I’ve been staring at the wall since my phone call with the desk agent at the Sacramento Police Department ended, I don’t know how many minutes ago. Ten? Fifteen? Outside my hotel room, the sun shining through the blinds is of the midday sort, rather than morning. So maybe it’s been hours, then, gazing at the commercial-grade paint, wondering what part of my world isn’t collapsing.
Why would David lie to me about his closest friend? What’s there to be gained by it? I have no connections in Sacramento, I’ve never even toured the Capitol. Why such a deception?
But lies and deception are all I seem to be discovering about David, and this latest one only urges me on in my desire to talk to someone, anyone, who might know more about what’s been going on in his head lately.
Perhaps not just lately. He told me about his friend Chad shortly after we met. The math isn’t hard to work out. That was more than two years ago.
A long time to be lying about a friend that doesn’t exist.
I shake off a sudden chill. I can’t lose my resolve. If it’s not going to be possible to speak to David’s friend, then I can try one of his colleagues. If anyone is liable to have seen a change in his behaviour, something that might account for whatever the hell is going on, or at least help explain it, it would be his co-workers at the pharmacy. He’s there at least nine hours a day. They spend almost more time with him than I do.
I pick up my phone once again and scroll through my contacts, and it’s then that I become aware of another fact that, until this moment, had never struck me as particularly odd. I don’t have a work number for David. Just his mobile. It’s never seemed necessary that I should have anything else, since he’s never without his phone.
Today, the fact seems suspicious.
But this is a problem easily enough solved. I wake up my laptop and return to the browser, readying myself to type calmly. I just need to pop in the name of the pharmacy and—
My fingers freeze, hovering over the keyboard. David’s worked at the pharmacy since we met. Down in the city.
But I can’t remember its name.
Baycrest? Bayview? Something to do with the bay, I remember that much. He told me the name, once, but it was years ago. Since then it’s always just ‘the pharmacy’ or ‘work’. Shit. I remember he told me it was some little place, tucked away in a residential neighbourhood. Near the sea.
Which describes most of San Francisco.
Then I remember my pills. In my purse, in one of the side pockets – the three prescriptions David brings for me each month, two for my blood pressure and one for my thyroid. Little bottles, orange with white lids. And labels.
I race from the hotel desk to the bed and grab my handbag. Within seconds it is overturned, contents spilling out over the bed’s surface. I reach inside the now vacant space and unzip the side pocket, then give it another shake. The three pill bottles fall to the bed.
I grab the nearest one, my head in a rush, and then freeze. It’s my prescription of course, but the label is from CVS Pharmacy, one of the largest chains in the country. And David doesn’t work for CVS.
I grab the second bottle, and then the third, but the logos on the labels are copies of the first. All from CVS, and I cannot for the life of me understand why David would get my prescriptions filled at a chain store when he works in a pharmacy and could simply pick them up from his own counter. It makes no sense.
I stop myself. David’s behaviour isn’t normal, but no, I can’t actually say it doesn’t make any sense. Not in this instance. It does make sense, if what you’re trying to do is keep your wife from knowing where you actually work.
My heart is racing again. Why would he hide something so basic from me?
I collapse back into the desk chair. I can feel my will deflating. It seems I don’t even have the most basic of information about my husband. What can I find online, or anywhere else, when in reality I know so little?
But then, there is one thing that I do know. A second later, my fingers are dancing on the keys. It’s about the only option I have left.
I’ve never logged into our Wells Fargo account on the web before. David always takes care of the banking. This presents me with a certain problem, since in this moment the screen in front of me is asking for a username and password, and I don’t know either. But I have said before, and I remind myself again now, David is a witty man, and caring, but not necessarily clever.
It takes me only two attempts to guess the right combination. The numerical passcode is my birthday again, just as the code to his briefcase had been, and the username he’s chosen for online access wasn’t the dog’s name, as I guessed first, but ‘TheHowells’. David always takes such delight in referring to us by our collective name.
I start to scroll through our accounts online. We have two with the bank: a savings and a checking, and the former has almost no activity except a few deposits scattered over the past months. I switch to the checking account, which has, as makes perfect sense to me, a great deal more activity recorded in the register. But as I scroll through the entries, I don’t see anything unusual. Nothing in the lengthy listing looks suspicious or out of the ordinary.
What, really, did I expect to find here? What secrets is a bank account really going to hold?
As I scroll through the list, less and less interested in what I am seeing, I come across three consecutive payments to CVS Pharmacy. The amounts match what I would guess my prescriptions cost, but otherwise provide little insight.
I am just about to close down the window when a line at the bottom of the screen catches my eye. Another payment, and the ‘Category’ field is marked ‘Medical / Healthcare’ just as my three prescription payments had been. Only this one isn’t made out to CVS.
The ‘Payee’ field reads, in boldface font, ‘Bayside Inland Pharmacy’.
Bayside Inland. That’s it. I remember it coming off David’s lips now, years ago. A conversation that had once been and never repeated. I remember. I remember.
Heart thumping, I open another browser tab and type ‘Bayside Inland’ into Google Maps. A second later, its pin is on the map in front of me. A small shop, in a residential neighbourhood, in a part of San Francisco only a few blocks from Ocean Beach.
It’s the place. I’m sure of it. And its listing has a telephone number.
I can’t punch the numbers into my stupid phone fast enough. The San Francisco number goes through when I hit Call, and the line seems to ring forever before someone finally answers.
‘Bayside Inland,’ a female voice says. She doesn’t exactly sound bored, but from her tone of voice I’d say it’s a safe bet she doesn’t find answering the telephone to be the greatest thrill of her life. ‘How can I help?’
In this instant I realize that I haven’t actually thought through what I’m going to ask of David’s colleagues. My attention has been too absorbed in simply trying to find out where he actually works.
‘Could you connect me to the pharmacy desk, please?’ I ask. ‘To anyone other than Mr Howell.’
Shit, that’s not exactly a customary kind of request. But it’s out there. I can’t suck it back in.
The woman seems puzzled, if only by her silence, but a moment later the line clicks, clicks again, and then a man’s voice replaces hers. I tense at the first breath of it, terrified it will be David, but force my shoulders to relax when I realize the voice isn’t his.
‘Pharmacy,’ the man says simply and efficiently.
‘Hello, I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I begin, commanding timidity out of my voice, ‘but I’m really stuck here. I hope you can help.’
‘If I can help, miss, I will.’ His voice becomes a shade friendlier.
‘This is Amber Howell. It’s about my husband, David. He … he hasn’t been himself lately, and I’m getting concerned. I’m wondering whether you might be able to give me any information. About his behaviour. His mood.’
The pause that follows is long. I can sense the man’s discomfort through the line.
‘Sorry, miss, but I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘I mean,’ I sit forward, trying to make my thoughts take a more concrete shape, ‘he hasn’t been acting like himself. His mannerisms. Turns of phrase. They’re not … usual.’ That’s going to have to be enough. I’m sure as hell not going to tell his colleague about the wet leash or the bloody knife.
‘Miss, I’m sorry if your husband’s behaviour is unusual, but I don’t understand why you’re calling here.’ The man is beginning to sound mildly agitated.
‘Because I thought you might be able to tell me if you’ve noticed anythi—’
He cuts me off. ‘Are you under the impression that I know your husband?’
My skin turns cold. No, no. This can’t be.
‘Of course I am!’ I almost spit the statement into my phone. ‘He’s been your co-worker since before we were married. At least two years, maybe two and a half.’
‘And his name is?’
‘David!’ I cry. ‘David Howell! Your counter assistant. He’s there every day. He’s probably there right now!’
Again, the long pause.
‘Miss, I think you have the wrong number. We don’t have an employee here by that name.’
Ice, travelling through my body.
‘That can’t be true,’ I answer. ‘He always comes in early. Stays late, to miss the traffic back across the bridge.’
‘I’m telling you, I don’t know a David Howell.’
‘You’re lying!’ I can’t stop the accusation coming. The tears welling in my eyes have already broken over the lids.
‘Listen, lady, all our employees are listed on our website. Take a look for yourself. And don’t call here again unless you want a prescription filled.’ No more words, and the line dies.
I slam down the phone, almost cracking it on the hard surface of the desk, and wipe the tears from my eyes. A sweep of the touchpad and the laptop is awake again, and I call up Bayside Inland Pharmacy’s website from its Google listing. Three clicks in, and the ‘Meet our Staff’ page loads in front of me.
A listing of five names beams into my face.
And I suppose in that moment, I’m not actually surprised that David’s isn’t among them.