Torres stared for several seconds before saying, “Does Sam have any history of mental illness or substance abuse?”
“No.”
“Financial problems?”
I started to say of course not, but I hadn’t thought to check our bank balance or credit card receipts. I took care of the clinic’s finances, and Sam handled the home accounts. It had seemed a fair division, but now I realized I didn’t even know how much we paid for cable or car insurance. “I don’t think so.”
Torres paused, tapped her pen, then said, “Mrs. Larkin, I know this may be hard to hear, but you can’t discount this: two women with no apparent agenda told you they saw Sam right before he disappeared and that he looked like he was waiting for someone. That he willingly left your daughter in their care. We’ll stay open to all possibilities, but you should too.”
I didn’t like the way Torres’s perfectly tweezed brows drew together over narrowed eyes. The slight smile now seemed more pity than sympathy.
Still, my husband’s disappearance kept coming back to a single fact: “Sam wouldn’t have left Audrey alone.”
Torres’s expression remained neutral. “She wasn’t alone. Even if you didn’t know that woman, your husband did.”
Though her comment hadn’t aimed to wound, it did. Sam knew the mom in the witch costume because he was the one who dropped Audrey off at school every day. He was the one who was there. Until now, when he suddenly wasn’t.
“Why would he leave Audrey with someone else with our home only a few blocks away?” I asked. “Besides, you didn’t see Audrey last night. She was upset. Crying. If Sam had planned to be gone more than a few minutes, our daughter certainly wasn’t aware of it.”
“Do you have the numbers of these women?”
I shook my head. Another failure on my part.
Torres nodded, as if my oversight was understandable, but I sensed her judgment. Or maybe I was judging myself.
From my purse, I pulled the chocolate wrapper I had stashed there earlier. I handed it to Torres. I told her about Lester being poisoned and about finding the wrapper folded into the shape of a dog on my nightstand.
She took the wrapper from me and set it on her clipboard. “We’ll look into this, and we’ll enter the information about your husband into a national database.” I braced myself for the “but” I could hear coming. “We’ll look into this, but unless we find something to indicate your husband is at risk, there’s little we can do. Unfortunately, adults are allowed to come and go as they please.”
Torres put down her pen and leaned forward, a gesture probably meant to draw me in. Establish a connection between us.
“Most missing adults return within a few days,” she said. “Adults are more likely to have left voluntarily than to have been victims of a crime. It may not seem like it now, but that’s a good thing. Odds are Sam’s safe.”
Though the words were what I wanted to hear, I found no reassurance in them.
“We’ll look into this, but there are things you can do too: check with friends, hospitals, homeless shelters. And again, if there’s any evidence that Sam left involuntarily, we’ll investigate it as we would any other crime. Just because the odds are that isn’t what happened doesn’t mean we won’t consider it.”
I nodded, signaling my acceptance that the interview was over. But apparently, it wasn’t.
“One other thing. By filing this report, you’re entitled to know if we find your husband safe.”
“Meaning?”
“That’s all you have a right to know. If we find your husband, and he doesn’t want you to know where he is, we can’t share his location.”
She adjusted the clipboard in her lap and shifted gears again. “You were involved in an assault case a couple of days ago, right?”
“It’s been a hell of a week.”
She straightened, her posture suddenly as guarded as her eyes. “Cops look for patterns. The assault by itself could be bad luck, bad timing. Or good luck, if you consider it from the point of view of the woman whose life you saved. But add to that a husband who disappears almost exactly twenty-four hours later and the murder—”
When she didn’t immediately finish her sentence, I pushed, “The woman he attacked died?”
“Wednesday was a busy day for Mr. Sweet. Before he assaulted that woman, he poisoned his wife,” she said. “You’re sure you don’t know him?”
Since the attack, I couldn’t escape the memory of Carver’s face. Most of all, I remembered the scar—puckered flesh trailing his jaw like an albino snake. The mark of a predator. I wouldn’t have forgotten seeing that scar, even under ordinary circumstances.
“Never met him. But the woman he beat up—she survived?”
Torres’s gaze sharpened, and I felt color bloom in my usually pale cheeks. “Ms. Breneman was released from the hospital yesterday.”
I was usually good at reading people, and I read anticipation in the slight pause in the officer’s breathing, the way her hands clenched the clipboard.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said.
Torres nodded, finally standing. “We’ll let you know if we hear anything. We’ll also let you know when you can pick up your van.”
I’d forgotten about that, and I nodded in thanks. “Your purse, though . . . It wasn’t in the van when we found it. He either took it with him or threw it away.” Neither option provided comfort.
Officer Marisol Torres walked away, all her original warmth replaced with an efficient brusqueness.
I thought of Sam, watched the officer depart, and considered that maybe I wasn’t as good at reading people as I believed.
13
When I left the police station, the autumn sun had finally won its battle with the cloud cover, but the fight left it weak and unable to offer warmth.
I paused outside the station. I should go home, check the computer, sift through phone records and credit card statements. But when I thought of home, I thought of Sam making tamales, setting off the fire alarm when a batch of cornhusks caught fire, or Sam tending to scrapes on Audrey’s knees and elbows, insignificant injuries made instantly better with Dad’s attention and a superhero Band-Aid. I thought of the last time Leo had the flu, when he had allowed us to sit next to him on the couch. We had spent an entire Saturday afternoon there, sharing a blanket and watching South Park reruns and Miyazaki films.
I couldn’t go home.
Even though I hadn’t yet decided on my next step, I walked with purpose toward the car. Keep moving, I told myself, just as I had the night before. Reflection could wait until tonight, when I spent another night on Zoe’s sofa, or my first night alone in the bed I usually shared with Sam. I wasn’t sure I was brave enough for that yet.
Still struggling to come up with a plan, I drove past the station—and saw it. A little metal box, its black lens pointed at the street. I turned around at the next block and headed toward home after all.
I turned a few blocks before I reached our house. The cold sun stole the magic from the neighborhood where Sam had disappeared, ghosts now recognized as bedsheets, skeletons clearly plastic instead of bone. A witch, robbed of its shadows and glowing orbs, listed to one side on a fence post. Someone had splattered its tattered dress with egg.