Finding Jake (8 page)

The other kids parted around Laney, barely giving her notice. One girl, Regina’s daughter, patted her on the head. Then her brother appeared. She rushed to him and Jake picked her up off her feet. I sighed. Everything was right in the world, even if Laney had a playdate.

Jake sat at the counter, doing his homework. Laney sat beside him, drawing a picture with crayons and a number 2 pencil. I watched them, unloading the dishwasher as I did so. Laney, her brow slightly furrowed, glanced on occasion at her brother, emulating his grip on the pencil.

Suddenly, he looked up.

“Hey, Dad,” he blurted out.

“Yes, son,” I responded with mock gravity.

“I did what you told me.”

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“I was nice to this kid, because you told me.”

At first, I did not understand. He stared at me while I thought, and I suddenly understood that if I didn’t get this right, I would undermine some lesson I had thought important. That is when it dawned on me—baseball.

I lifted an eyebrow. “Like Carter.”

He beamed. “Yup.”

“Well, tell me about it.”

Laney stopped drawing, listening intently as Jake began his story.

“Well, you see, this kid at school, Doug, always gets in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” I interjected.

Rachel told me I needed to learn to listen without interjection,
yet I thought asking pertinent questions displayed interest. Plus, Jake never minded.

“Like, he doesn’t always act nice to the other kids. This one time, he pushed Katie B. into the water fountain.”

“That’s not good,” I said.

He shook his head. “She was okay. And she is a little mean sometimes, too. But Doug should not have done that.”

“But you let the teacher handle it?”

“I guess. But that’s not what I’m talking about. See, the other kids really don’t like Doug. He’s . . . they call him weird. Well, today we had indoor recess.”

“Why?”

“Too muddy from the rain.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I decided I would play checkers with Doug.”

“That’s nice of you,” I said. “What did Max do?”

Max was Jake’s best buddy in the second grade. For a moment, I wondered if I should ask that question, but I wanted to make sure that Max and Jake stayed friends. I liked that kid.

“He was okay, I think. He played with Kevin and Kent.”

“Excellent. Like I said, though, I’m not telling you who to be friends with. I’m just saying that you never have to be mean to anyone, even if everyone else is.”

“That’s what I did,” he insisted.

“I know. And I’m proud of you, buddy.”

Laney leaned her head on his shoulder. “Me, too,” she added in her adorable little voice.

Jake beamed, as did I. It was one of those rare moments that I assume most stay-at-home dads have. I basked in the fleeting glory, feeling like I might actually be okay at this.

DAY ONE

The police cruiser banks a slow turn onto our street. I immediately see why. The calm, residential oasis that is our neighborhood has erupted. Layers of haunting activity radiate out from our home. Men in dark uniforms form the center as they scurry in and out of the front door like worker ants. Yellow caution tape cordons off a ragged, trapezoidal area. I cannot tell if it is a safety issue, or if it designates a crime scene.

Beyond the tape, dozens of vehicles, mostly white-and-black cruisers, form a jagged barrier. Six white news vans troll, some parked, some inching forward, looking for a crack in the defense. Women in awkwardly colorful outfits clash with the grass and trees lining our neighbors’ houses. They speak into overly large microphones as giant cameras glow green. A man in a red golf shirt spots the car in which I sit. He looks around, his expression strangely blank, and locks in on us. I watch in a detached void. Everything takes on a surreal calm, an empty veneer over a scene that my psyche cannot survive intact.

The man in the golf shirt appears within a foot of the moving car. The brightness of the fabric grasps me like a monster’s claws, pulling my soul away. I do not understand this, but I feel the tugging deep inside. Looking up at his face, I recognize him as a parent I’ve seen around school. Then the man sees me. His face transforms into a caricature of grotesque hatred.

“You killed my son!” A hand slaps the side of the car. “I’ll—”

The rest is lost as he passes out of sight. I crane my neck and see another officer from outside subduing him. I realize I have the same shirt in my closet and my vision wavers. I slump over in the seat, bringing my head down between my knees.

“Are you okay, sir?” the officer asks from the front seat.

“Yeah,” I mutter, not looking up.

The officer pauses. My vision clears but I do not lift my head. On the drive over, I have called Jake’s number at least ten more times. Each time, the voice mail picks up after barely one ring. The rational side of my brain tells me that if Jake had his phone (God knew he forgot it often enough) he’d have called me or his mom by now. At the same time, he picked up earlier, or at least someone did. The rest of my brain knows that there is nothing at all rational about this situation.

The car door opens. A hand rests on my shoulder.

“Mr. Connolly,” a man’s voice says. “I’m Detective Rose. Your wife is waiting for you.”

I don’t recall getting out of the police car, nor do I remember walking over to where Rachel sits in the wrought-iron café chair on the patio behind our garage. Instead, I rise from the fog shrouding my being and find myself sitting beside her, my elbows on the mosaic surface of the small round table between the two chairs. Neither of us speaks for some time. This nook becomes an eerie eye of the storm.

“He’s dead,” Rachel whispers.

This makes me angry. My skin burns and beads of sweat burst on my forehead.

“You don’t know that,” I hiss back at her. “He answered his phone. I think he did.”

“Did you talk to him? Did you
hear
him?”

She shakes her head. It is a motion that, in the past, frustrated me. It belies the true gravity of a situation by seeming overly accusatory. It is the type of nit-picking that only a married couple who survived child rearing can have and it fills me with guilt.

“I’m calling him.”

She dials his number. I watch. With every ounce of my soul, I pray he will answer, that Rachel will be able to get my son on the phone. I watch for any sign on her face that would tell me he answered. When I see the tears, I know we’ve failed.

“I know,” she says, dropping her phone, not looking at me.

I am unsure of what she means until I realize she is answering my original response. She is saying that she
knows
our son is dead. My teeth grind. I want to slap her. This is the first (and only) time I have felt this way. In fact, I have been known to be a judgmental prick when it comes to nongentlemanly behaviors. This reaction emboldens the guilt and my anger dissipates as quickly as it flared. I bend over and carefully pick Rachel’s phone up off the asphalt.

“Why are they here?” I ask.

I know, at least in a cerebral manner, why they are here. I think the question comes from a deeper place. It is the first time that the thought—
What did I do
—enters my mind.

Rachel does not understand. The question clearly annoys her.

“I told you on the phone. They think he shot those kids.”

“He didn’t,” I say.

It dawns on me that I have just done exactly what Rachel did to start the conversation. I state as fact something that is nothing more than a gut belief. Doubt is already creeping into the seams, but when I say that, I mean it. When I say it, I am 100 percent sure that Jake
did not shoot anyone, but isn’t that what every parent would think?

“That kid did it,” she says.

I know she means Doug.

“I think—”

She cuts me off. “No, I mean I know he did it. I heard police talking. Someone fucking told them that Jake is a friend of that—”

“They aren’t friends,” I snap.

Rachel looks at me. Only she knows what she intends with that look, but I feel accused. She must blame me for Jake being
acquainted
with Doug. She traces it all the way back to that baseball game, in fact, and what she considers my misguided parental decisions. At least, that is what I feel in the moment. In reality, I doubt I ever told her the baseball story.

“Look, I just told him to be nice to everyone.”

Rachel blinks, slowly. “What? What are you talking about?” She shakes her head. That’s when I notice the tears. Rachel is not a crier. Usually, her tears come only when she is frustrated. Seeing them now awakens me from the circuitous path of my thoughts as they rattle through my skull.

Whether my wife and I have communication issues, or bigger issues, for that matter, is irrelevant. Thoughts vanish and instinct takes over. I go to my wife, hold her, and we cry, together, for a long time.

“Mr. and Mrs. Connolly.”

An officer approaches us, his hands outstretched. He looks abashed. We both stare at him without saying anything. My throat is raw and the words are buried under the shock again.

“I can take you inside now. So you can get a few things.”

“Get a few things?” Rachel asks. “What?”

Although not crying now, I can hear it just below the surface of her words. The officer can as well.

“Have you heard anything more about Jake? Has anyone seen him?” I demand.

The officer swallows and looks away. “Detective Rose will come over when he gets a chance. He can talk about all that with you. I’m just supposed to take you inside so you can get some things.”

It dawns on me what he means.

“You won’t be leaving soon, will you?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not at liberty to say. But you might want to call family, or reserve a room somewhere.”

Rachel bounds to her feet. She looks ready to strangle the kid (because the officer can’t be more than twenty-two years old). I grab her wrist and steady her. She staggers. Under any other circumstance, such a display of vulnerability would make her uncomfortable. Years of working in the male-dominated law profession has taught her to shun such frailties. Watching her now, I see the Rachel I met decades ago, before all that, the young woman so full of smiles and wide-eyed openness. I help steady her but feel weak myself. At the same time, I notice that the officer does not flinch. He has seen this tale before.

“Let’s go inside before they say we can’t,” I whisper to her.

The officer leads us into our own home. I half-expect that they have ransacked the place, but everything looks eerily as it did that morning, except for the men and women wandering through our rooms, taking pictures and speaking in hushed tones. Attuned to the acoustics, I locate the center of activity, Jake’s room upstairs. Instantly, I remember something.

“Where’s Laney?” I blurt out.

“She’s at the Bennetts’.”

I guess I assumed Rachel would take care of her. She cannot see all this. But I hadn’t even asked to be sure my daughter is okay. Rachel does not seem to notice this, though.

“You can go up to your room, but I have to come up with you,” the officer says.

I nod but Rachel lunges up the stairs as if attempting to lose him. I let him follow her up and I bring up the rear. Our room is empty of activity and appears undisturbed. As I look at our bed, my current read still resting on the nightstand, my phone vibrates as it receives a text. I yank it out, my hope spiking.

Shocked, I check the ID but do not recognize it. I back into a corner and call the number, glancing around to see if the police notice (although not really sure why I do that). A man answers, his voice echoing as if he answered the phone in a basement.

“Simon Connolly. May I record this call?”

“What? Absolutely not! Who is this?”

“I’m Michael, author of
Blog You Later
. Can you tell me anything about your son’s—”

I hang up. Not a second later, another text hits my phone. This one announces itself as the local news affiliate and requests an interview. I jam my phone in my pocket. It vibrates once more as I stare at my bed again. Something about the sound triggers a memory. Blood rushes to my head as I lunge forward, remembering the note I found that morning.

It lies on the carpet peeking out from under the bed. I pause, amazed that the police have not seen it. With a quick glance, I notice that the officer’s attention remains on my wife. I kneel and scoop it up. As I stand, I unfold the paper and see sprawling lines of writing in Jake’s hand. The top line reads:

I only have time to read that much. I quickly crunch the paper in my hand and jam it in my front pocket. My nerves tingle, sure that if
the police see the paper it will be taken as evidence. I grab a carry-on my wife keeps stowed under the bed and focus on throwing underwear and socks into the bag, trying not to look at anything or anyone.

“What?” I hear my wife snap. “You’re going to follow me into the bathroom?”

A door slams. My thoughts trip and stumble. I am packing to leave my house, which is in the process of being searched because the police think my son shot thirteen kids today.

Outside, Detective Rose finds us before we step down off the stoop. I take him in for the first time. A man in his fifties with military-cropped hair, either very short or gray at the temples, he wears a rumpled tan suit and brown Clark’s shoes. His fingers are thick and scaly. I can’t look away as he twirls a pen.

Seeing him triggers my need to act once again. I am being shuffled forward by circumstance. What I need to be doing is searching for Jake.

“I’m going to look for my son.”

I move to step past him. He puts a hand up, stopping me. I pause.

“Would you mind if we sat down? I have a few things I want to go over with you.”

I ignore his request. “Have you found out
anything
yet?”

Rachel does not react. It is almost as if the life, or at least the fight, drained out of her in the bathroom. She walks like the soulless as she follows Rose to the same café chairs we sat at earlier. The detective offers us the seats and he stands, flipping open a notebook. I remain standing as well.