Nate, Friday, May 8, 2015
There was no shortage of clichés about time: it healed all wounds; it was always a-changing (said with an upward lilt and a soft click of the tongue); it flew when you were having fun. What was lesser known, though, was how elastic it became when you had only time and nothing else. The days became evenings became nights became mornings, one blending into the other with graceful slowness and seemingly almost by accident. With no job, few allies, no to-do list—a longtime staple of adulthood—he reverted back to a teenager. Nate spent most of his hours on the couch, avoiding the adults in his life, watching endless hours of daytime television and SportsCenter. The only teenage staple missing was his cell phone, often left haphazardly around Tripp’s townhouse, the ringer turned down, the notifications off. Social media held nothing but vitriol for him, his texts were sporadic and went unanswered. How are you doing, buddy? From a handful of random gym friends, a few baseball dads, one a week ago from Peter Tempest. He thought more about the people he didn’t hear from: Dale Trevor, Tad Bachman, Bridget, Alecia. He could ruminate for hours on the hidden meaning of silence.
He’d never been a perfect husband, he knew that. But he did think he was a good husband. A good father. Maybe not a great one. He lost his patience with Gabe too quickly. Alecia said his expectations were too high, which might be true for everyone. Except all he ever wanted from his wife was her attention, which didn’t seem like a very high expectation at all. He didn’t care if the house was clean or his laundry was done. He didn’t say one word about the nights she ordered to go from Ruby Tuesday. He’d rather these shortcuts, preserving her energy for them, for their family, and childishly for him. Instead, she seemed to spin herself out before he’d even gotten in the door most nights. He walked in and she was raised and ready for a fight, picking and pecking until he lashed out, then blaming their argument on his quick temper.
Then again, his temper was quick, always had been.
These things, these marriage things, were the hard stuff. He’d take it all if he could just go home.
Nate was used to moving his body, at the gym, running around the baseball field—one of the only coaches to ever join the warm-up jog. He liked it. He got his blood moving, made him part of a team. He’d missed that.
Which is why Saturday he woke up early: 9 a.m. Earlier than he’d gotten up all week, Tripp clomping past him in the living room making no effort to stay quiet anymore. He pulled out his hiking boots. He used to hike all the time; he’d spent his whole childhood in the woods. Alecia didn’t like it. The walking itself was boring; it was either too hot or too cold, and she was never interested in the nature aspect. She’d gone a few times, pre-Gabe, and talked the whole time, prattling, really about whatever popped into her head. He’d tried to tell her a walk is for silencing your mind, looking around. The animals fascinated him; as a kid, he’d return to the same spot, two miles from his parents’ home and watch a blue heron every day. When he told Alecia this, she asked, what did it do, though?
Nate scrawled a note to Tripp: went for a hike. He’d drive to Bear Creek, the opposite direction of the forest he’d gotten lost in earlier in the week. The air was perfect, the fish would be rising. There wasn’t much to get jazzed up about these days, but the hike came close.
The doorbell rang as he was tying his boots, checking the laces. He answered it absently, without looking through the peephole, wholly unprepared for Detective Harper on the other side of the door. A tall, thin man with a thick knot of a mustache stood behind him, nose like the beak of a hawk.
Nothing about this would be good.
“Going hiking?” Harper asked, an odd delight in his tone that Nate couldn’t figure out.
“I was going to, yes,” Nate said, and opened the door. They walked past him into the living room and into the kitchen and Nate followed. Tripp was at work, but they surely knew that and they acted like they owned the place. “Can I help you?”
“Sure. We have some questions.” Harper was direct and his last round of questioning hadn’t been kind, but it wasn’t aggressive. He’d collected a statement from Nate about the nature of his relationship with Lucia, prodded with everything they had, from the motel to his cell phone records (two calls from her, incoming or outgoing, two! Both calling for help, he’d told them). They hadn’t found much to support the claim, except the photo: a clear close-up of Nate, hugging Lucia, his eyes closed. Her up on her toes, like lovers. In real life, it had been a grateful embrace, almost awkward and fumbling. She had said no one cares like you do. He had hugged her, wondering if it was true, thinking about Taylor, wondering if he could call her and get her to come to the dive of a motel. He hated this place, hated that it was the cheapest place in the area, hated the peeling paint, the yellowed lace curtains.
He’d stood inside her little dank room, the air cold and smelling like plastic and cigarettes. The bedspread thin, striped with a large coffee-colored stain in the middle. He wouldn’t even sit on it. But he’d left her there, as much as he didn’t want to.
“We have a problem, Winters,” Harper said. “Your girl is missing.”
“Not my girl,” Nate said, correcting him, and Harper waved his hand like it didn’t matter, but you know, it wasn’t a fucking pedantic detail. She wasn’t his girl.
“Missing how?”
“Either ran away or, well, something happened to her. Hard to say. Hasn’t been in school since Friday.”
Tripp hadn’t said a word. They’d played two-man poker—“heads up”—until Tripp beat him and then wouldn’t take his money, like a bitch. It pissed Nate off and he went to bed. That was maybe Tuesday? Wednesday? He’d never said a thing to him.
“I haven’t been in school in over a week, Detective. I have no idea what’s going on.” He hated the whine in his voice, he sounded like the kids in his classes. Defensive, argumentative.
Harper gestured toward the other man, a detective, Nate assumed. “This is Clark Mackey. He’s another detective on Lucia’s case.”
“Her case?”
“She’s technically a missing persons case at this time, Mr. Winters.” Clark Mackey’s voice was low, and rumbled like he had a throat full of sand.
Missing persons.
“You called in a report Monday night. What can you tell me about that?”
“I was driving here from my house and I was going slow and I saw her on the side of the road. She waved me down. I think . . . She might have been on drugs.”
“What makes you say that, Mr. Winters?” Mackey’s tone was quick, sharp.
“I’m around a lot of kids day and day out. I can see when they’re on something,” Nate said. “She was jumpy and wasn’t making sense. I told her to stay put. I couldn’t let her in my car, I was calling you.”
“Why couldn’t you let her in your car?” Harper asked, and Nate couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“Are you serious, Detective?” When Harper stayed deadpan, Nate shook his head. “Okay, fine, because she and a reporter have accused me—wrongly, I’ll add—of an inappropriate relationship. I am currently suspended from my teaching position at Mt. Oanoke High School and I was trying to do the right thing. I called the police. When I said that she took off into the woods.”
“What did you do?” Harper asked, and Nate flinched.
“Do?”
“Sure, what did you do next?”
“I came home.” Nate felt the bottom drop out of his stomach then, a sick, twisty sensation. He’d never lied to a cop and had a feeling it was a bad time to start. Hell, until this moment, he’d never been questioned by a cop. Cops were poker buddies, racquetball partners. Harper didn’t look like he’d seen a gym in twenty years. With his bony hand on one hip, the soft flesh of his arm hung off the bone, a skinny kind of fat.
“Right home? Did you stop anywhere?” Mackey interjected.
“Uh, I stopped over at the QB before I saw Lucia, if that’s what you mean.”
“Nope it’s not what we mean, Winters. Did you go anywhere after you saw Lucia and before you went home?” Harper was losing his patience.
“No. I came right home,” Nate repeated, and scratched the back of his neck.
“Did you get out of your car and follow Ms. Hamm?”
Pause. “No.”
“You didn’t get out of your car at all?”
“Do you think I . . . did something to her?” Nate demanded.
“Why, has something been done to her?” Mackey asked.
“No. Not by me.”
“So that’s a no then?” Mackey pressed.
Mackey and Harper exchanged a glance.
“That’s a no,” Nate said.
Harper nodded once and then smiled disarmingly. “Glad we chatted, Mr. Winters. We’ll be in touch.”
Nate walked them to the door and hesitated. It might be so easy to call them back, tell them he made a mistake. He’s nervous, scared, whatever. Any other guy might do the same, right?
He was still thinking about it when they got into their unmarked car, a gray Buick, too new for the taxes in Mt. Oanoke, with doors so heavy they hardly made a sound as they thunked shut. The engine barely hummed as it turned over. Nate was still thinking about it as they pulled away from the curb and he put his hand up in a wave, like a simple idiot.
Only after they made a right, the taillights winking out of sight, did it occur to him that maybe he just really fucked everything up.