He hurried inside, called Tammi's sister in St. George and her mother in Kingman, hoping that Tammi had called at least one of them to explain what had happened, but neither of them had heard from her.
On an impulse, Russ ran into the bedroom to check the closet. Her clothes were all still there. In the bathroom, her toiletries were in place.
He stood, stunned into stupidity, unable to think of what he should do, the next logical step he should take.
The law, he thought.
He walked over to the phone and immediately dialed 911, but hung up before anyone answered. He'd seen enough cop shows to know thatTammi wouldn't officially be a missing person until she'd been gone for forty-eight hours.
Fuck that. He'd lie.
He dialed 911 again, and when the dispatcher came on the line, he said that his girlfriend had been missing for three days and that he feared something had happened to her. The dispatcher took his name and address and promised that the sheriff would be there within the half hour. Sure enough, a patrol car pulled up in front of his house less than fifteen minutes later, and Russ went out to meet it.
A hard-looking older man emerged from the cruiser, straightening his belt as he walked over. "I'm Sheriff Hitman . Are you Russ Gifford?"
"Yeah. Thank God you're here. My girlfriend's missing."
"Been missing for three days, I hear."
Was that suspicion in the sheriff's voice? Russ frowned. "Yes, she has. Since Monday."
"Mmm-hmm." Hitman fixed him with a hard stare. "Look, Mr. Gifford.
There's no man alive that would wait three days to call in a missing persons if his girlfriend disappeared. Why don't you level with me."
"All right. It happened today." He thrust the form forward. "This was on my screen door."
Hitman took the paper.
"I've tried calling her mom, her sister, but no one knows where she is or what's happened to her."
The sheriff looked over the form, handed it back. "I'm sorry," he said. "This is out of my jurisdiction."
Russ stared at him. "What?"
"This is between you and your homeowners' association."
"My girlfriend is missing."
"She is not missing."Hitman nodded toward the pink sheet. "It states very clearly there that she has been removed from Bonita Vista because the homeowners' association does not allow couples to cohabit ate Russ let out a snort of disbelief. "You're joking, right?"
The sheriff just looked at him.
"You're telling me that if a crime has been committed in Bonita Vista, you won't raise a finger to help out?"
"A crime has not been committed," Hitman said patiently. "If you read your C, C, and Rs , you'll find that the homeowners' association has a legal right to enforce its rules and regulations."
"Whose side are you on?"
"I'm not on anybody's side. I'm a law enforcement officer and that's what I do. I enforce the law. Now good day, Mr. Gifford."
Russ stepped after him. "Wait a minute! What am I supposed to do?"
Hitman opened his car door. "If you have any questions, I suggest you address them to your association's board of directors." He got into the cruiser. "Good day."
Russ watched the patrol car back up the driveway, swing around, and head down the street the way it had come.
Board of directors.
He realized that he didn't know who was on the board. He looked down at the form again, but the pink sheet of paper was unsigned and there were no individual names listed, only the name of the association. The officers and their titles could no doubt be found in those damn C, C, and Rs , but he'd tossed the booklet somewhere shortly after receiving it and had no idea where it was. He could ask someone, he supposed, but he and Tammi were not particularly social and hadn't gotten to know many of their neighbors, so he didn't feel comfortable imposing on a virtual stranger.
Ray Dyson would have known. The old man had befriended them and had even invited the two of them to a couple of parties at his house. But Ray was dead.
Maybe his wife. Maybe Liz would know.
He started walking. The Dysons’ house was on the street above theirs, and if he cut through the greenbelt it would be faster to hoof it than drive. He crossed the road and started hiking over the pathless dirt.
He'd known that Ray had hated the homeowners' association but he hadn't known why. Now he did. They were a bunch of self-righteous assholes trying to impose their own morality on everyone else. He andTammi weren't married so she had to go? The two of them had been together for ten years! Probably longer than some of the married couples in Bonita Vista.
Goddamn it, if he had the money, he'd hire a private investigator to check up on those bastards, see how many of them were divorced or had had affairs or somehow did not measure up to the strict standards the homeowners' association required.
Anger felt good. It drove off the despair, kept the self pity at bay.
He walked around an oversized manzanita bush, emerging on the street next to the Dysons’ place. Still holding the pink sheet of paper--the Removal Form, as he was starting to think of it--he hurried up the driveway and rang the doorbell.
There was no immediate response, so he rang again. And knocked.
A few seconds later, the door opened a crack and Liz peeked out. "Yes?"
she said. She looked awful--no makeup, hair uncombed, dirty bathrobe--but what really threw him was the fact that she didn't seem to know who he was.
"It's me. Russ." He felt obligated to reintroduce himself.
"Yes?"
Her tone was brusque. Either she still didn't recognize him or wasn't in the mood to talk. He pressed on quickly. "I came home from work this afternoon and Tammi was gone. I probably wouldn't've thought anything of it, but I found this in my screen door." He waved the Removal Form at her. "It's from the homeowners' association, and it says that unmarried people cannot live in Bonita Vista and that Tammi has been 'removed." I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean--"
Liz opened the door wider, poked her head out, and looked furtively around, as though searching for spies. "They're doing a purge," she said, and her voice was barely above a whisper. "They do that periodically, come down on homeowners who break the rules, get rid of the people they don't like, who offend them."
"But why pick on me? I've never done anything to them. I don't even know who the hell they are."
"I wonder who else is out," Liz mumbled to herself. She looked up at Russ. "Do you know Wayne and Pat? The gay couple?"
"Yeah. I met them at your party."
"Do you know where they live?"
"Around the corner from me. On Oak."
"Check their house. I bet they're gone, too."
Russ realized that the Removal Form was crumpled in his clutched fist.
"Well, who's on this damn board? I want to know what happened to Tammi. I want some answers."
"My husband did, too," Liz whispered, and she closed the door on him.
He heard the snick of a deadbolt, the rattling of a chain lock.
"Just give me one of their names!" He pounded on the door. "Who's the president?"
But Liz did not reappear, and after several fruitless moments of knocking and waiting and ringing the bell and shouting out pleas, he finally gave up. On the way back, he decided to follow Liz's suggestion, and he stopped by the house Wayne and Pat shared. But no one answered the door, and there was no sign of the couple. Although there were still two cars in the driveway, the place had an air of abandonment.
Removed.
The anger was subsiding, and he was filled with an increasing sense of hopelessness, a desperate fear that there was nothing he could do to find Tammi , that he was fated to stand helplessly and impotently by while whatever happened to her happened. He tried to keep the anger alive, wanting the strength it gave him, and he stopped off at the next house over. He didn't know who lived here, but the woman who answered the door seemed nice and neighborly, and he asked her if she could tell him who was on the association's board of directors. He didn't want to burden her with his own problems, so he didn't explain why he wanted to know, but she was taken aback by the question and started to shut the door on him.