The Halo Effect

19

I reached out to my desk and put my hand around the plastic bottle of aspirin. Wasn’t Gil Howard Cleo’s boyfriend?

“Dr. Snow?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. And, yes, she did mention you but not by name. As far as you can tell, how long has she been missing, Mr. Beecher?”

“Six days. That’s what I told the police. They said they couldn’t do anything. Yet. I filed a missing-person report. But from the way they treated me, from the questions they asked me, I think all I accomplished was making myself a suspect.”

I popped the top of the bottle, but I didn’t shake any of the pills out. I didn’t want to distract him with the sound. I didn’t want to change the tenor of this conversation. I needed to listen hard and glean everything I could from what he said.

“A suspect? In her disappearance?” I asked. I knew they would. First and before anyone else, the police would look at those who were closest to her. But I wanted to hear how he responded to my questions. His reactions were critical to helping me understand whether or not he was, indeed, a suspect.

He laughed. And like his voice, the sound was intimate and resonant. “I’ve been in love twice in my life,” he said. “The first time when I was in college. She left me for the one man I could never compete with. And now with Cleo. And this time she made me feel that no man could compete with me. The others are just clients.”

“Did the police ask you about Cleo’s business?”

“Yes. But I didn’t exactly tell them. What would I have said when they asked me how I felt about it? How would I explain it so they would understand that, yes, I mind what she does-of course, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. But not enough to put her in harm’s way. Cleo is young. She’s lovely. And she’s magical-the way she’s untouched by it all somehow.”

I was nodding. I had felt this myself. I knew what he meant. But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to interrupt him.

“I don’t know how else to explain it,” he continued. “Cleo is only acting with those men. She becomes someone else. With me, she has this light…this delight…in things. A perspective. I’m rambling. I’m sorry. None of this is pertinent. I should know better than to go on like this. The point is that she is missing and has been for six days and I have to find her and I want to know if you can help me.”

“I’ve been worried about her, too. I’ve been hoping she’d gone on a vacation or a business trip and just forgotten to let me know.”

He laughed. A different laugh. This one was…what? Harsher? More ironic. I was listening to him with an intensity that made my head pound even harder.

Who was he? What kind of man? Was he involved in Cleo’s disappearance?

It wasn’t unheard of for the guilty party to be the one who went to the police. It was in the news every day. A wife is missing. The husband reports it. Six weeks later, he’s arrested for her murder.

But nothing Cleo had said about Caesar-or Elias, now that I knew his real name-had suggested that he had been at a breaking point with her.

“Can I see you?” he asked. “Will you talk to me? Will you help me? Between the two of us, maybe we can figure out what happened.”

“I can try. I’m not sure how much I can tell you. Everything that Cleo talked to me about is confidential. But certainly, I’ll do what I can.”

“I know you will. From everything Cleo told me about you, I’m sure that you can help me. You are very important to her. She really respects you.”

I thanked him, feeling even worse than I had before I’d picked up the phone. We made an appointment for the next day, and as soon as I hung up, I grabbed hold of the bottle of aspirin again and held it as if the medicine inside would seep into my bloodstream through the plastic.

But it wouldn’t. In order to get any relief from the pain, I was going to have to shake out two pills, put them in my mouth and swallow them.

And once I did, I could try to figure out the new piece of the puzzle. Who was the man I’d called earlier that afternoon? The one I’d assumed was Cleo’s lover? Who was Gil Howard?