I walk up the steps and knock briskly on the flimsy door. I hear heavy thuds, footsteps moving toward the front of the home, and then the door flies open with such force I’m glad I moved a few treads down, out of respect. An old, grizzled white man glares down at me. “What you want at this hour? Jesus wept, it’s late.” But then he blinks, and sees the badge I’m holding out, and his body language shifts. “You here to tell me you found him? My boy?”
“You’re talking about Tommy?” I ask, and he nods and comes out on the steps. He’s wearing a checked bathrobe that’s too thin for the cold, but he doesn’t seem to care. Weathered old house shoes on his feet. I glance behind him inside the house—habit—and see that it’s fairly neat. That’s unexpected. “I’m here about him, yes. You’re saying he’s missing?”
“I’m saying he left a long while back, and nobody believes me when I say he wouldn’t have done that,” Abraham says. He squints at me. “You must be new. Never dealt with you before.”
“I’m Detective Claremont,” I tell him. “Can I ask you a few questions? I know it’s late, but it may be important.”
He rocks back and forth in his slippers for a minute, then nods. “You want to come on in? Have some coffee?”
“I’d be much obliged.” I’m guardedly pleased to be welcomed. At least he’s talking. That’s a good start.
Inside, the trailer is just as neat as the glimpse implied. The carpet’s old, but there’s very little clutter. Photos on the walls, and some generic dollar-store art. Nothing in the place makes me think there’s been a woman living here for years, if ever; the small touches all seem masculine. My gaze catches on a framed Confederate flag as I turn, and I take a beat, then move on. Not exactly unusual in this part of the world, but indicative of several things.
He’s getting out a couple of mismatched mugs, and there’s a half-full pot of coffee in the machine. He pours and, without looking at me, says, “Cream or sugar?”
“Black is fine,” I say. He sends me a look, as if to figure out what I mean by that, then nods and carries the coffee over to the small two-person table. We sit. “Late to be making these kinds of calls, ain’t it? You’re lucky you didn’t get shot.”
“I know it’s late,” I say. I let the implied threat slide. “Sorry about that, sir. I know you were probably just settling down for the night.” I put some warmth in my voice, and it helps; his shoulders come down a touch. Anything I can do to disarm him right now is useful. “I didn’t know about your son’s case. Can I ask—”
“He’s been gone over a year now,” he says. “And I’ll tell you what, I think that woman of his killed him. I said as much to the other detective, but I don’t think he even listened.” I hear the anger, and see the muscle harden in the line of his flabby jaw. “Damn shoddy job he did. Said my son just ran off and left his pregnant wife. If that’s true, why’d he sign over his damn car and house to her first? And his whole bank account too? Man’s going to run out on his responsibilities, he takes what he owns.”
“You’re right, that sounds strange.” I say it, but I don’t mean it; lots of men dodge their duties as parents but try to make up for it by leaving shit behind they don’t want or need. I can see Tommy Jarrett thinking that would absolve him, and I imagine the bank account could have had some withdrawals prior to his disappearance. Maybe Tommy had saved up for his dash for freedom.
I’ll pull the file. Odds are good that Prester was the detective, unless it was the last days of the other white detective I barely knew, the third one in rotation who barely came to work at all. He’s now retired and off to Florida, and he never gave me the time of day. Not looking much forward to questioning his judgment if that’s the case.
“When’s the last time you saw Tommy, sir?” I ask, and take out my notebook. He takes a gulp of his coffee and gets out his cell phone.
“About fourteen months ago. Here,” he says, and puts the phone down and slides it across to me. There’s a photo on the screen: Abraham in a plaid work shirt and jeans with his arm around his son, both grinning at the selfie camera. Sweet. I look hard at Tommy, trying to see past the easy grin, the shape of his face. Does he look like a man who would abandon his pregnant wife? I have no idea. One thing being a cop will teach you: nobody looks like it, and everybody looks like it. We contain multitudes, and at least half of that multitude is made up of assholes.
“Nice-looking young man,” I say, which is true. “Mind if I get a copy of this picture? I can send it to my phone.” That’ll give me the date and time it was taken, as well as the location.
“Please yourself,” he says, and I see a little flash of unease in his face. I make sure he sees I’m not snooping as I forward the picture, and I hand his device back. He immediately pockets it. I doubt it has anything to do with his son; everybody’s got something to hide, and I’m not interested in his secrets. “So, you actually intend to look for him this time? Not just file some piece of paper about how my son’s a cowardly piece of dog shit?”
He sounds aggressive, but I see the glint of tears in his eyes. Hope’s a hard thing in cases like this. He’s fronting to try to hold in that fear, that desperation, and I get it. I’m very respectful when I say, “Mr. Jarrett, I’d be very glad to look into it. It’d speed matters along if you’d give me permission to take a look around where he was living, give me permission to access his phone and bank records as his next of kin—”
“I will,” he says before I’m even finished. “Whatever it takes. Tommy lived in the house he bought with his own money with that woman—I ain’t even calling her his wife. When he disappeared, he was still living right there. He never moved.”
“You know that for a fact?” I ask him, and I’m gentle about it. “That he didn’t throw some stuff in a bag and get a friend to pick him up?”
He doesn’t answer that, and I didn’t really expect him to. He doesn’t want to believe it, but men can do strange things when their women get pregnant. Some bolt for the hills. Some get mean. Some get possessive and strange.
Some kill their kids.
It hits me with a small, significant chill that one person Sheryl Lansdowne would have stopped her car for out there in the dark was her missing husband.
I keep a bland expression, but now I’m alert for any signs that Abraham is trying to cover up for Tommy. A prickle on the nape of my neck says I should check the house for any sign he’s been here, but I need to be careful; if he is here, I could be in a fatal situation, fast. Best I come back prepared, with backup.
But even as I decide that, Abraham gets up and says, “Come on with me. I’ll show you his room. Nothing in there but what he left when he got married, but maybe it’ll help y’all.”
There’s no clue in his body language that things could pop off, but I follow at a distance, hand close to the gun I’ve got concealed beneath my jacket. I’m fast and accurate, which is never a guarantee of surviving a gunfight, but it helps. My heart ticks up to a faster rhythm, and I breathe deep to slow it down. I’m hyperaware as we move through the small kitchen, down a dark, narrow hall, past a bathroom. There’s a single closed door at the end. Abraham swings it open and goes inside.