Chapter 11 Sara Batcher
Sara Batcher
“We lived next door to David and Sara, so we were one of the first to know when he went missing. I remember seeing a detective’s car coming through their gate, and I asked Sara about it the next day and she said that she didn’t know where David was.
As if he was a dog or a purse she’d misplaced.
I mean, how do you lose your husband? I asked her if she thought he ran off, but she said he definitely didn’t.
And he was in pharmaceutical sales, so it wasn’t like he had engineered a Ponzi scheme or something like that, something he might run away over.
We always thought he would show back up, but as time passed, that seemed to be less and less likely. ”
The maids were done with the main-floor clean and were polishing the staircase banister when the police buzzed in at the gate.
Maggie welcomed them in and led them to the front sitting room, where Sara was waiting.
The two officers took the chairs in front of the three-story fireplace, and Maggie brought them sodas and a sparkling water for Sara.
“I heard that you found a body,” Sara said, cutting to the chase. “Is it David?”
The taller one, who had given a low whistle when he’d come into the room, winced. “Well, that’s not exactly true. A dog in the neighborhood found some human remains. We’re trying to locate the rest of them now.”
The rest of them. Like they were puzzle pieces that had fallen off the table and were lost. Was it a head that had been found?
A jawbone? A femur? How decayed or intact had it been?
She swallowed the urge to ask all the questions and settled on one.
“So how much do you have?” Again, the wrong choice of words.
The two men exchanged a look. There was a long pause, and finally, the shorter one spoke. “At the moment, one bone.”
“That’s it?” All this hubbub over one bone. Maybe it wasn’t even human. The tight knot of anxiety in Sara’s abdomen eased slightly.
“Well, that’s not a minor thing, Mrs. Batcher. Human bones don’t just fall out of the air—especially not in areas like this.” He smiled as if she were a child.
“But you’ve been looking for hours. I saw crime scene vans pass by at eight thirty.
” In her peripheral vision, she saw movement, and turned her head to catch Maggie passing through the large arched opening to the north foyer.
Maggie would want to know every detail once they left.
The woman was a fiend for information and coveted it like a prize.
“Well . . .” The shorter one shifted in his seat. Neither one of them had taken a sip of their sodas. “There are over forty-seven lakes in the neighborhood. Three golf courses.”
“Six nature preserves,” the other one jumped in. “It’s a lot of ground to cover.”
Yes, there was. Sara had walked every street, path, and course in the neighborhood and could have told them—anyone—where the most logical place to hide a body was, if that was your goal.
Would they have started their search with the duck pond behind Stone Hollow’s eighth hole?
Or maybe the thick forest on the edge of Ramsey Lane?
It probably depended on where the bone had been found.
She’d never considered a dog unearthing part of David.
Ironic, that of all the things she had envisioned, obsessed over .
. . it was the unimagined that had actually happened.
She cleared her throat and refocused on the conversation. “Okay, so . . . why are you here?”
“We wanted to update our records. After all, it’s been a while since we spoke with you.
Given that the age of the bone puts it in a time frame that correlates with your husband’s disappearance, we thought it best to touch base.
” The tall one set his glass down on a coaster on the table and reached into the front chest pocket of his white button-down shirt, withdrawing a thin notepad and pen.
The pen didn’t have a cap, and she could see a small blue ink stain in the bottom of his pocket.
That wouldn’t come out. Ink was like bloodstains: It was better to just throw something out than try to remove the evidence.
“This is your only home, Mrs. Batcher?” the one with the notepad asked.
“Yes—and don’t worry. I won’t leave town.” She smiled, hoping they would laugh off the thought.
They didn’t.
“It looks like you had David declared as deceased two years ago and collected his life insurance at that time, is that correct?”
“Yes.” She could have elaborated. Waiting three years for a man to show up was long enough, especially for a man who was on time for everything.
She gave David a new watch each Christmas as a running joke on his punctuality.
Upstairs, still in its box, was the one she purchased the December after he disappeared.
A waste of $8,000, but you never knew who was watching or what might later make her look guilty.
A woman was expected to hope for and expect her missing husband to reappear, even if it wasn’t logical or likely.
Sara was as logical as David was dead.
“So you haven’t heard from him in five and a half years? Not since the date you reported him missing?” the short one asked.
“That’s correct. May fifth was the last time anyone saw him, as far as I know.
There’s been no credit activity, no sightings .
. . They found his car downtown. We have a condo there—or we did.
I sold it a few years ago. His car was in that garage.
He was supposed to be here that night. I expected him home, which is why I called the police the next morning, once I didn’t hear from him.
” They should have this information. She had told it so many times the information was branded on her brain.
“At first, the police didn’t find it suspicious.
It wasn’t until it had been a few days that they started to really look for him. ”
The tall one lifted his drink and took a sip.
His beard was clipped short down his neck, and she could see the glug of his Adam’s apple as he finished off almost half of it before lowering the glass.
David had drunk the same way. Two chugs and it would be gone.
It was one of the reasons why she had decided to hide the crushed pills in his drink.
He was always done with the glass before he had a chance to consider that the taste might be off.
“Whatever you found, it’s not David,” she said. “I mean, he was last seen downtown. He didn’t walk seven miles to Crestmore and then die in the woods somewhere, all without being seen.”
“What do you think happened to your husband, Mrs. Batcher?” The detective set the glass down, and his wet lips glistened in the light from the overhead chandelier. She’d ordered the light from a Native American ranch in Colorado, and they’d brought it in on an 18-wheeler, it was so large.
What do I think happened to David? What a great question.
“Honestly? I have no idea.”
Among the various lies, this bit of truth was the easiest to say.