‘Have you found her?’ Bran hauled the door open and stood framed on the threshold, a picture of dejection. He was wearing a cut-off sweatshirt with no logo. I had never before seen him in any sweatshirt-fabric garment that didn’t boast the name of his college or favoured sports team. He was also wearing a pair of striped pyjama trousers and mismatched socks – one black with diamonds and one a Christmas novelty with candy canes and cardinals. His hair was greasy, his breath as he started to sob was an affront to dumpsters, and he smelled of onion sweat, a smell I would never have dreamed he was capable of producing.
‘I haven’t,’ I said. I considered telling him I’d found Blaike, but then remembered he didn’t know the kid was missing. So I decided that if he said a word about needing to speak to his stepson and not being able to, I would blow the story. But if, as I suspected, poor Blaike didn’t cross his mind once, I would keep shtum. I followed him back into the house, trudging through crumbs and stepping around pizza boxes and beer bottles that lay abandoned on the floor.
‘You’re overplaying it, Bran,’ I said. ‘You need to dial this down if you’re going to get everyone to believe you.’
He wheeled round and stared at me out of bloodshot eyes. A muscle was pounding in his cheek. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘That you know where she is or you’re happy you don’t, but you can’t face anyone guessing as much so you’re putting on a show.’
‘I thought you were OK,’ he said, collapsing on to the couch, where he landed in yet another pizza box. That was part of the trouble; there hadn’t been enough days to account for the pizzas. ‘I didn’t think you hated me. But only someone who hates me would say anything so cruel. Look at me, Lexy.’
‘Yeah, you look like shit on toast,’ I said. ‘But if you’ve done something to Brandeee and you’re waiting for the cops to suss you out, you’re hardly going to look fresh and rested.’
‘Do you …?’ His voice ran out and he had to clear his throat and try again. ‘Do you actually mean that?’
I took my time, considering it from every angle, putting it up against what I knew about him and Brandeee. ‘Nah,’ I said, in the end. ‘So have the police been able to tell you anything?’
‘No,’ he said, running his hands through his hair and finishing off with a deep scalp scratch that made me want to scratch mine too. He really was filthy. He’d always taken so many long showers, back when I knew him; I’d had no idea there was this much grease waiting so close by. ‘She’s logged as missing. But there have been no sightings and no contact with anyone she knows. They’ve got no theories and no suggestions. Lexy, what if she never comes back? What if I never find out what happened?’
‘I can’t imagine,’ I said, ‘except that there must be support groups of people in the same position that you could turn to.’
‘How could anyone be in the same position?’ said Bran. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Families of missing persons who never show up,’ I said. ‘What’s hard to understand?’
‘But they’re different,’ said Bran, ‘those deadbeat dads and wayward teens, addicted moms and bankrupt cases who run away. This is different. Brandee is an angel. She’s an angel walking on earth.’
‘Angels ain’t what they used to be,’ I said under my breath. I was getting sick of having to sit and listen to eulogies for Brandeee, although I was interested to hear Bran’s in a way. See if he’d found yet another angle, different from Burt’s and Elise’s.
‘She runs this house like a corporation,’ Bran said. ‘She never forgets a birthday or an anniversary. She sends condolence cards to every neighbour in a three-block radius, for spouses, parents and siblings, and sends condolence anniversary cards, three years after spouses and two for parents. She works from a spreadsheet.’
‘Just like Gabriel,’ I muttered.
‘She supports all the school-fund drives, and libraries too. She gives money to five churches besides her own. She goes on sex weekends twice a year and she never tags anyone on social media without asking them if they like the picture first. She—’
‘Can I jump in?’ I said. ‘What weekends?’ I thought maybe he’d said ‘tax’ or ‘sets’ or … something.
‘Sex weekends,’ Bran said. ‘Inspiration and retraining courses for focused and committed wives.’
‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘Because that sounds like the boldest alibi for an affair I have ever heard.’
‘Absolutely, I’m sure,’ he told me. ‘I saw the charge go through on our joint account.’
‘Wow,’ I said. I’d spent an hour, just last week, telling a woman who was weaning twins and had no confidence left in her body, now that her skin was soft and her legs were veiny, that men were simple creatures and her husband would love her all the more now that she’d done this miraculous thing.
‘And is there absolutely nothing you can think of at all?’ I said. ‘Nothing she said, or did, or that came for her in the mail? Not even any junk calls? Nothing that would cast light on her recent activity?’
‘Junk calls?’ said Bran.
‘Yeah, you know how they target the calls to people they think are good prospects?’ I said. ‘So if you get Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Amnesty, you’re one kind of person, and if you get the National Police Fund, the NRA and Family First, you’re probably sort of another? What do you get? Has it changed?’
‘We block them,’ said Bran. ‘We’re not cavemen.’
But something was bubbling to the top of his brain. I could see it coming. I could see him chasing it like the last pickle as it swam around out of his reach in the vinegar. I saw him tense as though to burp up a ball of gas, and I watched as he had to relax again when the gas subsided unburped.
Then I got distracted, because I was chasing a pickle burp of my own. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘You told me Brandeee ran her life like a Naz— with a measure of precision? Never flaked or goofed or punted on anything?’
‘She is perfect,’ Bran said. ‘Please use the present tense, Lexy.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘What happened at Christmas then? She didn’t give out a staff bonus to Elise and the rest of them.’
‘She did,’ said Bran. ‘Five-hundred-dollar gift cards.’
‘Well, they didn’t get them,’ I said. ‘Unless she missed Elise out. Would she have done that?’
‘We laughed about Elise,’ Bran said. ‘She has a little crush on me and, if I’m honest, I’m flattered, but Brandee knew she had no competition for my heart or my—’
‘Please don’t finish that sentence!’
‘Loyalty. I don’t know why Elise would lie about her holiday gift.’
‘Where were the vouchers for?’ I asked. ‘Maybe something went wrong at that end.’
Bran screwed his face up in an effort to remember. ‘Some goofy place she found way out somewhere in orbit around redneck nowhere that ran courses on some crazy crap.’ Then he stuffed his fist in his mouth, horrified at how he’d just spoken about his angel of a wife and her choice in gifts for underlings. I had never liked him more.
‘Can you remember what it’s called?’ I said.
‘Why?’ said Bran. ‘You think she emailed them to complain and they were so pissed at her that they came to her house and abducted her?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s just the only thing I’ve heard that’s even slightly out of kilter. And the word “crazy” came out of you when you weren’t concentrating. Also, places away out in the armpit, or even asshole, or – as you say – orbit of nowhere keep coming up.’
‘They do?’
‘They do. So, how could you find out what this place is called? Credit-card bill?’
He shook his head. ‘Last year’s credit-card bills are stored off-site now that our taxes are done,’ he said. ‘It’s a fire risk to keep financial documents in a residential premises. Brandee would never be so sloppy.’
‘Your taxes … are done?’ I said. ‘The taxes that are due by the end of April? Never mind. Could you look it up online?’
‘I can’t go poking in Brandee’s personal credit-card statement,’ he said. ‘This wasn’t a joint expense.’ He had forgotten, I think, that in his initial panic he had handed over all her passwords and PINs to Todd, Kathi and me.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Well, if it comes back to you …’
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘So let’s circle back to these junk calls you nearly remembered. Or was it mail?’
‘It was calls,’ Bran said. ‘And it was nothing. Only, like you said, Lexy, you’re supposed to be able to tell who someone is from the targeted junk they come in for.’
‘But?’ I said.
‘I kept getting money-off offers from some rib joint I’d never heard of,’ he said.
‘A barbecue restaurant?’ I said. ‘That seems pretty mild.’ What I was really thinking was that Brandeee, with her twice-yearly sex weekends, was lucky she wasn’t getting free poles delivered in return for testimonials. I didn’t understand why Bran cared so much about a downmarket eatery. But then I didn’t understand why Bran cared so much about a lot of things: like the fact that driving your car put miles on it and someone might see the high number and judge you; or the fact that if I shopped in the thrift store in Cuento I might meet the original owner of my new dress at a party; or the fact that if you asked the gardener to use a rake instead of a leaf blower because you had a hangover and the noise was killing you, the neighbours would think he was a friend doing you a favour and conclude that you couldn’t afford a gardener because you were a failure, with second-hand clothes and a shameful odometer, a disgrace to the American dream.
I stood. ‘Try not to worry,’ I said. ‘And for God’s sake, have a shower. Imagine if Brandeee walks back in and you’re sitting there like Worzel Gummidge.’
‘Who?’
‘Pigpen.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘But what if the phone rings when I’m in the shower?’
‘Have a bath.’
‘OK,’ he said.
‘And don’t eat any more pizza. What if Brandeee comes back and you’re all bloated and disgusting and she takes one look at you and leaves again?’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I know you’re trying to be kind. In your own cruel way.’
We shared a smile. It would have been a hug, if he hadn’t been giving off actual waves of stink, like Pepé Le Pew.
Back at the Last Ditch, the office, launderette, Todd’s room, Devin’s room and Della’s room were all deserted. So I squelched my way round the back to the slough, which was a lot bigger than it had been that morning – completely over its banks, so it looked like a Louisiana swamp with the bushes and scrub trees half-submerged, and the water the colour of bad instant coffee with Carnation milk in.
I stepped on the lowest stair to the porch and knew I had visitors – more than one, more than two, or one big one maybe; only, I didn’t know anyone heavy enough for this. Letting myself into the living room, I could hear gentle snores from halfway back, and, as I drew level with the open door to the guest bedroom, I saw Todd, Noleen, Kathi, Devin and Della all standing, watching Blaike sleep. One of his arms was flung over a wide-awake Diego, who was looking up at his mother with anguish in his eyes.
‘What’s going on?’ I whispered.
‘There’s absolutely no need to whisper,’ Todd said. Boomed, actually.
‘Is he OK?’ I asked.
‘He’s fine,’ said Della. ‘He’s just the best teenage sleeper I’ve ever seen in my life.’
‘And that’s a deep bench,’ Devin added. ‘Man, I thought I could sleep but I never pulled an all-nighter, then two naps, four hours each, the next day.’
‘Diego came to wake him up after school,’ said Noleen, ‘but it went the other way. That was two hours ago.’
‘Wriggle out, baby,’ I said to the little boy.
He squirmed like a beetle on its back and managed to escape the dead weight of Blaike’s arm. Blaike stopped snoring, smacked his lips and turned over. Then, after a long sigh, the snoring started up again.
‘Poor kid,’ I said. ‘Let’s leave him. We’ve got a lot to do.’
‘And I need to get back to work,’ Noleen said. She stamped off towards the front of the boat, causing it to roll and Blaike to smack his head against the box-work of the bed surround. His breathing didn’t even hitch.
‘A lot to do, like what?’ said Todd, as the rest of us withdrew to the living room.
Diego had a skeleton crew of fantasy action figures stored under my coffee table and he settled down to renegotiate one of the treaties he’d hammered out last time, while we grown-ups shared the spoils of the day.
‘Have you got the file?’ I asked Kathi. ‘With all the stuff Bran gave us?’
‘Got it right here,’ she said, slapping what I thought had been a pile of launderette invoices she’d been hugging close to her chest. ‘I put them in baggies and scanned them through my printer. They’re clean now. What do you want to know?’
‘If I riffle through them, will they be dirty again?’
‘You could wash your hands,’ she said.
‘If I tell you I washed them half an hour ago and haven’t touched my face, and if I promise not to lick my finger while I turn the sheets, could you cope with that?’
‘Or, Lexy,’ Todd said, ‘could you park the counsellor and let us speak to our co-worker in the investigations wing of Trinity? Is she there right now?’
‘I’ll look for whatever it is,’ Kathi said. ‘Todd’s right: I’d rather have my therapy when it’s scheduled. And in private.’
‘Private!’ said Devin. ‘Is that for me?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said. ‘OK. Kathi: can you get into Brandeee’s personal credit-card statements for before the turn of the year and see if you can find a payment to someone that looks like a spa or a retreat or something? It’s going to be for a few thou.’
‘Okey-dokey,’ Kathi said. ‘Why?’
‘Because it’s the only chip in the perfection of Brandeee Lancer that I’ve been able to find all day. It’s all I heard from everyone I spoke to: she was an angel, the perfect woman, a role model, a miracle, a machine, an inspiration, a gift from God. Except that she didn’t give her staff a Christmas present this year and she gave them a weird Valentine’s prezzie too. Now, Bran thinks she bought five-hundred-dollar gift vouchers’ – I paused for someone to whistle, which both Devin and Kathi did – ‘for some … I don’t know … Paltrow-esque bunch of weirdos who run a … I don’t know … centre for overpriced crap, somewhere out of town, and I’m thinking … I don’t know.’
‘Masterful,’ said Todd. ‘Have you ever thought of hiring yourself out as an expert witness? Grisham couldn’t write stuff like that.’
‘Have you ever thought of shutting up and stuffing—?’ I said.
‘I get it,’ said Della. ‘Whether she—’
‘Wait,’ said Devin. ‘Is Della on a consultation tariff for sharing intel?’
‘Intel?’ I said. ‘No. Insights? Yes. On a two-hundred-dollar flat rate, OK?’
‘Devin,’ Della said, then let out a stream of Spanish too fast for me to follow. Its general drift wasn’t a mystery.
‘Can’t eat stubbornness,’ Devin said, ‘with or without pride sauce. If I’m not allowed to donate anymore—’
Kathi looked up and gave the statutory ‘Ew.’ She had just finished wiping down my laptop with an antiseptic towelette and now she was ready, double-gloved in latex, to start keying in details.
‘—then we need all the casual work going,’ Devin finished.
‘Awwwww,’ said Todd. ‘You guys are a “we”? Totes adorbs!’
‘“Totes adorbs” is on the list, Todd,’ I said. ‘That’s going to cost you.’
‘When did we add “totes adorbs”?’ he said, genuinely puzzled.
‘After “YOLO” and before “you do you”,’ I said.
‘Police state,’ said Todd.
Diego broke off the talks between rival kingdoms and sat back on his heels. ‘You’re silly,’ he said. ‘You say a lot and it’s all silly.’ Then he bent and took up the mantle of statesmanship again.
‘I think I’ve found it,’ Kathi said, raising her head from behind my laptop. ‘In October, she paid out three thousand, six hundred and thirty dollars to something called PPPerfection.’
‘Three thousand?’ said Della. ‘How many nurses do they have?’
‘Three receptionists and three hygienists, I’m guessing,’ I said. ‘One hundred and five dollars tax and handling per five-hundred-dollar gift voucher. Sounds right. Huh.’
‘Disappointed?’ said Todd.
‘Yeah, I thought if she was lying about it to Bran and really she had squirrelled the money away somewhere it would be evidence that she left of her own accord.’
‘What about the acrylic?’ said Kathi.
‘She could have accidentally ripped it off and sent it as a decoy, after she heard about Mama Cuento.’
‘But it was hand delivered. She’d have had to come back and walk down her own street. Kinda risky,’ Devin said.
‘Or she could have paid someone to place it,’ said Todd. ‘Speaking of short gigs for cash, Della, what were you going to say?’
‘Whether she pretended to buy something because she was saving up, or she bought something that didn’t arrive, it could be significant. Maybe she complained and made them angry. Maybe she went to face them and made them really angry.’
‘After bedtime one night?’ I said.
‘And why did she not buy replacement gifts?’ said Della.
‘Moment passed?’ Kathi suggested. ‘Nah, you’re right. That is weird. It’s out of character for her to promise something, have people expect it and then not deliver.’
Her words caught at me. ‘Is it?’ I said. ‘Is it though?’ But, as I opened my mouth to say more, suddenly there was a barrage of sound as multiple pairs of feet came pounding up the steps to the porch and a cop-knock battered my front door.