Jared nodded. “They and I both. Besides, I already told you she was involved with someone. You mean she might’ve been kidnapped unrelated to the affair she was having? As a coincidence?” He tried not to scoff.
“No, that’s not what I mean. But maybe she didn’t want to go, and the lover forced her hand. Maybe he threatened her life, or her kids, or you, maybe he told her he would tell you unless she went with him? He could’ve blackmailed her into going.”
“Is that likely?”
“Why not? You say she was taking money out of your account? Maybe she was giving it to him.”
“He was Jag salesman of the month for a year straight. He got a whole Jag out of it. Sold it without driving it once, and pocketed seventy grand. He didn’t need her money.”
“Okay.” Kelly shrugged. “All’s I’m saying is, we don’t know what happened.”
“She could’ve gone with him out of her own free will,” Jared said quietly. “She could’ve
wanted
to go. She could’ve gone with relief, with joy.”
The investigator looked skeptical, as if he didn’t believe
that could ever happen. Only coercion and violence made any sense to him. “She would’ve written, in that case,” said Kelly. “She would’ve come back, called, petitioned you for a divorce. Her silence is abnormal.”
“What do
you
think happened?”
“She’s likely dead,” Kelly stated without preamble. “She’d be back otherwise. Perhaps he was murderously jealous.”
“For over a year she got together with him and then came home to me. Does that seem like an act of Othello to you?”
“Who? Oh, yeah. Uh, guess not. But I don’t rule anything out in a strange case like this. Its very oddity is the reason of a good chance for all kinds of shenanigans. Maybe she wanted to come back and he got so furious, he killed her. And then killed himself. You’re waiting on your wife when you should be mourning her and moving on. You’re a good-looking guy in the prime of his life, making money, suddenly unattached. I may be spitting in the wind here, but I bet there are one or two women out there who might, just might, find that combination appealing.”
“You think?” Jared said evenly.
“Something tells me.”
“Hmm. Well, I’ll be on the lookout for that, but in the meantime…”
“You see?” Kelly exclaimed. “Her being dead is really the best thing that could happen to you! Then you can tell your kids that Mommy wanted to come back, but has bought the farm and can’t.”
Jared agreed closure of some kind would be nice, even though he didn’t share Kelly’s enthusiasm for it.
“Exactly. I definitely see it from your point of view,” said Kelly. “But because you want to pay me good money, I also have to see it from a point of view that’s not yours.” Now it was Kelly’s turn to hesitate. “There’s also an admittedly small
but real possibility that I might find her. And if I find her, there’s a real possibility that she ain’t coming back, and I don’t know how to say this tactfully…”
“Not coming back because she doesn’t want to?” finished Jared.
“Precisely!”
“Okay. But don’t you think I need to know that?”
“I don’t know,” Kelly said, reaching across the desk and extending his hand. “Do you? Think about it and give me a call.”
They shook hands. “I’m ready right now,” Jared said.
“Think about it and give me a call, Mr. Stark. You’ll thank me later.”
It was just bravado. Kelly was right. Jared didn’t want to know. He couldn’t live his life not knowing, but he didn’t want to know. Perhaps in his body language, the private investigator, who, after all, got paid to see things about people, divined Jared’s paralysis.
After days of thinking about it, or rather, thinking about everything else but that, Jared called Kelly back. “I want to do this,” he said.
“Mr. Stark. I don’t think you do. Ask yourself the most important question about this, as about everything: what do you hope to achieve? If she’s happy as a clam, will that be good? What will you tell your children? And what will
you
do? See, I don’t want to get involved in anything that might later on make me an accessory to a felony, Mr. Stark. I don’t want no Armani legal suit proving in the court of law that I had had every indication that you would go and off her, and yet I still went and found her for you. I get twenty-five years for conspiracy to commit murder.”
“You’re just shaking me down for more money,” said Jared.
“Fine. Twenty thousand if you find her. And I’ll visit you in Sing-Sing once a month.”
“That twenty grand ain’t going to do me much good there,” said Kelly.
They met, exchanged information, and money.
Jared gave him Finney’s number, pictures of Larissa, the missing persons police report, her driver license number, her social security number, her passport number.
“Good-looking broad,” Kelly said. “Looks happy in the pictures.”
“Yes, well. Perhaps we’d do better to look at the things which are not seen.”
And then Jared sat and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Two weeks went by. He couldn’t wait anymore. After placing a call to Kelly, Jared had to wait another thirty-six hours before the call was returned.
“I’m working on it,” Kelly said. “I was away on business.”
Jared couldn’t tell from the sound of Kelly’s voice whether he conveyed optimism, pessimism. Whether there was hope, whether he was grim. Through the receiver, Kelly sounded as if he’d never actually talked to Jared before.
“Do you have anything to report?”
“Couple of things. I’d rather not say yet. Not sure they’re helpful.”
“Anything is helpful. Anything you got.”
“Okay then. Personally, I don’t think she’s in this country.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Either that or she’s dead.”
Now Kelly sounded chipper!
“What makes you think,” Jared asked slowly, “she’s not in this country?”
“Social’s not been touched. Driver’s license neither.”
“Finney said she could’ve gotten herself a new driver’s license.”
“Yes. But unlike your little friend Finney, who didn’t do his job, I called the DMV in every state. She hasn’t.”
“In
every
state?” Jared was impressed.
“Even Alaska and Hawaii. And if she was working somewhere, her social security taxes would be taken out. And they haven’t been. So how is she making money?”
“Maybe she’s waitressing.”
“You been at Prudential too long, Mister Financial Officer. Waitresses also pay into their social security. They get two bucks an hour, and six cents on the dollar goes to the social. There hasn’t been even twelve cents added to your wife’s retirement account. Believe me. She’s not working. How long can she live on the money she took? By now surely it’s all gone.”
“She could’ve changed her name.” Jared was thoughtful. “You should look into Hawaii.”
“Why? Because he was from Hawaii? But Finney already checked it out a year ago. He found nothing there. I’ll check again if you want.”
“Yes, check again.” But there were other things that were bothering Jared. “Can you keep in touch with me? I need a weekly report on what’s happening. Even if it’s nothing, I need it. Five-minute phone call is all I ask. Agree to call me every Thursday evening, or afternoon.”
“Weekly? I’m not in my office weekly. I’m heading to San Francisco tomorrow.”
“For me or for…”
“Partly for you, yes.”
“You think she’s in San Francisco?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I was headin’ there. I gotta check some stuff out. Hang tight. I’ll call you. This is the thing, Mr. Stark. You waited too long to call me. Her trail has run cold. People don’t remember who they saw or spoke to a year ago. I’m havin’ a hard time jogging people’s memories.”
“I understand. We have to work with what we’ve got.”
“No kidding.”
“Do you remember I told you he had a Ducati bike? That’s not something you forget. Apparently he loved that bike. He wouldn’t have sold it. He’d have kept it.”
“True.”
“I’m saying people might remember the bike even if they won’t remember much else.”
“What people?”
“I don’t know.” Jared stammered. “Whoever you’re talking to.”
“Right now I’m talkin’ to you, and you know nothing. You know he drove a Ducati. Does
that
bring you any closer to where she is? Do you know how many Ducati Sportclassics were sold in this country last year alone? Forty-seven thousand. Twenty-one thousand in his color.”
“Oh.”
“Exactly. Like I was saying. Hang tight. I’ll call you Thursday.”
“They got on a ship!” Kelly said when he called the following Thursday. “I got a sailor to remember and another midshipman to corroborate. They purchased a trans-Pacific fare from San Francisco to Wailea.”
“They went to Hawaii?”
“Looks like it.”
“Why wouldn’t they fly?”
“A thousand reasons. Easier to get aboard a ship with no questions asked. Only the driver is asked for a license and sometimes not even the driver. In his case, he wasn’t asked, because there’s no record of him getting on the ship. No record of her at all. But two people who are still manning the ticket office to the cruise lines remembered the bike, and vaguely remembered the guy on it. They remembered him, they said, because he looked so damn young. They asked for his license to check his age.”
“When was this?”
“Last summer sometime.”
“Huh. So now what?”
“Now? Well, clearly and unbelievably I’m going to have to go to Maui.” Kelly chuckled into the phone. “I’m a little excited. I’ve never been to Hawaii.”
“It’s not a vacation, Kelly.”
“I know. Still, you can’t help but notice the scenery even when you’re working.”
Jared wouldn’t know about that. He hadn’t noticed the scenery since last summer.
3
The Runaway Child
T
here was silence from the fiftieth state. The Thursday phone calls never happened. Jared kept calling Kelly’s office, but since Kelly didn’t have an assistant, it was difficult to get much information. He left one message, two, a dozen. After a month he stopped calling. Michelangelo had joined Little League, Asher was pitching with the big boys, Emily was practicing cello three hours a day for the state solo auditions, and playing all out for another volleyball state championship. Jared found it difficult to work past 3:30. Which was inconvenient to the CEO of an investment conglomerate, since the stock market didn’t close till four. To compensate Jared came in earlier. He got Maria to agree to take Michelangelo to school, just so he could go to the Little League practices during the week and drive Emily to her games on Friday night, and be there for them even in his diminished capacity after school. Every day was filled to the brim with life while he waited and waited.
The trees morphed from fluttering green to deep yellow by the time he heard from Glenn Kelly. There was Lillypond and a two-week trip to Florida to visit his ailing parents, and a week’s adventure drive to the Keys. Maria went back to
Slovakia for the summer. School began again. Fourteen weeks had gone by since Jared had heard a word.
At 4 p.m. on a Thursday, in October during Halloween season, Jared’s phone rang. It was Kelly.
“Oh my God.”
“Sorry, mate, I know it’s been a long time. I told you to hang tight. Did you listen?”
“Where
are
you? The connection is terrible.” Jared could barely hear him.
“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that.”
“Where are you?”
“Australia.”
“Australia! In the name of God, why?”
“Why? Why? Because I got credible information that’s where they went.”
“To
Australia
?” Jared was incredulous. “What for?”
“That part I don’t know.”
“Where are they now?”
“I don’t know that either. But I had tracked down one of his sisters finally, now living not in Wailea, where he’s from, but Honolulu, and she told me that she remembered them talking about sailing to Australia. Can you imagine that?”
If Jared didn’t know any better, he could’ve sworn Kelly sounded impressed by their chutzpah. A sailing voyage!
“Kelly, I can barely understand a word you’re saying. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothin’, mate. Absolutely nothin’. But look, problem is, Australia’s a big country, with twenty million people sparsely spread around. It’s taking me a while to locate just two. I’m not optimistic. I’ve been—”
“Gone over three months and you haven’t found them!”
“All righty, no need to shout.”
“You’re not on my retainer for three months of vacationing in Hawaii and Australia, Kelly.”
“I never said I was. Will a month be fair? You already gave me two weeks up front. Another two weeks and we’ll call it even?”
“Call it even on what? What did you find out?”
“The sister thought they wanted to start their own business. Some kind of bushwalking tour. So I’ve been keepin’ away from big cities. That narrows it down a bit, but the red center is one big hunk of space.”
“You haven’t found them…” Jared became utterly disheartened.
“I haven’t given up, despite the challenges. I’ve been up and down the eastern seaboard, I’ve been in the bush, and way up near Cairns in the bamboo forest. What a country, by the way. You wouldn’t believe it.
What
a country! Makes me not want to go back.”
“Makes you not want to go back where? To work?”
“Yeah. Who wants to work when there are things that simply take your breath away.”
“Well, I’m sure. And I do appreciate the tourist report. When are you actually coming back?”
There was a five-second silence. Jared thought Kelly hadn’t heard him, the connection was that bad.
“Look, mate,” said Kelly. “I gotta level with you. I’m not coming back.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“I’m going to rummage around the country, see if I can find them along my own travels. There are many places I haven’t seen. Do you know that I’d never been out of the country before this?”
“That’s swell, Kelly. But what’s your plan? To be on my permanent retainer?”
“No. Just Western Union me the money you owe me until today. Forget the bonus.”