Darkness My Old Friend

could see her defending herself, her children. He was always suspicious of men who accused their wives of kidnapping the children. When a woman like Paula Carr left her home and took her kids, there was generally a damn good reason. Usually that reason was her husband.

“Why did she leave, Mr. Carr?” Jones asked. “Why did she assault you?”

“Look,” said Carr, his voice going peevish and high-pitched. “I’m calling you because I want to know who you are and why you were talking to my wife.”

Jones noticed that Carr hadn’t used Paula’s name once. He’d referred to her as “my wife.” That said something to Jones about Carr, about how he viewed Paula.

“At the moment I’m not willing to discuss that with you,” said Jones. “Have you called the police to report the assault or to report your children missing? If you have, they can get in touch with me and I’ll answer any of their questions.”

Jones heard Carr take a deep breath. When he spoke again, the guy was crying. Jones really hated it when men cried. It made him extremely uncomfortable.

“Look, Mr. Cooper,” Carr said. This time his voice was soft and pleading. “My wife is not well. I don’t know what she told you, but she’s unstable, has a history of depression.” Carr paused to take a shuddering breath. “I’m afraid of what she might do-to herself, to the kids.”

Jones felt the first trickle of fear for Paula Carr and her children. Had Carr hurt them? Was this call a setup, a play to make himself look innocent when things got ugly?

“I can’t help you, Mr. Carr,” he said. “But what I will do for you is contact the police.”

“No,” Carr said quickly. “I don’t want to get her in trouble. It’s against the law, right, to leave the home with the children without your spouse’s permission?”

Or was Carr trying to set her up as unstable, as someone who had kidnapped and might harm the children, when what she was doing was fleeing an abusive marriage?

“That depends upon the circumstances,” said Jones.

There was another heavy silence on the line. Jones could hear the other man nearly panting.

“You’re a private detective, right?” Carr said. Why did everyone think he was a private detective? Jones chose not to respond.

The other man went on. “It doesn’t matter why she was talking to you. Just… can you help me find my wife? All I want is for her to come home so that we can work things out.”

Jones stayed silent, as if he were considering it. But he had no intention of helping Kevin Carr. On the other hand, he had promised to help Paula. And he was a man of his word.

“Okay, Mr. Carr. I’ll help you find her,” he said. “I will need some information from you, like her parents’ hometown, her maiden name.”

Carr got all mushy with gratitude. A moment later he was firing off the information.

“I’ll be in touch this afternoon, Mr. Carr,” said Jones when he had what he needed. “Just do me a favor until then. Stay put and wait for my call.”

“And you won’t call the police?”

“At this point I can’t see why I’d have to do that.” Maggie had accused him of being the king of noncommittal answers. It was a cop thing.

What he did first after he hung up was call Denise Smith, the receptionist at Hollows Elementary. He and Denise had known each other since they’d attended kindergarten together at the same school where she now worked. After the standard pleasantries had been exchanged, he asked her who had picked up Cameron Carr from school yesterday. It was an unusual request, probably information she wasn’t authorized to give. But Jones had found that so many people were used to him in his role as cop that they answered his questions as if they had to answer.

“Well, it’s normally his mom. But I can ask his teacher,” Denise said. “We hardly ever see the dad. I think he works in the city.” He heard her fingers clattering on a keyboard, then a pause.

“You know,” she said after a second, “I don’t need to ask. It was Paula. She stopped by the office to say Cameron was going to be out the next couple of days. They were going away.”

“How did she seem?”

“Oh, busy, rushed, like everyone these days.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“No,” she said. She drew out the syllable, as if she were thinking about it. “No. She didn’t.”

“Thanks, Denise.”

“Is everything all right?” She’d lowered her voice to a whisper. He’d always liked her. She was one of the few people in The Hollows who could be counted on to keep her mouth shut.

“I hope so,” he said. “Not a word about this, okay?”

“Of course not,” she said. “You know me better than that.”

When he hung up with Denise, every nerve ending in his body was buzzing. If he were still a cop, he’d know what to do. There was a very clear protocol to follow: have someone file a missing-persons report, access phone and banking and credit-card records, put her license-plate number in the system, hope she got pulled over or that someone found her abandoned car. But he was a civilian now; he couldn’t do any of that. He could report her missing. But he didn’t want to do that. If she had fled for good reason, he’d only be helping her husband track her down.

He put in a call to the contact at the credit bureau he’d reached out to about Carr’s ex and left a voice mail. Jack Kellerman. They’d been drinking buddies forever, meeting every couple of months in the city or here in The Hollows when Jack was back visiting his parents. Jack was always broke, so Jones always picked up the tab. Jack returned the favor by putting Jones’s requests ahead of everyone else’s or keeping them quiet when they were trying to get around a subpoena.

“I thought you were out of this game,” Jack had said when they’d spoken yesterday.

“I guess you’re never really out of it, somehow,” said Jones.

“It does get a hold on you,” Jack said. “You know you can count on me anytime.”

On the job Jack had been Jones’s most valuable contact. It was nice to know that the relationship was still there. If Jones did decide to go private (which he had not), it would make a big difference. Once you had access to someone’s credit-card charges, you could easily track that person-hotels, gas stations, tollbooths, ATMs. Everyone used plastic. If someone stopped, he was either dead, off the deep end, or trying to get lost.

Next he phoned Chuck, ostensibly to tell him about Paula Carr and the odd call from her husband.

“You think there’s reason to be concerned for her safety?” asked Chuck when he was done.

“Possibly,” said Jones.

“You want to report her missing?”

“I’d stop short of that.”

“Why?”

Jones told him about the call to Denise Smith.

“So what do you want me to do?” Chuck sounded annoyed. Overworked. Underpaid. Hassled by bosses and civilians, probably his wife, too.

“I guess I was just wondering what you think,” said Jones. This wasn’t strictly true. There was silence on the line; Chuck had stopped typing.

“If it were me,” Chuck said, “I’d call the parents. Feel them out if you’re concerned.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Jones. Jones could tell that Chuck was flattered that Jones had sought out his opinion. He was getting into it. No cop could resist a good mystery, or the idea that someone wanted to know what he thought about it.

“If she hadn’t picked up the kid,” Chuck said, “I’d be more inclined to tell you to fill out a missing-persons report, get the ball rolling in case we’re looking at foul play. I mean, if she really had assaulted him and taken the kids, why wouldn’t he have called the police and filed a report? If he was a good guy, truly concerned for the safety of his kids, no matter how much he loved his wife, he’d have filed charges last night. He’d be frantically looking-and so would we.”

“Exactly,” Jones said. “It’s suspicious.”

“Yeah, I’d call the parents,” Chuck said. “Chances are she went to them.”