When He Vanished

by T. J. Brearton

  He looks down and then glances up the walkway toward his truck. “Hey, we’re fighters, right? Take care, Jane. I’ll be back.”

  As Bruce pulls out of the driveway, my phone rings. I wave to him and answer.

  “I’ve got something we need to talk about,” Ridley says. I’m getting used to her voice in my ear by now. It’s almost like she’s become my mother, attempting to guide me down dubious paths.

  “First, your husband’s hard drive has been wiped.”

  “What does that mean? Someone tampered with it?”

  “Maybe. More likely, your husband just got rid of everything.”

  “Everything?” I imagine all that he’s been storing on his laptop: every one of his novels; personal things, like family photos and videos; paperwork from publishers; any non-fiction work he’s doing.

  “Everything,” she confirms. “I can’t find anything backed up either — no cloud. There are several attachments in his email accounts including documents from and to, I believe, his publisher.”

  “Those are John’s manuscripts. They send them back and forth by email when they’re editing.”

  “We got into his phone, but it’s been wiped, too. No contacts, no text messages, no call log.”

  I get the familiar hollow feeling. Either my husband has taken extreme measures to cover his tracks or someone has tried to scrub him from existence. “Isn’t there a way to recover the drive?”

  “Not really. If a hard disk gets wiped and just sits there, sometimes recovery works. But if you add new data, then there’s almost every chance the previous files will be permanently lost.”

  I try to follow the convoluted logic. “So is there new data on the computer?”

  “Yes. A few new things. That kind of resets the—”

  “What’s on there?”

  “What we call dummy files. Just enough new data to ensure the old data disappears completely. John knew what he was doing.”

  I wince at the comment. “Or someone else did.”

  Ridley is quiet.

  “Why would he erase everything on his computer and phone?” It’s not a question I really want an answer to.

  “Because he’s hiding something, Mrs. Gable. Or so it appears. With the state of your finances being what they are, your husband’s mysterious disappearance, the permanent deletion of data on his personal devices — it looks like John might’ve been involved in illegal activity.”

  I feel the heat rising to my face. “What would it be? I mean, what are we even talking about?”

  “Are you aware of your husband’s arrest? When he was twenty-two?”

  “His what?! No.”

  “He was arrested and charged with assault. He was in Florida.”

  “Um . . . well, John traveled a bit after college. He took a couple years off, traveled, then came back to New York to finish school. That’s when we met. He was arrested?”

  “And spent thirty days in Broward County Jail.”

  I sit down to absorb it, ignoring the protest in my lower back. “Who did he assault?”

  “Two men outside a bar in Pompano Beach. One of them was the bouncer. The bouncer pressed the charges.”

  I breathe. “Okay. But what does—”

  “He was arrested again in New York. Also assault. He stayed out of jail this time but paid a fine.”

  I obviously know John was a drinker — still is, apparently — but he never shared that he was a brawler too.

  I consider his temper, his sudden flare-ups, the way he yelled at the SUV on the road that night. We don’t argue much but there have been times he’s frightened me, punched the wall or kicked a door. Then there are the accounts of him ranting and raving on the phone while walking the back streets of town.

  “Chances are . . .” Ridley’s voice sounds far away. “He’s had more incidents like these, only they haven’t been reported.”

  “Okay . . . so how does this tie in?”

  “It’s just another piece of the puzzle.”

  But I take it further: John had an altercation with someone. They were texting or emailing and eventually it escalated to a physical confrontation where someone — the other person if it’s not John’s blood in the car — got hurt. And if John fled, maybe it’s because they were badly hurt, even dead. What if my husband wiped all proof of his correspondence, killed someone, dumped them and left for Canada?

  That theory would be chilling if it didn’t leave a gaping hole.

  “He doesn’t have any money. If something happened and John ran away to escape prosecution, he couldn’t get far.”

  “Which is why, Mrs. Gable, you can understand our need to consider that your husband was . . . well that he may have given you reason to—”

  “To hurt him? To stage something that made it look like . . . what? This is crazy.”

  Her voice gets flat and cold again. “The blood in your husband’s Subaru is not his ABO type, Jane. It’s yours. Your blood draw has tested positive for—”

  “Tramadol. My back medication.”

  “We’ve spoken to witnesses who believe you and your husband were having problems.”

  “Oh God, this can’t — these are just people in the neighborhood who—”

  “Not just people in the neighborhood. I told you we also talked to the staff at the hospital.”

  “What? And?”

  “I’ll be blunt. You have a history of violence in your family. I understand your mother had more than one abuser. Just consider how it looks from our perspective. Every other possible theory behind your husband’s disappearance requires a bit of a leap. And in most cases like this, it’s a family member or someone close who’s—”

  I hang up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE / BLOOD

  Colette stands in front of the big red door of her house, hands folded primly in front of her, brow knitted with concern. My phone has been ringing — Ridley — but I ignore it. I’d power it off, but John could call — or Bruce with a lead.

  “You sure about this, Mom?” Melody sits beside me in the front passenger seat. Russ giggles to himself in the back and adjusts his earbuds. He raises the tablet to better see the movie in the late afternoon sunlight.

  “Huh?” I’m lost, just sitting in the car and not moving.

  “I said are you sure about me going to my lesson?”

  “She’s got the extra practice scheduled for your concerto. And I think it will take your mind off things.”

  We need something normal. Our lives are spinning out of control, my thoughts like shattered mirror across a hard floor, each shard showing only a partial reflection of the person standing above it.

  “I’m still going to do it?”

  Aside from taking the kids out of school, the rest of our schedule has proceeded on automatic pilot — making meals, putting the kids to bed, even doing laundry; you just don’t think about it. This is something extra, something bigger, and part of me protests: We can’t go without John. But it would be terrible to miss it when she’s worked so hard.

  “We’re going to do it. We have to live our lives.”

  Melody studies me a moment, knowing there’s more I’m not saying. The idea that John and I have been getting “physical” has been buzzing in my head since Karen first said something. Then Ridley chimed in. At first I chalked up Melody’s reaction, blaming me, to having nowhere else to direct her emotions. But what’s that old rule? If three people tell you the same thing — Melody, Karen, Ridley — consider it’s probably true.

  There’s the blood-type match, John’s fear that he was in danger, his drinking, the sanitizing of his computer and phone. What’s more likely: that John was doing something illegal for cash, that some mystery person shows up out of nowhere and John has to confront him, or that I did something and then blocked it out?

  What if I’m as delusional as my mother?

  “Mom?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m going in.” Melody opens the door.

  “Mel .
. .” But it’s not the time or place to grill her any further about her feelings, or about what she thought she overheard me say. I’ll find a better time to bring it out of her.

  Or you’re just stalling. Afraid.

  My daughter steps out into the afternoon and I follow, steeling myself to greet Colette.

  Colette keeps her hands to herself as if I might be contagious. She doesn’t want to catch a case of missing husband or whatever else I have. She focuses on Melody. “Come on in, honey. So good to see you.”

  “Hello,” Melody says.

  “How are you doing, sweetheart?”

  “Good.”

  Melody gives me one last glance and steps inside. Colette lingers at the door and looks at me with that mixture of pity and reservation. But she’s discreet, saying nothing about John, and for that I’m grateful.

  I clear my throat. “Be back in an hour, okay? The usual.”

  She looks around me at Russ in the car. I follow her gaze and say, “We’ll have to get him started soon.”

  Colette puts on a smile that betrays her disbelief. My son taking piano lessons? Fat chance.

  * * *

  Two minutes later, we’re pulling into the hospital parking lot.

  If the blood is really mine, how is it in my husband’s car?

  One possible answer: I have blood in storage at the hospital. A lot of nurses do it. It was so long ago I forget the protocol, and it may just get mixed up into a general bank. Or, it’s been kept separately and someone took it, put drops of it in John’s car. Everything assumed so far could be wrong — maybe John was never even at the rest area. Someone drove his car there, added my blood, and left it. But why my blood? Why not John’s? Because they meant to frame me.

  I’m getting ahead of myself. The police have found a blood type that matches mine but not my actual DNA.

  Not yet, anyway.

  “Jane?” It’s Caitlin, standing in the smokers’ area, a patch of worn grass around a birch tree, one of those genie-lamp cigarette disposals listing to one side. Caitlin has an arm across her chest, the other holding out her Parliament cigarette in front of her chin. She pushes it into the disposal and walks closer.

  “Hi, Cate . . .”

  We go through it. I explain everything I know while pity fills up in her eyes and then she admits to the cops coming around — Gorski, mainly, asking questions about me.

  I search her hazel eyes. “Did anyone say anything about . . . I don’t know — I don’t even know what they would say. Well — I know that someone said I left for a while Sunday night.”

  Caitlin bites her lower lip and glances away. “I think Patti told them that. And she might have told them — I don’t know for sure it was her — that thing you had about six months ago. When you and John were fighting.”

  “That was nothing.”

  “I know it was. And I know you were just blowing off steam.”

  “What did I even do? Did I say something, or . . .?”

  But as soon as Caitlin reiterates it, I’m remembering.

  “Just that you said sometimes John could use a good ass-kicking. You were joking. I know you were joking. So did everyone else. It’s just Patti. She likes the drama. You should have seen her with that state trooper . . . you’d think she was on TV.”

  “Cate . . . is it possible someone took my blood out of storage?”

  “Um, I mean, they would have had to break in. The cooler is always locked up.”

  “It’s not mixed, though?”

  “I’m not sure. I can check for you. You want me to check? Or do you want to come in?” She leans down and smiles at Russ. “Hey, handsome.”

  Russ looks up from his tablet and blinks. When he sees her he grins and waves. “Hi, Caitlin.”

  She leans on the car door, her face a few inches from mine and I can smell the cigarette on her breath and traces of her perfume. Caitlin is young and pretty and prefers large earrings. Today’s are a bluish-silver set of faux seashells, wiggling with her head movements. She’s a good kid. She grew up in the area, never saw much of the outside world, but she’s got a toughness some people seem to have, like she can take whatever life throws at her.

  Like I used to have.

  “You know,” she says quietly, “maybe the silver lining to all of this is that John was never injured. Someone else’s blood, so . . .”

  “Maybe, yeah.”

  “And these blood-type tests. Did they have someone do it on site? Like field test it right there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Caitlin scrunches her nose. “They’re not reliable.”

  The hospital is squat and gray with blacked-out windows fronting the street. Selma could be sitting behind one of them as we speak. I lower my voice so Russ can’t hear. “What if it was John? He comes in, signs something, gets a hold of it?”

  Her eyes acquire a conspiratorial look. “Is he hiding from someone? Maybe wants it to look like he’s, you know . . . What do the police think?”

  “That he got lit up and slipped into Canada. That he left us. Or that I did something to him. They’re asking me questions. They’ve got my blood and they want my pee.”

  “Oh my God.”

  I keep looking at the dark windows. “Selma Ford said something to me the last night I was here.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said, ‘He loves you.’ She looked right at me, Cate, and she was lucid when she said it. I know how it sounds. I, of all people, know how crazy it is. I’m probably just looking for answers and ah . . .”

  Caitlin stops my ramble when she reaches into the car and touches my shoulder. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “I’m just thinking if . . . it’s so far-fetched but . . . if there was any way John came by, said something to her. Like a message for me. A warning.”

  Caitlin wears a sympathetic smile. It takes me a few seconds to realize she’s not just feeling sorry for my plight, she’s feeling sorry for me. Maybe because here I am, showing up with wild stories about my missing husband and my blood in his car while wondering aloud if the little old lady with Alzheimer’s has anything to do with it. The idea that my husband would entrust a secret to a woman with a disease-ravaged memory is the most idiotic thing I’ve come up with yet. And if anything it only reinforces the idea I’m trying to cover something up.

  This could be it. This could be rock bottom.

  We talk a little more and she has to get back to her shift. Everyone misses me (except for Patti, probably). Everyone’s pulling for me and hopes John gets back home safe and sound. Caitlin is sure it’s going to be okay; there will be a perfectly reasonable explanation. She waves goodbye before using her ID badge to slip in the side door.

  I stare at the large tinted windows before I put my car in gear and roll out of the parking lot.

  * * *

  The van parked in front of my house says News Channel 5. A reporter waits at the end of my driveway. When she sees me, she slaps her cameraman on the chest and he hefts the rig onto his shoulder. I pull in and park without making eye contact and say to Russ, “Honey we’re here. We’ve got to be quick. I’ll race you to the front door!”

  He’s old enough to use a standard seatbelt with a booster in the backseat. I lean back and click the button to free him and glance out the rear window of the car. The reporter and cameraman are staying back by the road, which is public property.

  My door feels heavy and everything moves in slow motion. I’ve never liked being in the spotlight. Russ jumps down after I open his door and barrels toward the house.

  “Mrs. Gable?”

  My raised hand is something between a wave and a don’t-come-any-closer.

  “Can we have a few quick words?”

  Just a few more steps to the door and I’m home. The spot where I tripped on the uneven brick is right in front of me.

  “Is there anything you’d like to say, Mrs. Gable? Do you think your husband has been kidnapped?”

  Do
n’t stop. Don’t talk to them.

  “Did he have any sort of mental issues you’re concerned with?”

  Russ stands on the stoop and faces the road. “Mom, who’s that? Is that TV people?”

  “Go on inside, Russ.”

  “Mom, but they’re—”

  “Russ — go inside.”

  He tries the front door. “It’s locked.”

  I dig for my keys.

  “Mrs. Gable, there is a lot of law enforcement working on this — volunteer crews are searching — are you prepared to accept the possibility your husband left of his own volition?”

  Don’t do it.

  I turn on my heel and stride toward the reporter, talking as I come. “My husband is in trouble. Whatever happened to him was not his fault, or mine. Now if you’ll—”

  They’re straining toward me, her microphone outstretched, the blank eye of the camera fixed on me, but my phone is thrumming in my pocket. I check the incoming number, turn my back quickly to the TV crew and head inside, answering as I go.

  “Ridley?”

  “I’ve spoken to FIC — to the lab. They’ve been able to move pretty quickly on this.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry that I—”

  “Jane, the blood in your husband’s Subaru, we’ve been able to eliminate you. You’re not a match.”

  I’m too stunned to speak.

  “It’s ABO-similar but the Rh type is wrong. We’re still working on the DNA, of course. But we know from the ABO typing that the blood is not John’s. And now we know from the Rh that it’s not yours either.”

  On the stoop, Russ sticks his thumbs in his ears and wiggles his fingers at the TV crew.

  Ridley says, “So your idea that the blood is from an unknown third party, we’re checking into that. We’re checking your children . . .”

  My brain doesn’t seem to be working quite efficiently enough to grasp what she’s saying. “There’s no way it’s the kids!”

  But, wildly, crazily, I’m thinking of Melody getting her period, even though it has to be impossible her menstrual blood would be in the car. Just a warped thought that passes through my mind in the absence of something definitive as I step to my front door and push Russ’s arms down. Or perhaps it’s because I don’t want to consider the much more likely scenario: that John had another person’s blood on him when he abandoned the Subaru.