Five

Until recently, my brother and his family lived in Sonoma, in the eastern part of the county, where Brian taught middle school, in the Sonoma Unified School District. Then, at the end of this most recent school year, he had accepted a job in Petaluma, teaching at a junior high school in the Petaluma Joint Union School District. He was supposed to start the new job in mid-August. Classes started around the third week of the month, and teachers usually began the school year a few days earlier. This was the first week in August, so I figured Brian was due at his new school the following week.

Brian and Sheila made the move from Sonoma to Petaluma the last weekend in June, about six weeks ago. For the time being, they were renting a house in East Petaluma. It was located in a development of tract houses off McDowell Road, near Lucchesi Park and the Petaluma Valley Hospital. I had an address, though I had not been to this house before. It looked small, but the situation was temporary. Once Brian and Sheila sold their house in Sonoma, they’d buy a bigger place here in Petaluma.

But first I had to find my brother and figure out what was behind his disappearance.

I parked my Toyota in the driveway behind Sheila’s Honda, walked to the small front porch, and rang the bell. A moment later, Sheila opened the front door. She had changed out of the slacks and shirt she’d worn to the coroner’s office, and now she was dressed in a faded T-shirt, blue cotton shorts, and slip-on sandals.

My sister-in-law looked exhausted and on edge. The events of the past forty-eight hours were taking their toll. Without a word, she motioned me inside.

The front door opened onto a small entry hall. To my left a short passage led to the double car garage. Sheila led the way into the house, crowded with furniture from the Sonoma house and boxes that had yet to be unpacked. One corner of the dining room had been turned into an office, containing a desk with drawers on the right side. Above the desk’s kneehole was a computer with a large flat-screen monitor and an ergonomic keyboard and mouse.

A sliding glass door off the dining room was open. Just the other side of the screen was a square wooden deck and the big backyard. There was an oak tree in one corner of the yard, a rope hammock hanging from a sturdy low branch. Another corner of the yard held a mature fig tree, branches heavy with fruit. Between the two trees was a garden patch surrounded by a red brick border. At some point someone—Brian?—had been weeding, I noticed, seeing a low plastic bucket full of dried vegetation.

My eight-year-old nephew, Todd, was in the middle of the garden patch, digging in the dirt with a trowel. My niece, Amy, who was six, played on a swing set just this side of the oak tree.

“I’ve got lemonade in the refrigerator,” Sheila said. “Do you want some?”

“Yes, that sounds good.”

We took our glasses out onto the deck. Amy left the swing set and came running. I set my glass on the table and leaned down to hug my niece. Amy circled my waist with her arms. She looked up at me. “Hi, Aunt Jeri. Is Daddy with you?”

“No, sweetie. He’s not.”

Amy looked perplexed. “Daddy went away when we were at Grandma’s house. I want him to come home.”

“I know you do.” I looked past Amy at Todd, who had left off digging in the garden. He hung back, dirt on his hands, T-shirt, and shorts, a troubled expression on his face. “Are you planting something, Todd?”

“Just digging.” He shrugged, opened his mouth and then shut it, as though he was going to say something else and thought better of it.

“What is it, Todd?”

He took a deep breath. “Aunt Jeri, did Daddy go away because of me? Because of something bad I did?”

I knelt in front of him and put my arms on his shoulders. “Oh, no, Todd. I don’t believe that at all. I can’t imagine that you would do anything bad. What makes you think that?”

“Well...” He looked at his mother.

Sheila was shaking her head. “Todd, honey, we’ve been over that. You didn’t mean for Cameron to get hurt. It was an accident.”

“Then why did Daddy go away?” he asked, tears brimming in his eyes. Next to him Amy look as though she, too, was about to cry.

“Your mom and I are going to talk about that,” I said. “But we need to do that grown-up to grown-up. So it would help if you kids would leave us alone for just a little while.”

“Okay.” Todd took Amy’s hand and led her away from the deck, to the swing set. He settled her into one of the swings and began pushing her.

I reached for the glass of lemonade. The weather on this August afternoon was hot, and the cold, icy lemonade tasted good, its sweet-and-sour tang lingering in my mouth. I sat down in one of the chairs. “What’s this about an accident with Cameron?”

Sheila ran a hand through her short brown hair. “A kid who lives down the street. Todd met him last month, just after we moved in. A couple of weeks ago, they were playing in our front yard, just roughhousing, the way boys do. Todd pushed Cameron. The kid fell and cut his forehead. Then we had his parents over here yelling at us. A great start to living in this neighborhood.” She sighed. “It’s just one damn thing after another.”

“We need to talk about Brian.” She looked past me and didn’t say anything. “Sheila, I need some answers.”

“So do I,” she snapped, her voice sounding ragged. “And I don’t have any.”

“Sheila, what’s going on?”

“When you figure it out let me know.”

I set the glass on the table and leaned forward. “Sheila, I am here to help. I want to find Brian as much as you do.”

She glared at me. “I’m not sure I want to find him.”

I was taken aback by the anger simmering in her brown eyes. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. At least I think I do. Damn it, how could he do this to us?”