Chương 5
Mostly that loving someone did not make their choices yours.
“I’ll call you when she says.”
Linda sniffed.
“You sound terrible.”
“I feel terrific.”
“You always were a liar.”
That almost made him laugh.
After they hung up, Walter slept for forty minutes at the kitchen table.
The next morning Sarah refused every interview except one brief conversation with Detective Elena Alvarez, the same detective Walter had cursed in the police station lobby three months earlier.
He found out because Alvarez called him herself.
“I know we haven’t always agreed,” she said.
“You mean when I said you weren’t looking hard enough?”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t.”
A pause.
“We looked.”
“You searched her apartment twice.”
“We executed dozens of records requests, interviewed more than sixty people, reviewed traffic and commercial camera footage, searched known locations, and followed tips in four states.”
“You missed a house eleven miles away.”
“Yes.”
Walter stopped.
Alvarez continued quietly.
“We did.”
The admission made him uncomfortable.
He preferred his anger uncomplicated.
“Why are you calling?”
“Sarah asked me to tell you Russell Dane has been located.”
Walter straightened.
“Where?”
“I can’t give you operational details.”
“Is he arrested?”
“He is being detained by officers in another county. Our detectives are going there.”
“Was he running?”
“I’m not characterizing it yet.”
Walter gripped the phone.
“Did Claire tell you where he was?”
“I can’t discuss her statement.”
“So she made one.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You kind of did.”
“No, Mr. Hayes. You heard what you wanted.”
He almost smiled.
He had forgotten Alvarez could annoy him that quickly.
“What does Sarah want?”
“She wants you to come to the hospital at noon.”
“I’ll be there.”
“One more thing.”
Walter waited.
“Do not speak to media.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Do not post online.”
“I don’t use—”
“Your sister does.”
Walter sighed.
“I’ll tell Linda.”
“Thank you.”
“Detective?”
“Yes?”
Walter looked again at the flyer.
“Who sent the picture?”
A pause.
“We’re examining that.”
“Claire said she did.”
“We’re examining that.”
“Is that police language for yes?”
“It’s police language for we’re examining that.”
Walter hung up.
At eleven thirty he parked at the hospital and sat in the truck.
He could not make himself go inside.
A year earlier he had spent whole days begging institutions to let him through doors.
Now the doors were open and he was afraid of what waited behind them.
He reached into the center console and found a crumpled hardware-store receipt, three screws, a peppermint, and one of Sarah’s old hair ties.
He held the hair tie between his fingers.
It might not even have been hers.
He had been preserving ordinary trash because grief had turned him superstitious.
He put it back.
Then he went inside.
Sarah was sitting in a chair beside the window when he entered. She wore hospital socks and a gray cardigan someone had brought from a donation closet.
Detective Alvarez sat near the door.
She was in her forties, compact, dark-haired, and looked exactly as tired as Walter remembered.
Sarah nodded at him.
“Dad.”
“Kid.”
Alvarez stood.
“Sarah asked that you be here for part of this.”
Walter looked at Sarah.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He sat.
Sarah picked at a loose thread on the cardigan.
Alvarez opened a notebook.
“We can stop anytime.”
“You said that four times.”
“I’m going to keep saying it.”
Sarah looked annoyed.
Good, Walter thought.
Annoyed was alive.
Alvarez asked about the night Sarah disappeared.
Walter already knew the beginning.
Sarah had left his house at 9:17 p.m. after their argument. Her phone had last connected to a cellular tower near the west side commercial district. Her backpack was found three days later in a drainage ditch, wallet still inside, phone gone.
What Walter had never known was why Sarah had gone toward the commercial district.
“I had a cleaning job,” she said.
Walter looked up.
“At night?”
“Last-minute job.”
“For who?”
Sarah looked at Alvarez.
“Claire.”
Walter’s mouth went dry.
Sarah continued.
“She messaged me through the app I used. Said a tenant had moved out of a rental and left a mess. She offered double because it was late.”
“Had you worked for her before?”
“Once. Maybe two months earlier. Same house.”
Walter leaned forward.
“You’d been there?”
Sarah looked at him.
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t tell you every house I cleaned.”
He sat back.
Alvarez asked, “Was Russell there the first time?”
“No.”
“Did you meet him before the second job?”
“No.”
“Tell me what happened when you arrived.”
Sarah’s fingers stopped moving.
Walter watched her face.
Alvarez did not speak.
Sarah stared at the floor.
“Claire let me in.”
Walter felt something inside him harden.
“She said the basement was worst. I went down. There were boxes everywhere. I started cleaning.”
She swallowed.
“Russell came through the other door.”
“What other door?”
“Back stairs. From outside.”
“Did Claire react?”
Sarah nodded.
“She acted surprised.”
“Acted?”
Sarah looked at Walter.
“I didn’t know it was acting then.”
Alvarez asked, “What happened next?”
Sarah’s breathing changed.
Walter stood.
“I’ll go.”
She looked at him.
He did not wait for her to ask.
“I’ll be outside.”
Sarah nodded.
Walter left the room.
He sat in a hallway chair and pressed both palms against his eyes.
A custodian pushed a mop bucket past him.
A little boy in dinosaur pajamas argued with his father about orange juice.
A woman laughed loudly near the elevators.
The world was indecently normal.
Forty minutes later Alvarez came out.
Walter stood.
“She okay?”
“She asked for a break.”
“What did he do?”
Alvarez’s face closed.
“Ask Sarah when she wants to tell you.”
“He took her.”
“Yes.”
“And Claire brought her there.”
Alvarez watched him.
“Sarah described Claire as the person who hired her for the cleaning job.”
Walter’s jaw tightened.
“That’s bringing her there.”
“There are important distinctions investigators have to establish.”
“I don’t care about distinctions.”
“You will.”
“Why?”
May you like
“Because Sarah does.”
He looked through the narrow window in the hospital door.
