Matthew Stokoe - Empty Mile

Stan let out a small moan.

“We’ve checked it out pretty thoroughly and we haven’t found anything to indicate that he might have come to harm-no damage to the bodywork, no marks on the interior.”

For the next half hour Patterson asked about what my father did, where he worked, how long we’d lived in Oakridge, what happened to my mother… obviously compiling background to help him in his search. He typed all our answers into his laptop without looking at the keys.

“How long ago was it that your mother died?”

“Fourteen years.”

Stan was sitting beside me. Patterson was opposite us across the table and I saw him glance at my brother.

“So there were just you two boys and your father after that?”

“For a while. I went to live in London eight years ago. I only just got back.”

“Do you think your father found it difficult, working and being Mr. Mom all those years? Particularly after you left?”

“I guess.”

“Was he bitter about it, do you think?”

“I think he was… frustrated that he didn’t have the money to make it easier.”

“Mmm.” Patterson frowned and nodded to himself. “Would you call him a happy man?”

“He wasn’t suicidal, if that’s what you’re driving at.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of depression. Was he unhappy with the state of his life? Would that describe him? Was he on medication? Antidepressants?”

“No, no medication, no antidepressants. He wasn’t a happy man but he wasn’t clinically depressed, either. He was unfulfilled. He always wanted to be more successful.”

“Okay. See, where his car was found, that lot, that’s a pickup stop for the Greyhound that runs up to Burton and on to Nevada, and back the other way to San Francisco. Several people got on the San Francisco bus last night.”

“Was he one of them?”

“We don’t know. We spoke to the driver by phone. All he remembers is that out of the people who got on there were a couple of men. They weren’t together and they paid for their tickets with cash-no credit card ID. He couldn’t give a description beyond that they were white and middle-aged. We’ll e-mail him a photo, but I don’t know how much we’ll get out of him. All we know is that all the passengers went through to San Francisco, no one got off along the way. I’ll need your father’s bank details, by the way, so we can put a trace on his cards.”

Stan had been listening to all of this, rubbing his hands together as though they were hurting him. He spoke up now and his voice was angry. “My dad wouldn’t go away like that. You’re talking crazy.”

Patterson looked at him uncertainly for a moment and I knew he was trying to gauge the boundaries of Stan’s ability to understand the situation. To his credit he didn’t start speaking like a grade school teacher.

“No, you’re right. It seems unlikely. But I have to consider every possible scenario. And, unfortunately, it is a possibility.”

“Stan’s right, though. My father isn’t that sort of man.”

“I hear what you’re saying, but it’s a fact that in many, many missing persons cases the person, I don’t know…” Patterson looked around the room as though he might find some other way of putting it, then gave up and continued, “… just kind of snaps.”

Stan had tears in his eyes. He shouted at Patterson, “My dad didn’t snap! Something happened to him!”

Patterson nodded gently. “That, again unfortunately, is also a possibility and we will absolutely follow that line of inquiry as well. Listen, Stan, I wonder if you’d go into the front room with this officer here. He has a form we need you to fill out to start an official missing persons case.”

The uniformed officer rose. After hesitating a moment Stan got up too and followed him out of the room. Patterson looked at me carefully.

“Your brother…”

“There was an accident when he was eleven. He was underwater for a long time, he suffered some damage.”

Patterson made another entry on his laptop. “Must have made it doubly difficult for your dad bringing him up.”

“I can see where you’re going, but honestly it’s impossible for me to imagine my father just running away.”

“Was he seeing anyone?”

“How do you mean?”

“How do you think I mean?”

“Well, I don’t-”

“Johnny, this is not the time to get creative. Being discreet won’t help him or us.”

“A couple of weeks ago he told me he was having an affair with Patricia Prentice. I really don’t know any more than that, my father didn’t like to talk about anything personal.”

Patterson raised his eyebrows. “The Patricia Prentice who recently committed suicide?”

I nodded.

“How long had they been seeing each other?”

“Six months, apparently.”

“Did her husband know?”

“As far as I know, no.”

Patterson winced. He asked a few more questions then had me fill out a formal missing persons report. By the time we were done Stan and the officer were back in the kitchen. Patterson packed his laptop away and shook our hands and told us someone would be in touch every day and that the minute they knew anything, we would. He stopped in front of Stan before he left and put his hand on his shoulder.

“We’re going to do everything we can to find your dad. I promise.”

After he’d gone Stan walked around the kitchen running his hands through his hair.

“Oh boy, Johnny, oh boy… What’s happened to Dad?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did he mean about the car when he said marks ?”

“Just anything that was a clue, I guess.”

Stan shook his head solemnly. “He was talking about blood.”

“I don’t think he was talking about blood, but anyway he said they didn’t see any.”

“Do you think he got on the bus? Do you think inside he always wanted to go somewhere else?”

“No, I don’t. Do you?”

Stan looked at me miserably and shook his head. “I have to put a costume on, Johnny, I don’t have enough power.”

“Stan, listen, calm down. What we have to do is wait and let the police do their stuff and try not to freak out before we know anything solid, okay?”

But although that’s what we did, and although Patterson was genuine and diligent and the Oakridge police combined forces with the larger Burton department, nothing came of it.

During the two weeks following my father’s disappearance the police interviewed the people he worked with and the one or two acquaintances who were the closest thing he had to friends. None of them had any idea what might have happened to him. Police patrols covered all the roads that ran through the hills around Oakridge and the forestry service did the same with the fire trails. Neither found any trace of him. His bank and credit card accounts were monitored but they remained unused and a photo of my father, e-mailed to the driver of the San Francisco bus that had picked up at Jerry’s Gas, brought forth no excited cry of recognition. A story about my father’s disappearance in the Oakridge Banner was similarly unproductive.

At one point Patterson showed us a video from a security camera in the San Francisco bus terminal. He asked us to look for anyone who might be our father. It was black-and-white and shot from high up. We watched it twice but we didn’t see him and I got the feeling that Patterson wasn’t seriously considering the bus scenario anymore.

It seemed, briefly, that Stan and I may have become suspects because Burton sent over a forensics team to go through our house. But the fact that there was nothing to find and that my father, although he carried home and car policies, had only minimal life insurance, turned the investigation back out toward the world again.