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“What about your daughter?” Nate asked.
“She wouldn’t go to the pub. The arts and theater are her thing. Rowdy pubs are not,” the mother said.
But Nate believed Phil’s sister might know or suspect something and didn’t want to tell her parents about it. Then Nate saw her watching them surreptitiously from the hall.
Nicole saw her too and smiled at her. “I’m going to step outside for a moment.” She stood up from the couch and walked outside the house to the front patio.
Phil’s sister disappeared from the hallway, andhe heard a door open and shut out of his view. Nate hoped Nicole was going to speak to the sister and hadn’t left the house because she wasn’t feeling well.
“Can you think of anyone else who might have been involved in Phil’s disappearance?” Nate asked. Even though family and friends were the first to consider as suspects, he had to look into other possibilities—if Phil hadn’t vanished on his own.
“I know he wasn’t involved in drugs,” his mother said.
“Ruby watches a lot of crime shows. Once a homicide detective learns drugs are involved, that gets into a whole slew of new suspects—drug dealers, drug users. But she’s right. He wasn’t dealing, and he wasn’t using,” the dad said.
“And no girlfriend?” Nate asked, thinking that just because Phil’s parents were adamant that he hadn’t been involved in drugs didn’t mean he wasn’t.
“No,” the mother said.
“I know we talked about this before, but have you had time to think about any enemies he might have had?” Nate asked.
“We’ve talked about nothing else since he didn’t return home,” the mother said. “There’s no one else we can think of.”
“But Phil really didn’t tell us about everything that was going on in his life,” the dad added. “I’m sure he had secrets.”
“Sure, everyone does. It’s just natural thatchildren don’t tell their parents everything that’s going on in their lives. Then again, if something seemed unusual that might have something to do with this, we’d like to know,” Nate said.
“Since Phil stays at the secondary farmhouse on the property, he can come and go as he likes. He and his friends were always arriving at all hours at his place. It seemed odd, we thought. Sure, after work, if they all got together for a party or something, but the hours were strange,” the dad said. “And it wasn’t for long. Like for less than an hour. It’s a bit of a drive out here for someone to come here and just stay for a few minutes.”
The mother sighed. “I’m sure there was nothing to it.”
Yet since they had mentioned it, Nate figured they felt that something wasn’t quite right.
“We both have restless nights, so one or the other of us would see all the goings-on,” she said. “We don’t want you to think we watch out the windows day and night. We’d hear the cars rolling in on the gravel road and go check to see what was going on. It’s remote out here, and we wanted to make sure someone wasn’t coming to rob us or something.”
“Did you ever ask him about it?” It seemed odd. Nate wondered if Phil and his friendswereinvolved in the drug trade, and the parents had really figured that out but couldn’t admit it to themselves.
“We sort of joked about it,” the dad said, soundingserious, like he was afraid the son would move off the property or something if they pressed him about what he was up to.
But he was their son, and he had a pretty sweet deal here. Free home, according to his parents. He could do what he wanted.
“We didn’t want to make him mad. He might move somewhere else,” the mother admitted.
Just as Nate suspected.
“He apologized that he’d woken us up. And then they all stopped coming over. At least we thought they had. You know actions speak louder than words, so we were thrilled they were being so considerate. But then we realized they were all using the old dirt road on the back of the property to get to his place,” the dad said. “At least we didn’t hear the vehicles any longer on the gravel road. But whenever we got up in the middle of the night, we’d take a peek, just as a matter of habit to see if they were there, and sure enough, half the time, they would be. Then they’d take off.”
“So they weren’t staying overnight,” Nate said.
“No, they’d get together for an hour or less. Then we suspected they’d all head for their own places. So we don’t know what that was all about,” the dad said. “But when we asked his friends about his vanishing—where they thought he might have gone or why he might have left—none had a clue. So they said.”
“All right. Well, if you think of anything else, just call us,” Nate said, wanting to see to Nicole and make sure she was okay.
“Thanks, we will.” The dad shook his hand, and Nate walked out the door.
Nicole was alone on the front porch, and Nate hoped she’d been able to speak with Phil’s sister. Or maybe Nicole had just felt nauseous and had needed some fresh air.
“How are you doing?” he asked as he walked her down the steps to the walkway and out to the car parked in front of the farmhouse.
