Ghosts of the Missing

by Kathleen Donohoe

  Kit added the notes of her conversation with Charley to the growing file. His employee, Gin, seconded him. Rowan had not come in the store that day. Adair wandered around alone while the reading was going on in the backyard, and she’d left with her uncle right after.

  With Michan McCrohan not returning her messages, Kit resorted to a stakeout. She parked her car across the street from Byrd’s Books and Doyle’s Pub on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons from 3 to 7.

  Charley had told her that Michan dropped into the bookstore most often on those days. Almost as often, he’d go to Doyle’s Pub for their happy hour.

  Kit had spoken to everyone else on her list except Adair McCrohan. She’d talked to Evelyn and David Brayton, both together and alone. Nothing either of them said varied from the stories they’d been telling since the beginning, and nothing they said triggered Kit’s gut.

  Friday, she was in place slightly before 3 p.m. While she waited, she used the time to read about Michan. She already knew enough about him to recite his life story to him, though it was probably not a story the guy wanted to hear more than he had to.

  It was as if the entire family had been on the Titanic and only Michan and his niece made it to a lifeboat. She shook the thought away. Pitying Adair was not her responsibility. Her job was to uncover clues as to what had happened to Rowan.

  Kit had perfected the art of dozing with her eyes open. When she saw Michan emerge from the alley between the bookstore and the pharmacy, she sat up and took a quick hit of her coffee, long grown cold.

  “Yes,” she said softly when he went in, not to the bookstore, but to Doyle’s.

  A full fifteen minutes later, she popped a peppermint Life Saver in her mouth and strolled over to the bar. When she first started out as a detective, she’d felt guilty about cornering subjects in bars. Taking advantage of a good buzz seemed like cheating. But she eventually accepted that more than half her good information was going to come on a cloud of whiskey. She made a practice of not talking to the very drunk, the ones where she could see her words entering in one ear and walking out the other. If she needed to ask follow-up questions, she didn’t want to have to start from the beginning.

  She saw Michan seated at the far end, talking to the bartender. She was confused for a moment, having so recently read about his life, to see him laughing over a beer.

  Doyle’s wasn’t crowded. Kit could not have played coy if she wanted to. She went up to Michan and introduced herself.

  “I’m looking into Rowan Kinnane’s disappearance. Can we talk for a few minutes?”

  Michan’s eyebrows quirked as he shook her hand. Maybe she’d surprised him by not mentioning his niece.

  He signaled the bartender for a refill.

  “Can I get you something?” he asked.

  “I’m good,” she said.

  She would get a beer if she thought the person she was talking to would be uncomfortable if she didn’t. Michan, guardian of the child she needed to get to, would probably think better of her if she didn’t drink.

  Without glancing behind him to make sure she was following, he led her down a short, dark hallway to the empty back room. He sat in a booth, and Kit slid in across from him. She wanted to take out her notebook, but instinct made her fold her hands on the table instead.

  The room was paneled in dark wood, and the booth was high-backed and rigid.

  “Mr. McCrohan—”

  “Michan, please,” he said automatically.

  She noted that he said his name carefully, and she figured he’d had a lifetime of correcting people who called him Michael.

  “Okay, Michan. Can you tell me about October 28?”

  Kit listened as he succinctly went through the day, tensing when he reached the afternoon.

  The current residents of Moye House had done a reading at Byrd’s, not amid the dust and clutter of the store, but out in the fresh air of the small yard. The reading had lasted an hour, an hour and a half. They’d gotten a good crowd. There was extra foot traffic in Culleton anyway in October, and this was increased by the fact that it was Quicken Day.

  Adair wasn’t interested in marching in the parade, so Michan had asked her if she wanted to accompany him and the others to Byrd’s; he thought it would be good for her to get out of the house. She’d been home sick on Wednesday and Thursday. Her fever was gone by Friday, but she’d stayed home from school anyway.

  Staring into his beer, he asked, “You do know about Adair?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “I guess you’d be a bad detective if you didn’t.”

  “I guess I would be,” Kit said smoothly, tamping down her irritation.

  Michan smiled and looked almost boyish. “I only meant Adair’s status has never been a secret around here.”

  Anyway, he continued, Adair slipped into the bookstore at some point during the reading. When he turned around to look for her, one of the other writers pointed to the back door.

  “So she wasn’t sitting with you?” Kit asked.

  Michan explained that he’d been introducing the readers, so he’d been sitting in the front row. Adair preferred to be in the back. Sometimes people looked for her at these things. They wanted to shake her hand, often only to prove they were willing to, and she could always tell because they were the ones who did not let go right away. Once, an audience member asked where his niece was buried, because she had gone to the cemetery here in Culleton to visit the graves of his brother and sister-in-law and saw that the little girl wasn’t with them.

  Hearing that made Kit wish she’d gotten a beer.

  When the reading was over, he’d stayed outside and talked with a few people. After a while, Adair came out and asked when they were leaving. He told her soon, and asked her to finish picking out whatever books she wanted. Anyway, Adair hadn’t found anything, and they’d left probably ten minutes later.

  “She didn’t mention seeing Rowan?” Kit asked.

  “No,” Michan said. “Not a word. And no, I didn’t see her either.”

  They’d gone back to Moye House for the writers’ celebration of the day, which meant wine and cheese in the front parlor and readings from The Lost Girl.

  “Did Adair mention Rowan at all during the rest of the day?”

  Michan drank from his beer. “I didn’t see Adair much for the rest of the day.”

  He was busy with the other writers all afternoon. Adair, he assumed, was outside at the party. If he’d stopped to think about it, though as far as he could remember he hadn’t, he would have assumed that Rowan was also at the party and that Adair was with her.

  “You told the police the girls were acquaintances. Evelyn said something like that too. From what I’ve found, they were actually pretty good friends.”

  Michan didn’t answer immediately. “Rowan’s stepfather, David, didn’t want Adair around his baby. Evelyn said as a first-time father he was being paranoid. She was sure once the baby got a little older, he would let up.”

  “You didn’t think so?” Kit asked.

  “I wanted to talk to him myself, but Adair—” He paused.

  “She didn’t want to make a scene,” Kit said.

  “I wouldn’t have confronted him in public.” Michan smiled thinly. “But, yes, she didn’t want a scene.”

  “When did Adair find out that Rowan was missing?”

  “The day after she disappeared. Sunday. I might not have told her yet, but I had to, because the police came to search the house.”

  “They asked to talk to Adair?”

  “No. They were there because of the party. Evelyn thought Rowan had been there even though she hadn’t seen her. They’d had a fight. She thought Rowan was avoiding her.”

  “You gave them permission to search?”

  “Of course.” Michan looked down at the table, frowning. “I was worried, but the way you are when you’re in a fucked-up situation and you’re sure you’ll be laughing at how worried you were when it all turns out okay.”
r />   Kit nodded. “When did you first realize that it wasn’t going to turn out okay?”

  “When the police finished searching every inch of the house and grounds and hadn’t found her,” Michan said. “That’s when I had to admit to myself that she might have actually been grabbed. It was surreal.”

  “When did Adair tell you she saw Rowan in the bookstore?”

  “Not until Monday afternoon.” Michan shook his head grimly. “I was downstairs talking to some of the residents. It was during quiet hours, but most of them had given up and were sitting around the kitchen table, talking about what had happened. Adair came in. I guess she’d read a newspaper that someone left lying around, and that was when she realized that Rowan hadn’t been seen in town all day Saturday. She said that she had. She saw Rowan in the bookstore, carrying an envelope.”

  “Did she say, ‘It looked like an envelope,’ or ‘I thought it was an envelope’?”

  “What does it matter?”

  Kit took a deep breath through her nose and released it.

  “I want to know who first used the word ‘envelope,’ that’s all. Did Adair say ‘she was carrying something but I couldn’t really see it’? Did the detective questioning her then ask if it was the size of a purse or the size of an envelope? Adair says ‘envelope’ and that’s what gets written down, and bam, Adair saw Rowan in the bookstore carrying an envelope.”

  “I don’t goddamn remember,” Michan said. “I don’t think they pushed her on what Rowan was carrying. Most of their questions focused on whether or not Adair was confused about what fucking day it was.”

  “I’d very much like to talk to Adair,” Kit said.

  “No,” Michan said, so pleasantly that Kit thought she’d misheard.

  “No?” she repeated.

  “I’m not criticizing either the police or you when I say this, but I don’t think she’s going to be found.”

  “Never?” Kit asked.

  “By chance, if ever. A hiker. A hunter,” Michan said. “Not by subjecting my niece to another round of questions that will only torment her because she can’t answer them.”

  “I promise you, I’d be careful not to upset her.”

  “That’s not a promise you can keep,” he said.

  Kit, stung, knew he was right. She was used to dealing with the shady and the desperate and with people who had been hurt, but nothing like what this kid had been through.

  “My brother would say to leave her alone. My brother Cathal. Adair’s father. Co-parenting with the dead isn’t easy. But that’s my best guess.”

  “A father might also say, as a parent I can’t even imagine what Evelyn’s going through, and Rowan’s biological father, and I’ll do anything to help.”

  Kit did not add, because it was too cruel, that when he lost his niece, at least he would know her fate. There would be a proper funeral.

  “Can I show you something?” Michan drained his beer and stood up.

  He didn’t wait for her to leave the booth before he started walking. Kit hurried after him, catching up at the bar.

  “Do you mind if I—” Michan pointed to the wall.

  The bartender glanced curiously at Kit and then shrugged. “Sure. But close it behind you.”

  Michan stepped up to the wall and tugged. A door slid open. He stood to the side and gestured for Kit to go ahead of him.

  He was not drunk, not even close, but she sensed that the alcohol was doing its work, loosening his caution. Without a word, Kit went through the door and found herself in the bookstore. There was a woman behind the counter, reading and smoking a cigarette, which she stubbed out as they came in. Michan shut the door.

  “Hey, Gin, I need to show Ms. Sullivan something,” he said. “It’ll only take a second. Don’t tell Charley I used the door.”

  “Sure,” Gin said, looking from Kit to Michan.

  “He doesn’t want anybody making it a habit,” Michan explained to Kit.

  There were three bookshelves in the center of the store. Michan turned down one of the aisles between them. The shelves were high, over Kit’s head, and slightly over Michan’s, which would make them a bit over six feet. There wasn’t much space between the opposing bookshelves. Kit could not have held her arms out straight. Someone claustrophobic could not have browsed for long.

  “This is where Adair said she was standing,” Michan said.

  Charley had said he couldn’t remember where she’d gone in the store. Kit did a quick assessment. There was no view of either the register or the front door. The side door that led to the alley, too, was out of sight.

  “The girls would have been hidden here,” Kit said.

  “Rowan didn’t come down the aisle and pass by Adair,” Michan said. “According to Adair, she was looking at the books”—Michan pointed to the shelves to Kit’s right—“and looked up and saw Rowan over there.”

  Michan pointed straight ahead, toward the front of the store.

  “She was heading in the direction of the front door. That’s why Adair thought she’d left.”

  Kit walked up the aisle. Books were piled haphazardly on the floor, and there were two cardboard boxes full of paperbacks between the two windows. She noted that the register was in the center of the store. Which meant Rowan would not have walked in front of it if she went out by the front door. It was at least possible that she’d left without Charley noticing her.

  Kit walked back to Michan. She rubbed her eyes, itchy from the dust.

  “This gives me a better picture,” Kit said.

  “Does it?” Michan asked. “Look at these books.”

  Obligingly, Kit skimmed the titles. A Short History of World War II. The Day Lincoln Was Shot. FDR’s America. The Tudor Queen.

  “Adair wouldn’t have been interested in anything here. I asked her what she was looking for and she said she didn’t remember.”

  “Didn’t remember?” Kit paused. “Did she have a paper due at school?”

  “She’d have gone to the library for that,” Michan said. “She wouldn’t buy a book for her homework, even if it was only a couple of bucks.”

  Kit rubbed her eyes again, trying to shape her thoughts, because he had a point.

  “Would she have gotten in trouble for leaving the store alone?” Kit asked.

  “No,” Michan said. “This was before Rowan.”

  Before Rowan, Kit thought. How long before? Hours? Minutes?

  “Why do you believe her?” Michan asked.

  “I don’t believe her. I don’t disbelieve her. I haven’t talked to her,” Kit said. “But I think Evelyn’s telling the truth. She last saw Rowan in the parking lot. Rowan was alive on Saturday morning. Your niece’s statement dovetails with hers. Why don’t you believe her?”

  “I know Evelyn, and I don’t think she had anything to do with it, if that’s what you’re asking.

  “It isn’t,” Kit said.

  Absently Michan pulled a book off the shelf and shoved it back.

  “Last summer, Adair’s health started going downhill. I want to say ‘finally,’ but that sounds like a good thing, and I only mean it’s years later than the doctors predicted. She was in the hospital twice. Her doctor says it’s ARC, AIDS-related complex. Do you know what that is?”

  Though she’d heard the term, Kit couldn’t coherently explain it. She shook her head.

  “It’s when your T-cell count drops and you start developing full-blown AIDS. It’s the beginning of the immune system crashing.”

  “I am sorry. I really am. Maybe I’m not following, but I don’t see what Adair’s health has to do with me talking to her. She’s okay, from what I understand. She’s still in school—”

  “She’s not on her deathbed, no,” Michan said.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “You did,” Michan said. “And that’s fine. I’m not afraid of the word. Adair is holding on, for now. But she has a disease that is one hundred percent fatal. If I let you talk to her, you’re going to take her righ
t back to the day the only friend she ever had walked out of her life. Adair knows she didn’t go willingly, but Rowan is gone. You’ll go at her with the same questions the police did.”

  Kit started to speak, but Michan interrupted.

  “‘Adair, if Rowan was your friend, why didn’t she talk to you? Did you have a fight? Where might she have been going that she didn’t want you to come? The post office was already closed. Why would she have been carrying an envelope? Are you sure you saw her at all? Are you thinking of a different day? Was it a dream? Do you get confused a lot?’”

  “I would phrase the questions more carefully,” Kit said. “I’m not a cop who’s under pressure to make an arrest. I’m not stuck on one theory.”

  Michan shook his head. “When Adair was younger and ran a high fever, she would talk about seeing things that weren’t there. Her father. Dogs. Birds. Whatever. I don’t think she outgrew it. I think she just stopped saying it out loud. I told you, she didn’t tell me she saw Rowan here until she’d been missing for two days.”

  Kit understood. “You think it was a dream.”

  “Yes. Maybe. A fever dream,” Michan said. “The detectives took it further. They kept asking her if she gets confused. They asked her if she knew what year it was and who was president. Do you know why?”

  Kit shook her head.

  “People who don’t know much about AIDS do usually know two things. That cancer with the purple sores, and people with AIDS lose their minds.”

  “Dementia,” Kit said.

  “She didn’t have it. She doesn’t. And I told them, as patiently as I fucking could, that’s usually near the end. She’s not at the end yet,” Michan said. “I cannot make Adair feel guilty all over again for not following a figment of her imagination out the door. And I cannot have her wondering if what happened to her mother is already happening to her.”

  The cessation of Kit’s voice was like closing the window on a storm.

  Ciaran and I were both silent, considering what Kit had just told us. She waited patiently, her hands folded on the table.

  Then Ciaran made a soft sound, like a person waking up.

  “When did you stop working on the case?” he said.