than a question.
'Right. That was the first thing I did once I was out of my scrubs: I
changed clothes and walked down to the garage. When I saw the Lexus, I
thought she must have walked somewhere. I tried her cell, but I kept
getting her voice mail. Finally, around eight, I thought to look out
back for Griffey. When I saw he was gone too, I drove around the
neighborhood for what must have been an hour. I finally got so worried
I called the police.'
In the corner, Clarissa's sister snapped her cell phone shut and blew
her bangs from her eyes. 'That's it. I've called everyone,' she said,
looking up. 'Oh, sorry. I didn't realize anyone else was here.'
'From the District Attorney's office,' Townsend explained. Ms.
Kincaid, this is Clarissa's sister, Tara Carney.'
It was hard to see the resemblance. My guess is they were both pushing
forty, Tara perhaps a little harder, but they had been different kinds
of years. Clarissa was a thin frosted blonde who favored pastel suits
and high heels. Tara's dark brown pageboy framed a round face, and she
looked at ease at least physically in her dark green sweat suit and
sneakers.
She acknowledged me with a nod. 'I called everyone I can think of, and
no one's heard from her today. This just isn't like her.'
'She's never gone out for the day without telling someone?' Walker
asked.
They both shook their heads in frustration. 'Nothing like this at
all,' Townsend said. 'She often runs late at work during the week, we
both do. But she wouldn't just leave the house like this on the
weekend. With the dog, for hours? Something must be wrong.'
We asked all the other obvious questions, but Tara and Townsend had
covered the bases before dialing 911. They had knocked on doors, but
the neighbors hadn't noticed anything. Clarissa hadn't left a note.
They didn't even know what she was wearing, because when Townsend left
that morning she was still in her pajamas.
Her purse and keys were missing along with Griffey, but Townsend
doubted she was walking the dog. She always walked him in the morning,
and sometimes they walked him together after dinner if they were both
home. But she didn't take Griffey out alone after dark. Anyway, we
were talking about ten-minute potty trips, not all-night strolls.
Walker was rising from his chair. 'Finding out how she's dressed is a
priority.' He was shifting into action mode. 'If we go through some
of her things, do you think you might be able to figure out what she's
wearing?'
'You would be the one to go through your wife's belongings I corrected.
We had to keep this by the book. 'I think what Detective Walker's
suggesting is that you might be able to tell what clothes are missing
if you look at what's here.'
'Right,' Walker agreed. 'And it would help to get a detailed
description out as fast as possible.' It would also help us determine
if we were all wasting our time. Maybe Clarissa had packed a suitcase
and her dog to run off voluntarily with a new man or simply to a new
life without this one.
'You either overestimate my familiarity with clothing or underestimate
Clarissa's wardrobe. Tara, can you help? I doubt I can be of any
use.'
I suggested that we all go upstairs together while Tara looked through
Clarissa's closet. Johnson offered to stay downstairs in case anyone
knocked, but Easterbrook assured him that the house's 'smart system'
would alert us if anyone approached the door. Of course, Johnson
already knew that, so I gave him a warning look over my shoulder to
join me as I followed Townsend and Tara up the hammered-steel
staircase. No way was he sneaking around down here while the family
was upstairs, especially in a house with its own intelligence system.
The Easterbrook master suite was the size of my entire second floor, a
thousand square feet of spa-style opulence. Town-send led us through a
large sitting area, past the king-size bed, and around the back of a
partial wall that served as the bed's headboard. I couldn't help but
notice that the lip balm on the nightstand was the same brand as my
own, the paperback novel one I'd read last year.
The back of the suite contained a marble-rich bathroom adjoining a
dressing area roughly the size of Memphis. Town-send wasn't kidding
about his wife's wardrobe.
Tara started flipping through the piles of folded clothes stacked
neatly into maple cubes. The hanging items looked work-related.
After she'd gone through the top two rows, Tara blew her bangs out of
her face again. 'She tends to wear the same few things when she's
around the house, but the ones I can remember are all here. I just
don't know.'
Townsend stood in the corner of the closet, seemingly distracted by a
pair of Animal Cracker print pajamas that hung from a hook. Tara was
unfazed by the moment's poignancy, or at least she did not let it halt
her determination. She was examining rows of shoes stacked neatly on a
rack built into the side of the closet. 'Well, it looks like her
favorite black loafers are gone. Cole Haans, I think. But I can't
tell what clothes are missing; she's just got too much stuff.'
She walked over to a Nordstrom shopping bag on the floor next to the
dressing table. She pulled out a red sweater, set it on the table, and
then reached back in and removed some loose price tags and a receipt.
'These are from yesterday,' she said, looking at the receipt. 'Town,
these are Clarissas, right?'
She had to repeat the question before he responded. 'Oh, right, she
did mention something about that last night, I think.'
'Can you tell anything from the tags?' Walker asked.
'No,' Tara said. 'Well, the brand name, but then it's just those
meaningless style names and numbers.'
'Did anyone go shopping with her? We could find out what she bought
from them,' I suggested. I knew I told Johnson I'd leave the questions
to them, but I couldn't help myself.
Townsend seemed to wake up for a moment. 'I believe she went with
Susan, but '
'I'm sorry.' Walker interrupted, holding up his pen and pad. 'What's
