The Vanishing Brother

Catherine and Jack, once-close siblings who had drifted apart in adulthood,  reconnect after Jack gets a divorce. But their newfound closeness is disrupted when Jack mysteriously disappears. 

Episode Transcript

Rob (00:00):
Hi, I'm Rob, Tale number 67 , the Vanishing Brother.
When they were kids, catherinewas close to her brother, jack.

(00:22):
As they got older and movedinto adulthood they grew apart.
There was no animosity.
They talked to each other acouple times a year on the phone
, but it was pretty rare thatthey saw each other.
When she was 30 and Jack was 29, she got a call from Jack.
They talked for four hours, thelongest conversation they'd had
in their adult lives.

(00:44):
Jack's life had fallen apart.
Him and his wife had divorced.
They had no kids, but Jack hadto move out of the house and he
needed a place to stay.
Catherine said okay, and that'show Catherine and Jack came to
occupy the same house again.
It was nice having him aroundLess lonely.
They'd eat dinner together eachnight after Catherine got home

(01:05):
from work.
They'd go hiking or to themovies on the weekends.
It was fun.
Jack worked remotely, but witheverything that was going on he
didn't have enough money to buya car, so he would either have
to borrow Catherine's or she'dhave to give him a ride
somewhere.
He had started taking yogaclasses in the evening at a
local yoga studio.

(01:25):
It was in a strip mall with apizza place and a taekwondo
studio.
Jack was going to yoga threenights a week and Catherine did
not want to discourage thisbecause it seemed to be bringing
him a lot of peace.
Sometimes he'd take the car,but usually she would drive him
there, drop him off and go tothe grocery store or something

(01:46):
like that.
Usually she'd finish hershopping before the class was
over, so she'd bring a book withher and read in the car while
she waited.
A few months after Jack startedtaking classes at the yoga
studio, catherine drove himthere, dropped him off and then
went to the grocery store.
All she needed was yogurt, soshe grabbed it and headed back
to the strip mall parking lot,parked her car and started

(02:08):
reading her book.
It was a longer wait thannormal, but she didn't mind.
When the class let out, jackwasn't with them.
She thought maybe he wastalking to the instructor or
something like that.
So she waited a while.
Then she gave him a call and itrang, but he didn't answer and
it went to voicemail.
She didn't leave one anddecided to wait a little longer.

(02:29):
But after about 15 minutes shesaw someone at the yoga studio
door leaving and locking up.
They were now closed for thenight she jumped out of her car
and ran up and talked to them.
It was the studio owner and shesaid, yeah, that was the last
class and everyone's gone.
And Catherine said I dropped mybrother off to go to the class,
but he didn't come out witheveryone else and she said his

(02:50):
name's Jack.
Do you know him?
And she did know him.
She said he'd been coming toclasses for a while.
She really liked him, he was agreat student, but he had not
been in class that night.
Before Catherine even respondedto that piece of information,
she got out her phone and calledJack again and it was the same
thing.
It rang and then went tovoicemail.
He didn't answer.
It was baffling.

(03:12):
Catherine had pulled up.
She had seen Jack get out ofher car.
She couldn't remember if shehad seen him walk into the
studio.
But where else could he havegone?
The studio owner opened thedoor back up and let Catherine
in and they walked aroundlooking for Jack.
There was just the room whereyou did yoga and there was a
men's locker room and a women'slocker room and then there was a

(03:33):
bathroom and they searched allof those places and he was
nowhere to be seen.
The studio owner said she hadto get home because she had kids
, but she gave Catherine hernumber in case she could help in
any way.
Catherine called Jack again.
This time she left a franticvoicemail telling him to call
her back.
She also sent him a textmessage, but nothing.

(03:54):
Catherine did not panic.
She just started thinking aboutall the places her brother
might be.
And then she did something thatshe would do at work if she had
a problem no-transcript 1.
Check the pizza place.
2.
Check the taekwondo place.

(04:16):
3.
Call the police.
4.
Check the gas station acrossthe street.
5.
Check the route to the grocerystore and check inside the
grocery store.
6.
Check the house.
7.
Search the yoga studio again.

(04:36):
On one of their recent hikes,catherine had asked someone
along the trail to take apicture of her and Jack.
She pulled it up on her phoneand zoomed in on his face and
headed to the pizza restaurant.
There were two people workingin there.
She showed both of them thepicture of Jack, asked them if
they had seen him.
They said no.
The same thing happened at theTaekwondo studio.

(04:57):
The police were not veryhelpful.
They told her, if she had notheard from him by morning, to
call them again and they wouldcome talk to her.
The guy working at the gasstation across the street from
the strip mall.
He said he recognized Jack buthe wasn't sure if he had seen
him that night.
He said it was 50-50.
Catherine asked if he couldlook at his security camera

(05:18):
footage and he said the cameraswere broken.
The route to the grocery storewas dark and she didn't see
anybody.
But she wasn't confident.
She would have seen anyone ifthey had been walking down the
side of the road.
When she got to the grocerystore it had already closed.
Back at the house the door wasstill locked and there were no
signs that Jack had been inthere since they'd left.

(05:41):
Catherine called the owner ofthe yoga studio and explained
the current situation.
She was hoping to convince herto drive up and open the yoga
studio again so that she couldgive it a more detailed look
studio again, so that she couldgive it a more detailed look and
to her surprise the studioowner told her where a key was
hidden so that Catherine couldgo in there and walk around and
look on her own.
The key was taped under aflower pot so if you picked it

(06:04):
up you wouldn't see it on theground.
You had to unstick it from thebottom of this flower pot.
Catherine grabbed it and wentback into the yoga studio.
Again, it was a small space.
She checked the yoga room again, the men's locker room, the
women's locker room, thebathroom.
There really wasn't anywherefor anyone to be.

(06:26):
And by this time Catherine wastired, she was upset.
She sat on the bench in theladies' locker room.
She didn't cry, but she heldher face in her hands for a
little bit and then she got outher phone and called Jack.
Again it started ringing, butthis time, when it was ringing
she could hear a phone vibratingsomewhere in the building.

(06:47):
She walked out of the lockerroom.
She couldn't hear the vibratinganymore, so she knew it was
somewhere in the women's lockerroom.
The phone went to voicemail.
She called again.
The vibrating was actuallycoming from above her in the
ceiling, and she justinstinctively called out Jack's

(07:08):
name really loudly.
She heard the weak, muffled cryof a person above her.
Catherine scrambled, looking fora door to an upstairs she
didn't know existed.
There wasn't one.
There wasn't an attic oranything like that.
She walked out of the back doorof the building and there was a
ladder on the side of thebuilding to climb up on the roof
.
On the roof there was like thishatch that was there to give
someone access to the heatingand air system.

(07:29):
And when she opened this hatchshe could look down into the
area above the ceiling and sheimmediately saw two feet hanging
out of an air duct Jack's feet.
She jumped down and she saidJack, and he said I'm stuck.
And she was able to get someleverage and pull him out and he

(07:49):
was coughing and crying and hekept saying he thought he was
going to die.
She got him some water and inall the chaos and the movement,
two phones fell out of hispocket and Catherine picked them
up.
Neither of them were Jack'sphone and he just gave her a
look like we'll talk about thislater, get me out of here.
Then, when they got to her car,he had several other phones in

(08:10):
his pocket, including his own.
He was so jammed into that airvent he couldn't reach his phone
.
He was shaken up but he wasfine.
He kept drinking water andCatherine said Tell me what
happened.
And that's when he broke downand told the truth.
He lost his job and while hewas taking these yoga classes he
noticed that none of thelockers had locks on them and

(08:34):
people would put their phones inthere during class, including
him.
He was putting his phone inthere during class and that gave
him an idea for how to makesome quick cash by stealing and
selling these phones thesephones.
He had started leaving class togo to the bathroom, but he would
actually dip down to the lockerroom.
He would grab a phone out of alocker and then there was an air

(08:56):
conditioning vent and he hadunscrewed the screws so he could
really quickly take the coveroff, put a stolen phone in there
and then put the vent coverback on really quickly, with
plans to come back later and getthem out.
But there was never anopportunity to return and get
them.
So he started trying to thinkof other ways to retrieve them,
and that's when he found theaccess point from the roof and

(09:17):
he was careful with how manyphones he had taken.
Like he didn't take every phone, he took one here and there,
but it had become a topic ofdiscussion at the studio that
people's phones were gettingstolen and that freaked Jack out
.
So he was desperate to get themout of there.
When Catherine had driven Jackup to the yoga studio that night

(09:38):
and dropped him off.
She had no idea that was hisbig night.
While the class was going on hewas going to climb up onto the
roof, climb down into the ductand get the phones that he had
put in there through that vent.
But he got stuck, and who knowsif he would have been found in
time if it weren't for hissister.
What if she hadn't sat thereand made that list?

(09:59):
It could have been awful.
Jack returned the phones andnever went back to the yoga
studio.
He eventually got a new job andmoved out of Catherine's house.
She still views those monthswhen Jack lived with her as some
of the best times they've everhad.
They've since grown apart againand don't speak very much.

(10:22):
Rob Tells Tales is produced byme, rob Tiffin.
Our theme music is by MitchellHardage.
Thank you.