“Would you be requiring a drink, Mr. Jared?” Kelly asked.
“No, thank you. And it’s Mr. Stark. Or you can call me Jared.”
Kelly lost his nose in the piece of paper, examining it as if it were an FBI fingerprint sheet. “Yes, yes. Please excuse me. I must’ve written it down wrongly. Nonetheless. Will Jared be acceptable?”
“Please.” Jared took a breath.
“What can I do for you?” asked Kelly. “How can my services be of…service?”
“Mr. Kelly, I want to hire you to find my wife.”
“Ah. Yes. Of course. And how long, could I inquire, has your wife been…not in your possession?”
After a pause Jared said, “Since May of last year.”
“May!” On his fingers, Kelly counted out the months until he ran out of fingers. Perhaps he could use his toes. Every folded digit was a nail hammered twelve times into Jared’s palms and feet and heart. “Hmm.” He glanced up, looked away. “That’s quite some time to have had her missing, Mr. J—Stark,” he said.
“Well, this isn’t an active thing on my part,” Jared said, “having her missing. I would prefer she weren’t.”
“Of course.”
“I’ve been waiting for her to come back.”
“No harm in that. A passive game, waiting. Not much is required. Do you have, um, any indication that she might be coming back?”
“Um, no.”
“And you don’t know where she is?”
“If I knew where she was, why would I be here?”
Kelly laughed. “You’re so right. Because you know”—he tapped his pencil three times—”she’s definitely not here.” He waved his fingers before Jared had a chance to glare. “Just lightening up the atmosphere, with a small, humorful remark. Now please. Tell me what you do know.”
Jared didn’t speak.
“Listen, Mr. Jared,” Kelly said, indifferent to being correct or corrected. “Let me tell you something. It’s your money. I charge two fifty a day for my time, except for this free consultation, which is free only if you employ my expertise, otherwise it’s two hundred and sixty-nine dollars plus tax for the consult. So. Two fifty a day, plus expenses, hotels, food, travel, documents, etcetera. Whether I find her or don’t, you still pay. So if you keep stuff from me that makes it hard for me to find her, well, whatever. It’s your dime. Perhaps you don’t like your money. You want to give it away? Fine with me. None of my beeswax. I’m just telling you, I’m not your parent. I’m not here to judge you or discipline you. Tell me or don’t tell me, but I want my money up front.”
Looking at the modest, to say the least, surroundings, Jared suspected that the $250 a day work wasn’t coming as fast as it should, and perhaps that was the reason for the urgency of the tap-tap-tapping. At the same time, the irascible Kelly wasn’t the first private eye Jared had gone to. The other four were even more wrong than Kelly, not to mention more expensive. Jared hadn’t liked their digs: either in glass offices or in neighborhoods more seedy than this one. So he stayed put, though silent, though hesitant.
Finally he spoke. “I will pay you your rate,” Jared said. “No matter what. But there’s a ten-thousand-dollar bonus if you actually find her.”
“Ten thousand?” Kelly whistled. “Okey-doke. All the more reason to be straight with me, Mr. Stark. All the more reason to tell me what you know.”
Jared spoke for ten minutes. His whole marriage, seven thousand three hundred days in ten minutes.
When he was done, Kelly was quiet, rapping his moist ragged pencil on the desk, drumming, tutting, thinking.
“Well, well, well,” he said at last. “You got yourself quite a situation here, Mr. Stark. You want me to find her? Really? You sure? There’s no denying I could use that bonus. But…” Kelly looked up, poker-faced, panting, yet pitying. “What do you want to go digging in these black holes for?”
When Jared didn’t reply, Kelly drummed some more. “I been in this business a long time. I was a night-shift beat cop for ten years, a detective for seven, then I got shot, now I do this. Been doing it for fifteen. I’m fifty-three. Got a couple of years on you. Been around the block, married four times, so clearly I’m not one to advise you in that particular department. But I will tell you that what you want me to do, no good can come of it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Wait, let me finish. Most of the people who come to me are women, mothers, looking for their husbands, the fathers of their kids, who ran out and left them without child support. Seventy percent of my marital cases are like that. Ten percent are women wanting photographic evidence of their husband’s misbehaviors to slam them in divorce court. Five percent are men looking for their wives who took the kids. They want their kids back. Ten percent are men wanting to know if their wives have been faithful.”
“How does that work out?”
“Usually, by the time the man gets wind of it, it’s very much blindingly obvious to everyone else. Easy money for me, so I don’t complain. Men, I’d say, are pretty clueless in this regard.” He coughed. “I speak from personal experience, so I don’t mean no disrespect there, Mr. Stark.”
“None taken,” said Jared. He had been clueless. “That may be over a hundred percent there.”
Kelly counted on his fingers. “I think we’re right up to a hundred, give or take ten or fifteen. What I’m saying, is, sometimes the woman goes but takes the kids with her. In an abusive relationship that often happens. But to leave like your wife? I’ve had two cases before you of the wife skipping out without the kids, and both of them turned up floaters. One in the Passaic, one a little further out in the Ohio.” Kelly smacked his lips and shook his head. “That was a beautiful river, though, by Westport, Kentucky. If it weren’t for the body three months dead being dredged up, the sunset over the river was a sight to behold.”
Jared fiercely rubbed the space between his brows.
“Did you say the detectives ruled out a kidnapping?”
Jared nodded. “They and I both. Besides, I already told you she was involved with someone. You mean she might’ve been kidnapped unrelated to the affair she was having? As a coincidence?” He tried not to scoff.
“No, that’s not what I mean. But maybe she didn’t want to go, and the lover forced her hand. Maybe he threatened her life, or her kids, or you, maybe he told her he would tell you unless she went with him? He could’ve blackmailed her into going.”
“Is that likely?”
“Why not? You say she was taking money out of your account? Maybe she was giving it to him.”
“He was Jag salesman of the month for a year straight. He got a whole Jag out of it. Sold it without driving it once, and pocketed seventy grand. He didn’t need her money.”
“Okay.” Kelly shrugged. “All’s I’m saying is, we don’t know what happened.”
“She could’ve gone with him out of her own free will,” Jared said quietly. “She could’ve wanted to go. She could’ve gone with relief, with joy.”
The investigator looked skeptical, as if he didn’t believe that could ever happen. Only coercion and violence made any sense to him. “She would’ve written, in that case,” said Kelly. “She would’ve come back, called, petitioned you for a divorce. Her silence is abnormal.”
“What do you think happened?”
“She’s likely dead,” Kelly stated without preamble. “She’d be back otherwise. Perhaps he was murderously jealous.”
“For over a year she got together with him and then came home to me. Does that seem like an act of Othello to you?”
“Who? Oh, yeah. Uh, guess not. But I don’t rule anything out in a strange case like this. Its very oddity is the reason of a good chance for all kinds of shenanigans. Maybe she wanted to come back and he got so furious, he killed her. And then killed himself. You’re waiting on your wife when you should be mourning her and moving on. You’re a good-looking guy in the prime of his life, making money, suddenly unattached. I may be spitting in the win
d here, but I bet there are one or two women out there who might, just might, find that combination appealing.”
“You think?” Jared said evenly.
“Something tells me.”
“Hmm. Well, I’ll be on the lookout for that, but in the meantime…”
“You see?” Kelly exclaimed. “Her being dead is really the best thing that could happen to you! Then you can tell your kids that Mommy wanted to come back, but has bought the farm and can’t.”
Jared agreed closure of some kind would be nice, even though he didn’t share Kelly’s enthusiasm for it.
“Exactly. I definitely see it from your point of view,” said Kelly. “But because you want to pay me good money, I also have to see it from a point of view that’s not yours.” Now it was Kelly’s turn to hesitate. “There’s also an admittedly small but real possibility that I might find her. And if I find her, there’s a real possibility that she ain’t coming back, and I don’t know how to say this tactfully…”
“Not coming back because she doesn’t want to?” finished Jared.
“Precisely!”
“Okay. But don’t you think I need to know that?”
“I don’t know,” Kelly said, reaching across the desk and extending his hand. “Do you? Think about it and give me a call.”
They shook hands. “I’m ready right now,” Jared said.
“Think about it and give me a call, Mr. Stark. You’ll thank me later.”
It was just bravado. Kelly was right. Jared didn’t want to know. He couldn’t live his life not knowing, but he didn’t want to know. Perhaps in his body language, the private investigator, who, after all, got paid to see things about people, divined Jared’s paralysis.
After days of thinking about it, or rather, thinking about everything else but that, Jared called Kelly back. “I want to do this,” he said.
“Mr. Stark. I don’t think you do. Ask yourself the most important question about this, as about everything: what do you hope to achieve? If she’s happy as a clam, will that be good? What will you tell your children? And what will you do? See, I don’t want to get involved in anything that might later on make me an accessory to a felony, Mr. Stark. I don’t want no Armani legal suit proving in the court of law that I had had every indication that you would go and off her, and yet I still went and found her for you. I get twenty-five years for conspiracy to commit murder.”
“You’re just shaking me down for more money,” said Jared. “Fine. Twenty thousand if you find her. And I’ll visit you in Sing-Sing once a month.”
“That twenty grand ain’t going to do me much good there,” said Kelly.
They met, exchanged information, and money.
Jared gave him Finney’s number, pictures of Larissa, the missing persons police report, her driver license number, her social security number, her passport number.
“Good-looking broad,” Kelly said. “Looks happy in the pictures.”
“Yes, well. Perhaps we’d do better to look at the things which are not seen.”
And then Jared sat and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Two weeks went by. He couldn’t wait anymore. After placing a call to Kelly, Jared had to wait another thirty-six hours before the call was returned.
“I’m working on it,” Kelly said. “I was away on business.”
Jared couldn’t tell from the sound of Kelly’s voice whether he conveyed optimism, pessimism. Whether there was hope, whether he was grim. Through the receiver, Kelly sounded as if he’d never actually talked to Jared before.
“Do you have anything to report?”
“Couple of things. I’d rather not say yet. Not sure they’re helpful.”
“Anything is helpful. Anything you got.”
“Okay then. Personally, I don’t think she’s in this country.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Either that or she’s dead.”
Now Kelly sounded chipper!
“What makes you think,” Jared asked slowly, “she’s not in this country?”
“Social’s not been touched. Driver’s license neither.”
“Finney said she could’ve gotten herself a new driver’s license.”
“Yes. But unlike your little friend Finney, who didn’t do his job, I called the DMV in every state. She hasn’t.”
“In every state?” Jared was impressed.
“Even Alaska and Hawaii. And if she was working somewhere, her social security taxes would be taken out. And they haven’t been. So how is she making money?”
“Maybe she’s waitressing.”
“You been at Prudential too long, Mister Financial Officer. Waitresses also pay into their social security. They get two bucks an hour, and six cents on the dollar goes to the social. There hasn’t been even twelve cents added to your wife’s retirement account. Believe me. She’s not working. How long can she live on the money she took? By now surely it’s all gone.”
“She could’ve changed her name.” Jared was thoughtful. “You should look into Hawaii.”
“Why? Because he was from Hawaii? But Finney already checked it out a year ago. He found nothing there. I’ll check again if you want.”
“Yes, check again.” But there were other things that were bothering Jared. “Can you keep in touch with me? I need a weekly report on what’s happening. Even if it’s nothing, I need it. Five-minute phone call is all I ask. Agree to call me every Thursday evening, or afternoon.”
“Weekly? I’m not in my office weekly. I’m heading to San Francisco tomorrow.”
“For me or for…”
“Partly for you, yes.”
“You think she’s in San Francisco?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I was headin’ there. I gotta check some stuff out. Hang tight. I’ll call you. This is the thing, Mr. Stark. You waited too long to call me. Her trail has run cold. People don’t remember who they saw or spoke to a year ago. I’m havin’ a hard time jogging people’s memories.”
“I understand. We have to work with what we’ve got.”
“No kidding.”
“Do you remember I told you he had a Ducati bike? That’s not something you forget. Apparently he loved that bike. He wouldn’t have sold it. He’d have kept it.”
“True.”
“I’m saying people might remember the bike even if they won’t remember much else.”
“What people?”
“I don’t know.” Jared stammered. “Whoever you’re talking to.”
“Right now I’m talkin’ to you, and you know nothing. You know he drove a Ducati. Does that bring you any closer to where she is? Do you know how many Ducati Sportclassics were sold in this country last year alone? Forty-seven thousand. Twenty-one thousand in his color.”
“Oh.”
“Exactly. Like I was saying. Hang tight. I’ll call you Thursday.”
“They got on a ship!” Kelly said when he called the following Thursday. “I got a sailor to remember and another midshipman to corroborate. They purchased a trans-Pacific fare from San Francisco to Wailea.”
“They went to Hawaii?”
“Looks like it.”
“Why wouldn’t they fly?”
“A thousand reasons. Easier to get aboard a ship with no questions asked. Only the driver is asked for a license and sometimes not even the driver. In his case, he wasn’t asked, because there’s no record of him getting on the ship. No record of her at all. But two people who are still manning the ticket office to the cruise lines remembered the bike, and vaguely remembered the guy on it. They remembered him, they said, because he looked so damn young. They asked for his license to check his age.”
“When was this?”
“Last summer sometime.”
“Huh. So now what?”
“Now? Well, clearly and unbelievably I’m going to have to go to Maui.” Kelly chuckled into the phone. “I’m a little excited. I’ve never been to Hawaii.”
“It’s not
a vacation, Kelly.”
“I know. Still, you can’t help but notice the scenery even when you’re working.”
Jared wouldn’t know about that. He hadn’t noticed the scenery since last summer.
3
The Runaway Child
There was silence from the fiftieth state. The Thursday phone calls never happened. Jared kept calling Kelly’s office, but since Kelly didn’t have an assistant, it was difficult to get much information. He left one message, two, a dozen. After a month he stopped calling. Michelangelo had joined Little League, Asher was pitching with the big boys, Emily was practicing cello three hours a day for the state solo auditions, and playing all out for another volleyball state championship. Jared found it difficult to work past 3:30. Which was inconvenient to the CEO of an investment conglomerate, since the stock market didn’t close till four. To compensate Jared came in earlier. He got Maria to agree to take Michelangelo to school, just so he could go to the Little League practices during the week and drive Emily to her games on Friday night, and be there for them even in his diminished capacity after school. Every day was filled to the brim with life while he waited and waited.
The trees morphed from fluttering green to deep yellow by the time he heard from Glenn Kelly. There was Lillypond and a two-week trip to Florida to visit his ailing parents, and a week’s adventure drive to the Keys. Maria went back to Slovakia for the summer. School began again. Fourteen weeks had gone by since Jared had heard a word.
At 4 p.m. on a Thursday, in October during Halloween season, Jared’s phone rang. It was Kelly.
“Oh my God.”
“Sorry, mate, I know it’s been a long time. I told you to hang tight. Did you listen?”
“Where are you? The connection is terrible.” Jared could barely hear him.
“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that.”
“Where are you?”
“Australia.”
“Australia! In the name of God, why?”
“Why? Why? Because I got credible information that’s where they went.”