Missing Persons

24

The pace that Sam set for the last mile and a half of our run precluded chatting. Despite my usually rigorous bicycling regimen I was seriously winded by the conclusion of our morning jaunt. To my relief Sam was, too.

As soon as we’d come within sight of my house I’d started looking around for the car that had come down the lane a little earlier. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t in front of our house. It wasn’t in front of Adrienne’s either.

The hue of the sky told me that we’d arrived back where we’d started shortly before six. I invited Sam in for coffee. He declined. “Sherry has Simon. She’s bringing him back over early so she can get to class. I need to be home to feed him and get him off to school.”

Sherry was Sam’s ex. She was living in Northglenn, a suburb north of Denver, and attending school at Auraria. She’d sold her flower business and was studying to be an EMT. The custody arrangement that she and Sam had negotiated was so complicated that I thought it would require single-variable calculus equations to put it on paper. But the plan worked; I’d not once heard Sam complain about the convoluted logistics.

He opened the door to his old navy Cherokee. In the thin light the dried muck on the lower third of the squat body made the car appear to have a custom paint job. Almost. “How many miles you have on this thing?” I asked.

“Odometer broke at one-forty-seven-something. That was on the day that the Supreme Court decided who our president was going to be. So more than one-forty-seven. Plenty more than one-forty-seven.”

“How old is it?”

“It’s a ’90.” He climbed in. The concave driver’s seat accepted his rear end the way Lauren’s out-thrust hip supported our daughter’s cute butt. Naturally. With just the slightest trace of a smile in his eyes-it was impish, almost ironic-he said, “You know what? That makes this car the same exact age as Mallory Miller.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

He wasn’t done. “And the other girl, too. I’m sure you remember her. She was a 1990, too.”

The one who had been murdered in the dark hours overnight on another Christmas Day. The pretty little blonde whose one-time beauty-queen momma wanted her daughter to be a beauty queen, too. The one whose pathetic father had carried her lifeless body up the stairs from the basement like a spray of damaged flowers. Yes, I remembered that other girl. Too well.

“See you,” Sam said. “Thanks for the run.”

The Cherokee chugged north down the lane. Before it was out of sight the rumble of the old Dodge Power Wagon signaled that the newspaper delivery guy was heading in our direction. I watched his headlights dance in the grasses before I stepped inside and started a pot of coffee. A few minutes later I was still wet from the shower when Grace announced the beginning of her day. My sleepy wife crashed into me in the doorway as we rushed toward our daughter’s room.

I cherish morning in our home. I love the soft carelessness of my wife after she’s slept, her flesh exposed near the unbuttoned top button or two of her pajamas. I love the fragrance at the nape of my daughter’s neck after a night of sweet dreams. I love the frantic energy that the dogs bring to each and every dawn.

I adore the tang of fresh juice and the texture of bananas and the yeasty smell of toasted Great Harvest bread. I adore the first sip of hot coffee almost as much as I adore the aroma, and I relish the light that pours over the infinite plains and fills our little kitchen seconds before it jumps up and causes the crystalline formations on the Flatirons to sparkle like the facets of diamonds.

No, that day I wasn’t necessarily thrilled about running around like a madman in order to make it to my office for my 7:15 appointment downtown, but it was, I figured, all part of the package.

And all in all, it was a damn good package. I felt that way almost every morning and felt great fortune that almost every day in my home started with the unspoiled promise of fresh bliss.

A year and a half earlier, Lauren had bought me a new BMW Mini as a gift. The generous gesture was intended to snap me out of a professional funk that I’d been sliding into, and her choice of cars paid homage to an old love of mine, a classic Mini Cooper named Sadie that I’d adopted in my youth. I drove the gift Mini on nice days for over a year before I sold it. I didn’t sell it because I didn’t like it. I sold it because every time I drove it I felt as though I was taking a holiday from responsible parenting. All the data said it was a safe car for its size. The problem, though, was its size. Compared to an elephantine Ford Expedition-and way too often on Boulder’s roads that was exactly the comparison I was forced to consider-my little Mini felt like a dainty ladybug.

I’d put an ad in the paper after the previous autumn’s aspen season had peaked and ended up selling the Mini to a sophomore volleyball player from CU who had apparently convinced her parents that the little car was safe enough for her.

When I pressed the button that opened the garage door the car that was waiting to take me downtown to my office was a three-year-old, four-wheel-drive Audi wagon with 27,000 miles on it. I’d bought it from Diane’s next-door neighbor when she moved to Phoenix to trade the cold of Colorado’s winters for the heat of Arizona’s summers. The Audi was a fun car. Not as much fun as the Mini. But fun enough. It could handle all but the deepest snow, there was room in the back for both dogs, and-most important-it had more airbags than cylinders, much more sheet metal than the Mini, and, rational or not, I didn’t feel like a lunatic when I strapped Grace into the backseat.

I was only two steps away from the open garage door when I spotted a fresh set of headlights snaking down our lane.

I stopped. Four cars at my house before 7 A.M.? For us, that constituted a parade.

The approaching car had a throaty rumble, not as thumpy-thumpy as the newspaper guy’s Power Wagon, but certainly not that of a lightweight, well-mufflered, catalytic-converted Honda or Subaru either.

Despite the incipient dawn the headlights were aimed right at my eyes and they blinded me until the car was about twenty feet away. I stood still, waiting for the reveal. Finally, the driver turned the car abruptly to the left and pulled it to a stop that was short enough to cause the vehicle to slide a foot or so on the dirt and gravel.

The car was a shiny black Camaro that was much, much older than Sam’s Cherokee, but still a modern automotive wonder compared to the paper guy’s ancient Dodge truck.

Bob Brandt climbed out from behind the wheel. He didn’t kill the engine, however, and the growl of the big motor in the Camaro continued to thunder off the hillsides. Bob didn’t say “Hi,” or “Good morning,” or “Sorry to intrude,” or anything else that most people might say in similar circumstances.

I didn’t say some things, too. I didn’t say, “What are you doing here at this hour?” or, “How the hell do you know where I live?”

My home phone number wasn’t listed. My home address was a carefully guarded secret. I didn’t encourage patients to call me after hours. I certainly didn’t encourage them to drop by whenever the hell they felt like it. Whatever early-morning calm the serenity of my family in my home had afforded me evaporated like the steam from pancakes on a hot griddle.

I was feeling violated by Bob’s presence in front of my garage. But at some level I also felt grateful for another opportunity to connect with Bob about Mallory Miller.

Bob spoke first. That was fine; it was definitely his turn. “What do you think about my car?” he asked. The Camaro’s motor-had he told me once, or twice, or ten times that it was a 396?-provided a percussive accompaniment that sounded like a big sub-woofer with an electrical short.

I had no intention of chatting about cars with Bob at seven o’clock in the morning only steps from my front door and my darling daughter. “Good morning,” I said, while I told myself that Bob must have a reason-a good reason-for mounting this kind of intrusion.

Bob was dressed in his ubiquitous outfit. Chinos, long-sleeve blue dress shirt, denim jacket-the fleece-lined one. Trail runners. He appeared nervous. I’d never before seen him outside the confines of my office, though, and was more than prepared to believe that he spent much of his life appearing nervous.

“I have something…” He was looking at my Audi. “That yours?”

He sounded surprised, as though he expected someone else’s car to be in my garage. “Why did you get rid of the Mini?”

He asked as though he been wondering about it for a while and thought that he deserved an explanation. I wasn’t going to go there with him, either.

“You like this better?” he asked, perseverating on the car.

I counted to three. “Bob, you said you have something… What? Something you wanted to tell me-”

“Something to give you. Is it the turbo? That’s the turbo, isn’t it?” He was still focused on the wagon. “Fixated” might be a better word.

“I assume you came to my house because something feels urgent, Bob.” I could have just said, “Why are you here?”

Bob didn’t get my drift. He thought about my question for a few seconds before he said, “Should it?”

Seriously schizoid people relate the way people with sleep apnea breathe at night: in fits and starts. No organic rhythm. Just enough to maintain life. Sometimes not even that much. Nothing that should be natural and predictable about interacting with another human being is natural and predictable for them.

Allowing the realization to settle that Bob’s appearance at my home at dawn was undoubtedly meaningful, I forced my discomfort that he knew where I lived away from center stage and stuffed some composure into my voice. I asked, “What brings you to my home so early in the morning, Bob?”

What was I thinking? I was thinking “Mallory.”

“I have to…” he said. I thought he’d stopped himself before he completed the sentence. “I wanted to give you… what I’ve been writing. We talked about it. Remember?”

You bet I remember.

He leaned into the Camaro and came back out with an old, beat-up, dark-blue box imprinted with the logo of Kinko’s, the copy palace.

“Here it is. It’s not done,” he said.

He held it out for me. I took it. The ream-sized carton was far from full. I guessed it held fewer than a hundred pages. I was already wondering: Is this it? Is this really the reason he’s come to my home shortly after dawn? To give me part of a novel?

“Don’t read it, yet. I’ll tell you when.”

“You want me to have it, but not to read it?”

“Yes.”

I thought my question warranted a better explanation. Bob, apparently, didn’t agree. “That’s it?” I said.

“I have a long way to go. I’m still trying to get it… I want it to be right before you read it.”

“Couldn’t you have just held on to it until you decide that you would like me to read it?” Or until you see me tomorrow?

He chanced a glance at me. The tenor of his look was questioning whether I had suddenly become mentally challenged. As though it would explain everything, he said, “This is a copy. It’s not the original. I have one, too.”

He’d totally missed the point of my question. With Bob, that happened with some frequency.

“Okay,” I said. I was already putting together a list of things we’d have to discuss during the next day’s session.

“You’ll understand,” he assured me. “When I tell you it’s okay to read it, you’ll understand.”

“You’ll explain?”

“Yes. You like it?”

I raised the box up a couple of inches. “I’ll let you know. After you tell me when I should read it.”

“I meant the Camaro. It’s cherry, don’t you think?”

I gazed at the glossy black car, its pristine paint marred only by the faintest hint of Spanish Hills dust. “Sure is,” I said. “It sure is.”

“Yep,” he agreed.

I took a deep breath and asked, “Bob, have you thought more about the question I asked you last week? Whether you know something about Mallory Miller that you should share with the police?”

He kicked at the dirt. “You know the… that woman who was killed? Who died? On Broadway? The therapist, like you?”

Like me? I felt gooseflesh on my back. “Hannah Grant? A few weeks ago?”

“Her. She was Mallory’s… therapist. Mallory was afraid after she died. Really afraid. She thought… Mallory has this thing about Christmas. The guy that the neighbors saw? You know about that?”

Oh shit. “Which guy? On Christmas night? Outside? That guy?”

If Bob knew anything new about Mallory and the Christmas guy it meant that he’d seen Mallory since she disappeared.

“I was watching a movie.”

“At Doyle’s house? You were there?”

“Before Christmas she thought someone may have found out about… oh boy. And because of… that’s why… she wasn’t comfortable. No, not at all.”

“That’s why what?” There was enough pressure in my questions to launch a rocket.

Smooth, Alan. Real smooth.

“She doesn’t really like Christmas. I don’t either. She was scared that she might be-Sheesh. I can’t, I shouldn’t… It happened once, it could happen… I have to go. I don’t want you to…,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t like to be late.”

You don’t want me to what? “I’m very interested in hearing more, Bob. It will just take another moment. You came all the way out here.”

I’m sure I sounded pathetic.

“I have to go.” He opened the door and climbed into his car. The vinyl seats were so cold that they squeaked with his weight.

“Are you scared about something, too, Bob?” I asked through the glass.

He shook his head.

“Do you know anything about where Mallory is? Anything? Please tell me.”

“I’m late.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I said.

“Sure,” he said, barely loudly enough so that I could hear.

He fishtailed a little as he spun around to head out the lane. The rumble of his motor was almost enough to stifle the pounding in my ears.

She was scared. He’d said she was scared.

Was I tempted to read what Bob had written? Of course I was, right that minute. I was also certain that my temptation was part of the challenge that Bob was positing.

Why was he setting things up to tantalize me that he might know something about Mallory Miller’s fate and then keep the evidence of what he might know just out of my reach? He had taunted me already with the proposition that he knew her, was friends with her. He had just added the proposition that he knew that Mallory had seen Hannah for psychotherapy. And he’d added the tantalizing possibility that he’d been right next door in Doyle’s house on Christmas night. He’d said that Mallory was scared.

I didn’t know what Bob was up to with Mallory. Far from it. But trust-therapeutic trust between Bob and me-was on the table in the form of the manuscript in the Kinko’s box. That much was perfectly clear.

What were the odds that Bob actually knew something crucial about Mallory?

Low, really low.

Bob’s life was smoke, not fire. Heat, not light. Bob hadn’t told me anything that was really new to me. I was already aware that Mallory had seen Hannah for psychotherapy. I already knew about the man who had been loitering outside, everybody did. All Bob had really added to the equation was that Mallory was scared.

And that he’d been next door watching a movie.

Hopefully, the next day I’d learn what Bob thought Mallory was frightened about. I could wait until then.

Long before the dust had settled on the lane from the Camaro’s too-rapid departure, I’d flicked off the lid of the Kinko’s box and looked inside. The flimsy cardboard box was less than a quarter full of 8¹⁄2 11 sheets. The title page was simple, the typeface minuscule.

My Little Runaway

By R.C. Brandt

In the lower right-hand corner Bob had carefully sketched the encircled c of the copyright symbol and beside it had typed out the word “copyright” and beside that, the year.

I closed the box.