Emily out. With reason, Tony realized. She’d have been eleven or twelve, maybe, when their mother had run away.
“I don’t know,” Matt said. “I don’t remember anyone saying. I mean, why wouldn’t she have used one when she packed?”
Did he really not get it? “I presume your father can tell us,” he said.
He was beginning to find those silent exchanges irritating. He should have separated the siblings from the beginning.
“I sort of doubt he’ll remember,” Beth said. “He’s...kind of vague about details. You’ll see.”
Mentally ill? If he was still teaching at the college level, could he be? Tony’s curiosity about the man grew.
“I should speak to him next,” he said.
Beth jumped up. “Let me get him for you.”
He moved fast, staying right behind her when she dashed for the French doors. She cast him a startled glance when she realized how close he was, but damned if he’d let her warn her father in any way.
She pushed open the door, letting cool air spill out, and called, “Dad?”
“Beth?” A pleasant tenor voice preceded the man. “That you?”
“Yes, there’s someone here to see you.”
As soon as he saw her father, Tony had to discard preconceptions he hadn’t realized he’d formed. The guy didn’t have a receding hairline, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose or narrow, stooped shoulders. No sweater vest or corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows, either. If he smoked a pipe, Tony couldn’t smell it.
Instead, the man was tall, thin, handsome, his brown hair graying at the temples. He hadn’t shaved today, and his stubble was clearly gray. Tony saw a resemblance to Matt, in particular, and perhaps to Beth in the bone structure and shape of the eyes. Only Matt’s coloring—blond and blue-eyed, like his younger sister—kept him from being the spitting image of his father.
Tony couldn’t help recalling the straw-yellow hair he’d glimpsed inside the garage wall.
“Bethie?” Perplexity had her father looking from his daughter to Tony. “Who’s this?”
Tony stepped into a comfortable family room with aging carpet and furnishings. Floor-to-ceiling, built-in bookcases covered one wall.
“Mr. Marshall? I’m Detective Navarro with the Frenchman Lake Police Department.”
“Police department? Are you a friend of Beth’s?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. I need to talk to you about something your son and daughters found in the garage. Perhaps we could sit down.”
Appearing bewildered, he sank onto a well-worn recliner that faced a television. “Certainly, but... I don’t understand.”
“Dad, we found something upsetting—”
Tony laid a hand on her arm, silencing her with a shake of his head. “Ms. Marshall, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to speak to your father alone.”
Alarm flashed in her hazel eyes, but she subdued it enough to nod and say, “I understand.”
Her father watched her go outside with a concerned expression he transferred to Tony. “Is something wrong?”
How was it possible that not one of his three adult children had gone into the house to say, Hey, Dad, we found something strange? Especially given that this was his house. His garage.
Tony went for blunt. “We’ve found what appears to be a human body behind wallboard in your garage.”
John Marshall only stared at him. “Did you say a body?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But...who found it? How?”
“There was an old hole in one sheet of wallboard. Beth took a look in it and called us. I agree that it does appear to be human remains. Crime scene investigators will be here shortly.” Undoubtedly as thrilled as he was to lose their Sunday off. “In the meantime, I need to ask you some questions.”
“I don’t understand. Nobody has gone into the garage in years. How could someone have gotten in, or—” Even he boggled at the unlikelihood of a killer getting around decades’ worth of accumulated belongings to stash a body.
“I suspect the remains have been there for many years, Mr. Marshall. The body appears to be at least partially mummified, which can happen under some circumstances in a dry climate like ours.” Insect-free circumstances, as this would have been until the damage opened the hole, likely much later. He paused. “Because you reported your wife missing, I need to ask about her.”
Obviously perturbed, Marshall said, “The police were convinced she’d left on her own.”
“I understand you found a note.”
“Yes, when I sat down at the computer that evening and moved the mouse, I found that Word was open to a document she must have created. It was brief.”
“Do you still have it?”
He shook his head. “We’ve replaced that computer several times since. I’m sure I printed it for that police officer, but I didn’t need to for myself.” Old pain parted the curtain of vagueness. “I could tell you what it said word for word.”
Tony preferred to locate the printout in a file at the station. On an investigation, he rarely trusted anyone.
“Did the police fingerprint the computer mouse?” he asked.
“It was only one officer, and he didn’t suggest anything like that. He really wasn’t here very long.”
Tony understood. People went missing all the time. Law enforcement response was quite different when a child disappeared, but adults most often did turn up later.
“We thought she’d call.”
“Had you quarreled right before she disappeared?”
“Right before?” he said in apparent surprise. “Well, I don’t know. That was a long time ago. She’d been annoyed with me, but I hoped whatever was bothering her would pass.”
Tony barely refrained from shaking his head. How could this guy fail to grasp the implications here? Well, sure, she and I weren’t getting along. Save the note on the computer? Why would I do that?
“Did you hear from her?” It was conceivable he wouldn’t have told his kids, depending on what was said. Or that he’d choose to lie now.
“Never a word.” He sounded puzzled. “Didn’t seem like Christine, but... Bethie was old enough to take over helping her sister and making meals, so nothing changed all that much.”
Unbelievable. His wife vanished into thin air, but in his view, nothing much changed because, hey, his fifteen-year-old daughter stepped up and kept the family running. Either
