Дэвид Балдаччи - No Man's Land

Formally correct, though he had called her nothing other than Mom for the eight years he had had her as a mother.

After that? He had rarely used the term at all.

For several years when he was growing up, people would come up to him, their features full of sadness, and tell them how bad they felt for his loss.

He had no doubt they were being sincere, but for a little boy it was way too much to deal with. And Puller had started running the other way when folks headed toward him with “that look.”

His father had not spoken of his wife from that day on. The family had just continued to exist with an enormously important piece of their world simply gone without any reason given.

Puller and his brother would speak of it sometimes, first as boys and then as men. But as the years passed and no word was ever heard about their mother, they began to talk less and less of her.

In his heart Puller felt sure that both his father and his brother believed that Jacqueline Puller had abandoned them and run off to a new and better life.

And that would be better, he thought, than his father’s having killed her.

However, she had left no note, taken none of her clothes or other possessions. She had prepared dinner for them, arranged for a babysitter, and walked out the door, never to return.

As an investigator, Puller knew that when folks planned to leave – and he had traced several who had done so – they usually left some sort of note. If there were kids and it was the mother leaving, she invariably took the kids with her. They also took a suitcase with clothes and other essentials. And they normally took the car. And they cleaned out bank accounts and maxed out ATM withdrawals.

His mother had done none of those things.

He believed she was planning to come back that night. But something had prevented her from doing so.

Or someone.

He read through the report, word by word, page by page. And then he read it twice more.

Pertinent people were questioned. Answers were received.

A few tangential leads had been run down.

And that was it.

Abject failure.

In less than two weeks.

Puller wondered if his father’s status as the husband had had anything to do with the truncated investigation. Had they wondered if Puller Sr. had been involved and just didn’t want to go there?

Perspectives about domestic abuse were different thirty years ago. Wife beaters were given time to cool off and sent back to battered women who were too scared to press charges. What was clearly illegal now was tolerated back then. A wink, a nod, a look the other way.

On an Army post three decades back Puller assumed things were different too. But to be fair, the CID back then was not aware that Puller Sr. had arrived home in time to possibly be involved in his wife’s disappearance. He had not been a suspect.

Now, technically, he was.

Puller took out a notebook and a pen.

He needed to get a name from Carol Powers. One of his mother’s friends whom he could talk to. That might lead to something else.

He needed to trace his mother’s movements on the day of her disappearance.

He needed to see if there was any truth to the rumor that she was going to leave her husband.

He needed to find out why she was dressed up that night. Was it a date? Was it a function? If so, CID had been unable to determine what it was.

He put his pen down and closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts on the last day with his mother. The face in the window. The smile. Everything seemed good. That was not the expression of a woman about to abruptly change her life by walking out on her family.

Puller opened his eyes. He had learned that not only did time heal wounds, but it also played with memories. People often rejiggered memories to match what they wanted the past to look like, rather than how it actually had been.

He took the picture out of his wallet. It showed the three Puller men all in a row. Puller was the tallest, his father next in height, and his brother, at six-two, bringing up the rear. Age and deteriorating health had robbed Puller Sr. of two inches of his stature, so he would now be last in the height pecking order.

But Puller was looking to the left of the picture. Where his mother would have been standing had she still been with them.

This was the only family picture Puller had ever carried with him. In combat overseas, on every mission he had performed on behalf of the U.S. Army. On every investigation he had carried out as a CID agent.

He had no pictures of his mother.

He had had no choice in the matter.

His father had found and destroyed them all.

Puller slowly put the photo away, closed his eyes, and refocused…on that day.

The face at the window. Him playing outside. The smile.

A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead.

Come on, John. More happened. Bobby knows. Get past whatever is in your head blocking it. See it for how it really was.

He sat there for five more minutes, straining, his eyes scrunched so tightly closed that his pupils started to feel sore.

His eyes popped open and he sat there.

The wall had held.

He couldn’t get through it.

He rose. Well, if not in his head, then with his boots on the ground.

One way or another he was going to finally get to the truth.

ON THE WAY to his car his phone buzzed. It was Carol Powers.

“Okay,” she began. “It took a few phone calls, but I finally found Lucy Bristow.”

“Lucy Bristow?”

“You probably don’t remember her. She was friends with both our moms. They all volunteered at the Catholic church at Fort Monroe. St. Mary’s.”

“Okay. That was fast work. How’d you manage it?”

She laughed. “Women do these things differently from men. We keep phone numbers and addresses, and the ladies’ network is a little more sophisticated than the beer-and-football phone circle. And we tend to keep in touch with each other.”

“I guess that’s right.”

“She was around your mother’s age. Her husband was under your father’s command. Anyway, I just talked to her. She lives in Richmond now. Not that far away. And she said she’d talk to you.”

“Did she remember anything from that day?”

“I didn’t ask. I think it’s better that she tells you directly, John.”

“Okay, Carol, thank you. I really appreciate this.”

She gave him the contact information and then clicked off.

Puller called Bristow and she agreed to meet with him later that day.

He drove off, heading northwest toward Virginia’s capital city.

Part of him felt like he was playing the children’s game of hot and cold. The farther away from Fort Monroe he drove, the colder the trail seemed to become. He assumed that whatever had happened to his mother, the answers would lie here. But to get to that point he would travel wherever he needed to.

Five minutes after he hit the highway his phone buzzed. He saw the caller ID. It was his CO, Don White.

He hesitated, not really wanting to answer and be told something he didn’t want to hear.

But his training took over and he answered. In the Army your CO calls and you just pick up the phone no matter what. Otherwise, you would not be in the Army much longer. You’d be in a stockade.

“Yes sir?”

“Puller, got a call from the Twelfth MPs.”

“Yes sir?”

“They filled me in on what’s going on.”

Puller felt his gut tighten a notch. “They came to see me when I was with my father.”

“They told me that too. Agent Hull seems competent. I checked his record. Not a mark on it.”

“I’m sure. He seemed good to me too.”

“Damn shame all this is coming out now.”