A Tap on the Window

Thirty-three

The phone on our bedside table rang at six forty-five a.m.

I was already awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about gas stations, but Donna was sound asleep next to me. She woke with a start.

“What?” she said. “What is it?”

“Hang on,” I said, rolling over and grabbing the receiver. I glanced at the display, but the ID name was blocked. “Hello?”

“I’ve called all around and no one knows where she is.”

“Who is— Is this Bert?” I said.

“Yeah,” the mayor said. “I called everyone I could think of, at least those I had numbers for, and sent e-mails to people whose addresses I had. No one’s seen Claire, no one has any idea where she might have gone. I was on the phone with Caroline for an hour after you left, and she tried to help me make a list of names. And the police showed up and had a lot of questions, too, because, you know, they had your version of events and knew Claire and Hanna had been together last night.”

“Was it Augie?”

“No, no. It was a man and woman. I can’t even remember their names.” It would have been Ramsey and Quinn. “I’m not tracking a hundred percent. I’m rattled and haven’t had any sleep. I’ve been calling people all night, waking them up, pissing them off, but I don’t care.”

“Are there some you’re still waiting to hear back from?” I asked.

“A few. So far, nothing. Roman, Annette’s son, called me around one in the morning. She asked him to.”

I couldn’t help but ask. “He didn’t wonder why his mom was getting in so late? With his dad out of town?”

“I don’t know what she told him. But he was out late, too, doing whatever he does.”

Making booze deliveries to underage drinkers, I bet. Two of his employees, Sean and Hanna, weren’t available.

“What’d he say?”

“He said, and I quote, he didn’t fuckin’ know, and he didn’t fuckin’ care. Said I should put in a call to Dennis Mullavey. But I don’t know where to find him.”

The young man I’d seen in pictures on Claire’s iPad.

“Tell me about him,” I said as Donna threw off her covers, sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes.

“Like I said, a summer romance. They were crazy about each other. A nice kid, you know? I liked him okay.”

“Where’d they meet?”

“Where does anyone meet in this town? Probably Patchett’s.”

“But Dennis isn’t from Griffon?”

“No. He got a job here for the summer. Working for a lawn service. Cutting grass, that kind of thing.”

“What’s the name of the company?”

“I don’t think I ever knew. Whenever he came by here, he’d be driving one of their trucks. It was orange.”

I could recall seeing those trucks around town, but I couldn’t think of the name painted on the side. Griffon probably had three or four landscaping companies.

“I can find that out,” I said. “So what happened between Claire and Dennis?”

“I guess it was more than just a summer job for Dennis, because he stayed on with this company into September. Most of these firms, they look after you right into the fall, raking leaves and all that. Wherever he was from, he didn’t have to go back to school. He was done with high school, I know that much.”

Donna was still sitting on the edge of the bed, listening. Sanders was talking loud enough that she was probably able to hear most of what he was saying.

“Go on,” I said.

“So one day, out of the blue, he just quits his job, breaks up with Claire, and goes back home. Broke off with her with a text or an e-mail or something. Said it wasn’t working out for him, he was sorry, but he wasn’t interested in having some long, drawn-out discussion about it. She was heartbroken. Cried for a couple of days. I told her, ‘Look, you’re young, you’ll have a hundred more boyfriends before you find the right one.’”

“Huh,” I said.

“In case you’re wondering, I didn’t try to break them up,” Sanders said defensively.

“I didn’t suggest you did.”

“You’d be surprised, this day and age, how many people took me aside, said I should talk Claire into breaking it off with him because he’s black. Said I should scare him off. Unbelievable.”

Sounded like the kind of thing Augie might say, but I knew Augie wasn’t exactly giving advice to the mayor, except maybe to take a long walk on a short pier.

“Even Caroline,” he said. “You know, my ex. I swear she’s not a racist, but she was uncomfortable with it.”

“Did she tell Claire how she felt?”

“No, she was putting it all on me, since Claire spends most of her time in Griffon. I told her I wasn’t going to do any such thing.”

“You sure she couldn’t have said something to Dennis? Did he and Claire ever go visit her mother in Toronto?”

“They might have, once, but no, I don’t think so.”

I wondered why Claire lived mostly with her father. So I asked.

“When Caroline got remarried and moved to Toronto, Claire put up a huge fuss. She wasn’t going to move there, she wasn’t going to leave her school and her friends. And honestly, I think Caroline was happy to lose that battle. She wanted to start off this new marriage without the complications of a teenage daughter at home.”

“You were okay with that?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Look, Cal — may I call you Cal?”

“Of course.”

“Cal, I owe you an apology. I misjudged you, misjudged your motives. I know now that your concern for Claire is genuine, and I understand how, given the way you were dragged into this, you felt an obligation to become involved. And I appreciate your discretion where Annette is concerned.” I was waiting for a “but.”

“But up to now, you’ve kind of been working for yourself. I’d like to make that right, and hire you, pay you for your time.”

It wasn’t the “but” I was expecting. I thought he was going to politely tell me to cease and desist, that he’d handle things from here on.

“I want you to find Claire. I mean, look, maybe she’ll call me in the next hour. Maybe she’ll be in touch before the day is out. But what if she isn’t? Then I’ll have lost a day trying to find out what’s happened to her.”

“I guess you don’t want to go to the police and report her missing,” I said.

Sanders almost chuckled. “No, I don’t think so. But I have to ask, is it going to be difficult for you to help me with this, given the animosity between you and your brother-in-law?”

“Probably,” I said. “But that’s okay. Look, I have a couple of things I was going to follow up on this morning, anyway. There are a couple of gas stations close to Iggy’s. Someone who’d been waiting around to pick Claire up might have filled up before or after. And I’ll make some calls to local landscapers, see if I can get a lead on this Dennis Mullavey character.”

For a moment I thought I’d been cut off. Sanders wasn’t saying anything.

“Bert?” I said.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was shaky. He’d broken down. He’d been crying. “Tell me you don’t think she’s ended up like Hanna.”

“I’m gonna do my best to find her.”

“I just want to know she’s okay. I have to know she’s okay.”