Authors: Margaret Carroll
H
is wife’s disappearance brought on a panic attack that was so intense that Porter was not sure he would survive. It was, he knew, a harbinger of the pain that was to come. The scorching heat wave didn’t help. It only intensified the air of unreality that settled over his life. He waded rather than walked, his movements slow and heavy, through air that was hot and thick like car exhaust. His muscles protested every movement. Voices were tinny like old phonograph recordings. Speaking required tremendous effort. He knew from his medical training that he was suffering classic symptoms of shock.
The shock eventually passed and would be replaced by a grief so profound that it would etch new contours on Porter’s face, squaring his eyes and settling in lines around his mouth.
When the Iranian VIP’s wife finally left that first morning, Porter sprang into action. He knew there was no time to waste. He canceled all his sessions for the remainder of that day and the next. His patients would retaliate in small ways by showing up late for their next session, manufacturing conflict with him, or simply missing their appointments altogether.
The investigator from Beltway Security Investigations was prompt as always, waiting outside Porter’s office at the designated time.
He greeted Porter with a curt nod and followed him inside. He gave the place an appraising look, his gaze lingering on the couch and Porter’s framed Ivy League diplomas. Their previous meetings had been held in Beltway’s suite of offices near McPherson Square or in a coffee shop just across the Keystone Bridge in Virginia. Places Caroline would never venture.
The PI settled into a chair, flipped open his notebook, and waited.
“My wife left.” Porter’s nostrils flared and his mouth hardened into a tight line.
“When?”
“Almost two hours ago.” Porter ignored the way the investigator’s brows rose on his forehead.
“Maybe she went shopping.”
It occurred to Porter that the man disliked him intensely. Porter shook his head, rubbing his jaw until the wiry white hairs of his beard dug into the tender flesh of his chin, inflaming skin that was already ravaged by a chronic condition that was made worse by cortisol, the hormone released in times of stress. Porter’s face felt like he’d been stung by a horde of angry bees. He cleared his throat. “She wouldn’t have done that without telling me.”
The investigator’s eyebrows hiked another notch but he said nothing. He checked his watch, his face impassive. “So, she left here at nine?”
Porter nodded. “She took the dog for its morning walk.” Porter had worked with Beltway Security Investigations for the last two years, building a portfolio, complete with photographs, of Caroline’s daily comings and goings.
“Have you tried calling her cell phone?”
“She left it here. Along with everything else, even her house keys.” Porter shook his head slowly in frustration, his shoulders collapsing.
The PI scribbled notes. “What about her wallet? Cash? Credit cards? Any large withdrawals lately?”
Porter shook his head. “I checked. Nothing.” He had positioned himself in the Eames chair at the desk during his last patient’s session so he could scan their bank accounts online. It was another break with routine, one that had garnered a nervous reaction from the Iranian politician’s wife. She had fidgeted, jumping from one subject to the next, seeking assurances from Porter that everything was okay. But she had stopped short of questioning him outright, and Porter considered this fact a testament to the years he had invested in this particular patient, building a relationship of confidence and trust. Something he had failed to establish in his own marriage. Bile rose in the back of his throat, making him gag.
“What about jewelry? Her passport?”
An icy tingle snaked across the back of Porter’s neck. He hadn’t thought to check the safe. Caroline wouldn’t have access to it. But the hairs on the back of his neck, not to mention the smug look on the PI’s face, told Porter anything was possible.
He removed the gilt-framed map of Colonial Georgetown that hung behind his desk, revealing a safe mounted in the wall. He spun the dial, whirling through a short series of numbers. Their wedding date.
The tempered steel door sprang open. Inside were several manila envelopes and a jewelry box. Porter opened the jewelry box first and stared, stunned. The platinum-mounted diamond stud earrings he had given her on
their wedding night were gone. Also missing was the strand of AA Mikimoto pearls he had given her when they first met. So was the thick eighteen-karat gold panther bracelet he had bought her on their first wedding anniversary. All gone. Other more costly items, plus a brooch that was the one and only thing Porter had from his own mother, were stored in a safe deposit box at a bank that only Porter could access.
A terrible dread settled over him, dark and bleak, unlike anything he had ever known, and he was filled with an impulse to use the revolver he kept in case of emergency and blow out his brains. Aware of the PI’s watchful gaze, he reached for the envelope containing their passports. He knew before he felt its weightlessness that it would be empty, and he was right.
Porter tossed the envelope to the back of the safe and slammed the door shut. He raked his hand once more through his beard and struggled to stay calm. When he spoke, his voice sounded brittle to his own ears. “Both passports are gone. So is her jewelry.”
The investigator nodded, his face impassive with its network of smoker’s lines, as though he had heard it all before. Porter wondered if women did this all the time. But he didn’t ask, couldn’t bear to. It would be too much of an admission. So Porter sat, trying to ignore the buzzing in his head while the investigator did his work, gathering approximate values for each item of jewelry and jotting the figures down in a worn notepad he balanced in one hand.
Porter’s mind reeled. Caroline took her passport so she could go far away. She took his so he couldn’t follow. An image came to him. Caroline, her hand wrapped tightly inside his on a damp morning in Knightsbridge
where the streets smelled of diesel. “I could live here,” she murmured, leaning in close to him on the second day of their honeymoon. His heart had swelled with tenderness. Someday they would, he’d vowed.
Porter ran through the most likely course of events. She could have guessed the combination to the safe easily enough. Choosing their wedding date had been an obvious mistake on his part. But this room was kept locked. She could have copied his key, but that still wouldn’t have gained her access. The townhouse was equipped with a state-of-the-art security system, divided into zones that could be activated only by punching codes into keypads that were mounted on walls throughout the building. Caroline knew the codes for the main entrance, the residence, and the door to the tiny garden, but not the office.
Only the cleaning woman knew that.
Porter closed his eyes. Akua, his cleaning woman of ten years, had quit without warning two weeks ago. With a face as broad and open as the African veldt where she was born, she had started out cleaning his tiny studio in Foggy Bottom and stayed with him when he purchased his luxury condo in Dupont Circle. She had earned Porter’s trust and he had rewarded her with a bonus each Christmas, including one big enough to purchase an airline ticket for her husband, whom Porter suspected was here illegally.
He gave Akua a raise after Caroline moved in with her dog, and nearly doubled her salary again when they moved to the townhouse in Georgetown, even contracting with a car service to bring her home on nights when she stayed late to clean his office. Lately, though, something had changed. Akua chatted about the weather, still
laughed at Porter’s occasional jokes. But the warmth was gone from her eyes, her face was closed against him. And then she quit, saying she needed to go to Tanzania for her sister’s funeral. There had been no funeral in Tanzania, Porter now realized.
The investigator tapped his pen on his notepad. “Any chance somebody besides your wife got at that safe?”
They both knew the answer to that.
Porter shook his head.
The PI let out a long breath. “Based on these estimates, I’d say if your wife hocked the stuff she got somewhere around forty-five hundred dollars. Give or take a few hundred.”
Less than a quarter of the jewelry’s value.
More than enough to reward Akua for the office access code.
Despair turned to rage, heating the bile in Porter’s stomach. “Excuse me,” he muttered, stumbling off to the tiny half bath he’d installed for his patients’ use.
The investigator was finishing a call when Porter returned, hollowed out and empty.
“We’re on this,” he said. “I’ll walk you through the preliminary game plan now. I’ll have something faxed over for your signature later today.”
Porter nodded wordlessly.
“We’ll start by monitoring your accounts for unusual activity.”
Porter nodded again.
“We’ll post men at Union Station, Ronald Reagan Airport, and the Greyhound terminal. We’ve got plenty of photos on file. I can assign a guy to stay outside and keep watch here in case she tries to gain access.”
Porter remembered Caroline walking at his side along
the River Thames, approaching the entrance to the Tate. “Someday, let’s rent a flat and spend a whole month,” she’d said. Happy. Hopeful for the future. And it had come to this, piecing together bits of information with a man who sifted through other people’s trash for a living. Porter shook his head in disbelief. “We need to scan the international flights,” he said dully.
“No can do.” The investigator shook his head. “Not since 9/11.”
Porter paused, considering whether there was a way around this, a way to get what he wanted. Sometimes getting what he wanted was as simple as letting silence take over and fill a room, as now.
After several beats, the PI flipped his notebook shut. “Unless you know somebody at the TSA…” He shrugged, leaned back in his chair. His body language announced he was prepared to walk away and lose Porter’s fee.
The surveillance business in Washington must be booming, Porter thought. Moistening his lips, he struggled to get his mind to focus on his options. In fact, he did know somebody with access to the nation’s database of commercial airline flights. Whether the man could be persuaded to do Porter’s bidding was another matter, one that did not involve the PI in any event. “Okay,” Porter said, settling on what he considered to be his best course of action for the moment. “Go ahead and post men at the locations you’ve suggested.”
“It’ll cost you. Sixty per hour, per man.”
Porter didn’t flinch. Beltway’s staff consisted of ex-CIA types and students studying forensics at local colleges. “Do it.”
“Okay.” The man stood to leave. “Make sure I’m your first call if she comes back.”
The guy still didn’t get it. Caroline was gone. Frustration tightened Porter’s lips into a thin line. Nodding, he extended his hand.
The investigator shook Porter’s hand and released it too quickly. “After twenty-four hours, you can file a missing persons report.” He looked away as he said this, as though he knew Porter would never do it.
On a very core level, Porter knew that all his efforts were in vain. Caroline was long gone, far away, beyond his reach. He knew it deep inside, just as in some way he had always known she would go. Maybe not always, he decided, but soon after they’d met. He’d managed the fear the only way he knew how, doing his best to control the events of their shared life, but it had come to naught. The inevitability of this realization now burned in his gut like hot coals at the bottom of a fireplace.
He busied himself in the days to come scouring train, bus, and airline schedules for connections to places she might have gone, but the list was endless. He dug through her belongings for clues but found nothing.
His mind reeled as he struggled to accept the basic fact of his existence from this moment forward. Dr. Porter Moross was a realist. He liked to think of himself in this way, and took great pride in the fact that he had dedicated his life to helping others learn to accept their reality as well. But now he learned why most patients resisted psychotherapy.
The truth was reality sucked.
He refused to comfort himself with the fantasy that his wife might reappear on their doorstep, teary-eyed
and contrite, begging to try again. Dr. Porter Moross was not one to indulge in emotional thumb sucking of any kind.
Porter gave himself over completely and fully, in private, to grieving the loss of his wife. He realized he could keep the most options open for himself by avoiding all discussion of his wife, except in such cases when he judged it to be to his advantage.
The first opportunity presented itself the first night on the day Caroline had left, during a chance encounter with his neighbors. Lindsay Crowley was a loud, crass Texan possessed of a deep-seated desire to be the center of attention. Porter had disliked her on sight, and had been disappointed that Caroline hadn’t seen her for what she was.
But now, more than anything, Porter hoped his feelings for Lindsay Crowley were not mutual.
That first night the walls threatened to close in on him and Porter stumbled outside into a heat so intense it was causing the tar seams at the edges of the sidewalk to melt. But Porter didn’t notice. Pain squeezed everything else from his mind, weighing on him like an acid fog, erasing all color from his world and rendering everything gray.
His wife had left him.
He wore his cell phone clipped to his belt. He had programmed his computer to place a call automatically if he received any e-mails from Beltway Security Investigations. He took the pager along as backup. He turned in the direction of Twenty-ninth Street Park, not as the result of any conscious choice but as a way to avoid the lights and noise of Wisconsin Avenue.
The simple act of putting one foot in front of the other required all his concentration, and he shuffled along, head down, trying to keep his panic from swallowing him alive.
“Howdy there, stranger.”
Lost in his emotions, Porter did not instantly recognize the voice. He just knew it carried a negative connotation. He hunched his shoulders deeper.