Authors: Lisa Lutz
My phone rings again just after I disconnect the call.
“Isabel.”
“Yes.”
“You’re late,” says the unidentifiable voice.
“Seriously, who is this?”
“I thought you wanted to solve this case.”
“I need another hour. My sister’s drinking again.”
“You’ve got forty-five minutes and then I’m gone.”
I’m two blocks from the Philosopher’s Club and the phone rings one more time.
“Izzy, it’s Milo. Tell Rae she left her scarf here.”
“Tell her yourself.”
“Didn’t you pick her up already?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“But she’s gone.”
M
y foot was on the floor all the way to Milo’s. I slammed on the brakes and double-parked in front of the bar. I threw open the door and raced inside. It was the look on Milo’s face that shook me. Fear is more a lack of expression than an expression. Fear pulls all the blood from the extremities to concentrate on the activities that sustain life, like keeping your heart pumping. Milo visibly paled. I could see his lips moving, but could not make out the words over the hum of the bar crowd and the sound of my own breath. I walked through to the back of the bar, pushing aside patrons blocking my path. I checked the restroom and the exit into the alley.
Milo pointed toward the front of the bar and led me outside. He showed me the spot on the stoop where she’d been waiting. We circled the block and questioned all the sidewalk traffic. We got in my car and covered every side street within a three-mile radius. We phoned the house three times and her cell phone twice. We returned to the bar and I tried her cell phone again as we circled the perimeter. And then I heard it. Her phone ringing. Milo pulled the lid off the trash can and the phone was sitting on top. I picked up the phone and turned to Milo.
“There has to be some explanation, Izzy. Maybe she lost the phone and somebody else tossed it.”
I drove home breaking every traffic law in the book. I drove home knowing that something horrible had happened that could not be undone. I drove home trying to remember the last time I saw my sister, wondering whether it would be the last time.
Rae had been gone only an hour and yet I was certain her absence was much more than a miscommunication. Rae doesn’t disappear. That’s not her MO. She telephones. She communicates. She prefers chauffeuring to public transportation. She lets you know everything that is going on in her mind. She doesn’t run off when you’ve told her to stay put. She doesn’t do that.
It seemed like minutes had passed before I could steady my hand enough to open the front door of my family’s home. So long, it briefly occurred to me, that the locks might have been changed. When the door finally flew open, I ran through the house shouting my sister’s name.
I banged on every closed door in the hallway until I came upon Rae’s bedroom door. I tried the knob, but it was locked. My hands were too shaky to attempt a pick. I kicked it twice, but it wouldn’t budge. You can’t kick open locked doors; that is a myth. I ran down to the storage room, grabbed an axe, and returned upstairs. I swung the axe against the lock until the wood around the deadbolt was splintered to pieces. Then I laid one final kick and the door swung open.
Uncle Ray watched me from the other end of the hallway.
“I had a spare key,” he said, then picked up the phone and called my parents.
The stillness of her room felt unnatural, but the chill I felt was very real. Her bed was unmade—as usual. Clothes were strewn across the floor in her typical adolescent nonchalance. It was a room waiting for someone to return to it, and yet she hadn’t returned.
I searched her desk until I came across her address book. I phoned all two of her friends, neither of whom knew where she was or where she could be. Uncle Ray telephoned his buddies at the police station, who agreed to file an early report.
I passed my parents in the hallway as I exited the room. Avoiding eye contact, I told them that I would comb the neighborhood. I said that so I could leave. I had hoped that the misty air outside would cure my nausea, but once I exited the house, I began vomiting in my mother’s flower bed (not for the first time, I might add). In between violent heaving, my phone rang again.
“Isabel, where are you?” said that goddamn voice.
“Did you take her?” I asked. My breath was so weak I could barely get the question out.
“Take who?”
“My sister. Do you have her?”
“What are you talking about?”
“If you’ve done something to her, your life is over. It’s over. Do you understand? They will kill you.”
“Who?”
“My father will kill you. Or my mother, maybe. Or they might have a little competition to see who can do it first. Do you have her?”
“Who?”
“If you have her, give her back,” I said and the line went dead.
Stone gathers his file, aligning each sheet in a perfect stack. He smacks the pages against the wood table to square the edges. He then slides his finger along the side, searching for the flat line. His finger touches on an errant edge and he smacks the stack again and then again. He slides the papers into a crisp file folder and dusts off the top, smoothing the already flat cover.
“They’ve got medication for that sort of thing,” I say.
“I think that is all, Isabel. If you think of anything else, please call me.”
“You need to speak to the Snow family.”
“As I told you before, we don’t think it’s related to this case.”
“But there’s nothing else.”
“There are countless possibilities.”
“She’s not a runaway. She knows how to fight.”
“It could be a random abduction.”
“Is that what you think? Because I know the statistics.”
“That’s all I need. Why don’t you get some sleep now, Isabel.”
Inspector Stone stands. I grab his arm and he freezes uncomfortably.
“Tell me the truth. Is she dead? Do you think she’s dead?”
Just saying those words flattened me. Suddenly I wished he wouldn’t answer. But he did.
“I hope not.”
R
ae’s disappearance was too impossible to explain. No family member could conjure a happily-ever-after scenario. There was an unsettling quiet to the house, a mixture of Rae’s absent chatter mingled with stunned silence. An inability to speak that bordered on pathology. At times it seemed that we could not look at one another. Our war was too fresh to offer a soft shoulder to cry on. There was still the us-versus-them mentality. I returned home, sleeping in Rae’s bedroom to catch any phone calls that might come her way. But my presence was hardly a consolation prize.
Within the first six hours of my sister’s disappearance, her bedroom was searched by the police and then ransacked by every single member of the Spellman family. No relevant evidence was discovered, but the police did find a hollowed-out algebra book holding almost two thousand dollars in cash, which led to further questions and a lengthy discussion between David and my parents.
Within twelve hours of Rae’s disappearance, Milo and Jake Hand had plastered the city with missing-person signs. My mother and I spent four hours each on the road, just looking for that blue-striped shirt. As always, we remembered such things. My father called in favors with every PI he ever swapped cards with. The police, despite my father’s protests, insisted on investigating every family member, and followed up with schoolmates and any other known acquaintances. Each quest was met with a dead end. David offered a two-hundred-thousand-dollar reward. Uncle Ray made a deal with God. If his niece came back home alive, he would go into rehab.
By day three, I had been awake for eighty-two straight hours. I managed a catnap or two, but nothing significant, nothing that could transform me into anything more than a jumbled set of nerves in two-day-old clothes.
When my interview with Inspector Stone was finished, I drove to the Philosopher’s Club and sat down at the bar. Milo poured me a cup of coffee. When he wasn’t looking, I added a shot of whiskey. I could tell from his own sallow coloring that he hadn’t slept much himself. I could tell that he blamed himself for Rae’s disappearance and the guilt was hitting him hard.
“Go home, Izzy,” he said. “You look like shit.”
“I look better than you do,” I said.
“That’s just ’cause you’re prettier than me.”
One hour and three stolen Irish whiskies later, Daniel entered the bar.
“Let’s go, Isabel.”
I noticed the conspiratorial head nod that transpired between the two men. I turned on Milo.
“You called him?”
“I was worried.”
Daniel took my arm. “Time to sleep, Isabel.”
Daniel took me back to his place, gave me a sleeping pill, and prepared the bed in the guest room. As I was about to fall asleep, I heard him on the phone to my mother, telling her I was okay.
I slept eight hours straight and awoke in an empty apartment. Daniel had left me a series of notes—arrows mostly—which directed me into the kitchen, where a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast was waiting for me. I ate the toast and shoved the rest of the food down the disposal. The narcotics-induced full night’s rest had the agreeable effect of clearing my mind. It had been weeks since I had been able to confidently operate a motor vehicle. It was time to go back to work. It had now been four days since my sister disappeared.
I
needed to impose logic on Rae’s disappearance. So far all I had was coincidence. A phone call from someone claiming to have the answers to the Snow case happened at the same time Rae vanished from the Philosopher’s Club. The link was tenuous at best, but it was the only link, and my instincts insisted that it was the answer.
A detail that had been nagging at me from the start was the history professor. He claimed to have seen two brothers searching for Andrew the morning of his disappearance. I tossed it into the back of my head because there was a logical explanation: Memories are generally unreliable. In the absence of any other leads, I decided to check it out. I took the train back to West Portal, found my car three blocks from the bar, removed the parking ticket, and drove home and picked up the Snow file, which was still locked in my desk drawer. I skimmed the file for the name, which was not unforgettable.
As it conveniently turned out, Horace Greenleaf was a tenured prof at UC Berkeley. I phoned the history department, ascertained the professor’s office hours, and made my way across the Bay Bridge. By midmorning the traffic was at a standstill and I couldn’t help but wish that more people had day jobs.
I located Professor Greenleaf’s office with just ten minutes to spare. I offered the professor an abbreviated explanation for my visit and he kindly offered me a seat.
“According to the police report, you claim to have seen two young males the morning after Andrew Snow’s alleged disappearance.”
“That is correct.”
“You remember making that statement?”
“Yes. And I remember seeing the young men.”
“Around what time was this?”
“Maybe six thirty
A.M
. Sunrise.”
“Why were you up so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep. I know camping is supposed to be peaceful, but I’d take the sound of traffic over crickets any day.”
“Do you remember what the men were doing?”
“Not much. They got into their car and drove off.”
“Can you describe them for me?” I asked.
“Both men looked to be between eighteen and twenty. The one who I believe was Andrew’s brother, from the pictures I saw in the paper, was maybe five foot ten, one hundred and seventy pounds, fit-looking, broad shoulders.”
“You have a good memory.”
“I have an extremely good memory,” the professor said, correcting me.
“How about the other young male? What did he look like?”
“Taller, lanky, sandy-haired.”
“Do you remember anything else about him?” I asked.
“I think he was chewing on a toothpick.”
I controlled my urge to jolt out of the office and asked a few more questions to solidify my case.
“Do you remember the car they were driving?”
“A Datsun, I think. A hatchback. Late-eighties model.”
“Did either of these men see you?”
“I don’t think so. I had just unzipped my tent and was putting on my shoes.”
“And you told this to the police?”
“Yeah, about a week or two later when they tracked me down. I guess they figured I had the dates wrong. But I don’t think so. Because the day he disappeared was the day we went home.”
I returned to the city and then made my way across the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito. I pulled my car over right in front of Martin Snow’s house on Spring Street. There was no stealth in this stakeout. Twenty minutes later, Martin peered through his window and spotted me. I could see his fingers part the slats in the blinds every fifteen minutes or so. While I still couldn’t tell you what he had done, I was making him nervous, and that confirmed his guilt in my mind. The problem was, I wasn’t sure where his guilt ended. Was it possible that he was connected to my sister’s disappearance? I had to know for sure.
I got out of the car and knocked on his door. He didn’t answer, but I kept knocking. Finally he opened it.
“If you don’t leave,” he said, “I’m going to call the police.”
“You don’t want to involve the police.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Do you have my sister?”
“What?”
“Do you know where she is?”
“What are you talking about?”
“She disappeared four days ago.”
Martin’s face registered confusion. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I leaned in close. “If you’re holding back on me, if you know anything that might help me find her and you keep it from me—that would be a mistake.”
Martin nodded his head and indicated that he understood I was making a threat.
“You need to get off my property. I’ve already called the police. They’re on their way.”
I got into my car and left.
Car Chase #4
A few blocks from Martin’s home, I spotted a sheriff’s vehicle closing in on my car. The lights flashed and I was about to pull over, when I checked my rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of what I believed to be Sheriff Larson’s silhouette. My guess was that Martin called him when I left the house. My guess was the sheriff wasn’t pulling me over for a burned-out taillight, even though I probably had one of those.
I put my foot to the floor and tried to piece together what I knew. I knew that Martin cheated his parents out of over a hundred thousand dollars. I knew that the sheriff bought a car twelve years ago that no one could account for. I knew he was there when Andrew disappeared. I knew he didn’t blink as often as most people.
The sheriff sounded his siren again and motioned for me to pull over. Instead of pulling over, I drove faster, thinking that if I made it into the city, into the jurisdiction of the SFPD, I would be on safe ground. Then I could have the sheriff arrested for, well, whatever it was he’d done wrong.
I wound through the unfamiliar Marin roads in the fading light of dusk. Like my father and uncle, Larson had an edge over me. He was both trained in automobile pursuits and familiar with those roads. The last line of sun disappeared from the horizon. Larson closed the gap to no more than ten yards. I turned onto a mountain road to avoid any streetlights. Larson moved his vehicle alongside my car, shouted for me to pull over, but I didn’t. The pounding of my heartbeat was audible. Fear I thought I understood, but this fear—the fear that I might not make it home that night—was an altogether different monster.
I made a right turn onto a side street, which ended up being a dead end. Larson blocked my return path by parking his car at an angle. He quickly got out of his vehicle, pulling his gun.
“Keep your hands on the steering wheel,” he said, as if I were a common criminal. Without giving me a chance to react, Larson opened the driver’s-side door and pulled me out of the car.
I felt the cuffs unite my hands behind my back. Then a warm hand on the back of my neck guided me toward the squad car. Larson opened the front passenger door, put his hand on my head, and shoved me into the front seat. He slammed the door shut, circled the car, and sat down next to me.
“You won’t get away with this,” I said.
“Get away with what?” he replied in his annoyingly calm manner.
“You know,” I said, not really knowing myself.
“We need to go for a drive, Isabel,” he said, pulling his cruiser back onto the road.
“Are you planning on killing me?” I asked, hoping to ease my tension.
“No,” he replied flatly.
“Well, of course you’re going to say no. That way I won’t put up a struggle.”
“You’re handcuffed. I’m not worried about that.”
He had a point. There wasn’t much I could do. However, had he frisked me before he put me in the car, he would have found my cell phone. I pulled it out of my pocket and pressed the first number in my speed dial: Albert Spellman. I couldn’t bring the phone to my ear or even hear over the sound of traffic whether anyone had answered. So I waited thirty seconds and then spoke as loudly as I could.
“Hi Dad, it’s me. If I disappear or something happens to me, a Sheriff Greg Larson, that’s L-A-R-S-O-N, is responsible. I’m in his car right now—”
“Who are you talking to?” Larson asked, looking at me as if I were the craziest person he’d ever met.
“My dad,” I said smugly. “I just speed-dialed him on my cell phone.”
Larson pulled over to the side of the road and grabbed the phone from my hands. He then placed it next to my ear. I could hear my dad shouting into the receiver.
“Izzy, Izzy? Where are you?”
“Hi Dad. I’m in Sheriff Larson’s squad car.”
“Are you safe?” he asked. I could hear the panic in his voice.
“A minute ago I would have said no, but I think I’m okay. Just in case, his badge number is seven-eight-six-two-two…”
Larson leaned in so I could read the last digit.
“Seven,” I said.
“What is going on, Isabel?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. Don’t worry, Dad,” I said, and then Larson spoke into the receiver.
“Mr. Spellman, your daughter is perfectly safe. Martin Snow called the police when she refused to leave his property. That’s all, sir. No, we won’t be pressing charges today. Thank you, sir.”
Larson disconnected the call and got back on the road. He drove onto Highway 101 South and remained silent for the next fifteen minutes. Since I was no longer concerned for my physical safety, I waited for him to speak. But he didn’t, so I broke the silence.
“I know you were at the campsite the night of Andrew’s disappearance.”
“You’ve managed to figure out a lot of things. In fact, you have most of the pieces to the puzzle, but you still can’t put it together. Am I right?”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Andrew was an extremely unhappy person. He attempted suicide at least three times before his disappearance.”
“Shouldn’t that have been in the report?”
“Doctor-patient privilege. Unless the parents provided the information to the police it would not have been known. No one knew it besides the immediate family and me. Even his high school had no idea. Any recovery time was passed off as the flu or strep throat. Mrs. Snow made sure that no one found out.”
“Are you telling me you know what happened to him?” I asked.
“I know exactly what happened to him. He escaped from that house, from that woman, from that life that he hated. And Martin and I helped him do it.
“We planned it months in advance. Andrew and Martin drove to Lake Tahoe as planned. I went to my uncle’s house and left in the evening for a concert. I knew he’d be out cold by ten
P.M
. and wouldn’t notice my absence until the following morning. I took his car, since the DUI was preventing him from driving. Even if he went looking for it, it wouldn’t have raised any suspicion. He could never remember where he parked the thing anyway. I drove to Lake Tahoe that night and gave Andrew the car. He left soon after. Early the next morning, Martin drove me to the Greyhound station so I could get a bus back to the city. There was no reason to be suspicious of us, so the police never really questioned Martin’s story.”
Larson pulled his car in front of a Tudor-style brick home with a white picket fence. In the yard two preschool-age children were playing with their mother, a tall, dark-haired woman with strong but attractive features.
“Is he still alive? Where did he go?”
Larson pointed at the young mother playing in the yard. “She’s right there,” he said.
At first I couldn’t even register what Larson was saying, but the longer I stared at the woman, the closer I came to understanding the truth.
“Her name is now Andrea Meadows. She is happily married with two adopted children,” Larson said.
“That was so not one of my theories.”
“If you have any more questions, get them off your chest now.”
“So where did Andrew run to?”
“Trinidad, Colorado. There was a doctor there he wanted to talk to.”
“So Martin’s college money…?”
“Paid for the sex change. Yes.”
“Do you know what it would do to Mrs. Snow if she found out?”
Larson couldn’t stop the smile from forming on his face. “Yes.”
“What about all the phone calls?” I ask.
“That was Andrea. Her brother told her what was going on. Thought she could stop you. Plus, she does a mean imitation of her mother.”
“I knew somebody was hiding something,” I say.
“I got news for you: Somebody is always hiding something.”
I sat in the squad car feeling foolish. All the crimes I had accused the sheriff of in my head were pure fiction. He was just a guy who chewed on toothpicks and didn’t blink as often as most people. He was just a man trying to be a friend. That’s all.
“She’s happy now. If you expose her, everything will change. I took a chance in sharing this secret with you. I hope I haven’t made a mistake.”
“What about Mr. Snow? Does he know?”
“No.”
“He should,” I said.