when you told him about Melissa and Beth.”

  The kid halted abruptly and swiveled around so he was facing me. I almost crashed into him.

  He folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Beth told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  “That you told Tommy about her and Beth.”

  “Really?” He gave a snarl of a smile. “That’s an old trick telling someone somebody said something when they haven’t.”

  “True, but in this case, she did. And why would I be trying to trick you?”

  He remained silent. The enemy wasn’t going to get any information out of him, by God.

  “I need to know.”

  “There’s nothing to know. You’ve been misinformed.”

  “So you’re telling me your girlfriend lied?”

  Chris shrugged. His eyes followed a coed walking by. “I’m not telling you anything at all.”

  I realized I was tapping my foot on the ground, and stopped. “I thought you were sworn to uphold the ideals of your country.”

  “I am.”

  “Does that include lying to protect a murderer if he is your friend?”

  “You don’t know Melissa was murdered. You don’t know what happened to her.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  “Even if she was, Tommy would never do anything like that.”

  “Then you shouldn’t mind answering my question.”

  “What does what you’re asking have to do with the other thing?”

  “Simple. If Tommy was jealous, it might help to explain Melissa’s disappearance.”

  “Tommy wouldn’t be jealous of something like that.”

  “Maybe not. But he was sure upset when I asked him.”

  “He was upset because you were saying things that you shouldn’t have been saying.”

  “So you two talked about this?”

  “What are you saying? That we shouldn’t have?”

  “No. Not at all.” Chris looked cold standing there. The skin on his arms had developed goose bumps.

  “Why don’t we keep walking,” I suggested. “I know you’re supposed to cool down aft
er a run, but I don’t think that means standing around in forty-degree weather when you’re sweaty. ”

  Chris nodded and started off again. “Tommy would never hurt Melissa. He’s one of those guys who’s all noise.” This time he spoke without prompting.

  I lengthened my stride to keep up with him. “How can you be so sure about the way Tommy would react.”

  Chris stopped again. This time I did bang into him. All this stopping and starting was making me feel as if I were on the Long Island Expressway during the Fourth of July weekend.

  “I can be so sure because Tommy is my fraternity brother,” Chris told me. “We pledged together. You don’t go through three to four months of pledging and not know someone.”

  “I wasn’t aware of that.”

  Chris gave a half-shrug, indicating there were a lot of things I didn’t know.

  I gnawed on my fingernail. “Is that why you told him?”

  “I thought he should know.”

  “Why?”

  “Wouldn’t you want to know if you were him?”

  “Not if I were happy with the way things were.”

  “But then you’d be living a lie,” Chris protested.

  “There are worse things.”

  “I don’t agree.”

  “I didn’t think you would. You’re too young to.” Out of the corner of my eye I watched a black Lab running after a Frisbee. He leaped and made the catch in midair. For a moment he was freeze-framed against the blue sky.

  “What could be worse than lying?”

  “What if you told somebody something that upset them so much, that made them so angry, they went out and killed someone? What then?”

  “Okay. Then maybe the truth isn’t the best thing,” Chris conceded after he’d considered my question for a couple of seconds. “But this wasn’t like that.”

  “What was it like?”

  Chris didn’t answer.

  “You know, by not answering, you’re making Tommy sound guilty.”

  Chris gave me a pleading look. “He’s not. I just don’t like talking about another person’s private life. I don’t think it’s right.”

  “I can understand that. And in the normal course of events I wouldn’t be asking, but this isn’t the normal course of events.”

  He looked down at the ground, then back up at me. “I guess you’re right.”