Rick Mofina - They Disappeared

Sarah. Cole.

A click. The door opened. Brewer and Klaver entered.

They dropped file folders and notebooks on the table, dragged and positioned the two empty chairs opposite Jeff, then filled them.

“Are my wife and my son dead?”

The room went cold.

The detectives stared at Jeff.

Klaver was fair-skinned and wore the somber, pointed face of an undertaker. Brewer’s expression burned with the intensity of an embittered cop bereft of compassion.

“The medical examiner and our people are still processing,” Brewer said.

“You can tell me the presumed age and gender,” Jeff said.

“Can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“The remains are in bad shape. We’re awaiting confirmation.”

“Bull. You have an idea who’s in that SUV.”

“I know this is a horrible time,” Brewer said. “We’ll let you know as soon as we can. We’ve been reading your report and statement to Detectives Cordelli and Ortiz. We’ve made a lot of calls here and in Montana and right now we need to ask you a few questions.”

“About what? I’ve been through this with Cordelli, he knows everything.”

“The vehicle is linked to our operation.”

“What operation?”

“We can’t disclose details. A lot is in play right now.”

“What does that mean? What the hell is this? My wife and son were abducted, they could be dead and you don’t give a damn!”

“It doesn’t get any more serious than this and we’ll get through it faster if you help us to help you.”

Blinking back his anger Jeff looked away, shaking his head in disgust.

“This won’t take long, Jeff.” Klaver spoke in the softer voice of the “good cop” and opened a folder. “There are a few things we need your help on.”

Jeff’s silence invited Klaver’s first question.

“Take us back, step by step, to your arrival in New York, up to and immediately after you reported Sarah and Cole had been abducted.”

Jeff inhaled and recounted every detail for the detectives. Afterward, he answered Klaver’s follow-up questions, then Brewer weighed in.

“You and Sarah had lost a child. It took a toll on your marriage. You were planning to separate and were arguing about it at the time of Sarah and Cole’s disappearance, is that correct?”

“What is this?”

“Is that correct?” Brewer said.

“Yes, I told Cordelli everything.”

“Not quite everything,” Brewer said.

“Did you accuse Neil Larson of having an affair with your wife?” Klaver continued.

Jeff was stunned at how they’d found out and how they were using it.

“Jeff?”

What was happening?

“Did you accuse Neil Larson of having an affair with your wife?”

Brewer watched Jeff swallow hard before answering. “Yes.”

“And did you confront him in a school parking lot where he worked with your wife, to the point others had to restrain you?” Brewer asked.

Jeff hesitated at the twisting of the truth.

“Yes.”

“And did that form part of your argument with Sarah just before you reported that she and Cole had been abducted?”

“Yes.”

“So you confirm these facts?” Brewer said.

“Yes.”

“What’s your relationship with Donnie and Sheri Dalfini?” Brewer asked.

“Relationship? I don’t know them. It’s their SUV.”

“How did you get their address in the Bronx?”

“I went to a store, Metro Gifts or something, and got them to let me look at their security camera. It was pointed at where Sarah and Cole were standing and I got the plate. Then I searched the plate online and took a cab to the address.”

“Why didn’t you check with the police first?” Brewer asked.

“I had the feeling that no one was looking for my family.”

Brewer and Klaver paused to consider Jeff’s answer.

“Jeff,” Brewer said, “as a firefighter you’ve been to death scenes. You probably know a lot of people in law enforcement back home in Montana. You probably know something of investigative procedures.”

Jeff said nothing, uneasy at the picture being drawn around him.

“You seemed to get out to Steeldown Road very fast to talk to Sheri Dalfini about her stolen SUV. Almost as if you wanted to get to the Dalfini residence before police but immediately after you’d reported Sarah and Cole’s abduction. And then you got to the fire at the speed of light.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It just doesn’t look right to us at this stage,” Brewer said. “It just doesn’t add up.”

The floor shifted under Jeff as realization rolled over him with seismic force.

“I don’t like what you’re implying.”

Brewer shifted his lower jaw. In all his time and over all the cases he’d worked he’d come to respect one abiding rule: at the outset of an investigation everyone lies, and when the facts and pieces of evidence emerge, the lies melt like dirty snow in the rain.

“Jeff, I want you to be straight with me here,” Brewer said. “When you believed your wife was maybe fucking Neil Larson and going to leave you I bet it hurt, what with just losing your baby and all. And I’m thinking that maybe you fantasized about making sure Sarah never left you, that maybe you came up with an elaborate foolproof plan. You take her to a location, step away, the cameras record it-”

“What! That’s crazy!”

“Maybe something went wrong, or you didn’t know who you were dealing with.”

“This is insane! Tell me who was in that SUV!”

Glaring at Jeff, Brewer reached for his BlackBerry, entered a command.

“This was in the SUV, Jeff. It matches the description in your report.”

He slid the device to Jeff, carefully studying his reaction as Jeff looked at the crisp photograph of what remained of a New York Jets ball cap. Only a ball cap. Half consumed by fire, half scorched, but clearly identifiable, small, white with the green jet patch on white, familiar to Jeff as the one they bought for Cole.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, Christ, no.

Jeff looked at it until it blurred.

They’re gone.

Jeff ached to pull Cole and Sarah from the darkness.

Sitting there in that small police room, the shock of seeing Cole’s burned ball cap propelled him back to Montana and the morning he’d found Lee Ann.

Her little face all blue, her mouth a tiny O.

His futile efforts to save her.

He thought of his baby daughter with Sarah and Cole and that moment he saw the three of them through the window from his pickup in the driveway.

That perfect moment.

He struggled to hang on to those images but they were gone.

Jeff put his face in his hands and in that cold, hard room he never felt the heat of Brewer’s and Klaver’s stares as Brewer slowly slid back his BlackBerry. Chairs scraped; the detectives gathered their files.

“We’ll leave you alone to consider matters,” Brewer said.

The door opened to ringing phones, conversations and the squawk of walkie-talkies. Above the din Jeff recognized Cordelli’s voice in a fragment of conversation. “Brewer! Did you get my message? My supervisor called yours and-”

The door closed, leaving Jeff alone, adrift in a sea of torment. Minutes passed with the same questions hammering against his skull: Who would steal his wife and son? Who? Why? His confusion and grief coiled into anger.

He would find them.

Whoever did this, he would hunt them down.

The door handle clicked.

This time Brewer entered with Cordelli.

“You can go now. Cordelli will take you out,” Brewer said.

“What?” Jeff threw his question to Cordelli, then back to Brewer.

“Thank you for your help. We’ll be in touch,” Brewer said.