It was empty. There was not a penny in it, not even on the bottom, under a business card for a hair place, a business card for a podiatrist in Sparta, a $20 receipt for a water gun from three years ago, and a ticket stub from a movie they had gone to see before Michelangelo was born and they were still going out to the movies. There was no money in it.
Michelangelo. The boy was waiting downstairs, his backpack on, his shoes and jacket on.
They were forty-five minutes late to school that morning. Michelangelo was so mad he wouldn"t even let Jared kiss his head before he stormed tardily down the hall.
After Jared came home, he searched every drawer in her dresser, every nook in her closet, every pocket of her jeans, every book on her shelf. There was no money squirreled away anywhere. The phone kept ringing, but he ignored it. It was work. He"d forgotten to call in. The excuse he mouthed to Jordan the receptionist when he finally did call was pathetic. He emailed Larry so he wouldn"t have to hear it in person. Sorry. Family emergency. I hope to be in tomorrow.
He went online, opened their bank account, checking and savings, and pored, poured himself into every transaction in the last twelve months, every single day. He found nothing that said unusual. She had taken out money to pay the cleaning people. A hundred here, a hundred there.
There was nothing in the account that said the wife was taking other money, ulterior money, money she could not explain withdrawing. Yet the wife was earning money. For a year she got paid a few hundred dollars a week from Pingry. The direct deposits went straight into their joint account. Every paycheck was accounted for. There were no justified parallel withdrawals of cash, in crisp clean fifties.
He drove to Bank of America in Summit.
Diane came out from her desk to greet him. "Jared! Long time no see." She smiled, smartly dressed, friendly, attractive. She"d been a young mom; now had a daughter in college. Jared had helped her with financing advice a while back, and after that she went out of her way to help him with a deposit, a withdrawal, increasing the overdraft, anything he needed. Personal service every Sat.u.r.day morning.
Well, he needed something today.
Diane, he asked her, do you recall my wife coming in, a month ago, maybe two, and taking out a large amount in cash? Did she have a separate account that maybe I don"t know about? That made him run cold, made him sit down. What could he do? He had to ask. He had to know.
No, Diane said, a worried look on her face. As far as I know, there was nothing. But let me check, okay?
She got him a drink of water while she went into her computer. No, look, just the one account you"ve had since you moved it over from our Hoboken branch. Checking and savings all tied up.
Nothing else?
No.
She didn"t come in here and withdraw large sums of cash?
No, said Diane. Except for the international money orders we wrote for her every few months, for five hundred, a thousand dollars to her friend in the Philippines, Claire Cherenge.
Yes, that I know. Anything else?
Like what?
Well, I don"t know.
Hang on, Diane said, reacting to his visible distress. Let me go ask the girls.
She came back five minutes later with Beatrice by her side.
Beatrice says, said Diane, that she remembered Mrs. Stark coming here a little while ago and changing a lot of small bills for some large ones. Changing twenties and tens for fifties and hundreds.
Beatrice called over the other teller, Missy. He"d never met either of them before. They looked young and new.
Missy confirmed she had also changed small bills for large bills for Mrs. Stark.
When, a month ago? asked a pale Jared. Two months?
A few times, said Missy, said Beatrice, a dull din in his ear. Beatrice said she saw Larissa after tax day on April 15, because she remembered teasing her about it. "I asked her if this was her tax refund, and she laughed and said it was her Christmas tip money."
Missy said the last time she changed money for Larissa was a week before Memorial Day. "She said you two were going to Atlantic City for the long weekend. She said she was feeling lucky."
"Do you have a record of these transactions? How much did you change for her?" Jared managed to ask. "Over the course of last year?"
Beatrice had to go check her records on the account. When she came back, Jared could tell she didn"t want to tell him. He didn"t want to ask.
They both said nothing.
She hemmed and hawed. The three women stood over him, like hushing hens, their skirts trying to protect him. From what?
Finally, after clearing her throat for the fortieth time, Beatrice said, "Altogether, thirty-seven thousand dollars, Mr. Stark."
How much? he mouthed numbly, shocked into muteness. The hole of her disappearance almost diminished because the hole of the quant.i.ty of that figure swallowed it this morning at the bank. He had to hear Beatrice repeat it. He didn"t trust himself. He thought he had misheard.
She repeated it.
He had not misheard.
"But that was all together," Beatrice said hastily. "That wasn"t all at once. She came in at least three times. Maybe more. Three were in the last four months." She stared into her piece of paper. "One right before Memorial Day. One right after Tax Day. And one back in February."
"Are you telling me that my wife came in here to exchange thirty-seven thousand dollars in singles and it didn"t set off any bells in anyone"s head?"
"It was in tens and twenties, Mr. Stark," said an anxious Diane. "I"m sorry. We didn"t think much of it. We are a bank. This is what we do."
"She didn"t withdraw any money?"
"No. Except for the money orders to the Philippines, no withdrawals."
Jared wanted to get up, but he didn"t trust his legs. He felt ridiculous sitting in front of three conciliating women. He didn"t know how long he was in a trance, but when he blinked reality back into his eyes, three bank tellers were standing looking at him with great financial pity. Poor man, the dollar signs in their eyes read. His wife took tens of thousands of dollars out of their joint account and he didn"t even know it. Something else, too. If someone took fifty bucks out of my account I"d know it, their expressions read. Imagine living a life where forty grand can go missing and you don"t even know it. He wanted to say to them: imagine living a life where a whole wife can go missing and you don"t even know it.
He pulled himself up to turn away from the last thing in their gleeful uncomprehending glances: I wish I had that kind of life. No misfortune wouldn"t be worth that.
He needed a cane to walk out of the bank. He didn"t have a cane. He hobbled like a man crippled.
When he got home, he went into his office until 2:40. For four hours he pored over every withdrawal that dripped out of their account in the last fourteen months. He paid the bills, her Visa bills, the American Express, the Mastercards. He paid it all. On the charge cards, there was not a single cash advance, not one.
In their debit account, there were no unusual cash withdrawals, but there were "point of sale" purchases almost every single day. Point of sale was the supermarket and the drugstore. Point of sale meant that as Larissa paid for the soap and the shampoo and the quart of milk with her debit card, she asked for cash back. Every day. For up to fifty dollars a pop. On some days there were two point of sale purchases.
$57.14.
$394.07.
$98.53. What mattered is that they were all over fifty dollars, which meant that conceivably Larissa could have easily taken $37,000 out of their account, and perhaps more. Took fifty to a hundred dollars a day, and he didn"t even know it.
He became stuck on this. And then unglued by it. He felt perilously close to losing the center of his very being.
This wasn"t an impulse buy, an impetuous running away. This was a premeditated attack on his life by his wife. For over a year, Larissa planned her escape. She got a job, got paid, but without drawing attention to herself she siphoned money out of their account, hid it, exchanged it, prepared. She planned all along to take those fifties and leave. For a year!
That was the look on Finney and Cobb"s middle-aged veteran faces! They"d seen it all beforea"death, kidnapping, murder. They"d seen this, too. Which is why they hadn"t pursued him as a suspect. He kept calling her a missing person, while they stared at him skeptically. Now he knew. Their expressions read: you sure your wife is missing? Maybe to you she"s missing. But to her, maybe she"s exactly where she wants to be.
He wasn"t a suspect. He was just poor schmuck Jared.
Ever think of that, Mister Jared, as you sit and count other people"s money for money.
He told the police none of his findings. Not about the Jaguar boy, the bank, the cash. He told them nothing. He wanted them to find her.
He wanted them to find her so he could kill her.
A manic, maniacal Jared, looking for he didn"t know what, turned Larissa"s wardrobe upside down, threw onto the floor every sc.r.a.p of stupid c.r.a.p she h.o.a.rded in her dresser drawers and went through it meticulously like he was looking for a way for Prudential to save three million dollars a quarter in operating costs. That"s when he found Che"s letters from the last two years and while waiting for 2:40 to come, he read them all one by one, ending with the last cry for help from a desperate and pregnant Che.
Dear Larissa, I"m out of options. I"m so sorry. I can"t believe I"m asking you for this. Please. Please, I beg you. Could you ask Jared to lend Lorenzo and me the money for his bail? We will spend our whole lives paying you back, but please, could you ask your Jared to send me the money so I could free my Lorenzo?
Ask him to help us. Beg him to help my unborn child.
The Tasaday, Larissa! Mindanao! Leaving my baby, running away, getting Father Emilio to vouch to the government for Lorenzo when I know I"m asking him to vouch for a man who plans to run out on that fifty grand and never be seen again. What"s going to happen to me?
Larissa, I was wondering if I can come stay with you? Maybe you could send us a plane ticket and me and the baby can come and stay with you for a little while? Can you do that? I"ll be safe with you and I"m not safe here.
I"m so scared. All these years I thought I was wild and free, and it turns out I"m neither.
I can"t imagine running out on Lorenzo. It"s like leaving him to be torn apart by wolves. To stand trial for something he did not do on purpose, to go to prison! How can I abandon him? He needs me.
I won"t be able to leave my baby. But I can"t leave Lorenzo either.
Oh my G.o.d, Larissa. What do I do?
Please write me. I need you, I haven"t heard from you in ages. I"d call you, but I have no money. I was kicked out of my house. We hadn"t paid the rent in six months. My baby is a week overdue. Even she doesn"t want to be born into this loony bin world. Father Emilio feeds me these days. I eat with the nuns. I live with the nuns. Where would I be without the intercession of His daughters?
For a second after reading it, Jared was filled with a crazy hope that Larissa took the money to pay for Che"s boyfriend"s bail. How absurd that was. The cash back program began long before Che needed a large sum of money.
Before he could clean up, it was 2:40. And at 3:30 Emily called from the high school asking to be picked up with a bathing suit and towel in hand and be driven to the Swim Club in Chatham. Michelangelo wanted to go, too. Jared sat mutely by the side of the pool while Michelangelo doggy-paddled in the deep end, every five seconds yelling, daddy look, daddy look. Asher called when Jared was still poolside and asked to be picked up with his amp and guitar.
He took the wet kids and the dry kids to an air-conditioned diner, while at home, the things on the floor remained. Jared didn"t know what to do with the bits of paper, old receipts, with Che"s letters. Where is the place of organization in your house where you might file for future use letters from the best friend of your wife who has evaporated like morning fog? No good place in anyone"s house for something like this. Filed under: things that must not ever be thought of again.
Also these: like satanic daily rites of ceremonial disembowelments, Jared on a daily basis was a.s.saulted with the hari-kari reminders of his current condition. This is the pa.s.sageway to h.e.l.l, and it doesn"t end, despite what Dr. Kavanagh professes. She is wrong; this is the dank narrow hallway of your present life.
Rite 1: he went in to Dr. Young"s in town to fix his gla.s.ses that got loose, and Young"s wife, also a doctor, said to him, "How does Larissa like her new gla.s.ses?"
"What new gla.s.ses?" asked Jared. He thought everyone in town had heard the news about him. Clearly not everyone. Didn"t anyone maliciously gossip anymore, so he wouldn"t have Larissa"s name just pulled out of a small-talk hat like that?
"Oh, her new Prada reading gla.s.ses. She said one pair was not enough, she was always leaving them by the bedside. So she got herself another pair to carry in her purse."
"She did. Of course. I must"ve forgotten. Refresh my memory. When was this?"
The female Dr. Young checked her records. "In April. They were deep gold. Very attractive. Come on. You must"ve seen them on her face?"
"I have. They"re quite nice." His hands grabbed the gla.s.s counter. "Are we done with the repair?"
"Yes, almost."
This was never going to end. Dr. Young chuckled. "Larissa told me you"d never notice. She said she could have a diamond encrusted tiara on her head and you"d say, did you do something different to your hair?"
"That"s me," mouthed Jared. "Not very observant." He reached out his trembling hand. "Can I have my gla.s.ses now? I"m in a hurry."
Rite 2: after the optometrist, he called the gynecologist. He was going through all the medical professionals. Why stop at just the shrink and the eye doctor? There was a script on the insurance bill for something he didn"t recognize, he told the receptionist. What was that? Larissa asked him to call in the prescription for her and he couldn"t tell what Norethindrone was.
"Norethindrone? You mean the birth control pill?"
He slumped over the phone, over his desk. "Of course," he said in a m.u.f.fled voice. "The birth control pill." It all makes perfect sense. "She says she lost the prescription. Our local drugstore doesn"t have it. How long was it for?"
"The last prescription?"
The last prescription? Implying there were others before it.
"We gave it to her for twelve months. Does she want the doctor to call it in again? Because she lost it once already. We had to call it in a second time to a CVS in Madison. She told us she changed drugstores. Maybe it"s still there?"
"Yes, let me check withaI"ll call you right back."
"What? I can"t hear you."
But he"d already hung up, and remained flattened at his desk until Doug came in and said, "What are you doing? We"re late for the three o"clock on insurance derivatives. You okay?"
"I"m fine," Jared said, fork-lifting himself into a standing position. "I have to leave early. Emily has another recital at five."
"Larissa can"t drive her?"
"Not today." He tossed his laptop into his briefcase, the newspaper into the trash.
Rite 3: Jared called Finney again, called to find out if there was any news. No, Finney said. I"d call you right away if we found something. Trust me. You"d be the first one we"d call.
"Nothing on her license? She hasn"t surrendered it? Hasn"t been stopped for a moving violation on it?"
"No," Finney said. "Nothing like that. She did report her license missing and was issued a new one, but it happened well before her disappearancea""
"Wait, wait," said Jared, rubbing his eyes, standing at the kitchen door, looking out on the yard where his two older children sat chatting on the red swings. "What do you mean, issued a new one. Why?"
"I don"t know why. She reported it missing is all I know."
"Who told you this?"
"Um, the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles."
"When was this?" He couldn"t look at his kids anymore. He closed his eyes.
"Late April."
"She reported it missing in late April?"