Free Missing Persons by Clare O'Donohue

possibly lied about her plans on the day she disappeared, and her mother had a salacious theory as to her whereabouts. It would all play beautifully.

Sixteen
    W hen I got home I had to step over a dead bird that some neighborhood cat must have left outside my front door. It was beautiful and peaceful looking, except for the way its neck flopped to the side. I got the broom and swept it into the grass.
    Once in the house, I made myself a cup of tea. I pushed aside the chamomile and mint teas Frank was, for a brief time, passionate about and took a tea bag from a brand I bought at an Irish import store. I preferred black tea with a touch of milk. It was the right beverage for the mood I was in. Coffee implies a sense of purpose, alcohol means either celebration or defeat, and colas are for hot days and greasy meals. Tea is comforting, traditional, and healthy without being pretentious. I sat on the leather chair in the living room, turned the TV to a decorating show, and sipped my tea.
    But it was no use. My body wanted to relax, but my mind kept going back over the interview. Linda was delusional. The idea that her daughter was a kidnap victim, alive and being held, was possible, of course, but it was unlikely. But the other choices, that Theresa was dead or that she had intentionally inflicted this hell on her mother by running away, were unacceptable. Of all the terrible things that could have happened to her daughter, for Linda Moretti, a crazed kidnapper was the most reassuring.
    It made me wonder if I’d been a little delusional myself. Six months ago I would have said I knew everything there was to know about Frank, but I obviously didn’t. A week after his death I was still uncovering secrets. So why was I sure it was a heart attack? Detectives had come to my door and called my colleagues, which should have been evidence that he’d died of something other than natural causes, but I’d dismissed the possibility without a second thought.
    I guess it’s one thing to be an observer of the effects of violent crime; it’s another to have it touch my life. I didn’t want to imagine myself on the other side of the camera, weeping about the years we would never have. I wanted Frank’s death to be the one thing about our relationship that was neat and simple. Like Linda, I was looking not for the good outcome but for the one that would hurt the least.
    But seeing Linda ignore the facts to find her own truth, I was suddenly uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be that kind of person either. If Frank hadn’t died of a heart attack, then what had happened? If I didn’t owe it to him to find out, surely I owed it to myself.
    I put my tea on the end table, put my shoes back on, and walked out to the car. Without even knowing what I was going to do once I got there, I drove back to St. Anthony’s Hospital. There were other places to start, of course, but I thought like a producer. If this was an episode of one of the true-crime shows I’d worked on, it would begin with the narrator saying something like this:
    Thirty-seven-year-old Frank Conway had everything to live for. Though his fifteen-year marriage had recently collapsed, Frank was already starting a new life. He’d fallen in love, rediscovered painting, and was looking forward to a reunion of his high school basketball team. But Frank never made the reunion.
    One hot night in mid-July, he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. While his estranged wife and his new girlfriend met uncomfortably in the waiting room, doctors worked to save him. They couldn’t. His family and friends comforted themselves with the diagnosis of a fatal heart attack and tried to get on with their lives.
    It was only because of the suspicions of an emergency room doctor, and the persistence of a weary detective, that the truth—and a killer—was finally revealed.
    While the narrator spoke, there would be video of an ambulance racing to the hospital and doctors working on the reenactment