“Are they going to do an investigation?”
“Well, I’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, jeeze, Johnny, I really don’t want to get dragged into it.”
“Why would you?”
“Because of the room. They’re obviously going to ask you if he was seeing anyone. And then they’ll come here.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Of course! I’m renting a fuck pad to a woman who just killed herself, whose husband’s a big noise on the council, and whose lover has just disappeared. Not to mention I gave her those fucking pills.”
“Did anyone else know about the room?”
“No one. No one knew anything. Can you please keep me out of it? Please.”
“Okay… If it comes up I won’t say anything about the room. Okay?”
Marla sounded relieved. “Thank you, Johnny. Thanks.”
Detective Patterson turned up midmorning with a uniformed officer and a laptop. Patterson was about fifty. He was not a tall man and he was thick around the middle. He wore a dark suit and his hair was held in place with some sort of product that smelled faintly of mint.
Stan and I and the two cops went into the kitchen. Patterson put his laptop on the table and faced us with his hands slightly raised, as though he wanted to make absolutely sure we understood what he was going to say.
“All right. The news so far is that we have not found your father. Neither do we have any information about his movements last night. What one of our cars did find in the last hour, though, was a white Ford Taurus parked in the lot behind Jerry’s Gas.”
He handed me a sheet of paper that bore the logo of a car rental company. My father’s signature was at the bottom.
“Your father’s rental agreement. We’ve checked with the car people and there’s no question-the car we found is the one he rented. No one at Jerry’s knows anything about how it got there. Unfortunately they don’t have camera coverage in the lot. The car was unlocked and the key was in the ignition.”
Stan let out a small moan.
“We’ve checked it out pretty thoroughly and we haven’t found anything to indicate that he might have come to harm-no damage to the bodywork, no marks on the interior.”
For the next half hour Patterson asked about what my father did, where he worked, how long we’d lived in Oakridge, what happened to my mother… obviously compiling background to help him in his search. He typed all our answers into his laptop without looking at the keys.
“How long ago was it that your mother died?”
“Fourteen years.”
Stan was sitting beside me. Patterson was opposite us across the table and I saw him glance at my brother.
“So there were just you two boys and your father after that?”
“For a while. I went to live in London eight years ago. I only just got back.”
“Do you think your father found it difficult, working and being Mr. Mom all those years? Particularly after you left?”
“I guess.”
“Was he bitter about it, do you think?”
“I think he was… frustrated that he didn’t have the money to make it easier.”
“Mmm.” Patterson frowned and nodded to himself. “Would you call him a happy man?”
“He wasn’t suicidal, if that’s what you’re driving at.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of depression. Was he unhappy with the state of his life? Would that describe him? Was he on medication? Antidepressants?”
“No, no medication, no antidepressants. He wasn’t a happy man but he wasn’t clinically depressed, either. He was unfulfilled. He always wanted to be more successful.”
“Okay. See, where his car was found, that lot, that’s a pickup stop for the Greyhound that runs up to Burton and on to Nevada, and back the other way to San Francisco. Several people got on the San Francisco bus last night.”
“Was he one of them?”
“We don’t know. We spoke to the driver by phone. All he remembers is that out of the people who got on there were a couple of men. They weren’t together and they paid for their tickets with cash-no credit card ID. He couldn’t give a description beyond that they were white and middle-aged. We’ll e-mail him a photo, but I don’t know how much we’ll get out of him. All we know is that all the passengers went through to San Francisco, no one got off along the way. I’ll need your father’s bank details, by the way, so we can put a trace on his cards.”
Stan had been listening to all of this, rubbing his hands together as though they were hurting him. He spoke up now and his voice was angry. “My dad wouldn’t go away like that. You’re talking crazy.”
Patterson looked at him uncertainly for a moment and I knew he was trying to gauge the boundaries of Stan’s ability to understand the situation. To his credit he didn’t start speaking like a grade school teacher.
“No, you’re right. It seems unlikely. But I have to consider every possible scenario. And, unfortunately, it
“Stan’s right, though. My father isn’t that sort of man.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but it’s a fact that in many, many missing persons cases the person, I don’t know…” Patterson looked around the room as though he might find some other way of putting it, then gave up and continued, “… just kind of snaps.”
Stan had tears in his eyes. He shouted at Patterson, “My dad didn’t snap! Something happened to him!”
Patterson nodded gently. “That, again unfortunately, is also a possibility and we will absolutely follow that line of inquiry as well. Listen, Stan, I wonder if you’d go into the front room with this officer here. He has a form we need you to fill out to start an official missing persons case.”
The uniformed officer rose. After hesitating a moment Stan got up too and followed him out of the room. Patterson looked at me carefully.
“Your brother…”
“There was an accident when he was eleven. He was underwater for a long time, he suffered some damage.”
Patterson made another entry on his laptop. “Must have made it doubly difficult for your dad bringing him up.”
“I can see where you’re going, but honestly it’s impossible for me to imagine my father just running away.”
“Was he seeing anyone?”
“How do you mean?”
“How do you think I mean?”
“Well, I don’t-”
“Johnny, this is not the time to get creative. Being discreet won’t help him or us.”
“A couple of weeks ago he told me he was having an affair with Patricia Prentice. I really don’t know any more than that, my father didn’t like to talk about anything personal.”
Patterson raised his eyebrows. “The Patricia Prentice who recently committed suicide?”
I nodded.
“How long had they been seeing each other?”
“Six months, apparently.”
“Did her husband know?”
“As far as I know, no.”
Patterson winced. He asked a few more questions then had me fill out a formal missing persons report. By the time we were done Stan and the officer were back in the kitchen. Patterson packed his laptop away and shook our hands and told us someone would be in touch every day and that the minute they knew anything, we would. He stopped in front of Stan before he left and put his hand on his shoulder.
“We’re going to do everything we can to find your dad. I promise.”
