The following warnings occurred:
Warning [2] Undefined variable $awaitingusers - Line: 33 - File: global.php(816) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/global.php(816) : eval()'d code 33 errorHandler->error
/global.php 816 eval
/showthread.php 24 require_once
Warning [2] Undefined array key "style" - Line: 874 - File: global.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/global.php 874 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 24 require_once
Warning [2] Undefined property: MyLanguage::$lang_select_default - Line: 5014 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 5014 errorHandler->error
/global.php 874 build_theme_select
/showthread.php 24 require_once
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions.php 5041 is_member
/global.php 874 build_theme_select
/showthread.php 24 require_once
Warning [2] Undefined array key "mybb" - Line: 1919 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 1919 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_indicators.php 41 my_set_array_cookie
/showthread.php 626 mark_thread_read
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_user.php 733 is_member
/inc/functions_post.php 399 purgespammer_show
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "profilefield" - Line: 6 - File: inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code 6 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_post.php 467 eval
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "canonlyreplyownthreads" - Line: 642 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 642 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 700 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 700 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showvideos" - Line: 705 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 705 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 743 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 743 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "invisible" - Line: 1497 - File: showthread.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/showthread.php 1497 errorHandler->error
Warning [2] Undefined variable $threadnotesbox - Line: 30 - File: showthread.php(1524) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/showthread.php(1524) : eval()'d code 30 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1524 eval
Warning [2] Undefined variable $ratethread - Line: 38 - File: showthread.php(1524) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/showthread.php(1524) : eval()'d code 38 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1524 eval




when hector disappeared [flashback mood post thing]
#1
20-22 april 2009
San Jose, CA


On the wall in the kitchen of the house on Allenwood Drive hangs a calendar that Rina Ghosh installed when her oldest daughter began attending middle school. The schedules of the people who still live in the house appear as color-coordinated designations and the system makes no sense to anyone who does not know the family and has just walked into the kitchen for the first time.

Two investigators from the San Jose Police Department arrived at the house at 10:12pm. Mrs. Ghosh greeted them in the sari she had worn home from school that day. She had not taken her hair down from its chignon or removed her earrings. She wears glasses with outdated ironic frames and is still attractive this far into her forties. She had not returned to the house when she normally does because she was playing the piano for the middle school's choral concert that evening. She is an English teacher there and does not mind playing the piano when the music teacher asks her to. The kids enjoy seeing her there. Normally she would have worn slacks and a colorful blouse to school but her husband gave her the sari as a birthday present a few years ago and she likes to wear it on occasions like the one she attended tonight.

After she called the police Mrs. Ghosh put on a kettle to make tea and paced the ground floor of the four-bedroom home. They arrived nearly 45 minutes after she terminated the call with the dispatcher and when she offered they declined tea. Now everyone stands in the kitchen and Mrs. Ghosh worries the wedding band on her left hand.

That morning Hector had denied sneaking out of his bedroom last night and rolled his eyes when she asked if he had finished his economics homework. When she asked if he intended to have anything besides orange juice before he went to school he had thrown the juice tumbler into the sink and grabbed his bookbag and stormed out of the house. If he said anything to her on his way out the back door Rina had long since grown a callous against her son's outbursts and could not now recall what he might have said.

"What time were you expecting your son home?" asks Detective Morales.

If it were the first time he had left the house like that she might have thought more of it but her son is 17 years old and this is his junior year of high school and every one of her friends clicks their teeth and reassures her when she speaks of how she hardly recognizes him some days. Boys are like that, they say. They can be difficult and your older two are girls. He'll grow out of it.

Used to be he'd go to school and go to his extracurriculars and come home with one of his sisters and sit quietly at the dining room table doing his homework until it was time to cook dinner. He was eight years old when Cassandra went off to college and thirteen when Helen left for her freshman orientation and maybe that was when the trouble started. He was used to having his sisters around. Hector was fourteen the first time the principal called her to discuss his behavior.

His teachers and his coaches all say the same thing: Hector is bright and cooperative and has a lot of energy but he doesn't always made the best choices and sometimes isn't the best influence on his peers.

"He's usually home by eight o'clock," says Mrs. Ghosh. "He didn't have a track meet tonight, they were only supposed to have practice until seven. I already called Mister Miyamoto at home, the track coach. He says Hector was at practice and he left with another student and when I said he wasn't home he said I should call the police. So I did."

"Who was the other student?"

"I'm not sure. He couldn't tell. They were in a car that Hector got into. Should I have asked him?"

"I don't suppose Mister Miyamoto got a good look at the car or the license plate," says Detective Green.

"No," says Mrs. Ghosh. "I don't know. He might have. I didn't think to ask. He just said it was another student."

While Detective Morales writes in his notepad Green clears his throat and looks around at the kitchen. It is immaculate. Boxes of dry goods appealing to a finicky teenager sit atop the refrigerator and a few photographs are affixed to the board on which the calendar lives.

One of the photographs is of two young women and a teenage boy. All three have thick black hair and intelligent brown eyes and share the same bone structure. He can tell they're siblings. Both of the girls wear their hair long and smile bright at the camera but the boy's hair is short and shaggy and his frown is not atypical of a high schooler forced to pose for a photograph with his older sisters. Something about the photograph bothers Green though. He cannot put his finger on what it is. Later he will realize it's the fury in the boy's gaze.

He looks like the sort who would run away from home. Drugs might have had something to do with it. Or he was in some other sort of trouble. Green isn't going to say that to the boy's mother though. He and Morales both know damned well how rare it is that dark-skinned teenagers turn back up again after they go missing.

"Your husband, is he the boy's father?"

"Yes. We've been married twenty-six years."

"Does he work?"

"Yes. He's been in surgery since eleven o'clock this morning."

"Wow."

"He's a heart surgeon. I called and left a message but until he's done I won't be able to actually talk to him."

Morales had not written anything since he circled Miyamoto's name and added a question mark to it. Now his pencil goes back to the notepad and Green asks if she minds if they take a look around the boy's bedroom. And she does mind. She's afraid of what they're going to find in there. Dope or guns or something else that would serve as a marker for where her youngest child could have gone off to. Something she should have caught before the police had to come into their house and search through his things.

But she signs a form consenting to their searching his room without a warrant and the only things they take with them are a laptop computer they find on his desk and a 2007-2008 Evergreen Valley High School yearbook they find on his bookshelf. If the kid has pot or any other hard drugs he had them in his bookbag. His contact list is in the cell phone that he does not answer.

Mrs. Ghosh gives them a tight smile and a soft farewell when they tell her they'll contact her if they have any more questions or information. They give her a business card with Green's contact information on it.

That is the last time either of the detectives step foot inside the house on Allenwood Drive.

-----

"Which one is he?"
"See the little guy on the left?"
"That's the great-grandson we have to bring back ASAP?"
"I've been tailing him since the new moon, smart-ass, you think I made a mistake?"
"No, I'm just saying. He doesn't look…"
"Doesn't look what?"
"You know." Naima dropped her voice to a whisper. "Uktena."

Nearly four hours before two police detectives arrived at the home of a resident who had reported her son missing two women sat in Ford sedan in a high school parking lot and watched a lackluster varsity soccer practice wind down. The team would wind up getting creamed during sectionals this year. Easy enough to write it off as the team was distraught over one of their players going missing but the two women felt confident stating the kid wasn't helping their performance any.

Even from this distance the two cub finders could tell he made his classmates nervous.

"You wanna wait until the gibbous is right in our faces," Lara asked, "or you wanna get him to Painted Sands sometime tonight?"

Naima slurped loud on the drink she procured at the drive-thru earlier and took her sandalled feet down off the glove box. She stashed the drink in the cupholder between their seats and popped the handle on the compartment and reached inside for a cigar-sized object nestled behind maps and guides. A hard huff of an exhalation pushed errant strands out of her face and once she was done she sat back up and kicked the glove box shut again. Slid the injector into the front pocket of her hoodie.

"I'm ready if you're ready," Naima said.
"Well then quit acting like you've never done this before."

Lara turned the engine as the cluster of kids started to amble off in separate directions towards the parking lot. The lost cub walked with two other junior-year boys who looked as if they were tolerating his presence. Uneasy both to be around him and realize that they were having to tolerate him. She pulled the vehicle out of its space and steered it slow around the perimeter of the parking lot and as they drove up on the boys Naima rolled down the window.

"Hey," she said, "Hector?"

The two other students backed away and left the lost cub standing with a fist clutching the strap of his bookbag. He chewed on his lower lip and frowned at them.

"Yeah?"
"I'm Jane," said Naima. "I'm a friend of your mom's. She asked me to pick you up."
"What? Why?"
"Your father had to be admitted to the hospital. He's alright, but she asked if we could bring you to your grandparents' for the night."

Until she wove her way through the lie Lara kept her face as stone. The boy glanced inside the car to see who was driving and he did not recognize either of them. They saw it on his face.

"Hey, man, we could give you a ride," said one of his cohorts. "It's not that far."
"Nah, it's okay. I'll catch you tomorrow."
"Do your math homework, Einstein," said the other one.
"Hey screw you Aidan."

The other two laughed and hurried away from the car. For a time the only sound was the clapping of car doors and the hollering of teenage boys across the lot. The coach stood talking to a straggler and then the girls' team came out of the back doors of the gymnasium.

"Why couldn't my mom come get me?" he asked.
"She said she tried your phone and you weren't picking up," said Naima.
"Oh…"
"Sweetie, it's alright. It happens. He's gonna be fine. Your grandparents are expecting you though."
"Okay."

He hesitated before he opened the back door and slid in. Lara kept her eyes aimed forward and did not move until the back door clapped shut again. Then she glanced into the rearview to check that he buckled his seatbelt. He did not buckle it and she did not prompt him to. She continued to crawl the perimeter of the parking lot until she reached the main road and then they were all silent for a time.

"I didn't know my mom had any young friends," he said.
"Eh. I'm not as young as I look."
"Oh." He leaned forward. "Hey, wait, you wanna turn onto Ruby if we're going to my grandparents'."
"I know where I'm going," Lara said.
"Yeah but you're not going the right way."

Naima glanced down and back. Her eyes found his left hand with its cut knuckles and then she found his eyes. She frowned.

"Hector," she said, "honey, what happened to your hand? It's swollen."
"Yeah, I know."
"Does it hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Here, let me take a look at it. I'm a nurse."

She held his wrist in her left hand. Her right hand uncapped the injector. He didn't see the needle coming until it was buried in the meat of his left thigh.

Thirty seconds later Lara sighed and punched Naima in the arm.

"Ow!! What was that for!"
"A little warning next time would be nice!"
"What! I said 'let me take a look at it!'"
"You're such a bitch, Naima."

---

Dawn comes as it always does and the day passes as it always does. One day and one night. Two mornings after their son disappeared Rina stands at the sink with the phone pressed to her ear. The first story of the house is empty. The girls' rooms are not the girls' rooms anymore. The girls are gone to school and Cassandra is married and though Rina does not know it now time will pass and Helen will choose to attend medical school across the country like her sister did.

Their son did not come home Monday night. Narendra Ghosh came through the front door at two o'clock Tuesday morning and dropped his briefcase by the coat rack and did not shut the door before he moved through the house in search of his wife. She had fallen asleep with the phone book beside her on the couch. She still wore the outfit she had worn to the middle school concert earlier that evening and stirred when she heard his shoes on the floorboards.

"What happened?" he asked.
"I'm sorry. I called."

He went down on a knee beside her at the couch and took up her hands in his. Her hands were always cold. Poor circulation after the kids were born. She didn't eat enough. Narendra's were warm and he sought to warm hers.

"Where is he?"
"I've called everyone. Nobody's seen him. I'm so sorry."
"Stop."
"Maybe he ran away. He was in such a bad mood this morning…"
"Rina, he's a teenager. Teenagers are always in bad moods. This wasn't your fault."
"I know, but--"
"Love, if he ran away, he won't get very far. The police, the FBI, they can track his phone and his bank card. Wherever he's gone off to, they'll find him."

Strong words at two o'clock in the morning. But the sun did rise and the day did pass. Rina did not go to school Tuesday morning because she had so many phone calls to make and she does not intend to report to work this morning either. She stands in the kitchen still in her bathrobe. Hair unwashed. She pushes her glasses up higher on the bridge of her nose as she talks. Narindra starts the kettle and he listens to her as she speaks. He does not mean to eavesdrop but this is their son she's talking about.

"No, I know. Detective Morales and Detective Green were both here Monday night. I just wanted to make sure--I know. I was just hoping I could speak to them. He didn't come home yesterday either. I--"

A knock on the door. Narindra's first scheduled surgery is not until eleven o'clock this morning. He went to work yesterday because he had to go to work yesterday. Rina looks towards the front door and Narindra answers it.

Stood on the front step are a man and a woman both in suits. They are from the FBI field office in San Francisco. The San Jose Police Department reported the child missing after 24 hours had gone by and they accepted what little evidence the detectives had gathered so far. They are here to requisition the Ghosh's phone records and bank accounts. Narindra was right. They have the technology to track these things.

When Narindra answers the door he does not know the SIM card assigned to his son's phone will turn up no activity after 2:27pm on the day of his disappearance because the phone itself had been smashed and all incoming transmissions are going to voicemail or unread. That his bank card is upstairs in his bedroom along with all of his clothing and belongings. That they will never recover his bookbag and they will never recover surveillance footage that shows his face. That in six months the case will be cold and in less than a year when the boy turns 18 the San Jose Police Department will reopen it based on revisited witness statements that will go nowhere. That in four years he'll be 21 years old and they'll have no trace of him.

In four years it will not be the FBI calling to say their son has finally turned up. It will be their youngest daughter. But that has not yet happened. Right now he's missing, and Narindra Ghosh is talking to the FBI while his wife hangs up the phone and begins to cry.
Look. I have school. And RP. And all my other time is taken up by sheer, unreasoning panic. I don't have time for Reddit.
-- ixphaelaeon
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)