Authors: Lisa Lutz
T
he following night Rae screened her debut feature for my parents. She passed around popcorn and invited Uncle Ray to join them in the living room. My sister popped the homemade DVD into the player and took a formal stance in front of her audience. She introduced the film by describing a suspicious telephone conversation she overheard me have with Daniel—a conversation on the topic of making a drug buy. She explained that she hid in the back of my car under a blanket and once we were inside the “crack house,” she found an angle through the window and started filming.
Rae pressed play and sat down on the floor in front of the coffee table. She grabbed the popcorn from Uncle Ray and told him to stop hogging it.
My mother sat frozen, not even a breath passed her lips, as she watched Rae’s silent film on the twenty-inch screen. She watched me lean into the frame, slice the white powder with a razor blade, pick up a straw, and…
“That is Izzy snorting cocaine,” Rae said as if she were narrating to a room full of blind people.
My mother’s knee-jerk reaction was to protect her younger daughter from witnessing such a transgression.
“Rae, I don’t want you watching this,” said my mom.
“But I recorded it,” my sister replied.
The fake drug deal was purely a retaliatory measure against my parents’ room-bugging. Unfortunately, I failed to anticipate their response. Immediately after Rae’s film night, my parents commenced a twenty-four-hour surveillance on me that did not let up until I became the last thing on their minds.
Stone’s calculated detachment gives way to visible scorn. His jaw clenches as he catches up on his notes.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I say.
Stone takes a sip of coffee and avoids eye contact.
“I don’t believe you do.”
It’s true. I can read almost anyone, but not him, and it unnerves me. I need to assert some element of control.
“Are you married, Inspector?”
“No.”
“Divorced?”
“I’m not the subject of this investigation.”
“Why did your wife leave you?”
“That trick is older than you, Isabel.”
“So she didn’t leave you?”
“Isabel, please stop,” Stone says. The sincerity of the request takes me aback, and I do. I stop. But then I ask the question that has been in the back of my mind since we started this interview.
“What did they tell you about me?”
“Does it matter now?”
“Yes. It does.”
Stone, consulting his notes, says, “I know you used to knock over trash cans with your car on garbage night. I know about the drugs, I know about the drinking, I know that you can’t keep a boyfriend, I know about the Neighborhood Watch meetings in your honor, I know about a string of unproven cases of vandalism that all occurred during your school years. Shall I go on?”
“You got anything good in there?”
“I hear you’re much better now,” he says, doing his best to avoid a condescending tone.
“Do you think this is my fault?”
“How could I? I don’t even know what’s happened yet.”
A
s it was, I didn’t pull the name Jerome Franklin out of thin air. According to Audrey Gale, one of the three people who signed Andrew’s yearbook, he was the main drug source for most of the Marin high school students. The real Jerome Franklin’s life of crime ended in high school. He is currently a financial advisor, living in San Diego, California. Once I explained the purpose of my call to Jerome and further explained that I was uninterested in exposing his youthful indiscretions (as he called them), he was cooperative, although he provided no more insight into Andrew Snow’s life than anyone else: Andrew liked smoking weed. That’s all he could tell me.
Since I could find no leads beyond the Snow family and Sheriff Larson, I refocused my efforts on that particular cast of suspicious characters. It was time to visit Hank Farber, Larson’s uncle and only alibi for the night of Andrew’s disappearance. I phoned Hank (never Henry) and arranged a meeting for the following day.
My mother tailed me halfway across the city until I lost her by making an illegal U-turn that I knew she wouldn’t duplicate.
I knocked on apartment 4C of the aging Tenderloin building at exactly 10:45
A.M
. The man who answered the door was a slightly more pickled, R-rated version of your average grandpa type. The kind you see at racetracks and strip clubs chain-smoking cigars. Although cigarettes were Hank’s poison—among other things—I suspect.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” Hank said after he opened the door and looked me up and down. My grimy host then guided me to a thirty-year-old plaid couch that could exfoliate your skin through your clothes. He sat down across from me, lit a cigarette, and smiled with anticipation, as if being interviewed about a missing adolescent was kind of like the Q&A session of the Miss America pageant.
“Mr. Farber…”
“Call me Hank,” Mr. Farber said with a wink.
“Do you remember the weekend of July 18, 1995?”
“Boy, that was a while ago.”
“Yes, it was. Do you remember that weekend?”
“Can you give me a refresher?” Hank asked.
“Yes. That was the weekend that Andrew Snow went missing.”
“Right,” said Hank. “I remember. That was very sad.”
“Do you recall what you were doing that weekend?”
“I think my nephew Greg was visiting me. Must have been about seventeen at the time.”
“Do you remember anything unusual about the visit?”
“No. Greg went to a concert.”
“Do you remember what concert?”
“No. I don’t keep up with what the kids are listening to these days.”
“Do you remember what time Greg got home?”
“Around eleven
P.M
.”
“How did Greg get to the concert?”
“I think he took the car.”
“Whose car? Your car or his car?”
“It was my car, but then he bought it from me.”
“When?” I asked.
“Sometime around then.”
“He bought your car the weekend of Andrew Snow’s disappearance.”
“Not that weekend. But a few weeks later. He drove it, though. At least I think he did.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“A Toyota Camry.”
“Do you remember the color and year?”
“White. Nineteen-eighty-eight.”
I left Hank in a cloud of his own cigarette smoke and drove directly to Abigail Snow’s house. She looked disappointed when she saw me standing on her doorstep.
“Ms. Spellman, what can I do for you today?”
“I know I’m the last person you wanted to see, but—”
“What would give you that idea, dear?” Mrs. Snow said in her painfully polite tone.
“Well, you called me and firmly suggested I stop looking into your son’s case. So I figured—”
“Ms. Spellman, I never called you.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. Are you sure it was me? Perhaps it was another client.”
The conversation was going too quickly for me to fully process what she was saying. If Abigail Snow hadn’t called, then who had? And maybe she had called and was now denying it because, well, I couldn’t begin to imagine how this woman’s mind worked.
“Can I come in for a minute?” I asked.
Mrs. Snow looked down at my boots and was, I suspect, calculating how much dirt I would track into her home.
“I’ll take them off,” I offered.
“And your coat, too, dear. It’s a bit grungy,” Mrs. Snow replied.
I removed my boots and left my coat outside on a porch swing. Mrs. Snow allowed my entrance—reluctantly, I suspect.
“Can I use your phone?” I asked as I turned off the ringer on my cell phone.
“Go ahead,” she replied, waving in the direction of the phone.
I called my cell phone. When I received the first call from Abigail Snow, the caller ID said “blocked number.” This time a 415 phone number showed up on the screen. The easy answer was that my mother made the phone call to get me off the case.
Just to cover all bases, I asked, “Do you have a cell phone?”
“Of course not,” she replied, casually wiping down the phone with a rag.
I had only a few more questions for her and then I could make my escape. The smell of the potpourri was starting to give me a headache.
“This may sound like an odd question,” I said, “but do you recall what kind of car Greg Larson used to drive?”
“Yes. It was a red Camaro. Late-seventies model.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean Camry?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Mrs. Snow replied sharply.
“And it was definitely red, not white?”
“Dear, I know the difference between red and white.”
“I can’t argue with you there,” I said, and quickly made my way to the door. “So you don’t remember Greg ever having a white Camry?”
“No,” she replied flatly.
“According to my parents’ file, Martin and Andrew shared a 1985 Datsun hatchback in blue. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“They didn’t have any other cars, did they?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Snow. You’ve been very helpful.”
After I exited the Snow home, I knocked on several doors in the neighborhood. Of the four people who were home, two were living in their current residence twelve years ago. Both of them remembered Greg Larson and his red Camaro. Neither of them recalled ever seeing a white Camry.
When I returned home, I spotted my mother’s car parked in the driveway. I smashed the headlight to make it easier to spot her if she was following me. Traditionally I would have planned a more sophisticated counterstrike against my mother for making the counterfeit phone call, but my family’s collision course was becoming a traffic jam and I opted for a simpler response. I ran down to the office and ratted her out to my dad.
“Sweetheart, your mother wouldn’t do such a thing,” responded my father before I even completed my tattle.
“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think.”
“We’ve been married thirty-three years.”
“And your point is?”
“Isabel, your mother didn’t make that phone call. But let me reiterate: You are off the case. We don’t want a lawsuit on our hands.”
I might have pursued the conversation, but Uncle Ray interrupted, swinging open the door and shouting, “Al, you have to help me. I can’t take it anymore!”
W
ith all the covert surveillance, room tapping, and generic spying going on, I forgot to mention the kind of peace that Rae and Uncle Ray had cultivated. Now that they were friends, Rae took it upon herself to single-handedly cure Uncle Ray of each and every one of his vices. This meant slipping greeting cards with photographs of diseased livers under his door, “Thinking of you. Love, Rae” scrawled on the inside.
Over dinner she would offer random facts about the evils of alcohol consumption and occasionally throw in dietary advice (which I often reminded her was somewhat hypocritical considering her sugar addiction). She researched drug and alcohol abuse religiously and even consulted an herbalist, who provided an elixir that Rae began slipping into Uncle Ray’s food and sometimes his beer. She tried to attend a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, but was tossed out at the door. Dejected, she turned to Al-Anon and routinely shared the saga of Uncle Ray’s journey into debauchery. Each retelling was loaded with yet another dramatic flourish, until it barely resembled Uncle Ray at all.
For the most part, my parents overlooked this new obsession of Rae’s, since it kept her off the street. She was too busy researching and reporting facts on liver function to randomly surveil strangers. This sort of thing is considered progress in our house, although they maintained no misguided notions that Rae’s endeavors would result in any alteration of Uncle Ray’s habits. We had tried to fix him years before. Like a porcelain doll, if you drop it once, there is no amount of glue that will restore it to its previous glory.
Uncle Ray plopped down on a swivel chair and dropped his head on the desk. My sister entered right on his tail, carrying an enormous medical book called
Liver Function and Dysfunction.
“Wait,” Rae said. “You haven’t looked at the liver after ten years of cirrhosis.”
Uncle Ray turned to my father for assistance.
“Pumpkin, give me the book,” said my dad.
Rae handed our father the textbook.
“You told me to spend more time at the library,” she said.
“I did, didn’t I? Meet me in the kitchen. We need to have a talk.”
Rae rolled her eyes, offered an exaggerated sigh, and stomped out of the room. My dad turned to Uncle Ray.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said as he headed after his younger daughter.
I leaned against my desk, trying to figure out my next move. Uncle Ray lifted his head, turned to me, and said, “All I want to do is drink some beer and eat some peanuts in peace. Is that too much to ask?”
I had decided after I found the listening device in my apartment that it was time to move out of my parents’ house. However, between fake drug deals and the Snow case, I found it hard to look for a new place. But then I remembered that I had a place to stay and began packing. A few hours later, Rae knocked on my door and asked if she could keep me company. I let her inside, where she began secretly unpacking. Until I caught her, that is, and literally picked her up and tossed her out, carefully securing the deadbolt after her.
Once I got bored with my packing, I decided to pick up the key to my new place. A moment after I was out the door, my mother was strolling down the steps in her bathrobe and slippers.
“Where are we going, sweetie?” she asked.
“Nowhere,” I cleverly replied.
“I love you,” she said with an awkward, deadpan delivery. She said it as if she thought I might have forgotten. The truth was, I never doubted for a moment that my parents loved me. But love in my family has a bite to it and sometimes you get tired of icing all those tooth marks.
My mother sat patiently in her car, waiting for me to make my next move. I didn’t bother trying to lose her. I had nothing to hide with this trip.
I pulled into David’s driveway and left my mom sitting, double parked, in the middle of the street.
I knocked on David’s door. He answered.
“Isabel. What are you doing here?”
“Hello. How are you?” I corrected him.
“Hi. Sorry. What’s up?”
“Tell me the truth, David. Have you had Botox injections?”
“No.”
“Is Petra here?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you look nervous.”
“She’s in the back. Are you looking for her?”
“I’m actually looking for the key to her apartment. She’s living here, isn’t she?”
“Not exactly.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“About three months.”
“How did it start?”
“I ran into her at the gym.”
“She goes to a gym?” I said in utter disbelief.
“Yes. A lot of people do.”
“So you ran into her at the gym and then what happened?”
“Isabel, can we have a conversation instead of an inquest?”
“Sure. As soon as you stop giving Rae hush money.”
“Touché.”
“So then what happened?”
“I told him he needed a haircut,” Petra said as she entered the foyer. “Two days later, he called me for one.”
“David,” I said, “do you like drinking beer on rooftops?”
“Not particularly,” my brother replied.
“See,” I said to Petra.
“Anything else you’d like to know?” Petra asked.
“When did you start going to the gym?”
David pushed me aside and stepped onto his porch. “Is that Mom parked out front?”
“Oh yeah. I’m under twenty-four-hour surveillance.”
“Why?”
“Because I snorted cocaine.”
“What?!”
“Fake cocaine, David,” I said and then turned to Petra. “Can I stay in your apartment?”
She handed me her keys and explained that the apartment was empty except for a bed and a case of bottled water. I responded that that was all I required. She further explained that her lease was up in a week and I had to clear out of there by then.
“David, try to stall Mom while I make my escape.”
“What is going on, Isabel?” David said as I was halfway out the door.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
I knocked on the window of my mother’s car. “Please tell me the truth, Mom. Did you call me pretending to be Abigail Snow?”
“No,” she said, with concern edging over her face.
I knew in that moment that she hadn’t made the call and I also knew that I wouldn’t stop until I found out who did.
Instead of going directly to Petra’s, I decided to swing by Daniel’s place and see whether he had recovered yet from the fake drug deal.
I rang his buzzer, since he had made it clear that window entry was no longer acceptable.
“I was in the neighborhood,” I said as I entered Daniel’s apartment.
“Doing what?” Daniel asked.
“Just driving around.”
“You were driving around my neighborhood?”
“I was driving around all sorts of neighborhoods trying to lose my mom.”
“Lose your mom? I don’t understand.”
“She’s following me.”
“Your mother is following you, is that what you said?”
“Yes. Do you mind if I turn off your lights?”
I didn’t wait for a response; I switched them off and walked over to the window. Peering through the blinds, I could see my mother sitting in her car, reading by a book light. Daniel leaned in next to me; he had to see it for himself.
“How long has she been following you?”
“Only like an hour. But she has a really small bladder, so she can never last that long. Do you have any coffee? Maybe we can speed this up.”
“This is not normal, Isabel.”
“You’re telling me.”
As I continued watching my mother, Daniel poured himself a drink and sat down on the couch.
“Isabel, where do you see this relationship going?”
It had been a long day and I was in no mood for the kind of talk Daniel had in mind. I had to get out of his apartment before the conversation progressed further. I peered out of the window again, just for show.
“My mom just nodded off. I have to make a run for it.”
I kissed Daniel on the forehead and raced out of the apartment. My mother, of course, had not fallen asleep. I walked up to her car and knocked on the window.
“Go home, Mom,” I said. “I’m not doing anything interesting tonight.”
“I hope you didn’t tell Daniel that.”
She didn’t go home. She followed me to Petra’s and called Jake Hand on his way home after a long night of partying. She suggested he could sober up while making fifteen dollars an hour, and because Jake is still not-so-secretly in love with my mother, he agreed. Jake took a cab from his party and my mother handed him her car keys, explaining that he wasn’t allowed to drive it until morning, when he could pass a sobriety test. My mother then took the cab home herself.
Inside Petra’s apartment, I phoned Andrew Snow one more time. Once again, the call turned over to voice mail. I pleaded with him to call me back and politely suggested that it might be the only way to get me off his back. I didn’t mention the unexplained phone call or Greg Larson’s extra car or any other aspect of the case. But that was a card I was willing to play.
My mother’s fifteen dollars an hour was a waste of cash. The only thing Jake Hand saw through the lit window of Petra’s apartment was me, sitting on her bed and reviewing the case file over and over again. At 3:00
A.M
., I looked out the window and saw Jake passed out in the front seat of the car. I wished I had somewhere to go, some lead to follow, because it would have been so easy to lose him at that moment. Instead I went to bed. Jake slept through half the morning amidst the traffic on the street. He was still out cold as I made my getaway.
If only I could have made the most of my escape. Instead I went home to finish packing. Jake phoned my mother while I was in transit. I heard her finishing the call as I entered the house.
“Forget it, Jake. She’s here. Haven’t you heard of coffee? Good-bye.”
I went up to my apartment and discovered that all the boxes I had previously packed were now unpacked and the lion’s share of my belongings were restored to the wrong place. My parents’ tactics are more covert than this blatant attempt to derail my move; Rae was behind this. The loose lock from an amateur pick, the cookie crumbs on the floor, and the way she’d Krazy Glued down a number of items pointed in only one direction.
I spent most of the day repacking what Rae had unpacked and ungluing what Rae had glued down. By the afternoon, I was as packed as I was the night before and hungry for revenge. I drove by Rae’s school and waited out front for her. She saw my car first and then saw my father’s car on my tail and pretended that she didn’t know which car was intended for her.
I rolled down the window and told her not to play dumb. Rae got inside and I drove her home. Then I made her come up to my apartment and forced her to spend the entire night helping me finish packing for real. Her attempts at sabotage were met with empty threats and benign bullying. My packing didn’t benefit from her presence, but at least Uncle Ray had a free night and I reminded her that what follows from breaking and entering and gluing is some form of punishment. When I finally told her she could go, Rae said, “You’ll come back. I know you will.” It sounded less a prediction and more a threat.