Page 32 of I Know She Was There

I sat across the table from Jeffrey in a local diner, Rex’s Roadkill, off Route 22. I leaned my forearms on the tabletop and, noting how they stuck to the Formica surface, decided the place was aptly named. I was glad I was only having coffee. Still, meeting in a shabby eatery with dated decor was preferable to being alone in my kitchen with a man owning a key to a missing woman’s house—no matter how innocuous he made the possession seem.

“I can’t stop thinking about Annie,” Jeffrey said, staring into his coffee cup. “I’ve tried to track her down, but it’s as if she and that asshole she calls a husband have spontaneously combusted.” He looked up. “I’m sorry, that was probably inappropriate.”

I smiled. “I won’t report you.” God knew I spent half my days having thoughts many would deem inappropriate. “But catch me up here. When you say you’ve tried to track her down, what do you mean?”

“I started with the obvious: social media, online searching, and trying to follow her moves through her iPhone.” He rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful. “Turned up nothing.”

“And you went through her mailbox?” My favorite means of discovery.

“Obviously. I work for a newspaper, Caroline. I checked for mail about five minutes after I realized she was missing.” He looked at me pointedly and my face reddened, but he seemed not to notice. He began tapping the beige Formica between our coffee cups, his long fingers strumming an agitated rhythm against the tacky surface. “I also hit up the local hospitals, coroners, and even jails. After that big zero, I accessed the NamUs system.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a national database. Records of missing and unidentified persons.”

That surprised me but I wasn’t sure why. It made sense that some agency or other would set up a digital clearinghouse for missing and potentially missing people. “Can anyone use it?”

He nodded, his gaze flicking around the diner before landing on me. “The problem is, it’s no help if a disappeared person doesn’t want to be found.”

“So, you think maybe her husband took off with her to?—”

“Or she decided to leave, either with or without him.” Jeffrey’s expression was bleak. “She could have felt threatened.” He looked down at his suddenly stilled fingers. “Or maybe she was just done with the bullshit between us, the sneaking around. The lying.”

“But you said she filed for divorce.”

“That’s what she told me. I can’t verify she did.”

I didn’t say anything for a few seconds. The silence stretched between us, but the ambient restaurant noises—clashing metal utensils, other diners’ murmurs, and softly filtered rock music from unseen speakers—rounded the sharp edges of our uncomfortable conversation. Finally, I asked, “Did Ray Connolly know what Annie was, um, up to... with you?”

He slowly raised his eyes until they met mine. “I think so. But she told me he cheated on her first. That they had sort of an open arrangement.” His expression was as combative as a sullen teenager expecting a lecture on morality.

I sat back, raising my hands, palms out. “No judgment from me. I just want to know what happened—if she was the woman I saw. Do you have a photo of her?”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and swept his forefinger across its surface. “I took a selfie of us a few months back. Annie was angry; made me promise I’d delete it, but I didn’t.” He held the phone up for me to see. “I had to have just one shot of us together...”

I leaned forward and squinted at the blurry shot of Jeffrey with an unsmiling dark-haired woman, her eyes half closed. It was clear he’d caught her by surprise. A portion of what looked like fingers bordered the bottom of the photo as if she’d raised her hand to block his attempt to capture their images.

“It’s not the best picture of her,” he added, sounding apologetic. “Annie thought it was dangerous to have tangible evidence of our... well, she didn’t want to give Ray ammunition.”

I stared at the image. If the couple had an open marriage, Ray wouldn’t be angered by her actions, would he? “She has the same hair color and build as the woman I saw, but I don’t know. I can’t really see her eyes.”

“So, you can’t tell for certain that it was Annie you saw that night?” Jeffrey’s voice sounded so hopeful that I found myself wanting to encourage him.

“From this photo, I can’t tell if this is the woman in the window.”

He sat back and sighed. “That’s reassuring, I guess.”

Something occurred to me. I leaned forward and propped my elbows on the sticky tabletop. “Did you ever meet Ray Connolly?”

He shook his head. “No, just saw him in the yard once.”

I thought of the only man I’d ever seen on the property, the handsome sandy-haired man, Matt.

“What does Ray look like?”

Jeffrey shrugged. “A muscular guy. Annie said he was a bodybuilder, but I don’t know what kind of a living he could make doing that.” His voice held a note of disdain, as though increasing muscle mass through strenuous exercise was innately evil.

I rubbed my brow, recalling Tim telling me he’d worked with Ray Connolly. Should I reveal that to Jeffrey? Something told me to keep that fact to myself. “Do you recall anything else? His hair color? Outstanding features?”

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