Chapter 45
CHAPTER
NASH LEFT A MESSAGE AT the number Detective Ramos had left with him asking the detective to call him as soon as possible.
He then drove back to his house. Judith was locked in their bathroom and he could hear her weeping.
He walked to Maggie’s room and stood looking at the police tape strung across it like some visible virus overtaking his world.
He texted Morris for an update and received a terse reply: Working it.
He was exhausted and not thinking clearly.
He knew he really should get some sleep, but how can you rest when your child is missing?
And he really wasn’t sure what he felt about Judith right now.
The fact of her affair with Rhett, which would have crushed him under any other circumstances, seemed pushed to the far recesses of his emotional universe. All that mattered was Maggie.
Is this how quickly one’s life falls apart? Before my father’s funeral my world was perfect. Now, it’s been shattered into pieces so small I can’t recognize a single bit of it.
Hours later, his phone buzzed, waking him from where he had finally fallen deeply asleep on the family room couch. Morning light was coming in through the window.
Shock said, “Is it true? Maggie’s gone? I saw the news this morning.”
A groggy Nash said, “Yes. Someone broke into our house and took her.”
“You think it’s connected to your stuff?”
“It has to be.”
“Does Judith know about all that?”
“No. I haven’t told her. And there was something weird.”
“What?”
He told Shock about the fake cops and the so-called swatting attempt.
“That would make sense,” said Shock. “A way in through the gate, nobody would question them. She might have been drugged or dead and in the trunk on the way out.”
This comment made Nash collapse forward and a sob escaped his lips. He tried to cover the phone, but didn’t quite make it.
“Damn, I’m sorry, Walter. I shouldn’t have been that blunt. I was thinkin’ with my pro hat on, not my human one.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t been thinking myself,” replied Nash as he straightened and slumped back on the sofa.
“Let me dig around. I’ll get back to you.”
Nash stumbled to the kitchen, where sunlight was streaming in all the windows, and made some coffee. He sucked down the cup greedily, as though the caffeine would give him some superpower to aid him in locating Maggie.
Twenty minutes later Judith came down the stairs.
She was dressed to the nines with full makeup, hair teased out and frothy, and a half-dozen jangling bracelets on each wrist. She stopped on the bottom riser and eyed the unkempt and bloodshot-eyed Nash as he sat at the kitchen island in the clothes he’d slept in.
The only thing he could think of to say was “Going somewhere?”
She didn’t answer, but stepped into the kitchen, crossed the space, snagged a cup, and poured herself coffee. She leaned against a counter and drank it down.
Nash eyed her for a bit and then retreated into his own thoughts.
“Have the police called?” she finally asked.
He looked up to see her pouring out another cup of coffee. She was unemotional, calm, robotic even. It was starting to freak him out. Was she on drugs?
“No, they haven’t.”
She nodded, pursed her lips, and took a sip of the coffee. “Have you eaten?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat, Walter. You’re too thin as it is. It won’t do Maggie any good if you collapse from hunger.”
Nash grabbed a banana from a bowl, stripped it, and ate it.
“There. Happy?” he said.
She started rummaging in the fridge. “I’ll make you a proper breakfast.”
“Judith, I’m not hungry, okay?”
“You say that now, but I know you. You’ll be fussing in no time. ‘Where’s my damn dinner? Why isn’t the house clean, woman?’”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever said that, in over two decades of marriage.”
“Maybe not in actual words, but with your eyes, with your manner. Men do that, you know. Women talk, men just emote, badly.”
He shook his head in bewilderment at this ridiculous conversation. Was this her guilt coming through? Or was it something more? He felt inclined to find out.
“Did you take some meds that are doing a number on you?” he asked.
“Eggs, bacon, toast, avocado, and fruit. Protein, carbs, fiber, and some healthy fats. In a jiffy, Walter. You can always count on me. You know that.”
He watched her pull skillets and bowls out of cupboards and food from the fridge.
She put things together, and soon the kitchen was filled with the comingled smells of eggs, sizzling bacon, and bread toasting.
She tossed blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries in a bowl with some yogurt, and sliced up an avocado after de-pitting it and scooping it out of its skin.
She set out a plate at the table along with utensils and a cloth napkin pulled from a credenza drawer.
When the meal was ready she plated it, took his empty cup, refilled it, poured out a glass of orange juice, and set it down next to his plate.
“All ready to go. Eat up.”
He was oscillating between telling her to go to hell and sitting down to the meal. For reasons not readily apparent to him, Nash chose the latter. Perhaps it was because he could imagine the brittle fragility of his wife’s psyche right now and he did not want her to fully collapse.
As he took up his napkin and started eating she hovered next to him and said, “Everything to your liking?”
“It’s fine, Judith. Thank you.”
“I’m so glad.” She squeezed his shoulders, kissed him on the cheek, and walked back up the stairs.
He swallowed some eggs, had a piece of bacon, spooned two mouthfuls of fruit and yogurt into his mouth, took a couple bites of toast, and ate one slice of the avocado. Then Nash stood and went upstairs.
He saw Judith’s shoes lying outside of Maggie’s room. Next, he saw that the police tape had been ripped down. He peeked through the opening and saw his wife lying on her daughter’s bed, curled into a fetal position. She was saying something over and over but he couldn’t make out the words.
As he drew closer he finally heard it.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
He quietly withdrew and went to his room, showered, and changed into slacks and a polo shirt.
He walked to the guardhouse. Billy Adams was already off duty, and Nash hoped he was at the station telling the police what had happened. He was concerned because Ramos had not called him back.
Rolf was now on duty. He did not look good at all, Nash thought, as the man came out of the guardhouse.
“Rolf, you okay?”
“No, I’m not.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Billy Adams.”
“Billy? What about him? I talked to him late last night. He was fine.”
“Not anymore. He’s dead.”
Nash staggered back. “What! How?”
“Apparently he lost control of his car and it went off the road and flipped. He died instantly, they said.”
“Where?”
“About three miles west of here. Funny, because that’s not on his way home.”
But it is on the way to the nearest police station, Nash thought.
Rolf looked like he might cry. “So pointless, right?”
“Yes,” said Nash. He was actually thinking that Billy Adams’s death had no doubt contained several elements, but being pointless was not one of them.