The Disappeared Read online

  Thirty minutes later, he slowly climbed back to the here and now, noticing first that the pile of broken cigarettes had nearly doubled. His fingers stopped their twirling and he stared momentarily at the cigarette in his hands before breaking it in half and adding it to the pile.

  Enough worry for one night.

  In the bedroom, he stripped naked, climbed under the sheets, and snuggled up next to Marian. She smelled of the summer-fresh scent of a baby, the way she always smelled. It was her fragrance. It was the first thing he had noticed about her when they had met at a photographic exhibit at the University of Arizona. It was still what he liked best about her.

  D.C. kissed her on the shoulder, then rolled over and went to sleep.

  [10]

  Something didn't feel right.

  Walt was struck by that knowledge almost immediately as he rounded the corner and first caught sight of the house. It was a suburban tract home, stucco and wood. A well-kept front yard. The siding would be in need of paint in another year or two. The house sat in the middle of the block. Walt had been here more times than he could remember, though the last time had been a good many years ago now. The place hadn't changed much. Teri had taken good care of it.

  He parked down the street, near the corner. Teri, who was sitting in front on the passenger side, sank deep into her seat and stared silently up the block at the house. She hadn't said a word on the drive over.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  It was nearly one o'clock in the morning now. Small patches of the night sky had broken through the overcast and it was getting nippy out. The boy, who was snuggled into a little ball in the back seat, had fallen asleep. Walt checked to make sure he was all right, then turned to Teri.

  “You better stay here.”

  “Why?”

  “I don't like the way it feels.”

  “You don't think they're still in the house, do you?”

  “No, it's not that. But you said something earlier about the vertical window next to the front door. Didn't you tell me they had broken that window?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a street light half-a-block up from Teri's house, on the far side. Still, a thick, secretive band of shadow had settled across the front of the house, and to Walt at least, it appeared as if the window were still intact. For a moment, though he'd never admit it to anyone, especially Teri—in fact, he was barely able to acknowledge it at all—he wondered if this might be another one of those incidents, if maybe she had let her excitement about the boy overtake her.

  He felt a sharp pang of shame, and brushed the thought away.

  “Did they break it out?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean all the way?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Nothing. I'm sorry.” Walt stared out the window at the front of the house. “I just think it might be better if you stayed here with the boy. I'll do a quick walk through, just to make sure everything's clear, then I'll come back and get you. Okay?”

  Teri nodded. “Yeah, sure. I guess.”

  “I won't be long. I promise.”

  He climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind him. He motioned for her to make sure the locks were down, then started across the street without looking back. What struck him almost immediately as odd was that all the lights in the house were off. Teri said she had grabbed the boy and left on the run. So why were the lights off? Why would these guys, whoever the hell they were, turn off the lights before they left? It didn't make any sense.

  He stopped at the top of the driveway, next to the corner of the house, long enough to listen to the night sounds. There was a gentle breeze blowing through the shrubs across the front, making harsh whispering noises. What sounded like one or two blocks over, a dog was barking at something in the night. Otherwise, everything seemed quiet, almost eerily quiet.

  The front porch was saddled with a blanket of shadows, black and blacker still. Walt found the knob, tried it, and found the door locked. He pressed his hands against the window and peered in, only distantly realizing that the window had not been broken after all. Inside, an eerie, oppressive stillness seemed to huddle in the corners.

  He tried the knob again, just in case.

  “Dandy. Just dandy.”

  Back at the car, Teri leaned across the seat and unlocked the driver's-side door for him. Walt leaned in, taking a moment to first glance at the surroundings and assure him that they were alone and in no danger.

  “Don't suppose you have a key to the front door, do you?”

  “What?”

  “The door's locked,” he said.

  “You're kidding.”

  “Wish I were.” He glanced up again at the surroundings, a precaution that had become habit over the years. Night had set a quiet peacefulness over the neighborhood. Overhead, the clouds had opened to the faint glimmer of a scattering of stars. It seemed like a place that had been sleeping for a good long time now, though he knew that was hardly the case. “You still want to come in?”

  “Of course.”

  He leaned against the car, his forehead resting against the frame just above the door. You can read a person by listening to her voice or the choice of her words, and you can read a person by the expressions that cross her face. Teri's inner strength had always impressed Walt, especially as Gabe's disappearance had lengthened from days to weeks and then from weeks to months. But he wanted to make sure that strength was still with her and that she was still with him.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “I'm sure.”

  “Good. It might help if you take me through exactly what happened, step by step.”

  “Okay.” She glanced over her shoulder at the boy, who was still sleeping soundly in the back seat. “What about him? I hate to wake him.”

  “He'll be all right. I'll lock the car.”

  After thinking about it, though, Teri decided she didn't want to chance it. If he really was Gabe, he had been gone an awfully long time, and now that he was back, she wanted to make sure she never lost him again.

  [11]

  “Try not to touch anything,” Walt said as soon as they were inside.

  At the restaurant, he had offered to stop by his place and see if he could scrounge up a pair of slippers or something for her feet. It had been a nice offer. But since they were heading back to the house anyway, Teri had told him not to worry about it. She could get something out of the closet. Standing in the front hall now, she could feel the coolness of the tile under her feet, and secretly she wished she had taken him up on his offer. Going without shoes all evening had been annoying, especially in light of the rainfall today.

  She stepped around him and felt the wall at her back as she tried to find a warm spot on the floor. Walt was transfixed on the thin, vertical window next to the entrance. As he had intimated, the window was completely intact. Teri tried to remind herself that she hadn't actually seen the window break. She had only heard the sound, the initial impact, the sharp raining down of broken glass. Naturally, her assumption had been that they had smashed the window. But maybe that hadn't been the case.

  “Teri? Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah, I heard you. Don't touch anything.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “They broke it out, Walt. I would have sworn they broke it out.”

  “I heard it, too,” the boy said, sleepy-eyed.

  “Okay,” he said. He gave the base of the door a tap with his foot. It swung lazily toward the jamb, stopping an inch or two short, effectively choking off the outside chill. Teri felt immediately warmer. “Let me take a look.”

  She had no idea what it was he was hoping to find. The window was there, fully intact. The glass—something called bottle glass, tinted green and roughly resembling the bottom of a Coke bottle—had been in style in the late Sixties and early Seventies. It wasn't something you often saw anymore.

  “Teri, can you turn on the light
for me?”

  “Sure.”

  “And... Gabe... how about that flashlight?” Walt had brought three items out of the car with him. One was the flashlight, which he had handed to the boy and told him to take good care of. The second item was a small, plastic box, which Walt was still holding in one hand. The third item, the one that alarmed Teri when she first saw it, and still alarmed her even now, was a gun. He had tucked it into a shoulder holster, not unlike the one that other man, Mitch, had shown her earlier in the evening. Only Walt wasn't wearing a jacket and the gun was plainly visible.

  Teri turned on the nearest light.

  Walt cast the beam of the flashlight across the glass of the window, up one side, down the other, experimenting with various angles. “No prints. These guys are good.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “It's a little harder with the green tint, but you can usually pick up a print if you catch it in the right light. It's not likely these guys left any prints, though. I'm sure everything was wiped down. Even if we do come across a print, odds are it won't belong to either of your friends.”

  “Who would it belong to?”

  “A technician,” Walt said. He turned off the flashlight, handed it back to the boy, and leaned against the wall. “Can you smell it?”

  “What?”

  “Come here.” He motioned her to the window and had her take a whiff. “Smell that?”

  “Yeah.” It wasn't an unpleasant smell, and she knew she had come across it before, but she wasn't sure where or when. It smelled a bit like turpentine or maybe rubbing alcohol or... no, it smelled like linseed oil. That's what it reminded her of – linseed oil. “What is it?”

  “Window putty,” he said with a grin.

  “They replaced the window.”

  “They sure as hell did.” Walt stuck his thumb into the putty, and left an amazingly detailed impression. “Just as fresh as fresh can be.”

  Suddenly it became clear what he had been saying: no prints, technicians, these guys are good. After she had escaped, they had brought in some sort of a cover-up team to make it look as if nothing had ever happened here.

  And I would have been considered a crazy woman, Teri thought numbly. No one would have ever believed me.

  “A few more hours,” Walt said. “And they just might have gotten away with it.

  [12]

  Walt had been right.

  They might have gotten away with it.

  They had done an amazing job of putting things back in order. The window had been replaced. The doors were locked. The lights were all off. The sliding glass door in the family room was back on its track, the glass replaced. And the items Teri and the boy had knocked off the desk upstairs had all been returned – though not quite in perfect order. The phone was left sitting at the front of the desk instead of at the back, where she usually kept it, and the stapler was on the wrong side. But those were little things. No one else would have noticed.

  As they toured the house, Teri couldn't help but think how lucky it was that she had gone to Walt instead of the police. If they had responded at all, which was by no means a certainty; they wouldn't have spent two minutes here before deciding it was another one of her false alarms. Where was the break-in? Why were the doors locked? The lights off? And even if they had stumbled across the fresh window putty, they would have suspected her first. She had seen that look of suspicion before. Too many times before.

  Walt spent some extra time going through the office upstairs, while Teri fixed the boy some hot chocolate in the kitchen. By the time he showed up downstairs again, they were sitting at the counter, the boy sipping his drink, Teri fascinated by how pristine everything appeared after what had gone on here, and wondering what else might be in store for them.

  “Anything?” she asked as he leaned against the corner.

  “You've got the cleanest windows in the neighborhood,” he said flatly. “Probably the cleanest windows in the whole damn state.”

  “No prints, huh?”

  “Well, I didn't really expect to find any.”

  “Want some hot chocolate?”

  “No.” He shook his head and seemed to follow his thoughts off into a wonderland of their own. Always thinking, this man. Always trying to catch an angle.

  “So what now?”

  “I think you better stay with me tonight.”

  “Why? You think they'll be back?”

  “I don't know. I wouldn't bet against it.”

  Teri sighed and thought back through everything that had happened tonight. She wouldn't want to bet against it, either. When she closed her eyes, she still had a vivid picture of Mitch standing over her, the scar over his eye a reminder of the man beneath the suit and the polite manner of speech. She didn't want to bet against anything he might do. It was too dangerous. Simple as that.

  She sighed again, and this time glanced down at the boy drinking his chocolate milk. “Some adventure we've got ourselves into, huh?”

  “Why are they bothering us?”

  “I don't know.”

  “That's something we're going to have to talk about,” Walt said, making it clear that he preferred to talk about it sometime outside of the boy's presence.

  “Sure.” She went to the nearest kitchen drawer, pulled out a paper napkin, and set it on the counter in front of the boy, who had distinguished himself with a thin, rather attractive chocolate mustache. “Use it.”

  “Or lose it,” he giggled.

  “No. You use it or I'll use it for you.”

  He giggled some more.

  “I see you found yourself some shoes,” Walt said.

  “Yeah.” She glanced down at her feet. She was wearing a pair of sandals, which tended to go easy on her feet after a long day of standing at the post office. They felt especially good after having gone barefoot half the night. “And guess what else I came across?”

  “What?”

  “The shoe I lost.”

  “The one he pulled off your foot?”

  “Yeah. It was back in the closet. Not quite where it was supposed to be, but close enough considering it was guess work.”

  “Why don't you show me.”

  Apparently what he was hoping was that he might find a print on the back of the shoe, where the man had tried to hold on. The shoe was a vinyl pump, the first lucky break. Walt said the vinyl should hold a good print if they hadn't cleaned it off. And that turned out to be the second lucky break.

  She watched him go through the process of using the flashlight at various angles again. Then, for the first time, he opened the small rectangular box he had been carrying with him. He took out a brush, twisted it in the air until the bristles fluffed, and dipped it into a small vial of powder. He brushed both sides of the shoe, near the back, and gradually two sets of prints became visible.

  “Got 'em,” she said optimistically.

  “Well, we've got something.”

  Walt covered the print on the left side with tape, pressed down meticulously, then pulled the tape up in a single, smooth motion. To Teri's eye it looked like a beautiful print. He transferred it to a 3x5 card, then took two other prints on the other side. There were three altogether, though two of the prints appeared to be smudged and run together.

  “Well, at least it's something.”

  He didn't hold out much hope that anything would come of them. Chances were the prints belonged to a technician. Or if not a technician, then they might even be her own prints. Just to compare, he took samples from her and the boy.

  “Guess that's about all we can do here tonight,” he said, closing up the kit. “You and the kid might want to grab a few things to bring along since we don't know where this thing is going. For now, at least, you better stay with me.”

  For now? Teri thought.

  How long did he think this was going to go on?

  [13]

  Walt cleared the stack of newspapers off the kitchen table and piled them in the corner of the living room, out of the
way. “Sorry for the mess. A bachelor's life, you know.”

  “Actually, I half-expected to be wading through clothes on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink. This is nicer than I keep my place.”

  “Sundays are my cleaning days. By the end of the week, it'll take a forklift to get around in here.”

  It was nearly three o'clock in the morning now. Condensation had formed in the corners of the living room window, where the cold was hovering in wait. Walt had set up an air mattress and a sleeping bag in the other room for the boy, who had almost immediately fallen off to sleep. Teri wasn't sure she'd ever be able to sleep again. Whenever she closed her eyes, she found herself staring at that ugly jagged scar again. It gave her the creeps.

  She sat in the nearest chair.

  “Can I get you anything?” Walt asked. He seemed ill at ease, having his place invaded like this, though Teri suspected he wouldn't have had it any other way. “Coffee? Diet Coke? Water? Anything?”

  “No, I'm fine. Really.”

  “You're sure?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “All right.” He sat down across the table from her. “Quite a day, huh?”

  “I'm not keeping you up, am I?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Because if I am—”

  “You aren't. Honest.”

  “Well, it's really nice of you to put us up.”

  “Glad to do it.” He pulled the fingerprint cards out of his shirt pocket and tossed them on the table. Time to get down to business, Teri supposed. “So what can you tell me about tonight?”

  “Not much.”

  “How about the boy? What time did he show up?”

  “A little after eight, I think.”

  “And the woman you said he was with – what was her name?”

  “Miss Churchill.”

  Walt climbed out of his chair and rummaged around in a drawer in the kitchen until he came up with a pencil and a pad. “That's the way she introduced herself? As Miss Churchill?”

  “Actually, she didn't introduce herself at all. I got her name from Gabe.”

  “From the boy?”