No Man's Land

13

PULLER LOOKED AT the email, deciding whether or not to open it.

It had information he needed.

But it was also information that part of him didn’t want to confront.

Shireen Kirk had not wasted any time. She must have already informed CID that she was representing John Puller Sr. And she had no doubt requested this documentation.

CID, being efficient even with a file three decades old, had promptly sent it to her. The fact that Shireen was a longtime JAG lawyer and knew pretty much everyone who mattered at all in the criminal investigative branches of the various services had surely aided her effort.

Nobody wanted to screw with Shireen Kirk, regardless of whether she still wore the uniform or not. She’d file a motion faster than you could discharge your sidearm.

After the drive from Fort Monroe, Puller sat down in a chair in his motel room and opened the file on his laptop.

The case heading for the file was daunting right off the bat.

Investigation into the disappearance of Jacqueline Puller.

He ran his finger over the letters of his mother’s full name.

Jacqueline Elizabeth Puller.

Formally correct, though he had called her nothing other than Mom for the eight years he had had her as a mother.

After that? He had rarely used the term at all.

For several years when he was growing up, people would come up to him, their features full of sadness, and tell them how bad they felt for his loss.

He had no doubt they were being sincere, but for a little boy it was way too much to deal with. And Puller had started running the other way when folks headed toward him with “that look.”

His father had not spoken of his wife from that day on. The family had just continued to exist with an enormously important piece of their world simply gone without any reason given.

Puller and his brother would speak of it sometimes, first as boys and then as men. But as the years passed and no word was ever heard about their mother, they began to talk less and less of her.

In his heart Puller felt sure that both his father and his brother believed that Jacqueline Puller had abandoned them and run off to a new and better life.

And that would be better, he thought, than his father’s having killed her.

However, she had left no note, taken none of her clothes or other possessions. She had prepared dinner for them, arranged for a babysitter, and walked out the door, never to return.

As an investigator, Puller knew that when folks planned to leave-and he had traced several who had done so-they usually left some sort of note. If there were kids and it was the mother leaving, she invariably took the kids with her. They also took a suitcase with clothes and other essentials. And they normally took the car. And they cleaned out bank accounts and maxed out ATM withdrawals.

His mother had done none of those things.

He believed she was planning to come back that night. But something had prevented her from doing so.

Or someone.

He read through the report, word by word, page by page. And then he read it twice more.

Pertinent people were questioned. Answers were received.

A few tangential leads had been run down.

And that was it.

Abject failure.

In less than two weeks.

Puller wondered if his father’s status as the husband had had anything to do with the truncated investigation. Had they wondered if Puller Sr. had been involved and just didn’t want to go there?

Perspectives about domestic abuse were different thirty years ago. Wife beaters were given time to cool off and sent back to battered women who were too scared to press charges. What was clearly illegal now was tolerated back then. A wink, a nod, a look the other way.

On an Army post three decades back Puller assumed things were different too. But to be fair, the CID back then was not aware that Puller Sr. had arrived home in time to possibly be involved in his wife’s disappearance. He had not been a suspect.

Now, technically, he was.

Puller took out a notebook and a pen.

He needed to get a name from Carol Powers. One of his mother’s friends whom he could talk to. That might lead to something else.

He needed to trace his mother’s movements on the day of her disappearance.

He needed to see if there was any truth to the rumor that she was going to leave her husband.

He needed to find out why she was dressed up that night. Was it a date? Was it a function? If so, CID had been unable to determine what it was.

He put his pen down and closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts on the last day with his mother. The face in the window. The smile. Everything seemed good. That was not the expression of a woman about to abruptly change her life by walking out on her family.

Puller opened his eyes. He had learned that not only did time heal wounds, but it also played with memories. People often rejiggered memories to match what they wanted the past to look like, rather than how it actually had been.

He took the picture out of his wallet. It showed the three Puller men all in a row. Puller was the tallest, his father next in height, and his brother, at six-two, bringing up the rear. Age and deteriorating health had robbed Puller Sr. of two inches of his stature, so he would now be last in the height pecking order.

But Puller was looking to the left of the picture. Where his mother would have been standing had she still been with them.

This was the only family picture Puller had ever carried with him. In combat overseas, on every mission he had performed on behalf of the U.S. Army. On every investigation he had carried out as a CID agent.

He had no pictures of his mother.

He had had no choice in the matter.

His father had found and destroyed them all.

Puller slowly put the photo away, closed his eyes, and refocused…on that day.

The face at the window. Him playing outside. The smile.

A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead.

Come on, John. More happened. Bobby knows. Get past whatever is in your head blocking it. See it for how it really was.

He sat there for five more minutes, straining, his eyes scrunched so tightly closed that his pupils started to feel sore.

His eyes popped open and he sat there.

The wall had held.

He couldn’t get through it.

He rose. Well, if not in his head, then with his boots on the ground.

One way or another he was going to finally get to the truth.