Vigilantes Pt. 01 of 02

Emily went to her room, but I stayed up waiting for Lori. Where was that woman?

The sun coming though the den windows woke me up and I groggily realized that I had fallen asleep on the sofa. I quickly got up and checked our bedroom, but Lori wasn't there. Just to be sure, I checked the garage, but her car was still missing.

Now I was really worried. I tried her cellphone again with no better luck. There was no answer at her office either. After some searching, I found a home number for her boss at the newspaper. His response was even more disturbing: Lori had come into the office on Friday but had left at mid-day, saying she had a meeting. She hadn't returned.

I'd never had to look for someone who'd gone missing and I really had no idea what to do. Increasingly anxious, I began calling local hospitals to see if they had admitted any patients who matched her description. No luck. Finally in desperation I called the police department. It took a couple of transfers, but finally I spoke to a desk sergeant who told me that they had no reports of any accidents or unidentified victims of foul play who matched Lori's description.

"All right then," I said, "how do I file a missing person's report?"

"You can't," the sergeant told me, "not until the person has been gone at least seventy-two hours."

When I began to protest, he cut me short. "Look, the most likely scenario is that something came up unexpectedly and your wife didn't have time to tell you about it. We can't mobilize the whole police force every time one spouse forgets to tell the other about their plans. The fact that her car is also missing makes that scenario highly likely.

"But if your wife doesn't show up, I've already made a note of your call, so the clock is now ticking on the seventy-two hours. And if you can give me the make, model and license number, I'll have our guys keep an eye out for her car, just in case."

I gave the sergeant the information and thanked him for his time. I couldn't believe Lori would go off somewhere without at least phoning to let me know where she was, but I couldn't think of anything else I could do to help find her. The only thing left was for me to try my best to keep Emily from getting too upset.

The rest of the day I called everyone I could think of to see if anyone might have a clue where Lori had gone. No one could offer any suggestions. I even thought about calling down to Savannah, but, given our history, I just couldn't imagine Lori going there.

The entire weekend I felt like Emily and I were in prison because we were afraid to leave the house for fear that Lori would come home and we'd miss her. We felt cut off from the rest of the world. The phone rang a few times, but each time it was only a concerned friend hoping for good news. Loneliness, anxiety and depression were our only companions.

On Monday Emily was still having morning sickness but she found that if she avoided eating or smelling breakfast cooking she could escape the worst of it. Accordingly, I switched to cold cereal, although I still brewed a pot of coffee. I encouraged Emily to go to work at the bookstore if for no other reason than to try to get her mind off her mother for a bit. Finally she agreed to go. I dropped her off but returned home to wait. I didn't have a lecture until 1:00 p.m.

About 10:00 a.m. the phone rang, and to my surprise it was the same police sergeant with whom I'd spoken on Saturday. "Mr. Manning, have you heard from your wife yet?" he wanted to know. I let him know that I had not.

"Very well, it's been seventy-two hours so we're going to activate your missing person's report. Can you come down to the station to help us fill out the forms?"

"Of course," I told him, "I'll be down right away."

When I got to the police station, a detective from Missing Persons took me back to his desk. I thought I had given the desk sergeant all the necessary information, but the detective wanted a lot more details. After almost an hour of questions, I thought we were through, but I was wrong. The detective looked up at me casually and said, "By the way, I believe we've located your wife's car."

"What?" I said, startled. "Where is it?"

"Actually, it was on the top floor of a parking garage near the campus where you teach," he said. He paused to let me digest that and then went on. "Are you sure you didn't see your wife on Friday?"

"No," I said without hesitation, "not since we had breakfast that morning."

"Very well, Mr. Manning, that's all for now."

I felt a bit defensive. "Can I have the keys to my wife's car?"

The detective shook his head. "Oh, no, Forensics is checking it for clues -- you know, fingerprints, blood stains, that sort of thing."

That shook me, badly. Could something terrible have happened to Lori?

The next few days were terrible. I was haunted by the idea of Lori being kidnapped and molested, or worse. I remembered how irritated I'd felt when she hadn't come home that night, and I was ashamed of my unkind thoughts. At the same time, I did my best to cushion Emily. Her nerves were already on edge as a result of her pregnancy; losing her mother had made her almost hysterical. Her fear for her mother's safety was now compounded by an intense paranoia for her own safety and that of her unborn baby. Lori's disappearance had shaken us both to the roots of our being.

Then it got worse.

I got a call from the Missing Persons detective asking me to come down to the station. When I got there, I was taken to a small room where another detective was waiting. The first detective introduced her as being with Homicide. When I heard that, I thought I was going to faint.

I collapsed into a wooden chair and managed to gasp out, "Have you found Lori? Is she . . .?"

"No," the female detective said, "we haven't found her, but we have found out some important information. We've checked with the airlines and the bus companies. None of them has any record of a woman matching your wife's description traveling on that Friday or Saturday. We've checked with your bank and there have been no withdrawals from your joint checking or savings accounts. And we've checked with the credit card company, and there have been no charges on her account. So we don't have any answers yet, Mr. Manning, but we do have a number of questions for you."

I was startled. "Me? Why? I've told you everything I know about Lori's disappearance."

She looked at me coolly.

"The last place your wife was seen was driving away from the newspaper in her car, which we subsequently found in University parking. We've been all over her car, Mr. Manning. The only fingerprints we've found besides hers were yours. How do you explain that?"

I was dumbfounded. "What is there to explain? I've ridden in her car and even driven it a number of times. Of course my fingerprints are there."

"How good was your relationship with your wife, Mr. Manning? Any quarrels over money, infidelity, anything like that?" she demanded.

Suddenly things began to click into place. "Are you asking me if I had anything to do with my wife's disappearance? I can't believe this -- I'm the one who reported her missing!"

The detective crossed her arms. "That's not unusual in a case like this," she said calmly.

"A case like this?" I gasped. "Are you charging me with a crime? Do I need an attorney?"

She gave her partner a quick glance. "If you feel you need an attorney, Mr. Manning, you're certainly welcome to get one."

"But I haven't done anything," I yelled. "My wife is somewhere out there in danger. You people should be out looking for her, not badgering me with stupid questions and innuendo!"

"Calm down, Mr. Manning," the first detective said. "We're simply trying to look for possible motives behind your wife's sudden disappearance. You're the logical person to start with, wouldn't you agree? Don't you want to help us find her?"

Still upset, I sat back down in the chair. "Of course I do," I said sharply. "Okay, what do you want to know?"

"Were there any issues between you and your wife, Mr. Manning?"

"No," I said assertively.

"Nothing at all?" she asked, "not a single disagreement?"

"Well, nothing major," I said.

"What kind of minor issues?" she pressed.

"We had the same kind of arguments as any couple married twenty years," I said, "you know, like differences about how to raise our daughter."

She leaned across the table toward me. "Have there been any disagreements recently regarding your daughter, Mr. Manning? Any events or new situations affecting her?"

I slumped in the chair. Unwed motherhood is not the shameful event it once was; nevertheless, I found myself embarrassed to talk about it. "Yes, there has been one, Detective. My daughter is pregnant."

The two exchanged glances. The man spoke up quickly, "And what was Mrs. Manning's reaction when she learned of your daughter's condition?"

Before I could respond, the woman jumped in. "Could that have been what caused her to run away? Could she have been upset by the news? Did you argue with your wife about what happened? Did you do something to her in the heat of an argument?"

I jumped to my feet and angrily leaned over the table toward the woman. The male detective quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the chair. "Calm down, Mr. Manning, calm down!" He shot the woman an evil glance. "My partner got a little carried away there. We're just trying to explore every possibility."

I took a deep breath and tried to relax, but the detective didn't release my arm. I kept my eye on the woman, who had backed away nervously. "Listen, you bitch," I said fiercely, "the only person I love more than my wife is my daughter, and I'd die trying to protect either one of them. For what it's worth, Lori didn't even know about our daughter. The night I learned about my daughter's condition was the night Lori didn't come home."

I looked back over my shoulder at the detective behind me. "I've had about as much of these insinuations as I can stand for one day. Unless you're going to charge me for some crime that I didn't commit, I'm leaving."

"That's fine, Mr. Manning," the detective behind me said, relaxing his grip and pointing me toward the door. "We don't have anything more for you at this time." He pulled the door open for me. "However, we may need to ask you additional questions at a later time." I started out the door, but he stopped me. "One last thing, Mr. Manning: don't make any plans to leave town any time soon."

I glared at him and stalked out. The door closed behind me and I heard angry voices.

As I drove home I was so angry that I was shaking. But when my adrenaline levels began to fall, I began to rationalize what had happened. "Of course they have to check out every possibility," I told myself. But that didn't make me feel any better -- I'd done nothing but try to find my missing wife. I couldn't even think about the accusation that I might have harmed Lori without my blood pressure soaring. "Why would she even suggest such a thing?" I barked angrily.

Of course when I got home Emily wanted to know what I'd learned from the police. I didn't want to upset her any further so I simply told her that they had no new information, but just wanted to double-check some details. Afterwards, I thought bitterly, "Now I'm starting to lie to my own daughter! What a damned mess!"

The next day brought a new indignity: the police came to our house with a search warrant. I had to sit on the deck for two hours while they rummaged through the house, poking into every corner, crevice and nook. I'm not sure what they were looking for, but whatever it was they didn't appear to find it. I used the time to call an attorney; it sure looked like I was going to need one.

If that wasn't enough, when the police got ready to leave a tow truck pulled up in our driveway and hauled away my car. They promised I could have it back in a couple of days, but since they still had Lori's car I was forced to ask my neighbor to take me to a rental place so I could have transportation.

The only blessing was that Emily wasn't around for that ordeal. But neither she nor I were able to escape what happened next. Two days later I opened the local news section of our newspaper to find the following headline:

Husband 'a Person of Interest' in Local Woman's Disappearance

The story rehashed Lori's disappearance and added the information about the search warrant and the tests performed on my car. The story never said as much in so many words, but it clearly implied that foul play was likely and that the husband -- me -- was the most likely suspect.

Emily was in tears when she read the story, and I called my attorney in a rage. "Isn't there anything I can do to stop this? They've practically already tried and convicted me, and they don't even know if a crime has been committed. I want to sue for libel!"

My attorney did his best to calm me down. "John, I've already looked into this. If I had to guess, the police may have planted the story to try to put pressure on you. But you'll never be able to prove that because reporters don't have to reveal their sources. As for libel, there are no factually inaccurate statements in the story. It's just the way they're presented that's so damning. Remember: Lori has a lot of friends on the newspaper. You're just going to have to hang tough on this till it plays itself out."

"Sonuvabitch!" I swore to myself helplessly.

When I went in to my office at the university that day, I found a note on my door asking me to see the chairman of the History Department. Once I got to Henry Vance's office, his secretary ushered me in right away.

He got right to the point. "John, in light of all this business about Lori, we think it would be best if someone else took over your summer session until the matter is settled."

"Henry," I said, "Lori is the one who's missing, not me. Sure things are pretty difficult for me, but there's no reason why I can't continue the course."

"Of course," he said, "of course, but with this cloud over you, it looks bad for the department and bad for the university if you continue to teach. You understand, don't you?"

I jumped to my feet. "Oh, I understand, alright. I understand that you'd like me to disappear even though no charges have been filed against me and although there's no proof that a crime has even been committed. Henry, you're a professor of American History, for God's sake! Don't you have any appreciation for the concept that a man is considered innocent until proven guilty?"

He had obviously not anticipated that I would object, and he was taken aback. I felt I had the advantage and I pressed on. "Isn't it ironic that I'm teaching a course on the role of the vigilante in history, and here you are ready to conduct an old-fashioned lynching?"

"Good Lord, John, that's not what this is," he sputtered.

"Oh it's not? Very well, you tell me," I went on, "is the chancellor ready to back you up if I refuse to go? Have you already run this by the Faculty Senate to see what they think? Because unless you have checked and unless you've been given express authority to remove me, I'm going to be back in that lecture hall this afternoon teaching my course. And if you try to stop me, I promise you I'll raise such a stink that you'll be the one they'll be asking to step down."

He sat down abruptly in his chair and I leaned over his desk. "I love this university and I would never do anything to hurt its reputation. That includes not giving in to some misguided notion of frontier justice from someone who is neither authorized to act nor knowledgeable about the facts."

With that I turned and marched out of his office.

I wondered if someone from Security might be waiting for me when I went to the lecture hall for my class, but the only people to show up were my students. Interestingly, attendance was perfect. "I guess it helps to have a celebrity lecturer," I thought wryly.

I had planned to lecture on a comparison between vigilantes and terrorists, but I decided to skip that discussion and talk about myself. I figured everyone in the class was aware of my situation, and I thought that what was happening to me might proved instructive. So I started the discussion by sharing the events of the last two days, including the news story about me and my encounter with the chairman of the History Department.

I began by reading the newspaper article about Lori's disappearance. "So here's a question for you: can the news media ever become a vigilante? Is there a line between factual reporting and provocation?" When I got an objection to this proposition, I asked them to review the role William Randolph Hearst and his newspaper chain played in inciting the Spanish-American War. "Hearst never fired a shot, but most historians cite him as the spark that ignited that conflict," I told them.

"And what about Chairman Vance of the History department?" I asked. "Was he acting in good faith as the responsible protector of the university's reputation, or as a vigilante who decided to act on his own without proof and without authority?"

We had a great discussion, and most of the students were reluctant to stop when the class was over. I didn't like what was happening to me, but at least I had been able to use it to make my course content more immediate to my students. It was a "teachable moment," as they say.

Even though I heard nothing more from the university administration, the newspaper article had still taken its toll. When the initial news story about Lori's disappearance ran in the paper, Emily and I were flooded with calls of concern from friends and neighbors offering sympathy and suggestions, or just calling with words of encouragement. In fact after a while there were so many that I wanted to let the calls go to the answering machine. I felt helpless and frustrated because there was nothing I could say to the callers. Of course I couldn't do that because I was still hoping against hope to hear from Lori.

But after the second article, the concerned calls dropped away to almost nothing. It was as though we were in quarantine with some infectious disease -- now our friends wanted to have nothing to do with us. It felt as though I was the victim of whatever had befallen Lori.

Because we'd become so isolated, I was caught off guard when the phone rang one evening several days later. The caller was the one person I never expected to hear from: my father-in-law, Rufus Carleton. "You bastard," he shouted as soon as I spoke into the receiver, "what have you done to my daughter?"

I took a deep breath and decided to try to be civil. "Good evening to you too, Rufus. In answer to your question, none of us know what's happened to Lori, and we're doing everything we can think of to find her."

"Don't give me that crap," he fired back. "When a wife goes missing, it's always the husband who's responsible. I knew you were trouble from the moment I met you, but Lori wouldn't listen to me and turned her back on her family because of you. But she's still my daughter, goddamit, and I'm not going to let you get away with this. I've got people working on it, and we're going to string you up and stretch your neck before all this is over! Do you hear me?"

I couldn't contain my anger any longer. "I hear you very well, Rufus. And you know what? You didn't know me when I courted Lori, and you damned sure don't know me now. As for Lori, all I can say is that you have a funny way of showing your love for your daughter by cutting her off without a word for twenty years! As far as I'm concerned, if we don't hear from you for another twenty it will be too soon for me!"

With that I slammed the phone down, hoping I'd burst his eardrum in the process. Then I dropped into the armchair, shaking in anger. I was sick and tired of being tried in absentia and condemned for deeds I hadn't done. In the meantime, my wife was missing and I missed her terribly. Worse, I knew that every day that went by lessened our chances of ever finding her again. It was enough to drive a man insane.