by Ronald Malfi
There had been nothing newsworthy that had come out since Courtney Cole’s body had been recovered from the woods. No leads were reported in the news, and there had certainly been no arrests. If the police had any suspects in mind, they were keeping their suppositions close to the vest.
I wanted to ask my father about the investigation, since he was one of the lead detectives on the case, but his dour spirit and tired eyes kept me from opening my mouth. Conversely, when he was in a good mood and his laughter came more easily, I was loath to ruin it by asking him morbid questions. So I let it go and remained in the dark just like the rest of the citizens of Harting Farms. And although some people were hopeful that the person responsible for Courtney Cole’s death—not to mention the disappearances of William Demorest, Jeffrey Connor, and Bethany Frost—had moved on, this belief did not seem to quell any concerns or lessen any fears.
My dad parked the car and we all got out. Beneath the three-quarters moon, the limestone on the other side of the fences appeared to radiate with an otherworldly light. A few people bundled in coats sat on lawn chairs, drinking beer or coffee from steaming thermoses. They sat in a rough semicircle around a slight concavity in the gravel where someone had already set up some impressive-looking fireworks. A battery-powered radio in someone’s lap was tuned to a classic-rock station.
When we approached the small crowd, everyone said hello and a few of the older women waved at me. Looking around, I realized I was the only kid. It was a fact that this little fireworks display had always been more for the adults than for the kids, but in years past, a handful of teenagers and even some younger kids had been in attendance. Their absence was like a glaring hole in the fabric of the night, and I felt instantly self-conscious standing here among all my grown-up neighbors.
Mr. Matherson shook my dad’s hand, a bottle of schnapps poking out from the side pocket of his Marlboro Man coat. He smiled at me, though he looked a little surprised to see me.
A man wearing a plaid hunting cap with earflaps, sort of like the one Elmer Fudd wears in the cartoons, came over and handed my dad and grandfather each a cigar. This man had a short and stumpy cigar, its tip glowing reddish orange like the blazing eye of a Cyclops, crooked into the corner of his mouth. “Merry Christmas, Sal,” he said to my dad, squeezing his forearm.
“Hey there, Angie.” It was Mrs. Wilber, seated in one of the lawn chairs. She smiled at me. The Wilbers’ Rottweiler, leashed to the arm of the lawn chair, lifted its head and gazed at me with something disconcertingly like contempt. “We’ve got some doozies this year,” she said, nodding toward the assortment of fireworks in the gravel pit.
“Yeah,” I said. “They look great.”
“How’s school going?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Wonderful, dear.” She unscrewed the cap on her thermos, then poured some dark and steamy liquid into the cap and handed it to me. “Homemade hot chocolate to warm your bones.”
I sipped the drink and knew two things instantly—Mrs. Wilber was drunk, and there was alcohol in the hot chocolate. I grimaced, coughed, and thrust the cup back at her, managing a strangled “thank you” as I did so.
Mrs. Wilber laughed and her Rottweiler glared at me again.
My grandfather sat on one of the large chunks of limestone that protruded from the earth, smoking the cigar the man in the Elmer Fudd hat had given him. He wore a tweed driver’s cap and a heavy chamois coat trimmed in nicotine-yellowed wool. The tip of his cigar blazed beneath the brim of his cap as I approached and climbed up next to him.
“There were more people here last year,” I said. “Kids, too.”
“Well, it’s a particularly cold New Year’s Eve, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
“And people, they have long memories. They’re mostly still . . . worried . . . about things.” He looked at me. “You ain’t worried, are you?”
“No.”
“Good boy.” He took the cigar from his mouth and held it out to me. “Wanna give it a try?”
“Sure!”
“You don’t inhale it like you do cigarettes.”
“I don’t smoke cigarettes.”
“Right.” He winked at me.
I placed the wetted end of the cigar in my mouth, sucked on it until the ember burned a bright red and my mouth filled with smoke, then released it through puckered lips. It tasted like wet newspapers.
“Dad,” my father said, joining us. He tucked his own cigar into the inside pocket of his barn coat.
“What? The boy’s fifteen years old. When I was fifteen, Uncle Sam handed me a rifle and gave me an all-expense vacation to the South Pacific.”
“Give the cigar back to your grandfather.”
“Aw, man,” I groaned, handing it over. “Can you blow smoke rings like they do in the movies?”
“Are you kidding?” My grandfather gave me one of his patented movie-star smiles; according to my grandmother, it was that very smile that had earned him quite a reputation among the ladies when he was younger. “Angelo, I practically invented blowing smoke rings.”
My father laughed more loudly than I thought necessary, and I wondered if some subtle joke had just gone over my head.
After several unsuccessful attempts at blowing smoke rings, my grandfather cocked his driver’s cap back on his head and scrutinized the half-smoked stogie as if it were defective.
Again, my dad laughed, and this time I laughed along with him.
At one minute before midnight, the woman with the radio on her lap cranked up the volume. Mr. Matherson, Mr. Wilber, and the man in the Elmer Fudd hat huddled together like revolutionaries preparing to conspire. They each brought out lighters and flicked them on, casting their faces in a mottled quilt of orange light and pitch-black shadows. I supposed they were deciding who had the best lighter to use for tonight’s display. Both Mr. Matherson and Mr. Wilber tucked their plastic Bics back in their coats while the man in the Elmer Fudd hat, grinning, tapped his long-tipped barbecue lighter against the palm of one hand.
“Here it comes! Get ready!” shouted the woman with the radio.
A Beatles song had just ended, and a disc jockey was preparing to count down the New Year.
The man in the Elmer Fudd hat jogged over to the gravel pit where the fireworks were arranged.
Someone called out, “Don’t set yourself on fire, Fred,” and this was followed by a chorus of laughter.
“Ain’t that the truth?” my grandfather mumbled, leaning close to my ear. “Old Fred there looks like he’s got pure hundred-proof whiskey coursing through his veins. He might go up like a Roman candle.”
“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . ,” the crowd chanted along with the radio announcer.
My father and I chimed in with them, “seven . . . six . . . five . . .”
My grandfather removed his driver’s cap and twirled it around.
“Four . . . three . . .”
Fred was on one knee in the gravel, the flaming tip of the barbecue lighter igniting the wick on a particularly nasty-looking cardboard rocket ship.
“Two . . . one . . . Happy New Year!”
We all cheered and applauded.
My grandfather tugged the driver’s cap down over my ears, stood up off the chunk of limestone, and shouted, “Bravo! Bravo!”
A sparkly asterisk of fire ran the length of the rocket ship’s wick as Fred retreated toward the crowd of onlookers. A moment later, on a cloud of black smoke, the rocket ship launched high into the night sky. I lost sight of it before it even cleared the tops of the trees.
As if reading my mind, my grandfather leaned his shoulder against mine and pointed toward a cluster of bright stars. “There!”
The rocket ship exploded in a dazzle of bright pink, orange, gold, and silver lights that rained down in glittering streamers. On the other side of the chain-link fences, the light show was replicated in miniature on the surface of the muddy black water at the bottom of the quarry.
Th
e next fifteen minutes continued in such a fashion. Once the final set of fireworks had lit up the sky in brilliant colors that left smoky drifts in their wake, my throat was hoarse from cheering, and I was sweating from my excitement despite the cold. The air smelled of sulfur and my grandfather’s cigar smoke.
My dad gripped me around the nape of the neck and tugged me closer to him. He kissed the top of my head and said, “Happy New Year, pal.”
“Happy New Year. Can I go check out the leftovers?”
“Just be careful. They’re still hot.”
I slipped off the limestone and hurried over to the gravel pit, where smoldering black remnants littered the ground. Curls of black cardboard smoked in the gravel. There were coal-colored scorch marks at the base of the white-powdered pit. I touched the arrowhead cupola of the rocket ship firework, a partially melted cone of red plastic, and it was still warm.
When I stood and turned back toward Worth Street, I noticed a pair of headlights speeding down the narrow road through the encroaching trees. Drifts of hazy smoke softened the glow of the headlights. The car came to a jerky halt. I heard rather than saw doors swing open and slam closed. A woman hurried toward the semicircle of lawn chairs, inappropriately dressed in nothing but jeans and a sweatshirt whose front glittered with rhinestones. The woman shouted something and looked terrified. It took me a moment to realize she was yelling my father’s name.
My dad intercepted her halfway across the gravel lot. My grandfather and Mr. Matherson came up beside him. My dad held the woman by the forearms and spoke slowly while looking her directly in the eyes. She appeared stricken, panicked. Her lips were nearly blue.
I rushed over to join them. I had missed the beginning of the conversation and struggled to catch up.
“No, no,” cried the woman, “they’re still there. They called the cops but I knew you were here.”
“Okay. Get back home.” My father turned to Mr. Matherson. “Can you—?”
“Yes, I’ll take them home,” Mr. Matherson jumped in, apparently reading my father’s mind. “Go on, Sal.”
“Go,” my grandfather echoed.
My dad rushed past the frantic woman toward Worth Street and, presumably, his car.
“Dad,” I shouted and took off after him. Both my grandfather and Mr. Matherson called my name, but I ignored them. I reached my dad’s car as he was climbing in the driver’s seat. I opened the passenger door.
“Stay with your grandpa,” he barked.
“I’m coming with you,” I said and slid into the car.
He stared at me for less than a heartbeat. Then, cranking the ignition, he said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
I slammed the door and fastened my seat belt.
My father jerked the car into Drive and gunned the accelerator while spinning the wheel. We carved a sharp circle across the narrow roadway, then headed up Worth Street at a surprisingly quick pace.
“What’s going on?”
“The Ransoms,” said my father. “Their son, Aaron, is missing.”
I knew Aaron Ransom. He lived a few blocks over on Bessel Avenue and went to Stanton School. He was a smallish kid with a blond bowl cut who sometimes skateboarded in the Superstore plaza parking lot with other kids from school. It took me a minute to realize what my father’s statement meant. “What happened?”
“Put your seat belt on.”
“It’s on.”
He increased the speed, the speedometer’s needle climbing toward forty-five through the residential street. Over the treetops at the horizon, more fireworks lit up the night sky. At Haven, my father slowed but didn’t completely stop at the intersection. He hooked a sharp left and sped more or less down the center of the street. The high beams clicked on. I looked at my dad and saw that he was not just watching the road but the shoulders and the dark spaces between the houses.
As we approached Bessel Avenue, he slowed and coasted up the hill, checking the darkened yards of the houses we passed.
“Dad?” I said.
“What is it?”
But I couldn’t think of anything. My throat dried up.
My dad glanced at me, then turned back to the road without saying a word.
There was a single police car in the Ransoms’ driveway, its rack lights ablaze. A few neighbors in heavy coats milled around the front lawn, looking as confused as cattle in a hailstorm.
My father parked at the curb and told me to get out. I did, not wasting a second, and followed him up the lawn.
The front door opened before we reached it, and a man in a gaudy Christmas sweater waved us inside.
My dad marshaled through the doorway, and I trailed close behind him, my head down. I didn’t meet the man’s eyes.
We went through a cluttered family room with walls of ugly wood paneling and into a cramped little kitchen. A youngish police officer in full uniform stood before a woman sitting ramrod straight in one of the chairs at the table. I recognized her only distantly as Aaron Ransom’s mother, since I’d seen her on only a few occasions. Now, she was hardly recognizable as that woman. Dark streaks ran from her eyes and muddied her cheeks. Her hands wrestled with each other in her lap.
She looked up sharply at my dad. When she recognized him, she stood.
The uniformed cop turned toward us, glancing at my dad, then me.
“It’s okay, Rebecca,” my father said, intercepting her and gripping her forearms just as he’d done to the woman in the rhinestone-studded sweatshirt by the quarry only moments ago. He turned to the cop. “We’ve got guys on the way?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get out front and check the nearby yards. Ask some of those people on the front lawn to help you out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And have someone go over to the Torinos’ place for statements.”
The officer nodded, shot another glance at me—Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?—then hurried out.
“What happened, Rebecca?”
She began crying. It was miserable. Her face appeared to collapse straight down the middle, her eyes smeary and indistinct in their sockets.
For the first time I noticed a small black dog under the table. At the sound of Rebecca Ransom’s sobs, the dog became frantic, running around the legs of the table and weaving around the chairs. It barked twice—more squeaks than barks—then fell silent.
My dad backed Rebecca Ransom toward one of the chairs and guided her into it. “Calm down, hon,” he said, his voice impossibly calm. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
I deciphered most of what happened through Rebecca’s erratic retelling: at around ten o’clock, Aaron had gone over to the Torinos’ house for a New Year’s Eve party. She had instructed him to be home immediately after midnight. When he didn’t show up, Rebecca telephoned Mrs. Torino and asked to speak with Aaron. Mrs. Torino informed her that he had never shown up. That was when Rebecca had called the police.
“Was he on his bike?” my father asked.
“No. He was taking over a rum cake and he walked. Oh, Jesus . . .”
“Did you tell all this to the officer who was here?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sending someone to sit with you.” He turned toward me. “Come on, Angelo.”
I followed him through the house and out the door. More people had gathered in the street and on the neighbors’ lawns, some of them carrying flashlights. The uniformed cop was speaking to a group of them, pointing in various directions around the neighborhood.
As my dad and I crossed the lawn to join them, two more police cars slid up Bessel Avenue, lights and sirens whirling. My dad paused by the Ransoms’ mailbox and flipped back the flap of his barn coat. He took his handgun from the waistband of his jeans, jerked the slide, and stuck it back in his pants. When his eyes met mine, there was a confused mix of compassion, sorrow, and angst in them. Yet on the surface he remained calm.
All of a sudden, and to my great horror, I found that I was close to tears.
&
nbsp; “It’s okay,” said my father in a calming voice. “You stick close to me. Right on my heels.”
Numb, I nodded.
My father hurried into the street. He approached one of the police cars that had just pulled up and spoke to the officer behind the wheel. The officer handed him what looked like a trucker’s CB radio handset. My dad brought it up to his mouth, keyed the button. When he spoke, his voice was transmitted over a loudspeaker hidden among the rack of lights on the roof of the car.
“We’re looking for Aaron Ransom,” he addressed the crowd. “Everyone, fan out. Check the streets and make your way through yards. If you see any neighbors, have them turn on all outdoor lights—floodlights, porch lights, anything. Four groups, searching north, south, east, west. You’ll each have an officer leading the group. Stay with your group. No one should go off by themselves.”
He looked out over the crowd, perhaps gauging the frightened and aggressive faces, then added, “Don’t take any weapons. If you’ve got a handgun, leave it at home.” He tossed the handset back in through the open driver’s side window.
“What do we do?” I asked him when he faced me.
“Head up Bessel toward the Torinos’ house,” said my dad, already moving up the block. I hurried after him. Several neighbors joined us, the beams of their flashlights crisscrossing the night. Everyone jumped as more fireworks exploded over the horizon.
A woman shouted up ahead. A crowd gathered around her, and some of the men waved at us. One of the police cruisers drifted toward them, and several men—my father included—broke out into a run. I ran after them, my face burning.
My dad stopped when he reached the crowd. They stood in a semicircle around something in the street. As soon as I realized this, I felt my legs stiffen up. My heart was jackhammering. Shoulders thumped by me, jostling me as I slowed to a near standstill in the middle of Bessel Avenue. Up and down the block, porch lights came on.