I tell the detective the basics of our argument, but I don’t tell him how I called you an animal—I honestly didn’t mean it in a bad way, and it’s embarrassing. I don’t want him to see me like that.
He takes notes even after I’m finished talking, but finally, he looks up. “I got to tell you, Jessie. It seems like he took off. He has a history of this. His mom said he called friends in Brooklyn this week.”
“He did?” I think about the pistachios receipt. Maybe you did go to Brooklyn. “But he wouldn’t have taken off without his truck.”
“His truck’s been giving him some trouble lately. Maybe he took the bus. Or hitchhiked. There are many possibilities.”
“He wouldn’t make people worry like this.”
“I bet if we give it a day or two, he’s going to show up.”
“You know about those guys who jumped him, right?”
He nods slowly. “A couple people mentioned something happened,” he says. “It sounds like it was just a fight.”
“It wasn’t a fight—he got jumped,” I say. “It was Friday night three weeks ago, same time, same place. They attacked him. He didn’t fight back.” I tell him about what they did, how they called you the N-word, about your ribs.
McFerson’s staring at me again. Maybe looking for odd tics. I wish I knew what he was thinking. Those huge eyebrows are distracting.
“Do you know any of their names?”
“Just Dave Johnson. His dad owns the Honda dealership?”
I wait for him to write it down. Then I explain, “Chris wouldn’t fight back. He has a policy against violence. He believes in peaceful resistance.”
I look at him to see what he thinks about that. Most people in our town would say a guy in that situation has to fight. But the detective doesn’t blink. “He seems like a pretty stand-up guy,” he says.
“He is a stand-up guy.” I’ve never said stand-up guy before in my life. “I’m telling you, we need to organize a big search for him. He could be real hurt somewhere, he could have broken bones. We need dogs, everything.”
His gray eyes sparkle, like he’s laughing at me. “Jessie, you think we have a canine division in Pendling?”
“You could borrow dogs from like, Seattle. And we have search and rescue here,” I say. “They should be looking for him. Maybe he fell in a ravine.”
He nods. “I understand you’re worried, but it’d be hard to get lost off those trails. Too many roads.”
“Anything could have happened,” I argue. “People could volunteer; they could search the woods. He has a lot of people who want to be doing something to help. They keep texting me.”
“I’ll talk to search and rescue.” He smiles. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“We’ll do what we can, Jessie.”
I can hear you laughing, somewhere, saying, “Nope, she doesn’t give up.”
“Here.” He writes down his cell phone number on the back of his card and flips it at me. “All right, if you think of anything, you call me, any time of the day or night.” His thick eyebrows jump up. “We’re going to figure out what happened. Don’t worry.”
And for now, I believe him.