The Mystery of Hollow Places(4)
By the time I picked up my book again, the sun had ducked behind the clouds, and I was colder than before. I tucked myself deeper into my jacket, pressed my sunglasses into my nose, and shut my eyes.
I woke up stiff to Dad shaking my shoulder, saying, “Immy, we have to head out. Lindy will wonder where we are.” I could tell it was late by the slant of the sun on the sand, the blue shadows that stretched behind us like our own private pools of water. There was no time to grab food in town—we’d barely beat Lindy home from work, even if we sped—so we stopped at a McDonald’s for fries to fill us up until dinner. Just before pulling out of the drive-through and back onto the highway, Dad turned off the engine, twisted in his seat, and looked me in the eyes.
“I love you, bou bui.” The Cantonese word for “darling” or “treasure,” which Dad hadn’t called me in years and years, not since Ma Ma Scott was around, and I always thought it was for my Chinese grandmother’s benefit.
“Yeah, okay,” I answered, embarrassed. “I love you too and whatever.”
“And whatever.” He sniffed.
Avoiding my stepmother’s eyes, I tell most of this to Officer Griffin.
“So that’s that,” Lindy says. “We went to bed last night, and when I got up this morning he wasn’t here, and he’d left everything behind. When he never came back, I called you all.”
“Good, good.” As Officer Griffin writes, she twirls a stray piece of brown hair around one finger. It’s funny because dozens of girls in my grade do the same, and absolutely nothing else about Officer Griffin is “girlie.” Except for a few escaped strands, her hair is scraped into a hard little knot at the back of her skull. Her eyebrows are wild, her shoulders square, her skin pink and rough. I wonder who her daughter is. Sugarbrook is small enough that I might know her; in fact, there’s an Ashley Griffin in a few of my AP classes, a supernaturally pretty senior who wears body glitter and purple and gold hair chalk, our school colors, to soccer games with the rest of the popular girls. I’ve never seen Officer Griffin at a game, but maybe Ashley is embarrassed by her mother. I guess daughters sometimes are.
Sitting across from the officer, Lindy looks her opposite in every way. Even though it’s late at night and we’re in our own home, diamonds hang from her earlobes on thin chains, the crystals twinkling against her sculpted blond hair. Instead of a bathrobe or a sweater she has a cape wrapped around herself, a white wool thing with pink silk lining. When she stands and stretches, the silk yawns inside her sleeves like the tongue of a snow-white animal. Officer Griffin’s fuzzy coat hangs gracelessly over her chair back. This is a town of Nikes and North Face, and Lindy clips around it in heels and Burberry.
She tilts the coffeepot into her mug. When nothing drips out, she sighs and sets it in the sink. “Immy, it’s late, and you have school tomorrow.”
Officer Griffin snaps her book shut. “You’re right about that. But this is good, a good place to start. You think of anything else, Lindy, you give us a call. You too, Imogene.”
I nod, slump out of the kitchen, and pretend to climb the stairs to my bedroom. Instead I stop on the landing and drop silently to the carpet to listen in. There’s the clank of Lindy dumping the rest of the cups in the sink, and then in a low voice she asks, “How does this work now? I mean, what can we expect from the police?” She sounds calm, but of course it’s her job to stay composed.
“First off, you did the right thing, calling us.” Officer Griffin is trying to keep quiet, but hers is the brassy kind of Bostonian voice that carries. “Now, we got Mr. Scott’s pictures, and a list of his friends, and his credit card number, though we know he left his card with you. The fact that he didn’t take out a whole bunch of money is good—means he’s probably not planning on staying gone too long. I’ll get this info out to everyone on patrol, put in a report to NCIC—that’s the National Crime Information Center. In the meantime, keep his cell phone with you in case he calls in, or somebody who knows something calls.
“But you have to understand, it doesn’t look like foul play. Your husband doesn’t have any serious health problems. I know you got some concerns about his mental state, but the fact that he planned for this shows he’s at least in control of his faculties, you know? We’ll look into this. But . . . it isn’t always a crime to go missing. We do find him, we’ll take it from there. Just do us a favor: you and your stepdaughter sit tight. You think of anyone who might know anything, let us know. But don’t go investigating on your own. That won’t help anyone.”
“I understand.”
“Just one more question before I go, Mrs. Scott. Today being what it is—does that mean anything special to you? Besides, you know, the roses-and-candies rigmarole?”
“I don’t think so. Sometimes Josh remembers, sometimes he’s working on a book and he doesn’t. My husband . . . isn’t always a Valentine’s Day sort of person.”
Lindy thanks Officer Griffin and in the shuffle of her leaving, I creep the rest of the way into my room, quickly shuck off my jeans, and lie on my bed in the dark. Lindy won’t believe I’m asleep already, not even close, but she’ll read the signs. She’ll know better than to talk to me.
Sure enough, after she climbs the stairs, her shadow pauses outside my bedroom door for only a moment before the hall light clicks off and her footsteps carry her away to her own room.