On Monday, July 12th, 1999, at 3:15 pm, Sheriff Elmer Howe thought it curious that a forest green Ford Explorer sat alone in the shade of an oak tree in the student parking lot of East Pocono High School. Students left the lot completely empty in high summer.

The Explorer looked just like the one belonging to psychologist Arthur W. Rohrer, Ph.D., P.C. Arthur was married to Kimberly, which made him Elmer’s son-in-law. Arthur had left Philadelphia years ago to counsel troubled marriages in Scranton, but his office was a good twenty minutes up the highway. How strange.

Elmer pulled his squad car into the lot and parked behind the gymnasium. He looked for summer athletes training in the fields, but there were none. He used his shoulder radio to call the Explorer’s license plate in to Marie at the station. Marie’s voice crackled on the radio. Yes, the Explorer belonged to Arthur. Kimberly would wonder how Arthur’s car came to be parked in the student lot in the middle of the afternoon. Elmer wondered too.

Elmer looked across the street from the Explorer. Bob and Laura’s house. Of course. Laura’s old Volvo station wagon slumped in their driveway. Bob’s F-150 wasn’t home. Elmer had answered a half dozen domestic disturbance calls at their house already this year: no real violence, just shouting matches and the occasional slammed door or broken dish; the ordinary flare-ups of a marriage dying like a far-away star.

Bob was a valley boy and whip smart. He’d left for Penn State seven years ago. He came home with Laura and a degree in civil engineering. Bob had gone to work for the county; he spent hours with Elmer discussing the sorry state of the roads and how to make them safer. The county didn’t begin to have half enough money to fix everything Bob wanted to do, but Bob kept right on trying. Elmer sighed at Bob’s youth and optimism. But when it came right down to it, Bob was just about the best work friend a man could ask for.

Laura was smart as Bob but much better looking. She had striking blue eyes amplified by her dark brown hair, which she always tied in a ponytail when she ran errands. Even Elmer stopped to admire when she wore her blue jeans and little white T-shirt. Laura came from “out the valley” somewhere cosmopolitan, down near Philadelphia, and she wasn’t suited to valley ways. Arthur had been counseling Bob and Laura for the past two years, but it wasn’t taking.

Elmer leaned against the tree next to the Explorer and waited.

#

Arthur sauntered out of the house. He missed Elmer in the shade and flinched when Elmer confronted him.

“Another house call, Arthur?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you. What are you doing here?”

“Counseling a patient. Nothing wrong with that.”

Elmer looked him up and down, “You aren’t billing him for this are you? You’re not making Bob pay you for fooling with his wife? Tell me you aren’t doing that.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Arthur’s feathers never ruffled.

“Careful, Arthur, Bob has a temper. Somebody might tell him.”

“If Bob finds out, Kimberly finds out too. You know how bad that will be for her heart.”

“You need to stop this now, Arthur. I won’t have it.”

“Leave me alone, old man. This is none of your business.”

Arthur pushed Elmer aside and roared off in the Explorer.

#

According to Elmer’s official accident report, Arthur’s Explorer landed upside down in Westend Pond. He must have been speeding and missed the turn at Fourth Street Bridge. The front doors must have jammed on impact. They found Arthur in the back seat, his hands still clutching the door latch. Arthur must have panicked and forgotten that the child safety locks were engaged. The back doors couldn’t open. He must have drowned before he thought to try the tailgate.

Some in the valley whispered that Bob, or some other resentful valley ex-husband, might have had something to do with Arthur’s death, but Elmer told the newspaper it had been a tragic accident. He was sad for his daughter, but he saw no reason to investigate further.

#

On Sunday, April 30, 2023, at age 62, Kimberly’s heart finally gave out. Elmer wrote her obituary. He wrote about her love of gardening and cooking. He told about her children and their spouses, Kimberly’s grandchild, Kimberly’s siblings and their spouses, and Kimberly’s nieces and nephews. Elmer didn’t mention Arthur’s name, like he never existed.

– Richard Bullitt