The Perfect Wife(23)

“You often went night-surfing. Even in poor conditions—you found high waves exhilarating, and you were easily skilled enough to cope with them. You said it cleared your head when you’d been working. There were plenty of people who could confirm that. It was only later that the coverage got so…I kept some of the reports, actually.”

He gets up and comes back with a USB stick that he plugs into his laptop. When he turns the screen toward you, you see he’s put together a kind of digital scrapbook, a slideshow of cuttings and screengrabs from news feeds and social media. He sits back and watches intently as you click through them, scouring your face for signs of your response.

The first articles tell just the bare facts of your disappearance.





Air Search Fails to Find Storm Victim


The search continues today for Bay Area artist Abbie Cullen-Scott, whose vehicle was found parked overnight near San Gregorio State Beach in strong winds. The mother of one, who with tech entrepreneur husband Tim Scott owns a $10M beach house nearby, is known to be a passionate surfer.

Residents expressed surprise anyone would risk going out in the heavy breaks seen Friday. The area is known for unusual offshore rock formations that, under certain conditions, funnel freak waves as high as fifty feet.



You reach back into the past, searching for memories that would confirm any of this, but nothing comes. You have no recollection of that time at all. And that, somehow, insulates you from the horror of it. It’s as if you’re reading about someone else. Not your own final moments.

You continue clicking through. It was the Chronicle that first made the connection with Danny, and by implication raised a different possibility:





Search Halted for Tragic Abbie


The search was called off today for missing artist Abbie Cullen-Scott. The 30-year-old mother was “struggling” with her autistic son Danny, according to friends. Danny is currently being cared for at the couple’s home in the Mission by tech founder Tim Scott, 40, who has requested privacy through his legal representative.



The next day Tim issued a statement. Clearly, at least part of his reason was to combat the Chronicle’s insinuations.

    Abbie is a wonderful person, a beautiful wife and exemplary mother, an incredibly optimistic, forward-looking individual who cares deeply about art and the positive effect it can have on people’s lives. Now that the search for her has been scaled down, I have to confront the devastating possibility I will never see her again. If so, I have lost not only my wife, but my soulmate. I ask that the media respect my privacy, and that of our son, at this difficult time.



The statement caused a ripple of interest on Circle of Moms and other parenting sites.

     A woman in Australia drowned herself and her daughter. There’s a ton of stuff about it online if you do a search!



     There’s no support. My cousin and her husband have a child with autism and they can’t even go out.



     My friend’s boy screams if they make a left in the car.



     Not so tough if you’re a millionaire tho IMHO!!!



     I’m sorry but there’s no excuse for depriving a child of his mom, however bad your life is.





Ten days later, however, the Chronicle reported that detectives were now investigating the possibility that Abbie may have been the victim of a criminal act.

The next slide is a long-lens photograph of a police search team coming out of the house, carrying plastic crates. The caption reads: Detectives take away computers and other equipment belonging to tech founder Tim Scott. Investigators have brought in cadaver dogs trained to sniff for human remains.

You look over at Tim. His face is still impassive, but you can only imagine what being the object of those suspicions must have been like for someone as private as him.

And still the insinuations kept coming. The next article highlighted the similarities between your own disappearance and another death, four years earlier:





Police Probe Abbie “Copycat” Indications


Detectives are looking into “striking similarities” between the disappearance of missing artist Abigail Cullen-Scott from San Gregorio Beach last month and another case four years ago. Twenty-seven-year-old Kerry-Ann Brookheimer’s vehicle was also found abandoned near the beach after a storm, prompting a major search by air, land, and sea. Ms. Brookheimer’s body was never found, something a spokesman from the county sheriff’s office attributed at the time to the area’s unusual rip currents.

“Police are investigating whether Abbie, or anyone close to her, was aware of the circumstances of Kerry-Ann’s disappearance,” said Detective Ray Tanner, the officer leading the hunt for Ms. Cullen-Scott, yesterday.



The hint was clear—someone might have tried to make the more recent death look like an accident, knowing that a body washed into the sea in that area might never reappear.

In the absence of any facts, the mood on social media turned against Tim.

         I’m not saying he killed her. But maybe he drove her to it. You can’t ever tell what goes on behind closed doors!!