1
Shelter Hills Estates was one of those modern suburban housing developments that proliferate in just about every town large and small in the Greater Bay Area, elsewhere in California, and no doubt throughout the entire country. Cookie-cutter homes for what’s left of the American middle class. This one, in Walnut Creek, was the upscale variety: quarter-acre lots containing large two-story homes built of stucco, redwood, and glass in an odd architectural blend of ranch and town house. They appeared to come in two sizes, three- and four-bedroom; if there were any other differences in their construction, they weren’t apparent to me. The only way you could tell them apart was by their owners’ preferences for color schemes, landscaping, and external alterations and embellishments.
James Cahill’s residence was on a winding street saddled with the kind of cutesy name developers are fond of, Sweet William Drive. There was nothing particularly distinctive about the place. Its color scheme, which may have been the original, because there were others like it in the development, was a sort of creamy tan with medium brown trim. The front and side yards were low maintenance, mostly ornamental grasses and small plants in a sea of redwood chips—maybe in deference to the drought, maybe not. Cahill’s south-side neighbor was drought conscious, at least, judging from the crusty brown remnants of what had once been a lawn. A white BMW sedan was parked in the driveway in front of a wide attached garage, a “2.5 garage” in Realtors’ parlance. Meaning, I suppose, that there’s room inside for two full-sized vehicles plus motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, or whatever else you might want to stuff into the .5 section.
It was a couple of minutes shy of noon when I pulled up in front. I don’t usually agree to conduct a preliminary interview at a prospective client’s home, but Cahill had said it was important that I come here for pertinent reasons and offered to pay the expense whether I accepted his case or not. I’d had a similar offer not long ago, from a man in Atherton, and the result had been bizarre and disturbing. From what Cahill had told me on the phone, his problem was more or less conventional—a missing wife.
The house was outfitted with an ADT wireless security system, as testified to by a panel with a sticker on it next to the door. Good for Cahill; home break-ins were all too common in neighborhoods like this. There was also a mail slot in the door, something you don’t often see in modern development homes.
My first impression when Cahill opened the door was of a man under extreme strain and struggling to cope. Nervous tic at one corner of a broad mouth, dark shadows under green eyes with blood-flecked whites, a moist handshake. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and was losing what was left of his dark brown hair. There was plenty of hair on his body, though; curls and tufts of it showed through the open collar of his blue dress shirt.
He didn’t seem to mind the fact that I was old enough to be his father and then some; if anything, it seemed to reassure him. Age translates to wisdom in some people’s view. If only that were true in my case, I thought wryly. I’ve learned some things over the years, but the older I get, the more I realize just how much I don’t know or understand and never will. Wise? Sometimes I feel like I ought to be wearing a dunce cap.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. His voice, like the rest of him, was twitchy. “I really appreciate it. We can talk in the living room, okay?” As if asking for my approval in his own home. “The family room’s a little messy. I’m not much of a housekeeper.”
“Wherever you prefer, Mr. Cahill.”
“The living room, then. This way.”
The living room had hardly been lived in at all. That was the feeling you got walking into it—big, neat, well furnished, and neglected. Nothing out of place, nothing to alleviate the unblemished formality except a faint coating of dust on lampshades and tables.
Cahill saw me glancing around and correctly interpreted what I was thinking. “Alice and I don’t use this room much. The family room, her office, mine … it’s a big house. We don’t have any kids. Planned on having a couple, that’s one reason we bought the place, but … ah, Christ, I’m running off at the mouth. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize.”
“It’s just that I’m nervous as hell. Hardly slept at all last night, trying to make up my mind what to do. I couldn’t have gone to work today if my life depended on it.” He was regional sales director for a company that manufactured small household appliances, he’d told me on the phone. “Well … please, sit wherever you like.”
He went to perch on a semi-ugly upholstered chair—autumn leaves on a pale yellow background. I sat on its mate, facing him across a glass-topped table with an arrangement of chrome bars as its base. Definitely not a room designed for either comfort or socializing. More like the kind of artificial setup you find in furniture showroom displays.
“You said on the phone that your wife has been missing for … a week, was it?”
“That’s right. Seven days. I’m worried sick about her.”
“And that you filed a missing-person report with the police.”
“For all the good it’s done. They think I did something to her. That’s what just about everybody thinks—her sister, her brother-in-law, most of the neighbors.… But I didn’t; I swear I didn’t.”
“What makes them all think you did?”
“Because in their minds I’m the only person who had cause.”
“I don’t understand. She could have left of her own free will, for one reason or another, couldn’t she?”
“That’s just it. No. No, she couldn’t. Couldn’t have left at all unless somebody took her out, and to do that they’d have had to knock her unconscious or … worse.”
“I still don’t understand—”
“Alice is agoraphobic,” Cahill said. “She hasn’t been out of this house in over four years. Not once for as much as five seconds. She couldn’t even step onto the front porch without having a panic attack.”
Well, that was something new in my experience. Plenty of people have phobias—I’m somewhat acrophobic myself—but I’d never professionally encountered a severe anxiety disorder. “You didn’t say anything about this when we spoke earlier.”
“No, I … no. I’m sorry, I thought it might … oh God, I don’t know what I thought. I’m such a wreck I can’t think straight.” He hopped to his feet so abruptly he might have been goosed into it. “You don’t mind if I have a drink, do you? I don’t usually drink this early in the day, or much at all, but I can really use one right now.”
Despite his disclaimer, he’d already had at least one before I got there; I’d smelled the liquor on his breath when we shook hands. “No, I don’t mind,” I said, and I didn’t as long as he stayed reasonably sober. “Better make it light, though.”
“Right. I will. You want one?”
“No thanks.”
He went out in long, jerky strides. The house was so still I could hear him bartending in whatever other room he’d gone into. Pretty soon he came back with a tumbler half-full of amber liquid and rattling ice cubes. The color of the scotch or bourbon was such that I figured he’d kept his promise to make the drink light. Small point in his favor. He resumed his perch, seemed about to take a long swallow, changed his mind, and made it a sip instead.
“How long have you lived here, Mr. Cahill?”
“How long? Five and a half, almost six years.”
“So your wife hasn’t always been agoraphobic.”
“No. No, it was the goddamn … excuse me, the accident that did it.”
“What sort of accident?”
“She was driving home from visiting a friend in Danville one night, late. It was raining and … I don’t know, she braked too hard or something; her SUV went into a skid through an intersection and broadsided a smaller car. Injured the driver, killed the passenger. Alice wasn’t hurt, thank God, just shaken up.”
“Was she impaired in any way that night?”
“You mean had she been drinking? No. Nothing like that. It was just one of those things that happen … the rain, the slippery pavement, poor visibility. But being responsible for killing someone tore her up, affected her mind. She wouldn’t drive after that, wouldn’t even get into a car. Then things just got progressively worse.”
“You sought treatment for her?”
Cahill took another, larger sip before answering. “Three sessions with a specialist in anxiety disorders before she refused to leave the house at all. Didn’t do any good. Do you know anything about agoraphobia?”
“Just the basics.”
“Well, Alice’s is about as bad as it gets. Not only intense fear of open spaces, but fear of death, fear of strangers—the only people she’ll deal with on a regular basis are me, her sister Kendra, Kendra’s husband, and her best friend from college, Fran Woodward. She’s afraid of everything, including the panic attacks. When she has one of those she—” He broke off, shaking his head, and drained the tumbler. “You have no idea what it’s like living with a person with that sort of disorder.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Frustrating, frightening, maddening. It’s like I’m trapped in here with her a lot of the time. I mean we have no social life except for the three people I mentioned. All the friends we had before drifted out of my life as well as hers. Being here alone with her is like walking on eggshells. A lot of the time she’s depressed, withdrawn. Other times she flies off the handle for no reason. Calm one minute, her old self or close to it, the next something sets her off and she starts shaking, yelling … saying crazy paranoid things.”
“What sort of paranoid things?”
“That I hate her, wish she was dead, might decide to kill her someday. She said something to Kendra about it and Kendra told the cops—the main reason they think I did away with her.”
“How often do those kinds of flare-ups happen?”
“Not often. Usually when she forgets to take her meds.”
“In the presence of others or just you?”
“Mostly just me. When she’s like that she lashes out, nearly brained me with a lamp once when I tried to calm her down. All I did was embrace her, but in her panic she thought I was trying to strangle her.” Cahill brooded into his empty glass. “It’s all just a … nightmare fantasy with her. I wouldn’t hurt her. I still love her, in spite of everything. My God, if I didn’t I’d have divorced her long ago. But who’d take care of her if I did? She’s not equipped to live alone with only occasional supervision.”
“What does she do with her time? Read? Watch TV?”
“Writes, mostly.”
“Writes?”
“Books. Romance novels. She’s always loved reading that kind of stuff. She wrote one before the accident, but it wasn’t until afterward, closed up in here, that she really got into it. Creates worlds she can control and escape into, that’s what she says. If she didn’t have that…”
“Have any of her books been published?”
“Oh, yes. About a dozen.”
“Under her own name?”
“Hers and a pseudonym, Jennifer West. All for a paperback and e-book publisher in New York. She’s making good money now, building a name for herself, getting positive feedback from fans. But there’s one nut case in S.F. who’s been harassing her recently.”
“Harassing her how?”
“With a series of e-mails. Claims Alice plagiarized a cheap self-published novel of hers.”
“Did the woman threaten her?”
“To smear her with her publisher unless Alice paid her off. Attempted extortion, plain and simple.”
“How did your wife handle the situation?”
“Well … she tried to make it go away by reasoning with the woman and, when that didn’t work, just ignored her. She printed out the e-mails; I can show them to you.”
“You think this woman might be responsible for your wife’s disappearance?”
“I don’t know what to think. But if she showed up here, Alice would never have let her in the house.”
I said, “Tell me about the day your wife disappeared. When did you last see her?”
“Just before I left for work, about eight-thirty.”
“What was her state of mind then?”
“Agitated. I don’t know why; she wouldn’t say. But she’d run out of Valium and was low on Paxil, the drugs she takes for anxiety and panic attacks and depression.”
“Did you talk to her during that day? Text or e-mail her?”
“No. I don’t, usually—she doesn’t like to be interrupted while she’s writing.”
“What time did you get home that evening?”
“A little after six, as usual. I knew right away something was wrong because the security system was off.”
“Your wife always kept it armed when she was here by herself?”
“Always.”
“Would she turn it off for anyone other than the three you mentioned?”
“Only if it was absolutely necessary,” Cahill said, “like for a delivery of some kind or a repairman. She couldn’t deal with anyone but the four of us for more than a few minutes at a time, not if she was alone in the house.”
“Who else knows the security code?”
“Just Alice and me. She didn’t want anyone else to have it.”
“Were there any signs of a disturbance, anything out of place?”
“No. Alice was just … gone.”
“All the doors and windows secure?”
“Except the kitchen door to the garage. She kept that locked, too, but I found it unlocked. That must be how she was … taken away.”
“Anything missing? Clothing, jewelry, valuables?”
“Nothing except her laptop. I looked through the bedroom closet, her bureau drawers, the bathroom. All her meds are still in the cabinet. The new supply of Valium Kendra dropped off was still on the kitchen counter, unopened. Alice must have calmed down without needing to take one.”
“Dropped off that day?”
“Around ten-thirty. Kendra picked them up at the pharmacy. Her husband, Paul Nesbitt, is Alice’s doctor. She stayed about half an hour, and Alice was fine when she left.”
“Did the best friend have any contact with her that day?”
“Fran? No. Neither did Paul. But somebody was here in the early afternoon, around one o’clock.”
“How do you know that?”
“Mrs. Cappicotti, my neighbor across the street. One of the few people in this neighborhood who don’t think I’m some kind of monster. She went out to walk the family dog just as a car was pulling into the garage.”
“What kind of car?”
“A light-colored car. She thought it must be mine. She only got a glimpse of it—the garage door came down as soon as the car was inside.”
I ruminated on that. “So whoever it was had to have a remote door opener.”
“I guess so. There are only two, one in my car, the spare in a kitchen drawer. But that one’s gone now; I can’t find it anywhere. Whoever took Alice must’ve found it—it’s the only way the door could’ve been opened or closed from outside.”
“Is the garage on the security system?”
“No. Only the inside door to the kitchen is wired.”
“Is there an outside door?”
“Yes, but it has a bolt lock. I checked it—it hadn’t been tampered with.”
Lock picking isn’t the only way to get through a locked door. A skeleton key will do the job, depending on the type of lock.
“One o’clock, you said. Can you account for your whereabouts at that time?”
“Not to anybody’s satisfaction,” Cahill said. “I took a late lunch that day, by myself. Bought an In-N-Out burger, drove over to Community Park to eat it. I was feeling a little stressed, Alice and the demands of my job, and I just wanted to be alone for a while.”
He brooded into his glass again, his fingers clenching and unclenching around it. I could see that he wanted a refill and was struggling against the need. I expected him to lose the struggle, say something, and pop to his feet again, but he didn’t. He set the tumbler down on the table, pushed it away with his fingertips, and then looked at me again.
“You see the kind of bind I’m in, why I’m so confused and upset? It all sounds unbelievable, I know that, but everything I’ve told you is the truth; I swear it.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I need somebody to believe in me,” he said, “and not just to get myself off the hook with the police. I need to know what happened to Alice, have her found and brought back home if she hasn’t been … if she’s all right. That’s the most important thing.” He drew a tremulous breath. “Do you believe me?”
Good question. The desperate appeal in his voice sounded genuine; he had looked and acted sincere throughout the interview, seemed to honestly care about his wife’s well-being over and above his own. But I had been fooled on more than one occasion by accomplished liars looking to use me for their own ends—the guy in Atherton, most recently, and the story he’d told had been a hell of a lot less credible than Cahill’s. I’d made the mistake of buying into that one, if not for long, and lived to regret it, and it had made me even more leery and cynical.
On the other hand, if Cahill was responsible for his wife’s disappearance, what did he have to gain, really, by retaining a private detective? It wouldn’t take much, if any, of the heat off him. Could work against him, in fact, to have another trained professional snooping around. The only way I could see that his motive made sense was if his story was more or less straight, if he really was innocent.
“Will you help me?” He extended a hand, palm up, almost as if in supplication. “Please?”
By way of answer I took out the standard agency contract I’d brought with me. He read it over quickly, gave me a grateful look, and signed and returned it.
I got to my feet. “Suppose you show me around, Mr. Cahill. Starting with the outside garage door.”
Copyright © 2017 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust
