Missing Mark Read Online Free PDF

him about when the new one would be completed.
    First, we chitchatted about his wife and kids and life in the suburbs. Then he recounted how, when Mark failed to show up for the wedding and didn’t answer either his home or cell phone, Gabe—in his role of best man—drove the most likely route from the park in White Bear Lake, where the ceremony was supposed to take place, back to his friend’s Minneapolis apartment.
    During the half-hour trip, he watched for Mark’s black Jeep. He didn’t see it flipped over in a ditch or stalled on the side of the road. He didn’t see it wedged against a tree or wrapped around a light pole. And he didn’t see it parked anywhere near Mark’s apartment building though he circled several blocks in each direction.
    Gabe banged on Mark’s door anyway, but no one answered. Finally he convinced the landlord to open the small apartment.
    Empty.
    “Was the bed slept in?” I asked.
    “Hard to tell, what guy living alone makes his bed?” he answered. “But his tuxedo was hanging on the closet door. So if he was heading to the altar, he was underdressed.”
    “Did you notice the clothes he wore at the rehearsal dinner lying anywhere?” I asked.
    That might prove whether Mark made it home after the party.
    “I don’t remember what he was wearing.”
    “Black shirt, gray pants, silver tie with dark stripes.”
    As I watched Madeline’s home video, I paid close attention to Mark’s attire in case we needed an official description of what her fiancé was last seen wearing, or in case we needed to help identify a decomposing body. I wasn’t trying to be negative; I just like being prepared.
    “Honestly, I don’t remember much about the apartment,” Gabe said. “When I saw he wasn’t there, I left.”
    Then, with an anxious feeling in his stomach, Gabe drove what he deemed the second most likely route back to the waiting wedding party. Again, no sign of his buddy.
    By now Shep had sniffed enough corners in my house to verify not only that he was the alpha dog but that the place was cat-free. He nudged me to play, but I tossed him a dried pig ear to chew on because I needed to concentrate on taking notes.
    “What was it like when you got back to the wedding party?” I asked Gabe.
    “Confusion. Madeline was upset. Her brother was trying to comfort her. Her mom livid. His mom mortified.”
    He described how Mark’s mother fussed nervously with the flowers, just for something to do. She was a florist and had designed the wedding bouquets and floral arrangements for her son’s big day. Burnt-orange roses and brick-red berries with dried wheat. Just as I was wondering how Gabe could possibly remember such a specific autumn mix yet couldn’t recall what his pal was wearing at the rehearsal dinner, he explained that he and Mark used to work in her flower shop after school to earn spending money.
    In fact, Gabe said mother and son had been at odds recently because she wanted him to take over her floral business and he wanted to pursue a comedy career. He only helped out at her shop if he was short on money. Marriage to Madeline meant Mark would never have to make another prom corsage.
    “Was he funny?” I asked. “As a comedian?”
    “I laughed.”
    Gabe wasn’t an objective critic. They’d met in grade school when Mark’s mom moved into the neighborhood with her then little boy. After high school, they’d drifted apart, but reconnected five years ago at another dude’s wedding. The laughs felt just like old times.
    “I was honored when he asked me to stand up for him.”
    I believed Gabe. Even though I couldn’t see his face, his voice, just then, had the quiver of a guy trying not to let on that he was scared.
    One thing never changed during their friendship: Mark was the class clown. Always pulling pranks. Gabe chuckled on the other end of the speakerphone as he relived how his buddy took their sixth-grade teacher’s dress out of a Laundromat dryer and wore it to school