Yep.
While I was still standing at the window, my phone in my hand, my father returned in Robin’s car. My heart fell with a thud. I was ashamed that my father made me so unhappy, but it was a fact.
He didn’t soften that resolve any by his nonstop bitching during lunch.
“I don’t think the cops are doing anything,” he said, loading pickles onto his bun. “They’re eating doughnuts at Krispy Kreme instead of looking for my son, and they won’t tell me what they’re planning to do.”
I knew a lot of the men and women of our local law enforcement contingent, both city and county, and most of them were hardworking and sincere. But I didn’t bother to interrupt the rant. He wouldn’t listen. I laid my napkin by my plate, my appetite having fled.
Robin interrupted him. “Phil, I understand that you’re upset about Phillip, and that you want to blame someone. But your attitude isn’t helping us cope, and we’d rather not listen to this.”
I had to stop myself from clapping.
Of course, Dad got offended. “Phillip’s my son,” he said angrily. “And he’s missing! I’m scared he’s dead! Can’t I vent to my own family?”
“Aurora is scared of those things, too,” my husband said.
And Dad said, “Are you feeling guilty, Aurora? Because you didn’t watch your brother close enough?”
There fell a dreadful silence, while my brain tried to make my father have said anything but what he’d said.
“You can have the gall to say that to me? After you made him so upset he hitchhiked across America to find a place to stay rather than remain with you?” I was literally shaking with rage. “You can spend the night here, but in the morning you’re gone. I don’t care where you stay or how you get around. I am done with you.”
Dad rose from the table and stalked back to the guest bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
I had never been so angry. I had foreseen putting up with him until this situation was resolved, despite everything. Now I didn’t have to.
“Roe?” Robin said anxiously. “Honey? How are you?”
“I can’t believe I said that,” I told him. I was stunned at my own words. “You wouldn’t believe how good it feels. But I can’t stop shaking, now.”
He smiled with relief. “You’ll relax in a minute. That’s my girl. Go get ’em.”
“If you had asked me if I would ever talk to either of my parents like that, I would have called you a numbskull.”
“You were justified.”
“I’m trying to stop a backlash of guilt,” I confessed.
“No guilt necessary,” he assured me, with a smile. “Now, can you please finish your dinner?”
The food tasted better now that my father was not at the table.
Later that afternoon, I told Robin I had to go to Tammy’s visitation at the funeral home. He quickly volunteered to plan supper and do all the dishes if he could skip going. I thought he was getting the better part of the deal, but I agreed.
I was right.
And though we waited that night, we never heard anything about Clayton Harrison coming home.
Chapter Eleven
At some point during the night, after I got back from the visitation, someone left an anonymous letter under the windshield wiper of my car. Getting an anonymous letter is not a pleasant experience.
My father was gone when Robin and I got up the next morning. Apparently, he’d called a cab and crept out of the house in the early hours of the morning, and that meant he’d left the front door unlocked. At least our nameless visitor had not tried the door handle and visited us in our sleep.
Robin was holding the letter between his thumb and forefinger as though it were a dead mouse when he came back in the house with the newspaper. He’d gone out to move his car into the carport because it was supposed to rain, and also to make sure my father had left it in good order.
“Look,” Robin said. He laid the piece of paper on the kitchen counter. I was still in my fuzzy bathrobe, trying to keep down a piece of toast and some cranberry juice.
I leaned over the sheet of white computer paper. It had crinkled in the damp air and felt moist to the touch. But the typed words were still legible.
They are still alive. Find them.
My first reaction was profane. “Why the hell didn’t this person just tell us where they are?” I said. “This is useless!”
“I guess we’d better call the police,” Robin said glumly, and soon he was talking to Detective Trumble. She came over right away; she didn’t blink at me being still in my robe and nightgown. She’d brought a plastic sleeve for the paper, which she gently waved in the air with tongs so it would be dry when she inserted it.
“Interesting,” she said. “Either a really nasty person is jerking you around, or someone connected to the disappearance has a big sense of guilt and responsibility.”
“I wish that sense had been a little more helpful and specific,” I said.
“Me, too.” She looked at the message as if she hoped to find invisible writing below the typeface.
“Maybe whoever wrote it will crack under the strain and confess,” Robin said. He was determined to be upbeat.
“That would be wonderful.” I sighed. “But I’m not going to count on it.”
“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” the detective said. “If you had a good idea who had put this on your car?”
“I sure wasn’t looking out my window,” I said. Though I did have a suspicion. But that wasn’t solid enough to tell Cathy Trumble.
“Aurora, when did your dad come into town?” Cathy Trumble asked casually.
It felt like forever ago. “Ah … three days ago?” I said.
“Is he still here? I mean, in your house?”
“No. We had some words last night, after which I told him to leave. Why?”
“Did you know that he’s in trouble in California?” Trumble said.
Stunned, Robin and I gave each other a wide-eyed look. He shook his head, and I shook mine. Neither of us had heard that. “No,” I said. “Please tell me about this.”
“He lost his job last month,” the detective said. “His employer said it’s because he’s been gambling. He was getting threatening phone calls at work, and neglecting his duties.”
“He never did that before,” I said, startled, but then I paused. What did I really know about my father’s life? I knew my mother had suffered from his infidelities; had he also had a gambling problem when he lived in Lawrenceton? “At least that I know of,” I added, with much less assurance.
“Gambling where?” Robin asked.
“Illegal games,” Detective Trumble said. She looked matter-of-fact. I realized she often had to tell people unpleasant truths. It was not a job I wanted, so I respected her for undertaking it.
“So.…” I waited for the rest of her facts. I knew there was more, or she wouldn’t have brought it up.
“So he owes a lot of money,” Trumble said. “He needs cash badly, or he’s going to be hip-deep in the worst kind of trouble.”
I said, “Wow.” That was a lot of unpleasantness to absorb. “Like, knee-breaking and stuff?”
Trumble shrugged. “The people he’s lost to, they don’t like nonpayment of debts.”
“That really happens?” Robin said, giving in to professional curiosity.
“Yep. It’s not just in the movies.” From the expression on her face, she would have liked to have told us something different.
“Are you thinking that Phillip could have been snatched to force Dad to pay up?” I was startled by this new scenario, and not a little skeptical.
“We have to consider it,” she said. “On the other hand, what loan shark would abduct a whole bunch of other kids? That just doesn’t make sense.”
From the concentration on his face, I knew that Robin was trying to construct a plot in which Phillip’s being taken would be feasible. I wanted so badly to tell Cathy Trumble about the missing Clayton and his ransom
that it made me almost sick, but when I remembered Karina Harrison’s plea, I just couldn’t do it, not without warning her. But I was teetering on the edge. I glanced at Robin, but he was still absorbed in his thoughts.
“So there are possible scenarios that would account for one or the other of the kids being taken, but not one that would account for all of them,” I said. “This is just crazy.”
Trumble nodded. “It is. But we’re working on it. Had you ever considered that Phillip might have left you voluntarily?”
“No, of course not. Why would he?”
“He left his parents’ house without telling them where he was going,” she reminded me. “Why wouldn’t he do that again?”
This was not the first time Phillip’s adventure had led someone down the wrong path. “But he had a reason to leave,” I said. “There were big problems in that household, and a lot of marital discord.” That was the nicest way I could think of to put it.
“He’s been happy here?” Trumble said. She sounded skeptical, but I thought it was a reflex.
“He was,” Robin said, unexpectedly. “He likes being in a calm household. He likes making new friends. He likes being away from the drama.”
“Did he tell you anything about his father’s problems?” the detective asked.
“Not in any detail,” Robin said, to my surprise. He caught my look.
“Sorry, Roe, Phillip asked me not to tell you this because he knew it would upset you,” Robin said. He looked a little guilty.
“Well, he was right. I’m upset.”
“He knew you already didn’t think much of your father, and he knew his mother hadn’t acted very reliable.”
“You mean when she vanished?” Trumble leaned forward. If she’d been a dog, I would have said she was on point.
“Phillip caught my father cheating on Phillip’s mother,” I said. “Phillip got so freaked out by the resultant quarrel, he felt he had to leave. He got here, and I called Betty Jo and Dad to tell them where he was. Betty Jo was so angry that a few days later she left my dad for another man … unless he was lying about that too, lest I get upset. Do you know anything about that that I don’t know, Robin?”
Robin looked at me unhappily, but he didn’t say anything besides, “No.”
We would discuss this later. For sure.
“Have you talked to Betty Jo?” Trumble asked.
“Not since I called them to tell them Phillip was here,” I said. “Before Thanksgiving.”
“Her son is living with you. Wouldn’t you expect to hear from his mother, from time to time?”
“I didn’t think anything about it until now,” I said honestly. “I figured Betty Jo just couldn’t take any more of my dad, and I don’t blame her for that. I thought maybe she was so depressed or upset that she needed some alone time. And if she’s got a new man friend, maybe she’d be preoccupied with him. It’s not like Phillip was a baby, right? And she knew he was safe with me.” Which was kind of ironic, now.
“And she hasn’t called your brother, since? Her only child?”
When you put it like that.… “Okay, so that does seem unusual,” I said. “At least, she hasn’t called him that I know of. But Phillip didn’t tell me everything.”
“Did your father ever tell you the name of the man, or where they were living?”
“Well … no.” For the first time, I wondered if my father had been telling the truth. Suddenly, Betty Jo leaving with another man didn’t seem likely.
“All right,” Trumble said. “We’ll talk to him. We’ll see.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant.
But next, I did something morally ambiguous. I’d been sitting on the news of Clayton’s supposed abduction ever since his mother had told me about it. I’d made up my mind I wouldn’t tell. And I’d already resisted temptation to tell the detective. But I’d reached the end of my rope. My brother’s life might depend on it. I gave Trumble a big clue. “You really need to go talk to Clayton’s girlfriend, Connie Bell.” I’d been thinking about Katy Bell’s face when she’d seen me in Walmart. She didn’t think we were all in this terrible situation together. She knew something, and that something could only have come from Connie.
I believed Connie Bell had left the note on my car. I did not think she’d come home right after school was out. I believed she’d stayed in the car with Clayton. I was sure she knew exactly what had happened that afternoon.
“Why?” Trumble said. She looked at me quizzically. “What does Connie Bell have to do with the situation?”
I glanced at Robin, but I couldn’t tell if his face was disapproving or not. Suddenly, it seemed clear to me that I should have spoken up earlier, that I should not have kept the secret, no matter what Karina Harrison had said. It was not only Clayton who was at risk. The more I considered it, the fishier it was that only Clayton had been held for ransom. Why not Phillip? My father might be beset by loan sharks or whatever, but I had a substantial amount of money I’d inherited, and Robin had a substantial amount that he had earned. The Finstermeyers weren’t hurting, either, and they had two children to ransom. Aubrey and Emily were on a tight budget, I was sure, but it was reasonable to suppose they would mortgage their house to redeem their daughter.
I gave her a direct look. “Didn’t Sarah Washington tell you she thought she saw Clayton’s car? Didn’t Jessamyn tell you Joss mentioned Clayton in their phone conversation? And where you see Clayton, you see Connie. Have you actually talked to Clayton? Face to face?”
“All right, I’ll play along about Connie,” Trumble said, getting up. Robin and I rose, too. “I’ll go by her house. And I’ll ask to talk to Clayton. Though the older Harrisons, the grandparents, are usually gone at Christmas. Colorado, I think. And Karina and her husband often go with them. So the boy may be there.”
“Karina says her daughter is in Savannah with her other grandmother,” I said.
Trumble looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Meaning?”
“Just saying,” I said.
When Trumble had left, there was a long silence. I wasn’t going to defend myself to Robin. I felt both justified and guilty. “I might as well have gone ahead and out-and-out told her I thought Connie knew what had happened. Rather than beat around the bush like that. It’s dumb to cling to the illusion that I haven’t spilled the ransom beans.” I felt unhappy. Trying to have things both ways almost never worked out.
“I’m not going to say you were wrong,” Robin said. “You did what you had to do. It’s not just Clayton’s safety that’s at stake, not just his parents who are desperate for an answer.” He hugged me. “No good choices, here. I wondered if you might not call the police the minute Clayton’s mom told you they’d had a ransom demand. I thought about doing it so you wouldn’t have to.”
I sagged against him. “Thanks, Robin.” It would have been devastating if he’d condemned me. And I didn’t think I could take much more devastation. “In retrospect,” I said, “it seems amazing that I didn’t question Betty Jo’s absence earlier. Did she really run away with another man? Did loan sharks take her to make my dad pay up? I just didn’t ask enough questions. Of course, I didn’t know that you knew some of this already.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Robin said, his voice muffled in my hair. “Phillip was so worried about what you would think. He knows how angry you are at your father. But Phillip still loves his dad. So I kept his secret.”
My irritation collapsed in the face of his reasons, and in the overwhelming issue of more important things. “None of this makes sense,” I said. “None of it.”
“We must be looking at it wrong.”
“I just can’t think of any fresh or new way to look at it.” It made me feel helpless and stupid.
“Here, let’s just sit.” Robin and I sat on the couch, and he put his arm around me, and I savored the peace of the moment. But my mind would not let me simply enjoy it. Instead, my thoughts ran around like a hamster on a wheel, and the repetition was surely
just as boring.
All those kids missing. Phillip, Joss, Josh, Liza, Clayton. Only a ransom demand for Clayton. The dead Tammy … whose funeral was today. We would have to go, though I hated the idea of all those eyes on me, picking at how I looked, guessing how I felt.
Running a far second behind was the revelation that my father was actually a worse man than I’d thought. I’d been giving him some slack. Lots of men were unfaithful, and though that was despicable, it was also fairly common. I could give him a grudging pass on that, since it really wasn’t any of my business, now that he wasn’t married to my mother.
Or was it? Didn’t that effect the whole family?
It had certainly impacted Phillip.
For the first time, I wondered what my life would have been like if my father had not cheated on my mother. Aida Brattle Teagarden Queensland was not going to put up with that for one minute, and she’d divorced my dad as quickly as the lawyer could file. If my dad hadn’t foreseen that, he didn’t know her at all. My mother had brought me up by herself. Her own mother had been living, then; I remembered my grandmother Brattle vividly. My father’s parents had been dead before he married my mother. Or at least, that was what he’d said. For the first time ever, I wondered if that had been the case.
“Wait a minute,” I muttered out loud. “I don’t want to make this more than it is.”
“Mmmmm?” Robin sounded abstracted.
I explained my thought train.
Robin said, “You think his whole life might be a lie? That would be on a grand scale.”
“It does seem unlikely. But if you’d asked me a few days ago, all of this would have seemed unlikely, in the extreme.”
“True,” he said. He scooted down in his seat a little, his arm still around me, and he closed his eyes. I closed mine, too, but I couldn’t relax quite enough to take a little nap. Instead, I had a waking dream, the kind where your thoughts pinwheel away and come up with strange situations. I was running on a treadmill that wouldn’t slow down. (That was easy to interpret.) I was searching for something in my bedroom, under the bed, up on a shelf in the closet … well, that one was not so difficult either.
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