by Ronald Malfi
Too exhausted to shower, he washed his face and hands in the adjoining bathroom, brushed his teeth, popped out his contact lenses, and urinated with the zeal of someone who has just come off a cross-country road trip.
Back in the bedroom, he cracked open both windows just enough to let fresh air in but keep the raging storm at bay. Then he slipped into bed and, lying on his back, laced both hands beneath his head. Moonlight filtering through the windows reflected onto the ceiling; the shadows of raindrops rolled like comets above his head.
Out in the hallway, the floorboards creaked.
Ben held his breath. Listened.
After a moment, he called out, “Dad?” Then he waited for a response, already feeling indescribably foolish.
Five minutes later, sleep claimed him.
Chapter Five
1
The sound of birds woke her. Maggie’s eyes flipped open and, for a moment, disorientation caused her to question her surroundings. Stiffly, she sat up and found herself asleep on the living room floor, surrounded by cushions and pillows. Her husband’s shotgun sat at an angle across her lap.
It all rushed back to her.
Grabbing the barrel of the gun, Maggie stood and wended her way around the scattered pillows and the couch to the back door. Pink dawn pooled into the room from the crescent of glass at the top of the door. The whole house was warm. She realized that all the windows were shut.
Still clutching the shotgun, Maggie staggered into the kitchen and saw that the clock on the microwave read 5:22 a.m. Evan would be home in about an hour.
Back in the hall, she undid the dead bolt on the back door and pulled the door open. Beyond, the sloping lawn glistened in the premature daylight that broke through the valley between the mountains. Tom’s Maverick sat there, also glistening, and looking like a bloody fucking handprint.
Her eyes shifted toward the edge of the property and to the weeping willow tree, heavy with rain and sagging close to the earth. Shadows pooled at its base. She could see nothing incriminating around it.
Daylight made her fear seem less palpable; she stepped down off the steps and into the yard. The wet grass tickled her bare feet. The shotgun pointed dead ahead of her, she circled around the vehicles then went straight to the edge of the property and over to the willow tree.
It was a humped, spidery thing. Its branches, which were typically notched with narrow little leaves, were currently bare. Maggie searched around the base of the tree—the exact spot she thought she’d seen Tom struggling with the pale-skinned creature last night—but there was nothing for her to find.
Was she losing her mind?
“Stop it.” A nervous laugh threatened to erupt from her throat. Not wanting to take her eyes from the willow tree, she walked backwards all the way across the yard to the house. When she reached the patio steps, she cautiously ascended them backwards as well, the gun still aimed at the tree. In her mind’s eyes, she could too easily see that spidery tree uprooting itself from the wet soil and charging toward her on a system of roots like the many legs of an octopus.
Once again, she slammed and locked the door.
Inside, she set the shotgun down on the floor. Then she gathered up the couch cushions and pillows and put them back where they belonged. Tom’s dungaree jacket, still damp from the previous night’s rain, hung over the back of the couch. She stared hard at the tarnished copper buttons and the cigarette burns in the sleeves. A rubber key fob in the shape of a hand with its middle finger extended hung out of one pocket.
Maggie sat down on the couch and considered her situation. After several minutes, she got up and found her cell phone. There were no missed calls, no text messages. Her hands shaking, she managed to dial Tom’s number. With her phone to her ear, she heard Tom’s cell ring over the line. A second later, she heard a chirping sound coming from Tom’s jacket.
Maggie lowered her phone. The jacket continued chirping at her until she hit End on her phone. She went over to the jacket, picked it up, and fished around the pockets. Yes, Tom’s cell phone was in one of the pockets. Just holding it made everything feel too real to her, so she quickly dropped it. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Yes, in the other pocket, the middle finger key fob was attached to a set of keys which included the ignition key to the Maverick.
Tom’s car couldn’t be here when Evan got home. That much was clear.
Examining the keys in her hand, she felt a giddy sense of salvation rush through her like a jolt of adrenaline.
“Okay,” she muttered to herself, stuffing the keys into the pocket of her sweatpants then gathering up Tom’s jacket off the couch. “Okay, okay, okay…”
Back in the kitchen, the microwave clock turned from 5:46 to 5:47.
Barefoot, Maggie hurried out the door and went straight across the yard to Tom’s car. The driver’s door was unlocked, so she yanked it open and slid inside, quickly closing the door behind her. After all, whatever had been out here in the yard last night could still be around. Watching, waiting. Hiding. The thought gave her chills.
She tossed Tom’s jacket into the backseat then, selecting the appropriate key, started up the engine. The car shuddered and roared and she vibrated in the seat. The motor sounded like it belonged on a space shuttle.
Maggie spent a few minutes hunting for the gearshift before she saw that it was on the steering column. She cranked the car into Drive then, spinning the wheel, drove it around the side of the house and down the rutted driveway toward the street. It was still dark so she patted around the dashboard until she found the knob for the headlights. It felt just like the Pontiac’s cigarette lighter. She tugged the knob and the headlights blinked on, cutting through the darkness.
As she pulled onto the street, she turned left and gunned it up the hill. Had she gone right, she would have driven straight into the mountains, where an abandoned vehicle was certain to catch the eye of a vigilant police officer. Instead, she opted to head toward town, where there were always a few cars parked along the side of the road. Who knew? Maybe Tom Schuler would come stumbling out into town only to find his own car here waiting for him. Crazier things have happened, right?
You’re losing your shit, honeypot, said the head-voice. This time, it was so loud Maggie glanced up at the rearview mirror for fear that someone was speaking to her from the backseat. You’re really going bughouse, aren’t you, darling?
She turned left at the first intersection. The street ahead was lined with darkened shops and lampposts that no longer worked. A few cars were parked on either side of the street. Maggie pulled alongside the curb and parked directly behind a battered old station wagon. She cranked the key and shut the car down. It chugged and chugged then finally died.
“There you go,” she said then glanced up at her reflection in the rearview. She looked hideous. “Okay. Fine.”
She climbed quickly from the car, pushing the door closed slowly so that it would latch but wouldn’t slam. Just as the sun began to creep up over the string of darkened buildings, Maggie headed back in the direction of her home. Halfway there, she realized she still had Tom’s car keys in her hands. That problem was soon solved, however, when she pitched them down the next storm drain she came to.
2
Back home, she returned the shotgun and the shells to the basement. Then she took a quick shower and got dressed. She was brushing her hair and smiling warmly when Evan came home from work a few minutes later. Greeting his wife with only a passing glance, he muttered, “You’re up early,” then went immediately to bed.
Chapter Six
1
Ben spent Sunday morning on the phone with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department, trying to convince one of the sheriff’s deputies of the need for warm bodies to help conduct a search for the missing Crawly kid. The deputy, an obstinate bumpkin with a faint lisp, was not too keen on wrangling together a bunch of his guys on a Sunday to wander around the woods looking for a kid who’d probably run away from home and was currently
holed up in some friend’s tree house.
“That may very well be,” Ben assured him, “but on the slim chance that something else has happened to that kid—like maybe he fell out of some friend’s tree house and is lying with his leg or his neck broken somewhere—I think we should get out there and look for him.”
The deputy grunted. “Where’s Harris, anyway?”
“The chief’s on vacation.”
“Leaves you holding the bag, huh?”
Ben frowned at the phone. “We got a nice little diner in town,” Ben went on, unperturbed. “The Belly Barn. I wouldn’t mind treating your men to some good home-style dinner for giving us a hand. Bo makes a helluva meat loaf.”
The deputy sighed. Ben could hear a radio or a television in the background. “Yeah, okay,” he said eventually, more bored than agitated. “How many men you think you need?”
“As many as you can spare,” Ben said. “This way we can get done quicker.”
“What time is it now?”
It was six thirty in the morning. Ben told him so.
“Jesus,” the deputy said. “All right. We’ll be out there around eight o’clock, okay?”
“Great.”
“My name’s Witmark, by the way. George Witmark.”
“Thank you, George.”
“That better be some grade A meat loaf,” Witmark said and hung up.
2
The guys from Cumberland arrived at the station at a quarter till nine—three squad cars with two uniformed officers in each car, the sheriff’s logo emblazoned on each door. George Witmark got out of the first squad car. He was tall and thin, his sunken jowls crosshatched with the remnants of teenage acne. He surveyed the Stillwater police station with something akin to disdain. He had a toothpick wedged in the corner of his mouth.
Ben gave a cursory briefing to the officers in the Batter’s Box then they all headed out to the Crawly house. Ben went to the front door while the other officers waited near their cars, climbing into latex gloves and forester boots. Wendy Crawly was home. She answered the door and the sight of her caused Ben’s capillaries to constrict. She looked like something that had crawled recently from the grave, her face colorless and her hair a frizzy tangle. Sylvia Marsh stood behind Wendy, her plain country face a mask of worry.
“My God,” Wendy said, nearly croaking.
Oh, I am an idiot, he thought, instantly realizing how this must look.
“We haven’t found him,” Ben said quickly, holding out two placating hands. When it looked like Wendy might collapse, Sylvia Marsh came up behind her and slid an arm around her waist. “I didn’t mean to catch you like this. We just wanted to search the property. Is there someplace you could go for a while?”
“We can go to my house,” Sylvia said. The Marshes lived in the next farmhouse over.
Ben thanked her then waited in his car for the two women to leave. They finally came out the front door and walked, arm in arm, up the road to the Marsh house.
The officers searched the property first, including the detached garage. From there, they spread out in four small teams to cover more ground, moving behind the Crawly property and into the Marshes’ cornfield, which separated the two properties. They searched in a gridded fashion, two teams combing the field east to west while the other two teams moved north to south. The entire time, Ben conducted the search with his heart in his throat. A feeling of detachment carried him through much of the morning and well into the afternoon.
By three o’clock, with the men sweating through their uniforms, they had searched the entire cornfield and the surrounding pastures, straight up to the foothills of Haystack Mountain, with no sign of Matthew Crawly. Ben did not know how to feel about this. Of course, he was relieved that they hadn’t found a body…but now he was faced with the increasing mystery of where the boy had gone. They hadn’t even found a scrap of clothing or a goddamn footprint. No evidence whatsoever.
Exhausted, they regrouped in the Crawlys’ backyard just as the sun began to creep behind the peaks of the mountain. Shirley arrived with cheese sandwiches wrapped in cellophane for all the men, a grim expression on her face. The men ate in mutual silence and most of them did not look very hungry. Peeling off his latex gloves and smoking a cigarette, Witmark approached Ben, who sat on the porch steps examining the fresh abrasions on his palms.
“You talked to the mother, right?”
“Sure,” Ben said.
“My guess is they had a fight and the kid will come back once he’s had time to cool off.” Witmark shrugged, as if he dealt with this sort of thing on a weekly basis. For all Ben knew, maybe he did. “You know how kids are.”
Ben nodded and looked back down at his hands.
“Shit,” Witmark went on, a hint of compassion in his voice now. “I remember when I was a kid, I’d have some blowout with my old man and I’d jet out for Lovers’ Leap with a six of Pabst and wouldn’t return till the next morning.”
Ben doubted eleven-year-old Matthew Crawly had cut out for Lovers’ Leap with a six of Pabst under his arm, but he didn’t say anything.
“I got two of my own,” Witmark said. “They’re always storming out of the house.”
Ben felt eyes on his back. He looked over his shoulder and saw a face in one of the downstairs windows, looking out at him. It was Brandy Crawly, Matthew’s sister. Ben hadn’t thought to ask Wendy if her daughter was home.
“Sometimes I think they hate me,” Witmark went on.
Ben glanced at his wristwatch. “You guys in a hurry to get back?”
Witmark shrugged again. He had softened over the matter in the wake of the search.
“Would you and your guys mind following me out to a road on the outskirts of town? There’s some woods out that way I’d like to search, too.”
“It’s like we’re hired help around here,” Witmark commented, a bit of the old obstinacy back in his voice.
“It won’t need to be as involved as this was,” Ben assured him.
“What happened out on this road?”
“Local woman says she hit a boy with her car Friday night, around midnight.”
“Christ, Journell. You didn’t think—”
“We conducted a search of the area but couldn’t find anything. She was confused and scared and I thought maybe she hit a deer. But when I heard about this kid disappearing…”
Witmark nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Lead the way, hoss.”
3
It was closing on five thirty when they decided they were finished out on Full Hill Road. The sun had already set prematurely behind the western mountain and the sky was ribbed with salmon-colored bands of dwindling light. The wind spoke up, gaining courage with the oncoming night. The brown leaves in the trees shook like rattlesnakes and the occasional low moan could be heard slaloming through the valley.
Again, they found no evidence of what had happened to the Crawly boy…or any evidence that Maggie Quedentock had hit anyone with her car out there Friday night, for that matter. Drained and weary, Ben had every intention of keeping his promise about treating the men to a meal at the Belly Barn, but Witmark quickly waved him off. At some point throughout the day, George Witmark had warmed to him…or at least pitied him enough to fake it.
“Don’t worry about dinner,” Witmark said, sucking the life out of another cigarette. Ben guessed he’d gone through an entire pack that day. “My wife wants me home tonight, anyway. You married?”
“No.”
Witmark laughed, his eyes crinkling into sparkling little gems. Ben wasn’t sure what was so funny.
A light rain began to fall as the police officers from Cumberland got back in their cars and dispersed from Full Hill Road. (Before they left, Ben heard one of the officers mutter something about how creepy it was to have the sun set so early. Ben thought the guy looked pleased to be leaving Stillwater behind.) Ben sat on the hood of his car and stared up beyond the trees where stars could already be seen poking through the fabric of the sky.
&n
bsp; Mike Keller joined him on the hood. “I just heard back from the last number on that list you gave me of the Crawly kid’s friends,” Mike said. “No one’s seen him. He hasn’t been staying at any friends’ houses.”
“Yeah, okay. I was beginning to think that was the case, anyway.”
“What now?”
Ben rubbed his forehead. “Contact the staties, have them put out an AMBER Alert. There’s also a contact number for the Baltimore field office of the FBI pinned to that corkboard in Harris’s office. You know the one I’m talking about? You should notify them, too.”
“The FBI?”
“Tell them there’s nothing concrete, but I want them to know that it could be a possible kidnapping.”
“Holy Jesus, Ben! What are you talking about?”
“It’s just something I’ve been thinking. The boy’s father split in the middle of the night a year or so ago. What if he came back just as quietly and took his son?”
“Shit. I didn’t think of that.”
“It’s probably a long shot. But I’m sort of hoping for it, too. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll get right on it.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
“You interested in some dinner? Me and the guys were gonna grab something.”
“Go ahead, I’ll grab something myself.”
“Okay, Sarge.”
Three minutes later, Ben was alone on Full Hill Road, a soft rain pattering down all around him.
He decided to go into town for a quick bite, giving much consideration to stopping in at the Belly Barn for Bo’s meat loaf special after all. But when Crossroads rose up on the side of the road, he pulled into the parking lot without thinking about it, as if on autopilot. Alvin Toops had run the place for the past two and a half decades and, in all that time, nothing much had changed—it was a dark, dank, squalid little pit that practically oozed cigar smoke from the lathing. Country music played in rotation from the wall-mounted juke and the usual suspects were hunched like buzzards over the bar top nursing foamy mugs of beer when Ben walked in. A few of the regulars raised their hands at him and he did the same. He sat at the end of the bar and rubbed his face with his abraded hands.