A detective searches for a missing woman. Yes, Edgar Allen Poe is mentioned.

“Mr. Gavin, how long has your wife been missing?” Detective Mark Barrett asked.

        “I’m not really sure,” Jeff Gavin answered.

        “You’re not sure?” Detective Theo Anderson, Barrett’s partner, asked. “Can you explain that?”

        “I was out of town for a week and got back yesterday. I thought that Melanie might’ve gone to visit her sister in Atlanta while I was away.”

        “So when did you last talk to her?” Barrett asked.

        “Three days ago. She said that she might go over there. When I got home last night and she wasn’t here, I assumed that’s where she was.” 

        “Have you called her friends and her family to see if anyone has seen her?”

        “Yeah. I did that before I called y’all.”

        Barrett nodded his head. “Were you out of town on business?”

        “Yeah. I’m a contractor and was in Mississippi to help on a big project building houses in an area that was wiped out by the hurricane earlier this year.”

        “Do you specialize in any part of the process? I’ve laid some brick in my day.”

        “I take a piece of land, clear it, call the cement truck when the slab is ready to be poured, and build the house on the slab.”

“So you handle the whole shootin’ match.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

        Anderson looked around. “How much of this house did you build?”

        “Whole thing. Top to bottom. Just me and my four man crew.”

        “Impressive,” Barrett said. “I like houses like this one that have a lot of paneling and wood. Gives it more character than your average four walls covered in sheetrock and paint. Mr. Gavin, we’re going to need a list of your wife’s friends and relatives.”

        “Sure; anything to help.”

        “One more thing we have to ask you, Mr. Gavin. How have you and your wife been getting along lately?”

        Gavin bristled up. “You think I had something to do with this? Why the hell would you ask that?”

        “We’re just asking routine questions. The more we know, the faster we’ll be able to find your wife.”

        “We’ve been getting along fine. An occasional tiff, but nothing serious.”

        Barrett knew that Gavin was lying but couldn’t call him on it.

        “Mr. Gavin, did, or should I say, does your wife have any enemies? Anybody that’s been harassing her, threatening her, anything like that? How about anyone who she works with?”

        “No one that I can think of. She worked in a store that sells outdoor, back to nature things, along with hunting and fishing supplies. No, as far as I know, she didn’t have any enemies. Got along with everybody.”

        Barrett stood and Anderson followed his lead. “Mr. Gavin, we appreciate your assistance in this matter. Hopefully there’s a simple explanation to this whole thing and your wife will be back soon.”

        “Thanks, Detectives. I hope so, too.”

        As Gavin was walking them to the door Barrett stopped at a bookcase and scanned the shelves. “I’m impressed, Mr. Gavin, this is quite a collection you have here. A lot of the classics.”

        “I was an English major in college. Worked construction with a couple of buddies after graduation and a summer job turned into a career when I realized that I didn’t like to teach. That was ten years ago. Now I do a job that I enjoy.”

        Barrett was still looking at the books. “Who’s your favorite author?”

        “Poe. Father of the modern horror story.”

        Barrett nodded. “And also father of the modern detective story.”

Gavin raised his eyebrows. “I’m impressed, Detective.”

“I’m also a Poe fan. We’ll be in touch. If anything comes to mind, be sure to give us a call.”

The detectives walked to their unmarked Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. It was six-thirty and getting dark in Montgomery. “So what do you think, Mark?” Anderson asked. “What do your investigative senses tell you?”

 “Not exactly a grieving or even greatly distressed husband, was he?”

 “Not by a long shot. You like him for it?”

    Barrett shrugged. “Too soon to tell. He’s hiding something, though. Out here in the middle of the woods, alone on five acres in a house that he built himself. He’s a little too smug. You’re a married man, Theo. If your wife went missing, how would you react?”

“I’d be trying to get the National Guard to come help me find her.”

“Exactly.”

Barrett and Anderson drove to Hanley’s Outdoors Equipment, Melanie’s workplace, located on the east side of Montgomery near Interstate 85. An attractive young woman stepped out from behind the counter when they came in. “Anything that I can help you gentlemen with this evening?”

Barrett showed his badge and introduced himself and Anderson.

“Is this about Melanie? Have you found her?”

“Working on it, Sonya,” Barrett said after he saw her name tag. “When was the last time that you saw her?”

“Yesterday about noon. She came in to pick up her check.”

“Did she say where she was going?” Anderson asked.

“She was gonna go home, grab a few things, and go to Atlanta. She remembered after she got here that she had forgotten her wallet at her house. Otherwise, she would’ve hit the interstate and headed off.”

“Is there anyone who might want to harm her?” Barrett asked.

“Yeah. Her husband.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They fought all the time. She got a boyfriend a month or two ago and she was afraid that Jeff suspected something.”

“Did she say who she was seeing?”

“No, only that she would be leaving Jeff pretty soon to be with him. Said her new fella could take care of her.”

“So she was afraid of her husband?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Sonya,” Anderson said, “would you think that she might just pack up and drive somewhere else without telling anyone?”

“No,” she said as she shook her head. “She always wanted someone to know where she was.”

“Why’s that?”

“She got lost in the woods when she was a little girl. She cried as she told me the story. Said that ever since then, someone’s always known where she was. She couldn’t even watch TV shows about people going missing. It was her biggest fear.”

“If you think of anything that might help us, give us a call,” Barrett said as he gave her a card. She nodded her head and they left.

When they got to the police station Barrett called Melanie’s sister, Pam Gardner, in Atlanta. They exchanged pleasantries and got to business. “Miss Gardner, was your sister coming to visit you?”

“Yes. She called me about eight yesterday morning. Asked if she could stay with me for a few days, maybe more.”

“Any reason why she’d want to make a long visit on no notice?”

“She was afraid of what her husband would do when he got home.”

“Why’s that?”

“She was at dinner a few nights ago with …someone… and she thought one of Jeff’s hunting buddies saw them. She was afraid that Jeff knew and would beat the crap out of her.”

“We know that she was seeing another man. Did she ever talk to you about him? Any idea who he was?”

“No. She said she had to be careful so that Jeff wouldn’t find out. She only told me about it a couple of times. She was very afraid of him.”

“So he was jealous?”

“Extremely. When she called me she said that she had tried to call her new man but she couldn’t get him.”

“And that’s when she called you,” Barrett said.

“Yes.”

Barrett and Anderson spent the next day talking to Melanie’s friends and other co-workers. They heard the same story over and over: she was afraid of her husband. Most of the people they talked to didn’t seem to know about her affair, though. Early in the afternoon Barrett called a friend at the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office and obtained a search warrant.

“Let’s go see Mr. Gavin again, Theo,” Barrett said to Anderson.

Anderson nodded. “He’s not gonna be happy.”

“I don’t really care. This guy is dirty. Let’s go prove it.”

They drove into Gavin’s driveway at 2:30. Barrett banged on the door. Gavin opened it. “Good afternoon Detectives, what can I do for you?”

Barrett slapped the warrant into his hands. “Stay the hell out of our way.”

“What? You’ve gotta be joking.”

“You lied to us last night, Mr. Gavin, and we don’t like to be lied to.”

“What did I lie to you about?”

Barrett got in his face. “Your wife. You apparently liked to use her as a punching bag. And you didn’t get along very well, did you?”

Two more detectives arrived to assist in the search. Anderson went upstairs to look for evidence, the two recently arrived detectives searched the ground floor, and Barrett went downstairs.

The basement was fully finished, not only completed here and there like most of the few basements in the area were. He walked along its perimeter, inspecting the three rooms with great care. The main room had a big-screen TV and a pool table, along with a couch and assorted chairs. Must be where he holds his football and NASCAR parties. There were two other rooms and a bathroom that were off of the downstairs den. One of them was filled with bookcases and a desk. So here’s the rest of the English major’s books. He went through the desk drawers and book cases but found nothing of use. One thing that caught his eye was another collection of Poe stories. He looked in the front and saw that it was a first edition, dating back to 1855. “Whoa, this set him back,” he said to himself.

Barrett left the library and went in the downstairs bedroom. He searched the nightstands that were on either side of the double-bed. He opened the closet door and saw that it was bare; nothing on the rods. That’s odd. He closed the door and walked away. He was about to leave the room when he went back to the closet and opened the door again. A chill swept over his soul. He stood frozen as he thought the unimaginable.

“Mark! You still down here? Find anything?” Anderson asked.

He backed away from the closet and out of the bedroom. “Not a thing. How about you?”

“Not a damn thing that’ll help. But there was some evidence that he’s had company since we left a couple of nights ago. If he did anything to his wife, he covered his tracks pretty good.”

Barrett muttered obscenities to himself. “He’s dirty, Theo, I know it.”

“If he is, it’ll have to wait for another day. Let’s go. There’s nothing here.”

Barrett turned around as he reached the front door. He asked Gavin, “When did you finish putting up the paneling downstairs? Looks like a recent job.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I finished it this morning. Working helps  me keep my mind occupied.”

“And you already have a girlfriend. It’s like you have reason to think that Melanie won’t be coming back.”

“I’ve got a girlfriend, but as you probably know by now, Melanie’s been seeing somebody else, too. That ain’t a crime.” As they walked out the front door Gavin said, “I told you that I didn’t do anything. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“We’ll be back, Gavin,” Barrett said.

“Yeah? Not after my lawyer gets in the picture, which will be in about two minutes.”

Neither detective said much on the twenty minute ride back to their precinct. Barrett broke the ice as he parked the car in the police parking lot. “It’s after four and I don’t feel like chasing anymore wild leads today. I’ll see you tomorrow, Theo.”

“See you in the morning.”

Barrett got in his Dodge Ram pickup and drove to his apartment. He sat around, going over the events of the last two days, trying to come up with a plan. He found a volume of Poe in his meager library and read “The Cask of Amontillado.” It was the story of a man who killed his enemy by securing him to a wall in a cellar and then built a new wall so that the body would never be found.

He thought of the fresh paneling in Gavin’s basement again. It seemed far fetched, but made sense. Gavin’s land bordered the Alabama River. He easily could have set her car to roll into the water. Barrett’s hunches had solved difficult cases for the Montgomery Police Department in the past, but this time he was going to keep his theory to himself.

He called in a pizza order for pick-up. Thirty minutes later he was walking out of the pizza franchise. He stopped at a convenience store and bought three bottles of Pepsi to go along with his Meat Lovers special. As he exited I-85 to merge onto I-65 he said, “Road trip.”

Just under an hour and a half later he pulled into the parking lot of a Home Depot in Pelham, Alabama, a few miles south of Birmingham. He put on his Alabama baseball cap and sunglasses and walked in. He knew exactly what he needed so was only inside for ten minutes. He paid with cash so that the purchase couldn’t be traced. He didn’t need to bump into anyone he knew, so he considered the long trip to be worth the time and effort.

He hit the road for the return trip at half past eight. He knew what he had to do, so spent the next ninety minutes going over his plan. He exited off of the interstate a little before ten and went down the country road to Jeff Gavin’s house. He stopped as soon as the house was in view to check the situation. He got his binoculars out of the glove compartment and made sure that no other vehicles were around. If his girlfriend was there, he’d have to postpone his plans. To his relief, no other cars were there. He eased closer to the house.

He got out of his truck and approached the porch. The outside light came on and Gavin opened the door. “Barrett? What the hell do you want now?”

“Just need to ask a few more questions.”

“I’m not answering another damn thing without my lawyer. I talked to him earlier and he said I don’t have say anything to you. So why don’t you just get off my property and drive away? I know my rights.”

“What’s wrong? Expecting company?” Barrett looked to the long driveway.

“No. Not tonight. None of your damn business even if I were, though.”

“Hear me out for five minutes and you’ll never see me again. I just need to get some things straight. Can I come in?”

Gavin turned and walked back in. “Make it quick.”

Barrett followed him in and closed the door behind him. He followed Gavin to the living room, where they sat in the matched recliners. “Jeff, it is all right if I call you ‘Jeff,’ isn’t it? Jeff, I’ve seen pictures of Melanie. Very pretty woman. Why would you cheat on her? Seems like if a man had a woman like that, he wouldn’t go chasing after anybody else.”

“For your information, Mr. Hot-shot Detective, she cheated on me before I cheated on her. Does that make it right? No. But you know what? I don’t care.”

“Agreed. One thing I don’t understand, though. How could any man, especially one as obviously as strong as you, beat up his wife? Isn’t it true that she didn’t cheat on you until you had roughed her up a few times?”

“That’s a lie.”

“Not according to all of her friends that we talked to. How do you know that she was seeing someone else, anyway?”

“I could just tell. She would say that she was going out to see her friends from work, but the way she would be dressed, looking better than she had looked for me in a long time, I knew something was up. Now if that answers all of you questions, you need to leave.”

Barrett stood up. “Fair enough.” He snapped his fingers as he said, “Almost forgot. There is one more small thing. I have a picture of Melanie with the man that she was seeing. Care to see it?”

“You have what?”

Barrett pulled a picture out of his shirt pocket and gave it to Gavin. “Do you recognize the man in the picture, Jeff? It was taken in one of those walk-in photo booths in a mall.”

Gavin grabbed the picture. He stared at it and said, “You son of a bitch! It’s you!”

He looked up and his eyes met Barrett’s .44 Magnum. “That’s right. It’s me.” He motioned with the gun. “Let’s go downstairs.”

Gavin led the way. “Okay, okay, just don’t do anything…”

“Foolish? Were you going to tell me not to do anything foolish? You should’ve thought of that before you put Melanie behind the basement wall.”

“What? Are you out of your mind?”

“Poe, Mr. Gavin, the Cask of Amontillado. If you thought she was betraying you, what better way to get revenge than to block her behind a wall and cover the evidence by putting up new paneling around the whole basement? Had you been planning it long? You came back from your trip sooner than she had expected. Was that part of your plan?”

“You’re crazy, Barrett. The last time I saw Melanie she was pulling out of the driveway to go to her sister’s house. Why would I kill her?”

“You took out a half million dollar life insurance policy on her a few months ago. If she went missing, you’d just have to bide your time until the insurance company decided to pay you.”

“You’re crazy! Listen Barrett, if you just let me go, we’ll pretend that none of this ever happened. What do you say?”

“I say you talk too much,” and he hit him over the head with his gun. Gavin crumpled to the floor.

“Didn’t think he’d ever shut up.”

Barrett studied every wall in the basement. “Where are you, Melanie?” he asked softly, over and over. When he had been there in the previous week for his rendezvous with his lover he hadn’t taken the time to notice what parts of the basement walls had been finished. He had been looking through the eyes of a lover, not a detective. He thought that the bedroom closet had been deeper, but wasn’t sure. By the time they had reached the bedroom, the closet had been the last thing on his mind.

“Melanie! Melanie!” he yelled. “If you can hear me, try to make some noise.” If Gavin had followed Poe’s story, she could still be alive somewhere behind the new paneling and the block and plaster that it covered. He called her name again and stood as silently as man in a coma. He studied the spaces where the paneling met the floors and the ceilings, hoping to find some clue as to what part had been added the most recently, but every corner was perfect, every bit of molding was painted and flawless. He called her name again and again, putting his ear to the wall, listening, and then calling again.

Not a sound.

Barrett handcuffed Gavin to a water pipe in the bathroom and slapped him until he regained consciousness. “Where is she? Which wall did you put her behind?”

Gavin reached to feel his head but couldn’t because of the cuffs. “Look, I’m telling you, I didn’t kill her. I didn’t put her behind the wall or the closet or under the staircase, or anywhere.”

“Staircase? I didn’t say anything about the staircase.” He knocked him out again with his gun. He then went to his truck and took out the supplies that he had purchased earlier. He looked in the tool shed behind the house and found several sheets of paneling that his suspect evidently had left over after finishing his crime and subsequent home improvement job.

He went back in and checked on Gavin. Still out cold, bleeding from his head. He put a towel around his head to catch the blood.

He went to the staircase and pried the paneling from around it. Behind it he found nothing but studs and wiring. He took off several sheets of the five-sixteenths inch oak paneling, all to no avail. He looked from side to side, saying her name softly. “Melanie, Melanie.” He looked at Gavin again. “Sorry son of a bitch.”

He went in the bedroom and took the paneling out of the back of the closet, exposing a block wall. He went to the tool shed, got a sledge hammer, and went to work on the wall.

Three hours later, Gavin woke up. He was no longer secured to the sink. He was prone in dirt. “Hey! What’re you doing? Where am I?”

“You’re in a hole that I dug at the foot of the bedroom closet. I’m so sorry that I had to tear out part of the concrete, but I had masonry instruction after high school so I’ll be able to tidy things up a bit. No one will ever know that I was ever here tonight.”

“Why can’t I move?”

“You’re wrapped in plastic. Can’t have dogs digging you up, can we? After I rebuild the wall, your air will run out pretty quickly. I don’t want to leave you without company, though.” He shoved a book in the opening at Gavin’s head. “Here’s your first edition Poe. I thought that would be fitting.”

Gavin cried and pleaded for mercy but Barrett wasn’t in the mood for kindness. The last concrete block that needed to be put back into place was in front of Gavin’s face. “Please, let me out! Don’t kill me! When will anybody ever find me?”

As the last block went into place Barrett said, “Nevermore, Gavin, nevermore.”

Barrett spent the next two hours replacing paneling, cleaning the basement and blocking out cries that grew faint until they ended. When he was finished he inspected his work and found that it was flawless. There was no sign that he had been there. He piled the discarded bits of concrete and mortar on the construction refuse in the backyard. It all matched material that was already there. He got in his truck and drove home. He collapsed onto the couch at a quarter after five.

The phone jarred him out of a deep sleep. He gained his bearings and picked it up. “This is Barrett.”

“Mark? You okay? I’ve never known you to be late before.” He recognized his partner’s voice.

He rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. 9:15. “I’m fine, just had a long night.”

“We found Melanie Gavin.”

“You what? Where? How?”

“Georgia Highway Patrol found her car in a ravine. Either fell asleep or lost control of the vehicle. She most likely died instantly. At least we know that her husband is innocent. We’ve got someone going out now to tell him what happened. I guess we won’t have to drive out there anymore.”

“No, I guess not.”