David Silva - The Disappeared

“Actually, she didn’t introduce herself at all. I got her name from Gabe.”

“From the boy?”

Teri nodded, fully aware of the subtle game of semantics they were playing.

“This Churchill woman? She say anything at all?”

“Not much.”

“Anything about where the boy’s been the last ten years or why she was bringing him home at this particular time?” He sat down at the table again, immersed in making notes. “By the way, I want you to know that I’m going to have you check Gabe’s dental records tomorrow. We’ll see how they match up.”

“You still don’t believe it’s him, do you?”

Walt glanced up from his notepad, stared at her a moment in silence, then sighed and leaned back. “Neither do you, Teri.”

“Well you tell me then, if he’s not Gabe, then who is he?”

“I don’t know who he is.”

“And why would anyone do such a thing? I mean… what’s the point? I haven’t got any money. I’m not connected . What in the world would anyone want with me?”

“I don’t know that, either. But I want you to keep in mind that that kid, whoever he is, isn’t capable doing this all on his own. Someone’s behind the scenes, pulling the strings, Teri. I don’t want you to forget that.”

The mood between them had shifted, and they both seemed to realize it at the same moment. Teri sat back in her chair. Walt tapped out a handful of beats against his notepad, and blew out a breath of air.

“We’ll get a handle on it,” he said finally. “One way or another, I promise you, we’ll get a handle on it.”

She nodded and stared down at her hands, which were nervously picking at the hem of her shirt. She hadn’t had a handle on anything in longer than she could remember. Not her family. Not her marriage. Not her job. After Gabe had disappeared everything had seemed to fall apart all at once, right before her eyes. She didn’t want to let that happen again.

“She said he didn’t know how long he’d been away.”

Walt raised his eyebrows.

“Miss Churchill. She said the boy thought he had been in an accident a couple of weeks ago, that he didn’t know he’d been missing for ten years.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

Teri nodded. “He doesn’t remember anything about any accident. I keep thinking it was something she must have told him as a way of explaining where he was and what had happened.”

“Does he remember anything before the accident?”

“He remembers being Gabe.”

Walt shook his head, a smirk on his face. “And after ?”

“Apparently, he woke up in some sort of medical facility.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Walt said absently. He jotted down a note, and she could see he was burning with raw curiosity now, the investigator poking at the edges of the facts to see if anything protruded from the other side. “Tell me about these other guys.”

“There were three of them.”

“Were they carrying weapons?”

“Yes. The one named Mitch—he seemed to be the one in charge—he was carrying a gun. He showed it to me when we were standing at the front door. I think he thought it would help persuade me.”

“How about the others?”

“I don’t know about them.” She flashed back to the man, his suit coat pulled back, exposing the gun. There was something odd about that. Something that had been quietly gnawing at her. “It was strange; because that was the only time I saw the gun, when we were there at the front door. He never took it out of the holster.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” She shook her head, thinking how odd that seemed now that she looked back on it. “Why didn’t he take a shot at me?”

“Probably because he wasn’t supposed to hurt you.”

“You make it sound like you don’t think he was really in charge.”

“Oh, there’s no question he wasn’t in charge. This whole thing was orchestrated from behind the scenes, Teri.”

“How can you know that?”

“The cleanup,” Walt said matter-of-factly. He tapped another solo out on the notepad, the look in his eyes clear and focused. “This kid wasn’t supposed to be wandering off from wherever it was they were keeping him. And that’s why they showed up at your place right behind him.”

“Because they knew that’s where she would take him.”

“Exactly.”

“Home.”

“Or someplace he was supposed to think of as home.”

“Who are we talking about? Why would anyone want me to believe my son had come back after all this time?”

“I don’t know,” Walt said. “What about Michael?”

Teri shook her head. “No, I can’t imagine him doing something like this.”

“He didn’t hold you responsible?”

“For what?”

“For everything. For what happened to his son, for the disintegration of his marriage, for all of it.”

She shrugged, almost unnoticeably, and hoped Walt hadn’t caught it. She was about to tell him a lie. Michael had held her very much responsible for the breakup of their marriage. She had become obsessed with finding Gabe again, and everything else, including their marriage had been put on the back burner. What had Michael told her just before he moved out? First I lost my son, then I lost my wife.

“No, it’s got nothing to do with Michael. I’m sure of that.”

The mood had shifted again.

Walt got up and headed for the kitchen. “You sure you don’t want anything to drink?”

“No thanks.” Teri stared across the table at the notes he had been scribbling. It was impossible to make them out upside down. “Oh, I almost forgot. The guy that seemed in charge—Mitch? He had a scar over his left eye.”

“That helps.” The refrigerator door closed and Walt came around the corner with a Diet Coke in his hand. “How about the other two?”

“One guy, I think his name was Jimmy, was a nervous little weasel. Always fidgeting, rocking back and forth on his heels, that kind of thing. The other one… all I can tell you about him is that his fingers were a mess after we slammed the door on them.”

“So he’d probably need medical attention?”

“If he ever wanted to zip up his pants again.”

“That’s good.” Walt made another note, nodding absently as he did so. When he was done, he paused, then said: “Okay, here’s what I think we ought to do tomorrow. I’ve got some friends in the department. I’m going to run these prints by them and see if we come up with anything. We’ll also run Mitch and Jimmy through the department’s database and, who knows, maybe we’ll luck out and something’ll click.”

“Okay,” Teri said.

“What I want you to do is to take the boy in to see your family dentist and have x-rays taken. Have the dentist check them against his records and see what he has to say. If he comes back with a match, then we’ve got ourselves a whole new set of problems. And if it isn’t a match…”

“At least we’ll be over that hurdle,” Teri said reluctantly.

“Yeah, I guess we will.”

“You know, I’m not even sure if Gabe’s dentist is still in business.” She hadn’t seen Dr. Harding in four or five years and the last time she had been in for a visit, he had been talking about retirement.

“His records should still be around,” Walt said.

“I can’t even remember if he ever had a filling.”

“Well, why don’t we see what the dentist has to say. All right?”

“Sure.”

It was done.

Not much had gone right tonight. When things went to hell, they went to hell in full glory. But at least Mitch could go to bed knowing he hadn’t let it all blow up in his face.