“No!” her mother shouts. She leans down toward her daughter. “Stop, Melissa.” She looks back at the man who is grimacing. “I’ll take care of this. Don’t make him any angrier.”
Melissa stands stock still as the man walks up to her mother and grabs her hand, much more roughly this time. He looks around, searching for something, and his eyes come to rest on a whitewashed boulder by the path. He pulls Cassie down so she’s standing at an awkward angle above the boulder. From his pocket he removes a surgical scalpel. Making a clean incision across her fingertip, he leans forward and begins to write on the boulder in her blood. Only a few feet away, Melissa’s hands clench and unclench as he works.
“Mom?” Her voice trembles.
When his work is finished, the man drags Cassie along the path. Melissa scans the area, looking for help. She turns to find her mother and her captor moving along the path, away from her. As she debates whether to simply run away, a hand grabs her arm. She looks into the face of a man who has just come out of the trees; he seems almost amused.
As she’s hustled away, Melissa catches sight of the numbers written on the rock in her mother’s blood:
4-5-1
*
I watched the news that night. I’d realized that turning off the parade of old comfortable TV shows was good for me. I could get lost in shows that I’d watched as a kid and disappear down the rabbit hole, never to return. The Trade Center though mentioned often, had receded father into the background than it had when I’d been in Manhattan. Now all the emphasis was on Afghanistan itself and the new war. I watched with a strange detachment; getting Bin Laden was everyone’s dream but I knew it wouldn’t change what had happened to all of us.
I watched for a while, feeling vaguely uneasy. Finally they came to the domestic news. Most of it was pretty standard and didn’t catch my attention. But then there was one item that reminded me of a news story I’d seen a few weeks before.
Tonight, police are searching for Cassie Jenz and her daughter Melissa. They were reported missing yesterday following a trip to Reisler Park in Rockland County. A search revealed one of Melissa’s sweaters in some bushes just off the main path in the south end of the park. On a nearby rock the numbers 4-5-1 were found written in blood.
Jenz had been a fugitive for the past few weeks, leaving home with her daughter in violation of a court order. There have been allegations that Jenz's husband, Paul, had been sexually abusing their ten year old daughter.
Police are considering a connection with the disappearance of Sally Brodman several weeks ago. Like Brodman, Jenz was abducted and the numbers 4-5-1 found written in blood at the scene.
We spoke to John Peltier of the Pauling police force:
The screen cut to what looked like a rumpled looking police detective. We’ve been considering the possible meaning of the 4-5-1 message. We are hoping this will give us some insight into the motive for these disappearances. At the moment we have no leads.
I had stopped drinking for at least a minute. I stared at the screen as they returned to the studio, wrapping up the story.
Then I turned off the set, not wanting to hear any more. It seemed there was no end to bizarre events in the world. We had a new serial killer.
Chapter Five
What I woke up with the next day couldn’t be simply termed a hangover. It was a beast, part alcohol, part percussion. It took me a good five minutes before I felt that I could really navigate the floor. Like any good drinker, I’ve always known that a gallon of water is the answer to every potential hangover, but sleep seemed the only option once I’d had enough to drink.
It occurred to me that this particular kind of pain wasn’t just the result of drinking. I had fallen a few times since I’d come to chez Moosehead, but those falls I had remembered, or at least I think I did. In this case I didn’t remember falling, though what I did remember past a certain point was negligible. I suspected that I’d hurt myself the night before.
I surveyed the damage in the bathroom mirror, and saw a bruise over my eye. I grunted, feeling every inch an idiot. Of course, no one can really see a fall coming, especially when drunk.
I went to the couch and explored my bruise. I knew that it would most likely spread to my eye, making it look like I’d been in a fight. I considered that that was more acceptable than a drunk who simply fell down. So there I was, watching the same bad TV I’d been watching for weeks and wondering when my head would calm down enough for me to take a nap, when the phone rang. I debated ignoring it, thinking it might be Barbara, checking up on the idiot, but I managed to stumble up off the couch and catch it on the third ring.
And there was the voice that seemed to have started it all, saying the same one word.
“Mike”.
This time I knew who she was. “Elena".
She laughed. “I’m still memorable.”
` “And always will be.”
“You sound like shit, Mike.”
“You’d have to see me to understand.”
“I’m not sure I want to.”
Something clicked through the fog in my head. “How did you get this number?”
“I called your job and told them I was your cousin and that our other cousin was sick. I think I got switched around through six people before someone gave me the number. I think her name was Anne.”
“Oh. It would be Anne.” I smiled. Anne seemed a thousand miles away.
“Why did you leave, Mike?” Her voice softened.
“Circumstances.” I rubbed my face, being careful to stay away from my eye.
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with the World Trade Center, would it?”
“That has something to do with it,” I snapped; sitting there with my head throbbing, I didn’t want to be prodded for information.
“God, I’m sorry. Did you lose someone?”
“No. Just…I was affected by it. I was in the subway when it happened.” I was getting tired of telling people that.
“Are you okay?”
“Nothing that some aspirin wouldn’t fix.”
She giggled. “Well I can understand that. Did you find a bar of your own up there?”
“Not yet. Where are you? Are you okay?”
“Sort of. I’m safe and I don’t want to stay on the phone too long. I have another favor to ask of you."
I thought about my bank book and its dwindling balance and then felt like shit; Elena needed money more than I did. “Whatever you need.”
“Always my sweet Mike. It’s not money this time. It’s a little more serious.”
“Okay.” I started feeling uneasy.
“This is really asking a lot. I don’t know how to come out and ask but a friend of mine is doing sort of the same thing I am. She has the same type of husband. She’s near you and I feel like an asshole asking this, but can she stay there? It would only be two nights at most and no one knows where she’s going. In fact she’s going to run now and I’m going to call her on her cell phone and tell her where to go. She won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
I felt a twinge in my head and realized I wasn’t in prime shape for making decisions. Something told me to say no, but I knew that I couldn’t. “I guess so. When would she come?” I knew there were questions I should have asked but I found it hard for my mind to focus.
“Sometime tonight, you can understand that I can’t be exact. She has nowhere else to go. At least for now.”
“And where will she go after she leaves here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. She’ll find out.”
Shit. This wasn’t what I needed. And yet this strange woman needed more than I did at the moment. “Okay.”
She paused. “I’m sorry, Mike. All I ever seem to bring you is trouble.”
“This is important. I understand that.”
“I’m sorry, Mike. Maybe in a few years we might see each other again.”
I let us both pretend for the moment and told her where I lived.
/> *
After a nap of a couple of hours I woke to realize that people were coming to my house. Looking around the living room at the piles of garbage that had accumulated, I knew that I couldn’t leave things as they were.
I drank about three glasses of water in a gulp, hoping it would help my raging headache and make me seem less like an alcoholic. I took stock; there was no food in the house, no toiletries and, most immediately important, no garbage bags. Driving with a hangover was not fun, but I managed to keep down what little was in my stomach long enough to shop for an hour and come back with what I needed.
Cleanup was grueling. The movement of my head up and down made me queasy and my eye ached where the floor or the coffee table had done its best work. Somehow I managed to get myself through the next few hours and made the place look relatively clean. It would look ugly no matter what I did, short of razing the building and starting over. But at least I wouldn’t scare whatever little kid might be sleeping in my house.
By 6:30 things looked relatively decent and I gave thanks that my houseguests hadn’t arrived yet. As it turned out it would be closer to 11:15 before they did arrive. I had passed out on the couch when I was awakened by the sound of a car coming up the driveway. For some reason the word SHOWTIME popped into my head.
It was an SUV which seemed to make sense to me, a housewife driving a housewife’s vehicle. The lights turned off and there was an ominous silence as I waited for the doors to open. Finally I saw movement; two figures, one adult, one clearly not. The adult shadow leaned into the back seat and removed two bags. Then they moved towards the house. I felt a strange sensation in my gut like I was watching the arrival of alien creatures.
As they walked up to the porch their faces were suddenly bathed in light; the shadows resolved themselves into two perfect examples of normal run of the mill genus homo, both female. I watched in fascination as the mother rang the bell.
I opened the door slowly, trying not to spook them. I had expected bruises or at least a crazed look in the mother’s eyes but she seemed relatively normal. She graced me with a wan smile. “Mike?”
“You’re Elena’s friend,” I said, establishing that I was who she thought I was.
“Yes. I’m Eileen. And this is Megan.”
I watched the little girl for a beat. There was a nervous set to her jaw and she made a show of surveying the room around us looking for ... an image of instruments of torture went through my mind. I’d have to prove myself. “Nice to meet you Megan.” I heard my voice and realized that I was using the usual patronizing tone adults used on children. I changed the way I spoke. “Why don’t you come in Megan?”
Megan said nothing. Her mother hesitated. “Could we just put these here,” she said pointing to her bags. “I have some more stuff in the trunk.”
“Do you need help?”
“Um…I guess that would make things go faster.” She took her daughter’s hand and ducked back down the porch steps before I could say anything else. Was she relieved to be getting away from the house so soon after arriving? Before I knew it I was out into the cold looking into the back of her SUV and doing the manly lift and grunt thing. As I passed her, I found her studying me again. I supposed that if I didn’t suddenly leer at her, I might pass the test.
Despite the obvious reasons for her nervousness, I found myself feeling resentment. This was my house that she was coming to. We were getting off to a great start.
The light was better in the house than it had been on the porch. I caught both of them looking at my eye. It hit me that that might be part of the reason for Eileen’s reaction to me and I felt less self-righteous and immediately stupider. I smiled trying to lighten the effect of what must have been becoming a major black eye.
I showed them to the guest bedroom which sported a ratty pullout couch. “Is this going to be big enough for you two?” I asked, embarrassed. “You can have my bed if you want.”
“No. That wouldn’t be right. We’ll be fine in here.”
I looked dubiously at the bed and wondered if they’d sleep close to each other for comfort. The thought depressed me. Then I felt stupid standing there watching them stand politely, waiting for me to leave. “Um, why don’t you put your things away? Come out and we’ll see what we have to eat. I suppose you’re hungry.”
“Are you hungry Megan?” Eileen asked. We stood waiting for an answer but it seemed as though Megan wasn’t big on providing information; she stared at her mother’s dress and said nothing.
“I’ll just give you a moment,” I told them.
Back in the kitchen I began looking at what I’d bought and wondered what little girls ate. I had never had to think along those lines before and it seemed like it should somehow be obvious. I’d grown up with a sister and I was sure she must have eaten sometime during her childhood but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what. I did my best to ignore the muffled sounds of argument coming from the guest bedroom. Whatever was bothering her, it was clear Megan wasn’t happy. I felt a wrench in my stomach as it dawned on me suddenly that I might have done the wrong thing to take them in; for all I knew Megan missed her father and Eileen was lying about the abuse to get the upper hand. I had no idea how well Elena knew them.
When they finally came into the kitchen, fifteen minutes later, I looked at them with suspicious eyes. While Eileen looked through my meager larder, I searched for some wrongness about them: an odd look, some dementia in the eyes, or a meaningful gesture from the child. Though Megan seemed clearly unhappy, they looked to me to be a normal mother and daughter, fully in tune with each other. How would a liar act? I asked myself.
“I want spaghetti, mommy!” Megan shouted. Both her mother and I jumped at the noise.
“That’s good, Megan,” I told her. “But that’s one of the many things I don’t know how to make.”
“I can do that,” Eileen volunteered.
“No. It’ll give me some experience. I need the practice”.
Megan giggled and whispered in her mother’s ear. Eileen nodded. “Megan wants to know why you can’t make spaghetti.” She smiled. Then Megan pulled her mother down again and whispered some more. Her mother blanched. “No, Megan. We won’t talk about that.”
I knew what it was. “She can ask. Someone tried to pick a fight with me. Actually I think it was the coffee table.”
This made Megan laugh for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. I decided that I would play it down. “Megan, what you don’t know is that making spaghetti is something that only smart people can do. I’m not that smart. But I guess you know how to make it.” She nodded. “Would you like to make it, Megan?” I asked her.
She giggled again. Then she got up and began to cook. I got down a can of sauce and left it on the counter.
Eileen smiled, awkwardly “So Elena tells me you’ve given up on New York.”
“I guess so. I think we’ve kind of given up on each other.”
“I guess you were down there on 9/11.”
9/11. I had come to hate that term; it was such a cavalier popular rendering of a disaster that I couldn’t stand it. But I didn’t let her know that. “Yeah, I was stuck in the subway for a while.”
She gave me a quizzical look and decided not to prod any further. “Are you up here for good?”
“For the moment, I’ve pretty much changed my whole life and I can’t really see where it’ll all go. But…”
She nodded. Certainly she was jumping off of a bigger cliff than I was; it stood to reason she’d understand. I watched her eyes turn inward for a second, clearly having some kind of inner debate. “I’ve imposed on you, Mike and - no please let me finish. I feel that I have to give you some idea of what you’ve gotten yourself into and why I’m here. To be honest I don’t feel very comfortable about this.”
Neither do I, I wanted to say. She had spoken softly as though minimizing the emphasis of her words for her daughter. I played along as best I could, though I wondered who she thought she’d be
fooling.
“I made my decision,” I said reassuringly, cutting off her explanation. “You’re here because I want you to be here. We can leave it at that, okay?” And you’ll be out of here in couple of days, I added, again, purely in my own head.
She looked down at the floor and smiled. “Thanks Mike.”
Without preamble I brought out a bottle of wine I’d bought. It seemed very companionable on the surface, but actually gave me the chance to drink. “This is very good. From the south side of the slopes. An excellent year.” I placed it before her and watched as her eyes shifted from serious to amused; it was a popular jug wine.
“Should we let it breath?” she asked, taking her part in the game.
“It might improve the nose. And bring out the nutty highlights and vanilla sub notes.”
She laughed and it was a pleasant sight to see her face flush. It occurred to me that Eileen might be one of those women who seemed attractive but ordinary at first and then started to shift into high gear; I’d met women like that before. I poured two drinks, using my best jelly glasses. “No stems,” I told her. “It ruins the tannin.”
“I think I read that in a magazine.”
As we sipped I caught Megan watching us out of the corner of my eye; she seemed fascinated by the exchange. I raised my glass in salute. “To letting it all go,” I toasted.
“As best as we can.” She drained her glass and placed it in front of me, asking for another.
The bottle was half gone when Megan announced that dinner was ready. I helped her bring the plates to the table and got her some grape juice. “Do you like this?” I asked her.
She nodded and kept looking at me as if I held the answer to some mysterious aspect of her existence. We ate in mostly awkward silence punctuated by my occasional attempt to draw Megan out in conversation. I wasn’t very successful.
Eventually Mom got sick of Megan’s behavior. “Mike is talking to you, Megan.”
She looked at her mother for a moment and then began to hum. I was reminded of a weekend with my sister and her kids many years ago. Jeff Jr. had not wanted me to be there because it robbed him of a weekend of baseball. At the age of seven he didn’t have much recourse except to be hostile. He’d spent most of the weekend humming the theme song to one of his children’s programs, over and over. I suppose he might have watched his mother grind her husband down and had taken it up as a promising tactic. By the third day I hated the little shit and I suggested, not too nicely, that maybe he didn’t really need to spend the whole weekend with Uncle Mike. Once he returned to the baseball diamond down the street, things got much better.
The Railroad Page 7