Lake of Tears (5 page)

What he really felt like was that he had been gutted.

His voice sounded older than she had imagined, deep, smooth, and somehow in charge. He didn’t say his name. He just said, “Hey, how’s it going?” and she knew who it was.

Meg was so glad she had been the one to answer the phone. Somehow she didn’t want her parents to know about this guy yet. Mom wasn’t back from work, and Rich was in the other room, checking out something on the computer. Since they had gotten Wi-Fi in the house, he spent a lot of time online, even more than she did.

“Hey,” she said back. “It’s going good.” She had waited hard all this day, wondering if he would really call. It was a good sign that he had called so soon after they met, even if it was rather late, certainly too late to do anything.

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Not much. Hanging. Doing boring stuff. My laundry.”

“Good for you. Might as well be productive.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Oh, I’m on the job.”

“But you can talk?”

“Yeah, nothing much else to do. Just watching it rain.”

“Yeah, I know the farmers need this rain, but it’s kind of a drag.”

“I shouldn’t talk too long. But I was just wondering if you felt like getting together sometime this week.”

She would have agreed to going for a ride that night, but he was at work. That was probably good—didn’t want to appear too anxious. She hadn’t dated anyone except Curt, so she didn’t really know how to do it. “That’d be good. I could manage that. When were you thinking?”

“You, with your busy schedule?” he teased.

“Yeah, it actually is a busy schedule. I work a couple nights this week.”

“Where do you work?”

“At the Harbor View.”

“Pretty swanky.”

“I guess. It’s good money. Nice people.”

“I’ve eaten there a few times. Food’s not bad. Kinda rich.”

“But I don’t work tomorrow night,” she couldn’t stop herself from saying.

“You’re off tomorrow night? Same with me. You want me to come and get you, we can go do something.”

“I work tomorrow afternoon, but I get off at three. You want to pick me up after that? At the Harbor View? It’s closer to Durand.”

“You remembered where I lived. Sure, that sounds good. What do you want to do? Any ideas?”

Meg thought that all she really wanted to do was be in a dark car with him close. What was the matter with her? Where was the girl who wanted to get to know someone before there was any physical contact? “I don’t know. You want to go for a hike? We could go up to the Maiden Rock.”

“The Maiden Rock? I thought that was private property?”

“You’ve been gone for a while, haven’t you. It was given to the Land Trust a couple years ago. They put in a nice hiking trail.”

“Sounds good to me. Then we can get something to eat. Probably some place other than the Harbor View.”

“Yeah, probably that would be a good idea,” she hiccup-laughed, surprised how nervous she felt.

There was an awkward silence. “Okay then. See you at three at the Harbor View, Meg.”

“See you, Andrew.” She listened to him hang up the phone. She would see him tomorrow. She was glad he was going to pick her up at the Harbor View. Meg knew she could go out with whoever she wanted to—after all, in another few months, she would be out of the house, totally on her own. But she still wondered what her parents would think of her going out with someone so much older.

Her mom and Rich had told her that she didn’t have a curfew anymore. She could stay out as late as she wanted to. Funny, now that she had permission, she had no one to stay out late with.

But maybe tomorrow night.

“She’s been gone since Friday,” the man’s voice came over the phone in a cross between a snarl and a shout. “That’s three whole days.”

“And who am I speaking with?” Amy asked, taking a sip of coffee. She didn’t get nearly as riled up when people shouted at her as she used to when she first started the job. Everyone always thought that absolutely everything was an emergency. She had learned from Claire to take it slow and get the facts before she started to go bonkers.

Besides, she had only come on duty a couple of minutes ago, hadn’t even finished her first cup of coffee. It was barely after eight in the morning and she had been looking forward to a quiet hour or two, straightening out her desk, filling out reports, catching up on things. Claire had gone to the crime scene with the bone expert, said she didn’t need to be there until later.

“I’m her fiancé. We’re getting married right before Thanksgiving. She said she’d give me a call last night. Never heard from her.”

“Okay. But what’s your name?”

“Terry. Terry Whitman.”

Amy didn’t recognize the name. “And where do you live?”

“Here in Durand. I moved here a couple years ago. Used to live in Woodbury, in Minnesota.”

“And who’s missing?”

“Tammy Lee Johansen.”

The name buzzed through Amy’s brain. She knew Tammy Lee. A couple years ahead of her in high school. Big blond girl with lots of teeth. Pretty, but not super bright. “Does she live with you?”

“No, not yet. We’re trying to find a place, but she still lives on her own. We thought we’d wait until after the wedding. I think her folks would like that. But we see each other nearly every day.”

“So the last time anyone saw her was on Friday?”

“Yeah, that’s what it looks like. I thought she was at her folks’, her folks thought she was with me. So no one missed her until late Saturday when I called over there. Her mom said she hadn’t come home Friday night. We both figured maybe she had gone into the Cities to see her sister. She does that sometimes. Couldn’t get in touch with her sister. So we weren’t too worried. But then her mom talked to her sister last night, and Tammy wasn’t there. We started checking around. Nobody has seen her since Friday. Her mom’s not too worried, but I am.”

Amy couldn’t help but think of the bones they had found. But Tammy had probably gone to see a friend for a couple of days. She must be in her mid-twenties, with the big wedding event happening, and decided to take a break from life. Amy felt like that once in a while.

“Why don’t you come in and fill out a missing person’s report?” Amy suggested, as he seemed somewhat calmer.

“Okay. She could be hurt or kidnapped. I mean, what if something really bad has happened to her?”

“We will start checking into it. Have you called the hospital? Other friends? Does she work?”

“She isn’t supposed to be at work until tonight. She works at the Pump and Dump. I haven’t checked the hospital. Figured they’d call us if something bad happened. I’ve tried a few of her friends.”

“Does she have her purse?”

“Yes. Her mom checked her place and it’s not there, so she must have it.”

“What about a car?”

“Her car is gone, too. It’s an old Chevy, nothing special.”

“Listen, come on in. We can’t do anything until we have all the information. I’ll be here all morning. We can go over the contacts you should try that will help you find her.”

“Okay. Yeah, I’ll be over.”

Amy didn’t know why she asked, but sometimes she didn’t know when to leave things alone. “Did you two have a fight or anything recently?”

“What?” The snarl came back into his voice. He yelled, “You think this is my fault?”

“Just asking. I know a wedding can be a stressful time. Even a small quarrel can sometimes cause someone to take off for a few days.”

“Tammy and me aren’t like that. I wouldn’t hurt her in a million years. We’ve never had a fight.”

How unusual, Amy thought.

Sitting in front of the TV, watching Oprah with his mom, Andrew knew he had to move out of his parents’ house. He couldn’t believe he was nearly thirty and back home again. But he was finding it so hard to do anything constructive, and the thought of all that was involved in moving out stymied him—finding a place, dealing with a landlord, new furniture, cooking. But maybe worst of all, being alone.

He hadn’t had a minute to himself for years. In Afghanistan, he had bunked with a whole slew of guys, shoulder to shoulder sometimes. As bad as the situation had been over there, you were never alone.

When he was alone the bad feelings were the worst. They would swarm him. He felt like that girl Pandora who opened the box. If he didn’t have something to take his mind off of what had happened, it all came rushing back at him, biting, insisting on taking over his mind.

At least at his parents’ he could hear them moving around, his mom cooked great meals for him and was constantly talking, the TV was always going, Dad had his radio on downstairs, the dog was in and out of the house. The house was never quiet. He was reminded, all the time, that he wasn’t over in Afghanistan anymore. No more war. He was finally home.

“I think she’s gained a few pounds again,” his mom said.

“Who’s gained weight?” he asked.

“Oprah, she really struggles with it.” His mom slapped her full stomach under a knitted sweater. “I know what that’s like. But not you. You’re still skinny. I thought after a few months of eating my food, you’d start to put some back on.”

“I have, Mom. About ten pounds.”

“Man, you were thin when you came home. Andrew, what did they feed you over there?”

“You don’t want to know, believe me. Just packaged stuff that we could scarf down. Different colors, but tasted all the same. Good old MREs.”

“What’s that mean?”

He laughed. “The army never likes to say the full words to anything. Everything’s always a code or an abbreviation. MRE stands for Meal Ready to Eat. A typical MRE would have some meat, a starch, peanut butter, always peanut butter, and then your candy. Oh, and moist towelettes. Can’t forget those. Don’t want to get your hands dirty.” He could feel his anger rising in him, just talking about the food they ate. No wonder he didn’t say much to his parents about what had gone on over there on his tour of duty.

Andrew stood up and walked to the back door. Being scared had made him hungry, and being hungry had made him scared. His mom wasn’t the best cook in the world, but he was so happy to be eating her meatloaf again.

Still hours to go until he could pick Meg up. He hadn’t had a woman in his arms in way too long. He’d have to watch himself so he didn’t eat her up. She had seemed as fresh and sweet as a strawberry the other night. Andrew wondered what she was really like; he wondered if he would find out.

He sat down on the stoop and watched the farmer in the next field haying. His dad was talking about taking another pass through the fields. The weather was staying pretty good. Wasn’t supposed to rain again until next weekend. That would give the hay enough time to dry in the field.

His shoulders slumped. Often he felt like he was still carrying something on his back. Hard to get over that feeling after always having gear hanging off of you. And he still had unfinished business he had to take care of.

The first thing he swore he would do when he got home was get in touch with Doug, and he hadn’t even done it yet. Andrew had dialed the number for Doug’s parents a couple of times, but then he’d hung up before the call went through.

Doug had been his best buddy over there. Doug, and Brian. They had been the reasons he had made it through. Without them, he would have lost it. He was sure of that. They made him laugh. Especially Doug. He could just be unbelievably funny, rude as all get-out. Infantile fart jokes, raunchy sex jokes, stupid knock-knock jokes. Whatever it took.

He had to know how Doug was doing, after what had happened, but he was afraid to find out. He wasn’t even sure Doug would talk to him. He wasn’t even sure Doug could talk.

When a guy got shipped out for medical reasons, they often got no news of them back at the outpost. It was like they just disappeared off the face of the earth.

That was the thing about Afghanistan that most people didn’t get. It wasn’t the United States. Being over there wasn’t like real life. More like one of those weird horrible episodes of
The Twilight Zone
where nothing is the way it’s supposed to be, and just when you think you’ve got it figured out and you wake up or you escape, then it gets even worse. Then you know you really might not make it out alive.