2 CATastrophe (6 page)

“We haven’t talked to Miller’s ex. The divorce was eight year ago. We thought that was all water under the bridge.”

“Not that I have any personal data to add, but yeah, from the people I know, eight years is usually more than enough time to move on. However, we didn’t know about the other death being a murder, which changes everything.”

I left her an opening to talk about past relationships, if she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. To be honest, I wasn’t very good at this whole small talk thing – or flirting. I’d spent most of my life trying not to be noticed. Flirting was all about making someone else notice you and your attractiveness. It would have been less painful for me to write out a big sign that said “Like Me” on it, and probably less painful for her as well.

Still she didn’t seem to mind, which counted for a lot in my book.

“I’ve seen cases where women – or men – have waited decades to get revenge. It’s not an emotion that dies easily. It certainly makes me not want to get married, that’s for sure.”

So I had my answer, even if it was worded in the context of a discussion about crime. I had been so mired in my own feelings of inadequacy here that I neglected to remember that perhaps others suffered from similar fears as well. Granted, they would be different than mine, but at the same time, they were real.

“I’m surprised you didn’t talk to the ex-wife since you weren’t investigating this murder.” Green used air-quotes around “this.” Her poor air-grammar was perplexing to me, but I had had let it go on multiple occasions. When she wasn’t being sarcastic or yelling at me, I actually found it endearing.

“I tried to Google her, but the last name of Miller with no first name, even when I added Vires into the search, came up with too many hits. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with it, so that’s why I handed it off to you. You have access to records that I don’t.”

“And now you know why we have access and you don’t,” she said with a smile. “There are actually parts of this investigation that you haven’t mucked up yet. Maybe we’ll actually get some untainted answers from a witness now.”

“Well then, you have a lot to do,” I said, wondering if I would get a green light to go ahead with more investigating. I felt lost at the moment, not wanting to give up my part in solving this crime.

“That I do. I’ll give you a buzz if we find out anything about that app or the ex-wife.”

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

“I’ll give you two things, just like you gave me. However, my requests are simpler and with fewer parts. First, mow the grass. Second, open the file I gave you.”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure that I’d do either, but since we were being so agreeable, I didn’t want to throw dissension on the table. She walked out the door and drove away without another word.

Instead I opted to call the cat rescue organization again. I hadn’t heard from them since I’d gone off to meet Dana Cavanaugh. I also hadn’t heard from the third person who had spoken to Adam Nelson about Dr. Vires’ death.

The call went to voicemail again. I sat staring at the wall for some time, then I decided to mow the grass. That didn’t sound like a major ordeal, but it was to me. I had been hiding behind the things that kept attention from me. No one would look at Griff if they were obsessed about his tall grass instead. No one would look at my face if my thrift store clothes were the focus of attention. I liked it that way, but as I dealt with more people, I found myself being called out on these behaviors by those who bought into the norms of society. Sheila was apparently one of those, because she continued to challenge me to drop the facades I’d put over me to keep myself invisible. I wasn’t sure of what the endgame would be with her requests. Did she want me normal, so that we could date? Or perhaps she was just making me dateable for someone else. I wasn’t sure, but so far I had not made any changes to my appearance or to that of the house that could not be set right with the passage of a few weeks. So I wasn’t out much in trying something new.

As I pushed the mower across the lawn, I reflected on all that I’d done recently which was new. Part of me was changing. I was still Griff, the guy who made a living speaking to animals and who lived in fear of being stolen away by unknown persons. However, some of the rough edges that I’d allowed to grow up over the years, mainly to my introverted personality, were beginning to smooth down. I wasn’t ready to go to a salon for my hair or shop at Dolce and Gabbana, but I was more willing to go into groups of people without wanting to shut down and hide in the bathroom. I was able to talk to strangers in the name of business or in the name of investigating a crime.

I still wasn’t sure how I felt about this as I finished the lawn and put the mower back in the garage. One of the neighbors waved at me, which was a first. Perhaps they were engaging in behavior modification, rewarding me with smiles if I gave them a freshly cut lawn. It might work better one someone who hadn’t trained dogs and cats.

I still didn’t have a message from the rescue center when I entered the house. I opted to take a shower and remove the grime from me. There was still no message when I returned to the living room. I decided to check their website to see if anything was going on that I should know about. They were having an adoption event the following day. I decided I would go to that event if I hadn’t heard from them by that point.

I felt totally at loose ends. Miller had been my only client of the week. He’d paid in advance, which meant that I had the money I needed to meet my budget this week. I hadn’t scheduled anyone else, since Miller was expecting me to follow him all day, every day. Given the circumstances and his wealth, he’d paid very well for my time, so I had no need to scrounge up another client this week.

I was forbidden from working on the current investigation. I had no desire to go to jail for obstruction of justice, especially when I had no formal position that would allow me access to any information. I’d done pretty much all that I could on this particular case – except for finding out the source of the double cat entry in the microchip database. However, I was still waiting for the rescue organization to call me back.

I looked at the police file on my sister again. I had resisted the urge to read the file up to this point, mainly because I’d been angry and busy. Now I was neither. Green had apologized for her indiscretion, and I was unsure what to do. Boredom and I were not good roommates.

I debated a little more, but made a cup of tea as I argued the pros and cons of opening this chapter of my life again. Even as I did this, I knew that I’d be sitting down with a cup of tea to read this file.

Unlike her other requests, I couldn’t undo this one after I opened the file. I would presumably know things and realize things that would change my perspective on my sister, my family or the case. I knew in my heart that Detective Green had already read the file. Something in those pages had struck her, enough so that she wanted me to read it and understand something about my sister’s disappearance. This was the one request that could not be undone in a few weeks, which was why I was dragging my feet so hard on reading the file.

When I finally got up the nerve to open the folder, the first thing that hit me was a portrait photo of my sister, Susan. It was not one that I remembered, and it was an odd feeling to see her face staring back at me in a different memory than I had of her. I knew when that photo had been taken; our parents had made each of us dress up for a department store photo about six months before Susan disappeared. She was on the cusp of being a teenager, and Mom was in one of her ‘time is fleeting’ moods, which made her want to record everything we did.

Still, I couldn’t remember what either my brother or sister had worn that day. I just recalled my own button-down striped shirt and jeans. I wondered if my mother still had that photo of me or if she’d thrown it away in the purge of everything related to her daughter. My mother had very few memories left of my family. She’d thrown out photos, report cards, messages, anything that reminded her that she’d been unable to keep her daughter away from the evils of the world.

The first police statement I saw was my own recounting of the facts. I wondered if my piece was on top by chance or because Green had pulled it to see what I’d said about the disappearance. Part of me even wondered if she’d read it because she was interested in finding out what a pre-teen Griff was like.

I smiled as I read the statement. I noticed several turns of phrase that I’d used as a kid, and the piece definitely sounded like something that had come from me. There was not much here that I couldn’t have recalled without a few seconds’ notice. Susan had been supposed to be going to the movies with her boyfriend. He’d waited at the theater until the movie started to call the house. She had never showed. I’d answered the phone and told him that she’d left on time to be there before the show started. We lived less than ten blocks from where the movie house was. He called again 35 minutes later to tell me that she still hadn’t shown. His parents had driven him the entire way to our house and back, yet they’d not seen any sign of her.

At that point, I couldn’t contain what was happening. I’d informed my parents who spoke to the other parents. They hung up, and my mother had immediately called the police. They were limited in what they could do at such an early time. However, given the age of the missing girl and the proximity to her destination, they gave my parents a list of things to do, which included calling all family members, all of her known friends, and things like that.

The statements had been given on the second day, when it was more obvious that Susan wouldn’t be walking through the door and explaining why she’d been gone for 48 hours. The case was switched to a missing persons case, and the police began to walk the same steps we’d made as we called people.

My statement came from that time when they’d started to work on the theory that she’d left of her own free will. I’d been asked about her attitude that evening, if she’d seemed overly excited or nervous. I had answered that she always seemed nervous before a date, so it was hard to tell if anything had been out of the ordinary.

The police asked about my phone calls with the boyfriend. I explained that I’d originally kept the news to myself, not wanting Susan to get in trouble for her actions, but I’d told my parents when it became obvious something was wrong.

What my statement didn’t contain was the enormous guilt I’d had over the years, asking myself what might have happened if I had let my parents know that she was missing after the first phone call. I’d been trying to keep things quiet to keep her out of trouble, but with that decision, had I doomed her? I couldn’t even count the number of sleepless nights I’d had during my teen years, asking myself what would be different if I’d told my parents then. Perhaps my sister would have been found in those first few hours. Perhaps my dad wouldn’t have drunk himself into a premature liver failure. Perhaps I’d be closer to my brother and mother. If life is made up of defining moments, this was one of my moments, a simple neglect to save my sister a punishment that might have lost her forever.

None of that guilt was evident in my pre-adolescent statement, but I could still see it there. The worries about being taken and the desire to be non-descript to the point of becoming invisible would come later, but even in this statement I could see the harbingers of it under the surface.

My brother’s statement was also in the folder, and I read it next. I’d been two years younger than Susan, and as such, I’d tempered what I’d read with the adult knowledge that kids don’t interpret everything correctly. I was interested to see what my brother, who’d been the wise old age of 15, had said about Susan’s disappearance.

As I skimmed through it the first time, I realized again how much I missed my brother. He’d moved across the country after his college graduation to get away from the gloom of the family tragedy and the wreck of what had once been my parents. I understood why he wanted to do that. He’d settled out there and begun a family, which practically ensured that he would never return here to live. His visits would be short and managed. The real tragedy of that move, in my eyes, was that he’d lumped me in with my parents, so that now we rarely spoke and almost never saw each other.

His statement was not much different than mine. He’d heard me answer the phone and talk to someone twice before handing it to my parents on the third call. He’d not talked to Susan that evening. Frankly, he had not been interested in her dating, and he’d stayed away from any drama that came with the age.

I had to wonder in looking at his statement if my brother had always been aloof from the family. He’d not seemed overly concerned by Susan’s disappearance, only in how it affected him. Perhaps that was just teenaged behavior, but it made me rethink my relationship with my brother. Perhaps our estrangement would have occurred even without Susan’s disappearance.

The next sheet was the original police report. There was nothing much to read in the report, other than a mere recitation of facts, most of which I’d supplied to the officers who wrote it. If Green had thought this would be of any help to me, she was wrong. I knew these things and still held them in my memory. I didn’t need to read the police report as well.

I was about to pick out another paper to read when the phone rang. Part of me was grateful to be able to put the file down without reading more. I meticulously put the papers back in the file and closed it again.  I answered the phone.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick? I’m Allison from Saved by the Bell, the rescue center that you called today. How can I help you?”