The Day He Left, page 5
Katrina reached across the table and grabbed another handful of fries. She put several in her mouth but spit them out. “Gross. They’re cold.”
“Remember. Two. Hundred.” Bri held up two fingers. “Otherwise we post your shit, and you’re going to want to eat your lunch under this table.”
The Bitches walked back toward the cafeteria.
Claire sat still. She tried to imagine what awful things her mother and father had on their phones. Once, when they had gone together to the women’s hot tub at the club, she had seen her mother naked, her large breasts hanging down without a bra. Her father was the smartest man she knew. If he had something on his phone, it was a mistake, something he hadn’t meant to download. Now her parents were in trouble because of her, because Bri always hated her.
She picked up one of the fries, now limp and cold. Then she grabbed the paper wrapper and threw the rest of her fries across the playground. A swarm of pigeons descended on them as they hit the ground.
Then, as if her thoughts conjured it, she saw her mother’s car arrive on the pickup loop on the far side of the playground.
Chapter Five
(i)
(Wednesday, 12:40 p.m.)
Coyle loosened his tie and sat wearily at his desk. The VCI bullpen was empty. He’d just returned from Courtroom 4 of the County Hall of Justice, Criminal Division, where he’d testified as the arresting officer in a road rage case.
As always, after leaving the courtroom, he felt weighed down with the malevolence that pervaded the trial rooms. It was as if everyone who gathered in the courts came expecting a balancing of the scales, or a return on pain suffered, and was searching for its object.
Oddly, the one place where venomous intent didn’t seem to exist, Coyle thought, was in the dock. There, men waited in orange jumpsuits for their hearings. They were a rough-looking bunch—heads shaved, arms densely tattooed. But surrender also ran through them, like survivors of a blast, shorn of something essential. When Coyle looked at those men across the room’s wide divide, he wondered if they were searching for an escape, not from jail or the courtroom but from life inside their own skin.
This time, Coyle also came away with the thoughts that had filled his head while he testified.
It was only by coincidence he’d been the arresting officer for the case. At lunchtime, going downtown to buy a sandwich, he happened to be on the sidewalk when the incident unfolded in front of him. One driver, Joseph Tallent, claimed the other driver, Trent Keller, cut him off on the freeway exit ramp. When the two vehicles reached the busy intersection where Coyle stood, Tallent drove his car into the rear bumper of Keller’s car. Keller emerged from his car and shoved Tallent backward onto the pavement.
Tallent then took a 9mm handgun from his glove compartment and shot Keller.
The exact site of the wounding was the left buttocks, as proven by a poster-sized photo of Keller’s bare rear end that stood alarmingly throughout the trial on a large display pedestal.
When Coyle was called to the stand, the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Michael Slater, asked him to describe the confrontation. As Coyle prepared to speak, his mind brimmed with ideas that had been forming for months about the life he witnessed day after day. Coyle did not think of himself as a philosopher, but Eddie Mahler once said all homicide detectives are forced to be philosophers. Lately, Coyle had developed a kind of philosophy about criminal proceedings like the present one and its place in the larger world.
But in the moment Coyle put aside his thoughts and focused on Slater—describing what he witnessed the day of the incident.
As Coyle finished, Slater smoothed his necktie and approached the stand. “Officer Coyle, was it your observation that Mr. Tallent fired his gun at Mr. Keller because he feared for his safety?”
“No, sir. Mr. Keller was walking away at the time of the shooting.”
At this point, Coyle wanted to address the court and tell those assembled—the judge, the lawyers, the aggrieved and relatives of the aggrieved, and even the orange-jumpsuited men in the dock—what the proceedings were missing. He wanted to say that this case occurred because people in this country today are angry. They feel disrespected, their needs unmet. Around them, others appear to be gaining an advantage. One day, another car pulls in front of you, as if you don’t exist, as if they’re entitled to get ahead of you. For once, you decide, you’ll get back at them. You take what’s yours.
“Did Mr. Tallent say why he shot Mr. Keller?” The prosecutor turned around and gestured toward the defendant.
“He said it was because of the type of car Mr. Keller was driving.”
“His car?”
“Yes, sir. That’s what Mr. Tallent said.”
“What were his exact words?”
Here Coyle really wanted to say that in the hospital on the north end of town, a six-year-old girl or a forty-year-old woman or an eighty-year-old man is dying of leukemia or ovarian cancer or heart disease. They will die tonight or tomorrow or the day after that. Everything we think or say in this courtroom is meaningless to them. What’s our injustice in the face of their waning hours?
Instead Coyle looked at the judge. “Your Honor,” he said, “the remark contains an obscenity.”
“Tell us the exact words,” the judge sighed. “But let’s not dwell on it.”
Of course not, Coyle thought. But what they should be dwelling on is that two miles from where they were sitting is a hillside, easily reached by anyone, that is as beautiful as anything in this world. Across its upper reaches are perfect rows of grapevines. Some days the clouds make dark patterns on the hillside so that the colors of the vines change and the rows appear to be moving. Isn’t such a place, like hundreds of others around us, a gift? Why do we allow ourselves to pass by without seeing it?
It was a fair question. But in the moment, Coyle shifted in his chair and addressed Slater. “Mr. Tallent said that Mr. Keller drove a Volvo and was, therefore, a dick.”
The gallery broke into laughter, and the judge banged his gavel for silence.
In the commotion, Coyle looked around the courtroom. The problem is, he thought, our lives are filled with trivia—text messages, tweets, Facebook posts—nothing more than flyspecks. We never step back and see our place on this earth with the sense of scale it requires. We end up doing unnecessary things—like ramming our cars into other cars. These things, in turn, set into motion a whole string of unstoppable reactions involving cops, lawyers, judges, courtrooms—all of it, every last bit of it, a waste of time.
Coyle’s concentration was broken by Deputy District Attorney Slater stepping into view. “Is it your testimony, Officer Coyle, that the defendant did not discharge his weapon in self-defense but because of the type of vehicle Mr. Keller drove?”
“Yes. And because, as I said, he believed Mr. Keller was a…dick.”
More laughter from the gallery. At the defense table, Tallent smiled and enjoyed his brief popularity. The judge frowned. Slater thanked Coyle and returned to the prosecution table.
As he stepped down from the witness chair, Coyle felt a disappointment in the gulf between his legal testimony and his unspoken thoughts—between the narrow good of his public witnessing and the hope captured in his own ideas. If, as Eddie said, his experience as a homicide investigator made him a philosopher, he wasn’t paid to be one. He was paid, at least as far as his time in the courtroom was concerned, to accurately describe the act of human stupidity he had witnessed and to let the legal system sort out the consequences.
Now, in the VCI room, Coyle looked down at his desktop and several sealed bags from the Behrens case that he had signed out of the evidence locker. He was grateful the VCI room was empty. He didn’t want to talk to any of the other detectives about what he’d thought in the courtroom. Eden would diagnose him. Frames would make a joke. Rivas would pretend to be busy. He needed to do something ordinary and useful.
The first evidence bag contained Paul Behrens’s cell phone. Using the PIN provided by Annie, Coyle opened the phone and clicked the icon for the home security camera, scrolling through dates until he came to today. At 7:15 a.m., the motion-activated camera filmed Paul Behrens’s car pulling out of the garage. The man’s face was briefly visible through the front windshield. Coyle paused the video to study Behrens’s face but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Behrens looked like any other person leaving his house in the morning to go to work. Coyle sent a copy of the video to his own computer for storage and printing.
He made a record of Behrens’s incoming and outgoing calls for the past six months, then clicked on a website that allowed him to reverse-search the numbers to identify the people behind them. He made a few notes on patterns and frequency of specific numbers, to be shared later with the VCI team. A sudden decrease in the number of outgoing calls three days ago told Coyle the missing man had probably purchased a second disposable phone at that time. The other phone was probably with Behrens now and could contain important evidence.
Coyle also made a record of Behrens’s use of phone apps, including which apps were used most, and the subjects of Google searches.
He found Google Maps searches for Dillon Beach, Bodega, and Salmon Creek.
Under Google searches, he saw Malvolio, Viola, Shakespeare, Salinger, Dickinson, Mission Pizza, Richard Ford, Hardy’s Brewhouse, Nothing False, Cummings, Nick Adams—there were too many terms to read. Coyle highlighted the list and printed a copy.
Then, as he was about to put the list aside, Coyle noticed that in a forty-five-minute period on March 14, Behrens had run three Google searches on sexual assault, Child Protective Services, and molestation.
Coyle looked up at the empty room. What the fuck was this guy up to?
He opened Behrens’s laptop. The teacher appeared to use his laptop less than his phone, and its usage was focused on record keeping for classes, lecture notes, student evaluations and grading, and personal writing.
Coyle printed a list of folder names. Then he clicked on folders at random and read several documents. Most were notes for classroom presentations and gave the impression of a conscientious teacher who prepared thoroughly for his classes. After twenty minutes of reading, Coyle saw a single document labeled “School District” and dated March 16. He clicked on it:
I am writing to announce my resignation, effective immediately, from my position as teacher at Brookwood Middle School. I am doing so to spare the district, my faculty colleagues, the parent body, and most especially my students from whatever pain may be caused by the alleged incident earlier this month. Once the allegations against me are made public, it will be difficult for an objective view of the facts to prevail. But I want to state here that I am innocent of the charges as alleged.
Throughout my career I have tried, to the best of my abilities, to provide a quality education in literature. This work has always involved challenging my students to delve into the issues that lie behind works of art and to see how those ideas play a role in their own lives. For me, literature has been a lifelong passion. I believe it is worthy of our attention for its own sake, but that it also helps us to understand the feelings that lie in our hearts and to create the moral compass that guides us.
Maybe something good will come of this incident. In any case, it is my sincere hope that this one event does not define me and become my legacy, and that I will be remembered for the work that I have done for more than eight years, and for the love of stories that I have instilled in the students I have been privileged to teach.
Coyle sat back. He would reread the document in a minute. But for now, he savored the moment. He thought again of his musings in the courtroom. Sometimes, he told himself now, you make sense of the world one small piece at a time.
(ii)
(Wednesday, 12:50 p.m.)
“This place is empty, right?” Bailey paused in the foyer of the Behrens house and looked back at Eden.
“We’ve got it to ourselves,” Eden said, “and we have the owner’s permission to search.”
Bailey pulled a camera from her evidence case and shot photos of the family room.
Standing in the doorway of the room, Eden snapped on a pair of nitrile gloves. When Bailey finished, Eden moved slowly around the room. She found the blanket on the sofa, where Annie had slept for the night. She pictured Annie Behrens watching TV early Wednesday morning after her shift. Wet eyes and a fifth glass of wine. Around Eden the room buzzed. Laughter, raised voices, loud pop music. She saw it through the eyes of the missing man—the world left behind. Was it not enough, or too much? Had he set the universe in motion, watched it change year by year until it excluded him? Had leaving been the easiest thing he’d done?
This was Eden’s first missing person case, though she’d researched the subject in college. According to the National Crime Information Center, the majority of persons reported missing in this country were located alive—missing in one place, present in another. However, behind the numbers in Eden’s reading were histories that proved leaving was never simple—or only as simple as you wanted to believe.
Eden herself had wanted to run away just once, during her boarding school days. Even then, she remembered imagining what an investigator would make of the things in her dorm room.
In the adjoining living room, Paul Behrens’s briefcase lay beside the recliner exactly as Annie described it. Crouching, Eden opened the case. Inside lay a file folder marked “Assignments” and a thick notebook of lesson plans. She flipped through the pages to the present day. The lesson was a continued discussion of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. A pocket in the briefcase lid held a daily planner. Eden looked at Wednesday, the day of Paul’s disappearance. On the line for 11:00 a.m. was a note that said “Jean.” A 3:00 p.m. entry read “Staff Meeting.” Nothing indicated a reason for Paul Behrens to take the unusual step of wearing a sports jacket and tie. Eden closed the briefcase and put it into a large evidence bag.
Bailey appeared in the doorway. “Okay, Professor. Why’d this guy leave? I mean, I know why I’d do it. I live in a crappy apartment, my job is processing what dead people leave behind, and the last guy I dated had a tattoo of his car. But Behrens lives in a nice neighborhood. Big house—TVs in every room. Wife, a kid of each gender. Steady job. I mean, if you’re sick of it, why not get a divorce like millions of other desperately unhappy Americans? Why just drive away?”
Eden stood. “In most cases of adult voluntary disappearance, the reason they leave is they feel trapped and don’t see a solution. Their instincts take over, and they run.”
“But what are they running from? This guy Behrens has a good life, doesn’t he?”
“Sometimes it’s a crisis they’ve never faced before. Maybe they’ve committed a crime—something as simple as a DUI—and they can’t imagine how their life will go on. Other times, it’s a deepening depression that gets so bad, they can’t stand being where they are.”
“What about the family?” Bailey shook her head. “You just leave them?”
“It’s not rational,” Eden admitted. “It’s about fear—the human flight response.”
“And they don’t leave notes, like with a suicide?”
“Sometimes. Not usually. The impulse is to get out.”
“Well, so far, I don’t see anything to run away from.”
Eden picked up the evidence bag. “Were you serious before? That guy you dated really had a tattoo of his car?”
“Yeah.” Bailey smiled. “Chevy Malibu. It was kind of cute.”
They climbed the stairs to the second floor. In the master bedroom, Eden saw the mussed bed where Behrens slept Tuesday night. The walk-in closet held Annie’s clothes on the left, Paul’s on the right. His rack was a jumble of polo shirts, flannels, and khakis—the wardrobe of a typical schoolteacher.
Bailey came out of the master bath with several bottles. “Check out these. Prescriptions in his name: Ativan, Zoloft, Xanax, Valium. Enough downers to put the city to sleep. Guy must have some issues.”
Eden walked down the hallway and met Bailey in Claire’s room. The bright pastel walls held posters of Ariana Grande and Timothée Chalamet. The room was tidy, bed made. Eden looked quickly through the closet and turned to leave. Bailey stared at the Grande poster. “Hope that’s not who she wants to be.”
“Leave her alone. She’s thirteen.”
In Jesse’s room, the curtains were closed. The floor was covered in dirty clothes, and the room reeked of stale cigarette ends. Arrayed around the room were concert posters of indie bands. Bailey turned on the overhead light and shot several photos. “Jesus, two kids on opposite sides of the universe.”
In the bedside cabinet, Eden found thirty new watches, some still in their cases. “Wow. High-end. Piaget, Breitling. For the son of a schoolteacher, the boy has expensive tastes.”
Bailey knelt in front of the closet and shone a flashlight inside. She pulled a plastic storage box from inside. As she popped open the lid, Bailey took a deep breath. She held the open box for Eden to see. “Twenties. Hundreds of them. Kid saves his allowance.”
Eden stared at the bills. “Why twenties?”
“If I had to guess, purchase price of whatever he’s dealing.” Bailey put a hand on top of the bills. “Probably weed. Street price for a gram is about twenty bucks.”
“Count them now and take pictures. Otherwise his lawyer will raise a stink later.”
Bailey sat cross-legged on the floor, counting. After a few minutes she looked up. “Three hundred seventy-three. Which is what? Seventy-five hundred dollars?” Bailey closed the lid and placed the box in an evidence bag.
“So, Bailey.” Eden smiled. “How’re we doing with that image of a father walking away from his perfect life?”
The last door along the second-floor hall opened to a home office. Eden waited in the hall while Bailey took photos from several angles. Inside, Eden headed first for the desk and went through the drawers.
