13
DETECTIVE SLATER SAT in silence, looking out at the street.
“What’s being done?”
“Nothing,” the cop said. “There isn’t any case. Just the testimony of one hiker. It was night. The man was scared, alone. When the ranger got back in there he couldn’t find anything at all. No blood, no broken-up bushes. Sheriffs looked the place over next day. There wasn’t a piece of thread or a scuffed rock. Nothing. Locals back in there hadn’t seen or heard anything.”
“So what are you saying?” Peter asked. “What the hell happened to the bodies? Nobody was dead? What?”
The cop shrugged. “Hiker might have been full of baloney. Or else the people he saw might not have been dead at all. Maybe they got up and walked away. That’s possible. Hell, we get reports of dead bodies around here all the time. Almost always turns out to be someone passed out drunk or a bag lady asleep in the Plaza. So I’m saying that nobody knows what happened out there in the canyon. Might be a half dozen answers for it. They’ve got the hiker’s description of the alleged bodies, though—clothes, hair color.”
“What clothes?” Peter asked, suddenly full of both hope and fear. If Amanda and Peter had disappeared out there, they would have been wearing the clothes they’d driven out in. They hadn’t brought any others.
“Woman had on a long black dress. The hiker was close enough to see that. Apparently there was some moonlight. The boy …”
“He’s sure it was a boy?”
“That’s what it says here. The boy wore light-colored pants, maybe khakis. White long-sleeve shirt.”
“That isn’t what Amanda and David were wearing.” Peter said. A wave of relief swept across him. “It wasn’t them.”
Detective Slater shrugged again, noncommittally. “Let’s hope not. As far as the sheriff’s department knows, it wasn’t anyone. They don’t have any bodies, just a man’s testimony. What got me, though, was the coincidence of the whole thing. You lose your wife and boy out there, and a couple days later a hiker claims to have seen a woman and child dead. It’s a small world, but it’s not that small. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to drive out to Santa Ana, soon as you leave here. Sheriff’s office is down on north Flower Street, 550 block near the corner of Santa Ana Boulevard, by the courthouse buildings. I called them when I went after the report a few minutes ago.”
Peter’s head spun. He had spent the last hour processing what he knew, over and over until he couldn’t see past it or around it. Now all of that was swept aside by these new revelations. “Am I under suspicion then?” he asked suddenly. “What, I just drive over to the sheriff’s department alone?”
“That’s the ticket. No crime’s been committed as far as I know. Nobody’s suspected of anything.”
“What do I expect from them? Will they hold me on suspicion of something?”
“Of what?” Detective Slater shook his head slowly. “You shouldn’t expect anything except a few questions. Like I said, nobody’s under suspicion. If there’s no bodies and no evidence of anything, then there’s no investigation beyond the information taken from the hiker and the ranger a week ago. If bodies turn up, and if they’re identified as your wife and son, then you can bet the sheriff’s going to come looking for you. Right now all you’ve got to do is drive out to Santa Ana and tell them what you told me. I’ll file two missing-persons reports and we’ll see what comes up. Meanwhile I’ll send them out copies of the photos and fingerprints you gave me. That’s about it. If you think of something, though, or find out anything, come straight back here.”
“Right,” Peter said. “Thanks.”
The detective stood up and put his pen into his pocket. It was over, this part was. He shook Peter’s hand and walked him out to the door, explaining where the sheriff’s department was again, where to park, who to ask for. Together they stepped outside, into a sheltered alcove between buildings. Even there, leaves and debris blew along the concrete and out toward the street. “Wind won’t quit this year,” Slater said.
Peter nodded. He couldn’t think of anything to say. The small-talk center in his brain had been temporarily shut down. He wondered if that wasn’t one of the things you lost forever if you became insane.
“You know, maybe there’s other explanations for this,” the detective said, making no move to go back in. “I don’t mean the bodies out in the canyon, I mean your wife disappearing.”
“What’s that?” Peter asked.
“How about custody kidnap? What was the deal there? You say you were separated but not divorced. Was she happy with the arrangements? She got to keep the kid? The house?”
“She would keep David weekdays. He can go to the neighborhood schools that way. He stays with me weekends, holidays, summer vacations. My schedule’s good that way.”
“That’s carved in stone?”
“It will be in another couple of months.”
“And she likes that? Lot of mothers wouldn’t give a child up that easily, you know. That’s a pretty modern idea—sharing custody. Sometimes that kind of thing looks good in theory, but actually doing it is a different thing. How do you know she didn’t just take the kid and go? Move to the east or something?”
“She wouldn’t do that.” Peter said this with conviction. Almost at once, though, he wondered how sure he was about it. “Impossible,” he said, after a moment. “Why dump money into airplane tickets to Hawaii? Why leave a thousand dollars in traveler’s checks behind, along with your luggage and clothes?”
“Why not do all that? If you’re putting one over on the world, you want to do a job of it. Convinced the hell out of you, didn’t it? She have any money? Enough to be independent of you?”
“She has enough. More than me, really—better job. It’s me that’ll have to tighten the belt. And she owns the house that her parents lived in before they died.”
“The house here in Orange. Is that hers?”
“Technically it’s both of ours still,” Peter said. “It’ll be hers when the papers are final.”
“What I’d do, maybe, if I were her, is take out a big second, or a home equity loan on her parents’ place. Lot of equity in that house, I’d guess, if she owns it outright? Then I’d throw a little of it away on airplane tickets and traveler’s checks, set up my husband, and walk away with the kid. She could move out of state and do pretty well. It would cost her, but I’ll guarantee you there’s people all over the country doing it right now. It’s a popular crime. Some states won’t even extradite in cases of custody kidnap. Texas is a good bet for that. Living’s cheap, too. She could buy a house with cash and bank the rest.”
“I don’t think so,” Peter said. “I wasn’t very perceptive about her sometimes. That’s been part of the problem. But I think I would have seen that coming. She wasn’t that good when it came to acting. In fact, she wasn’t any good at all. She didn’t play games. It wasn’t in her.”
Slater shrugged. “Maybe not. I just wanted to point out that there’s other ways to look at it. You don’t want to jump to any conclusions. Lots of missing people turn up again someday. She wouldn’t be the first person to just walk away.”
“Well,” Peter said. “Thanks. I don’t think so, but I’ll keep it in mind. I hope you’re right, or that it’s something like that.”
“Call me if anything comes up.” Detective Slater shook Peter’s hand again and pulled open the door. “Good luck,” he said, and went back in. The wind pushed the door shut behind him.