He read through the report, word by word, page by page. And then he read it twice more.
Pertinent people were questioned. Answers were received.
A few tangential leads had been run down.
And that was it.
Abject failure.
In less than two weeks.
Puller wondered if his father’s status as the husband had had anything to do with the truncated investigation. Had they wondered if Puller Sr. had been involved and just didn’t want to go there?
Perspectives about domestic abuse were different thirty years ago. Wife beaters were given time to cool off and sent back to battered women who were too scared to press charges. What was clearly illegal now was tolerated back then. A wink, a nod, a look the other way.
On an Army post three decades back Puller assumed things were different too. But to be fair, the CID back then was not aware that Puller Sr. had arrived home in time to possibly be involved in his wife’s disappearance. He had not been a suspect.
Now, technically, he was.
Puller took out a notebook and a pen.
He needed to get a name from Carol Powers. One of his mother’s friends whom he could talk to. That might lead to something else.
He needed to trace his mother’s movements on the day of her disappearance.
He needed to see if there was any truth to the rumor that she was going to leave her husband.
He needed to find out why she was dressed up that night. Was it a date? Was it a function? If so, CID had been unable to determine what it was.
He put his pen down and closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts on the last day with his mother. The face in the window. The smile. Everything seemed good. That was not the expression of a woman about to abruptly change her life by walking out on her family.
Puller opened his eyes. He had learned that not only did time heal wounds, but it also played with memories. People often rejiggered memories to match what they wanted the past to look like, rather than how it actually had been.
He took the picture out of his wallet. It showed the three Puller men all in a row. Puller was the tallest, his father next in height, and his brother, at six-two, bringing up the rear. Age and deteriorating health had robbed Puller Sr. of two inches of his stature, so he would now be last in the height pecking order.
But Puller was looking to the left of the picture. Where his mother would have been standing had she still been with them.
This was the only family picture Puller had ever carried with him. In combat overseas, on every mission he had performed on behalf of the U.S. Army. On every investigation he had carried out as a CID agent.
He had no pictures of his mother.
He had had no choice in the matter.
His father had found and destroyed them all.
Puller slowly put the photo away, closed his eyes, and refocused…on that day.
The face at the window. Him playing outside. The smile.
A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead.
Come on, John. More happened. Bobby knows. Get past whatever is in your head blocking it. See it for how it really was.
He sat there for five more minutes, straining, his eyes scrunched so tightly closed that his pupils started to feel sore.
His eyes popped open and he sat there.
The wall had held.
He couldn’t get through it.
He rose. Well, if not in his head, then with his boots on the ground.
One way or another he was going to finally get to the truth.
14
ON THE WAY to his car his phone buzzed. It was Carol Powers.
“Okay,” she began. “It took a few phone calls, but I finally found Lucy Bristow.”
“Lucy Bristow?”
“You probably don’t remember her. She was friends with both our moms. They all volunteered at the Catholic church at Fort Monroe. St. Mary’s.”
“Okay. That was fast work. How’d you manage it?”
She laughed. “Women do these things differently from men. We keep phone numbers and addresses, and the ladies’ network is a little more sophisticated than the beer-and-football phone circle. And we tend to keep in touch with each other.”
“I guess that’s right.”
“She was around your mother’s age. Her husband was under your father’s command. Anyway, I just talked to her. She lives in Richmond now. Not that far away. And she said she’d talk to you.”
“Did she remember anything from that day?”
“I didn’t ask. I think it’s better that she tells you directly, John.”
“Okay, Carol, thank you. I really appreciate this.”
She gave him the contact information and then clicked off.
Puller called Bristow and she agreed to meet with him later that day.
He drove off, heading northwest toward Virginia’s capital city.
Part of him felt like he was playing the children’s game of hot and cold. The farther away from Fort Monroe he drove, the colder the trail seemed to become. He assumed that whatever had happened to his mother, the answers would lie here. But to get to that point he would travel wherever he needed to.
Five minutes after he hit the highway his phone buzzed. He saw the caller ID. It was his CO, Don White.
He hesitated, not really wanting to answer and be told something he didn’t want to hear.
But his training took over and he answered. In the Army your CO calls and you just pick up the phone no matter what. Otherwise, you would not be in the Army much longer. You’d be in a stockade.
“Yes sir?”
“Puller, got a call from the Twelfth MPs.”
“Yes sir?”
“They filled me in on what’s going on.”
Puller felt his gut tighten a notch. “They came to see me when I was with my father.”
“They told me that too. Agent Hull seems competent. I checked his record. Not a mark on it.”
“I’m sure. He seemed good to me too.”
“Damn shame all this is coming out now.”
“Damn shame,” parroted Puller.
“You got a couple days’ leave, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“You worked your ass off in Germany. Nailed those suckers to the wall.”
“Thank you, sir. I had a good team over there. A lot of support.”
“Right. Anyway, I was thinking you probably needed a little more R&R than a couple days. Go ahead and take a week. Check in when you can.”
Puller could barely believe what he was hearing. “A week?”
“Check in. If you need longer, let me know. I can’t remember the last time you took any time off, Puller. Even a soldier needs to recharge.”
“Yes sir, thank you, sir.”
“And Puller, step lightly. If things get hairy it’s above my pay grade to backstop you. You do this with flanks uncovered, understood?”
“Understood.”
The line went dead and Puller slowly pocketed his phone.
A mixed message. But one Puller heard loud and clear. First, the time off. Then the warning that his ass was exposed and no reinforcements would be coming.
He drove on.
Lucy Bristow did not seem familiar to Puller from across the width of her breakfast room table.
She was petite, slender, with short silver hair containing blonde highlights. Her eyes were large for her small, oval face, giving her a perpetually penetrating stare. A gold bracelet dangled on her wrist. She had made tea and given a porcelain cup full of it to Puller.
“I remember Jackie very well,” she said. “I remember you and your brother too. I doubt you remember me. You were just little boys.”
Puller took a sip of the tea. It was hot and minty.
“And my father?”
She gave him a sharp glance. “Everyone at Fort Monroe knew John Puller Sr. He’d recently gotten his first star, brigadier general. I remember my husband told me your father’s career was tied to a rocket but that he deserved it. He wasn’t a paper pusher. He was a fighting man’s officer. He’d paid his dues. He told me your father had more sheer courage than any flag officer above him.”