When He Vanished

by T. J. Brearton

  “Happens to every writer,” Bruce says with an expert’s tone.

  “What did he say?”

  “I told him stories take as long as they take. He was putting too much pressure on himself, psyching himself out. He thought maybe he needed to shake things up. Break out of his routine.”

  “And do what?” My volume has risen. John talking about all this with someone he ostensibly dislikes instead of me makes me angry. “What did he say he was going to do? Did you encourage him?”

  “Hey, Jane, I didn’t tell him to do anything. I just agreed, you know? Maybe the same thing, day in and day out — he’s going back to the same well and the well is dry. That’s what happens.”

  I close my eyes and take a breath. Making enemies with Bruce won’t help. And there may be a deeper element here that warrants empathy: John’s complex feelings about their past. When I speak again I’m calmer. “But did he say anything specific, Bruce, about what he might do.”

  “No. I mean, he made some allusions.”

  “To what?”

  “Hard to tell. Just little things I picked up on. Listen, Jane, you know — this is what I do. I mean this is in my wheelhouse, my field.”

  The conversation has shifted, Bruce eager to put his purported law-enforcement skills to work. Whether he’s skilled or not, the cops should talk to Bruce. I open the door, still on the phone. Gorski is sitting in her police cruiser, doing something out of sight. Morse paces at the end of the driveway, talking on his phone. He sees me and waves. I start toward him, walking like a scarecrow come to life.

  “I’m with the state troopers,” I tell Bruce.

  “Oh.” He makes no effort to conceal the disappointment in his voice.

  “Would you come talk to them? Tell them what you and John talked about?”

  “I mean like I said, he didn’t say anything specific.”

  “Please, Bruce.” I stop halfway to the driveway.

  He sighs again. “Yeah. All right. They’re there now?”

  “Yes. They’re here now. Can you come over?”

  Nothing from Bruce except more background noise. I’m not so sure it’s canned audience laughter anymore. It sounds like something else, maybe an engine trying to start, not turning over. Finally: “Okay — give me a few minutes and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Thank you so much, Bruce.” I start walking again and it occurs to me that I’ve said things to the cops about him. I don’t want to create bad blood, especially if he can help us. “Hey I just need to tell you — I told one of the state troopers that you and John — you had some rough patches in your friendship. When you were kids.”

  “Uh-huh . . . That’s okay.”

  “But I also said I thought maybe you being here, dropping by . . . maybe it was your way of mending fences.”

  I’m almost to Morse. The air is crisp but warming up, and I catch the scent of moldering earth: spring smells. For a moment I’m filled with a kind of remorse, like a beautiful day is being squandered by all this drama. That sense is gone in an instant when I glance at Gorski’s face. She’s looking very serious, and I see her poking buttons on a computer mounted to her cruiser console.

  Bruce is still talking in my ear. “Well, truth be told, you know, John had his moments, too.”

  “Say that again, Bruce?”

  “It’s a two-way street.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, kids do shit. I wasn’t the only one.”

  “John was a bully too?” The word just slips out and I regret it instantly. At the same time, my husband is missing. Too bad if some guy gets offended.

  “John said that? About me? That I was a bully? That’s a bit much.”

  The comment pricks me. And maybe I’m emboldened by being in the presence of two uniformed police officers. “He said you threatened to kill him, Bruce.”

  My words have grabbed the attention of Morse, who is snapping his phone onto his belt and giving me a concerned look.

  “Yeah, well did he tell you the whole story?” Bruce says in my ear. “Listen, Jane. You’re very nice, but maybe you don’t know everything about your husband.”

  His words are cutting, and I feel like I’m getting a glimpse of the person my husband described, someone who would threaten assault, yell racial epithets out of car windows, scribble insults on school lockers. I need to be the bigger person here. Morse has homed in on me and is standing close, listening as I finish the conversation.

  “Bruce, I’m sorry. That’s all in the past and I’m sure you two could work it out. If you say you have no idea, then I believe you. But I thought maybe something between you might have upset him. I thought maybe he relapsed and went somewhere to drink. One of the officers suggested the two of you — or maybe just John — might’ve gone into Canada.”

  I wait for Bruce’s response. I hear those voices in the background, but nothing from him. “Bruce? You there?”

  “Sorry. Look, I’ll call you back later. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “Bruce, I thought you were—”

  “I’ll call you back, Jane.” The phone beeps that the call has been cancelled.

  Morse is watching me expectantly.

  “Well, that was the friend,” I tell him.

  “And? Sounded a little tense.”

  “I don’t know what was going on. He seemed distracted.”

  “Maybe we should talk to him in person.”

  “He said he was going to come by. Then he . . . I don’t know if he changed his mind.”

  “When you mentioned Canada.”

  I don’t have any response to that. It’s another mixed bag — a feeling of guilt and righteousness. Bruce might’ve had the best intentions by reaching out. If he was flustered by my call, that’s understandable; I was partly holding him to account. But he is the anomaly in our otherwise routine life, and was evasive about what “shaking things up” meant. Why be vague? Because something bad happened and he’s trying to protect himself?

  Gorski steps out of her cruiser and slides her nightstick into her belt. She stands there a moment with her gaze flitting between me and Morse, as if she can’t decide who to address. “Your husband’s car has been located,” she says, and my whole world suddenly feels like it’s tilting.

  “What? Where?”

  “It’s intact, no apparent damage . . .”

  I take a lunging step and Morse grabs me because I’m unsteady on my feet. Gorski’s face is leaking color, turning gray as I start running out of oxygen because I’m not breathing.

  Her lips move in slow motion and her words reverberate deep in my eardrums. “It looks like there could be blood in it.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE / THE CAR

  My daughter’s door with the paper mailbox and its hearts and sparkles has become the gateway to a path I question walking. With everything that’s happening, I need to keep my family together. Russ is safe at school surrounded by responsible adults; leaving Melody alone scares me. But if something has happened to John, I’m not sure I want her in the midst of some gruesome discovery. Gorski’s statement echoes in my mind: there could be blood in it.

  “Ma’am?” Gorski is in my living room at the end of the hall. “Ma’am, is there someone who can stay with her?”

  I ease away from Melody’s door, lowering my voice. “How about you or Trooper Morse? Could one of you stay and the other . . .”

  She’s already shaking her head. “Maybe in another situation, but I can’t do that right now. If there’s nowhere for your daughter to go, I can notify Child Services.”

  “No — can I just have a minute to think about this?”

  “Sure.” Gorski pulls her cell phone from her belt and checks it.

  They’re discouraging me from going but that’s impossible — my husband’s Subaru was found at an interstate rest stop ten miles away. Apparently another trooper who lays a speed trap in that vicinity responded to what Gorski called a “BOLO” — be on the lookout. The trooper rolle
d on through the rest stop and spotted the car right away. Gorski says they need more information before gathering a crew to search the area but I can’t wait for whatever that might be — I need to go confirm the car myself.

  My heart is beating so hard I’m having trouble hearing, but I have to go. Karen is the best option for Melody — no Child Services necessary — but I don’t even have her number in my phone.

  With Gorski looming and the sense of urgency turning the house into a pressure cooker, I finally find Karen’s information at the bottom of a group email through the school and make the call.

  “Karen, it’s Jane.”

  “I saw the troopers outside your house when I just drove by — did you call them? What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t take you up on the offer to talk to Matt. I just thought that state police, you know, had a wider reach . . .”

  “Oh they’re all connected. You learn that when you’re a police officer’s wife.”

  It’s a subtle barb, one I can easily ignore. “They found John’s car.”

  “You’re kidding. Is he . . . ah, is it—”

  “I need to go have a look at it. See if I — I don’t know. I don’t think Melody should come.”

  “Oh, no. Definitely not.”

  Maybe I’m wrong, but there’s a tinge of excitement in Karen’s voice. Like this is all transpiring on her favorite reality show.

  “Karen, I’m wondering if you could—”

  “Say no more. I’m on my way. Five minutes. Leave if you have to and I’ll be there, I promise. The first few hours are the most critical so don’t wait for me.”

  “Okay. Thank you so much, Karen.”

  “Go — go!”

  We hang up. Gorski looks impatient but I still have to inform Melody. My lower back throbs as I hobble back to her door and knock. “Mel?”

  Muffled response: “I’m sleeping.”

  “I’m so sorry, baby, I have to leave. But Karen is coming over to just hang out and—”

  “Why do you have to go?”

  “I just um, I need to see if um . . .”

  I made myself a promise years ago never to lie to my kids, not even white lies. I don’t want to become my mother, for whom fact and fabrication blur together. But this is needed.

  “I just need to go talk to the police about Dad.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “I know, honey. It’s just that with everything going on I would feel better. It’s for me, okay?”

  Silence. I glance toward Gorski but she’s not there.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “I don’t know, baby. That’s what I’m going to find out. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Why did he leave?”

  “Oh, honey . . .”

  I open the door — at least it’s unlocked — and find Melody sitting on her bed, fully dressed, hugging her knees as she leans against the wall.

  She looks at me, those big brown eyes, the ones that I’ve been staring into since the day she was born. “Did you get into a fight about me?”

  I take a seat beside her, ignoring the protest from my aggravated muscles and the urge to rush to John’s car, and pull her toward me. “This has nothing to do with you. We’re going to figure out what’s going on and everything is going to be okay.”

  Yet I’m picturing the Subaru, the blood, my mind running away with one grisly scenario after another.

  I kiss her forehead after another hug. Then I’m struggling to my feet, doing my best to hide it from her. Of all days to trip and fall. This is the worst it’s been in months, maybe a year. Outside Mel’s room, I run my hand along the wall as I limp away.

  My purse is a small zip-up leather satchel sitting beside the coffee maker in the kitchen. Do I need anything else? Habit, I suppose, causes me to look in the mirror by the front door. I’m a total mess and getting messier. Streaked mascara, puffy red eyes, dried lips. Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but getting John back.

  Maybe you don’t know everything about your husband.

  If Bruce Barnes has something to do with John’s disappearance, he’s going to be in a lot of trouble. Something is definitely not right between them, whether it’s the past I know about or the past I don’t. But that will be a job for the police.

  Gorski opens the back door of the cruiser and helps me into the vehicle. A few seconds later we’re on the road and racing toward the interstate, the same road where John and I had the incident with the SUV. And as we close in on the rest area I can see Poke-O-Moonshine Mountain in the near distance — we’re actually just a mile or two away from where whoever it was turned off their headlights and chased us through the dark.

  I want to tell Trooper Gorski about it. And I’ll include seeing a similar vehicle the next afternoon outside the grocery store. But right now all of my attention is focused ahead as we go around the signs that announce REST AREA: CLOSED.

  Weeds sprout through cracks in the asphalt. The bathrooms and welcome-center building is overgrown with ivy and peppered with mold. At the far end of the parking area, the image of John’s abandoned Subaru feels suffocating.

  Emotions roil to the surface as I struggle to breathe. When Gorski parks some fifty yards away, I haul myself out of the back of her cruiser. Gorski is there a moment later holding me up when I cover a sob with my hand and slump back. My husband’s car is sitting at a shut-down rest area just ten miles from our home. This can’t be happening.

  “It’s okay,” Gorski says. “It’s going to be all right.”

  It’s what someone says when everything is falling apart. It’s what they say when nothing is going to be all right ever again and there’s nothing they can do about it. And I’m what the police are wary of — an emotionally wrecked woman making a scene. I snuff back snot and tears and steel myself. Gorski keeps an arm around me but I’m walking on my own. Screw my back. I don’t care if I’m in traction for a year. I need to be strong now.

  Walking to the car feels surreal. My life belongs to someone else and I’m watching from a distance. An unoccupied car is a prosaic thing, but here it is a sinister and lonely sight. That’s John’s car, and he’s not in it.

  The thought begins to play on a loop. That’s John’s car and he’s not in it.

  That’s John’s car and he’s not in it.

  He’s drinking. He needed to shake things up.

  He’s not who you thought he was.

  He’s somewhere else, bleeding or dead, and your children have lost their father and you have lost your life partner.

  That’s John’s car and he’s not in it.

  I always knew I was probably going to outlive him and have to spend a certain amount of time on my own, but not now. This is too soon. This is not right. This is—

  A white van comes rolling past, startling me as it drives over the stalks of witch hobble blowing in the cool breeze.

  “That’s the crime scene unit,” Gorski explains. “They’re going to have a look at everything.” She slows me down and her grip tightens. She’s not going to let me touch the car or look inside.

  “Everything is happening so fast,” I say. “The trooper found it so soon after you made your call . . .”

  “Actually a trooper working the previous shift already reported seeing it around 2 a.m. last night.”

  “Two o’clock in the morning?”

  “That’s right.”

  I think back to the interminable night before, my mind unable to shut off. Why had Melody thought I was mad at John? Her words from this morning ring in my ears: Well, what did you expect?

  Am I missing something? Aside from the occasional tension between John and me over her upbringing, and whether or not Melody thinks I pushed John into meeting with Bruce and Rainey, is there something else? Why do I feel like there is and I just can’t see it?

  It’s true that over the years there’s been tension over our daughter.
John is less authoritative, aiming to keep the peace. In some ways that’s brought them closer together and positioned me as the bad guy. But I’m no martyr; I know it’s a situation of my own making. She’s my baby and I’m both protective and firm. It was just the two of us those first years, and you can’t unscramble an egg.

  Morse is up on the uneven sidewalk in front of the Subaru talking to another trooper, the one I presume was running radar in the area and responded to the BOLO. But I want to see the blood inside. I’ll know if it’s John’s. I don’t know how I’ll know, but I’ll know.

  Gorski keeps a firm hold on me.

  “Let me look.”

  “Okay. Just . . . easy.”

  I’m ten yards from the Subaru. Five. I can see in the windows. The unknown trooper points to something. Morse nods. They both look at me as Gorski stops me from getting any closer. I’m just a yard away, reaching my hand forward. We got the deluxe model of the Subaru when we bought it, which included beige leather interior.

  “I don’t see any . . .”

  Gorski points — just a drop on the steering wheel, as if John drove the car with a cut hand or maybe a bloody nose. There’s a bit more on the seat. It’s an automatic transmission and there’s blood on the shifter, a single smear no bigger than an inch. At least there’s not much of it. At least there’s that.

  I see a notepad on the passenger seat, something written on the page facing up. I lean toward it, and I must still be reaching out unconsciously because Gorski grabs my wrist, eases me back.

  Two people get out of the white van with Forensic Services Unit written on the side. A trooper greets them and they talk in low tones. Eyes dart in my direction. Morse drifts closer. “Mrs. Gable, is this your husband’s car?”

  “Yes.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN / BIG QUESTIONS

  I blink away an image — Selma, holding up her arm, knobby finger unfurled toward me, accusing. He loves you.

  It makes me think of Marcus Gainsborough, my ex.

  I shrug Trooper Gorski’s grip and check the abandoned vehicle’s license plates. I never committed the numbers and letters to memory — who does? Maybe John, but not me. I couldn’t tell you the plates on my Toyota either. But the numbers and letters seem wrong, just the same. A bright spark of hope ignites somewhere inside me. “Wait . . . maybe this isn’t his car. Are we sure?”