This house on the water is at Lune Bay’s south end. Before Clare can lift her hand to knock, a man yanks the door open a crack and peers through at her.
“Fuck off,” he says.
“Mr. Bentley.” Clare presses the toe of her shoe to the door to prevent him from closing it. “I’m not a reporter.”
The man lowers his glasses and squints at the business card Clare offers him.
“I’m working a case that might be related to your daughter, Kendall.”
At this mention his shoulders drop, an instant grief response.
“I’ve been reading about you,” Clare continues. “Douglas Bentley. Retired from the army. Decorated. I know your wife died of an aneurysm last year. I know you’ve been advocating for more resources to be put towards your daughter’s case, lobbying the mayor, anyone who will listen. You’ve been disappointed in the work done by the police. I’m hoping I can help.”
“You’re too young to be a PI,” he says.
“Maybe,” Clare replies. “But my track record is pretty spotless. I’m good at what I do.”
It still feels disingenuous for Clare to say such a thing. I’m good at what I do. A long moment passes, Bentley breathing in and out through his nose, considering. Finally he closes the door to unlatch the chain, then opens it to let Clare in. The inside of his bungalow is not at all what Clare would have expected, the walls warm neutrals, the furniture plush and modern, the space clean and uncluttered. Clare removes her shoes and follows him to the kitchen. It too is gleaming, the entire back wall a giant picture window with a view to the ocean. Clare rests her fingertips on the glass and stares out at the vastness, the blinding blue of it.
“This is some view,” she says. “Incredible.”
“My wife was an architect. She convinced me to buy this lot in the downturn. Designed the house herself.”
“Wow.” Clare’s gaze is still fixed on the water. “She was good at what she did.”
“She loved the ocean. So did Kendall.” Douglas coughs. “Do you work alone?”
“Mostly.”
“What case are you working?” he asks.
“I’m actually searching for Malcolm Hayes. Do you know him?”
“I know who he is,” Douglas says. “How’d you get my address?”
“From Austin Lantz.”
“That dumb little fuck. I hate that little twerp, I swear.”
“He does seem quite singularly focused,” Clare says. “I feel like there’s been a failure on his part to read the facts right. His story doesn’t paint you in the most favorable light.”
“You think? He makes me out to be a fucking nutjob.”
“Well,” Clare says. “Maybe it’s better to be underestimated.”
“By whom? No one will talk to me. They won’t even let me inside the police detachment anymore.”
Clare takes a seat at the breakfast bar. Douglas paces the length of the counter, arms crossed, casting her only the odd sidelong glance. He has the look of a man torn apart by worry, by grief, his clothes baggy on a too-thin frame, his hair a shock of white against the black rims of his glasses. He holds his face in a deep-set frown.
“You do have theories, though,” Clare says. “About what happened to your daughter.”
“I’ve got suspicions. And anytime I bring them up, I seem to be pushing the wrong buttons.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Douglas yanks at a stool and takes a seat across the counter from Clare. He lifts a saltshaker and fiddles with it, turning it over in his hands, studying it to avoid eye contact.
“That label?” he says. “Conspiracy theorist? I wear it proudly, if you want the truth. My grandfather knew the first guy to push the theory that smoking causes cancer. He was a scientist in this tiny little lab going up against big corporations. He was treated like a pariah. Lost everything. But he knew he was right. And he was right, wasn’t he?”
Clare props her elbow on the counter and rests her chin in her hand, attentive. She knows not to interrupt Douglas, that letting him speak unencumbered will help him circle closer to the bull’s-eye.
“I was in the army. You know that, you read that. I was decorated. Ha. I went overseas five times. I always figured I’d be the one to die and leave my family behind. We considered that carefully, my wife and I. That’s why we had one kid. When you’re posted in the middle of some faraway desert, every single morning you open your eyes and you say this little prayer. You just want to stay alive. And you do. And you make it home and you seem okay. A few nightmares here and there but no real problems. Got myself a good desk job at the local recruitment office to ride it out.” He angles back to the window. “Then you retire. All is well. Then your kid goes missing. Then your wife dies. So what’s that expression? I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened? The bad stuff always blindsides you.”
“It does,” Clare says. “You’re right.”
With a sigh Douglas opens a drawer and places a photograph in front of Clare. It’s his daughter, Kendall, at her college graduation, flanked by two beaming parents. As she studies the photo, Douglas tells Clare the story. His daughter, Kendall Bentley, didn’t come home one night. Her phone was off, texts not going through. They filed a report, but it only hit the news once Douglas convinced a beat reporter to write a piece that was printed in the back pages of the Lune Bay newspaper. And the police? They labeled her a runaway, a young woman under too much pressure at medical school, with addiction issues, a boyfriend in all kinds of trouble with the law. You’re not missing if you’ve left on your own terms, a Lune Bay police officer is quoted as saying in one of the news stories. Clare lifts the picture. Kendall looks the perfect hybrid of her parents, tall like
