Down the Rabbit Hole

by Peter Abrahams

“No comedies.”

  “Oh.” Comedy was the best ilk of all. “How about movies?” Ingrid said. “Jill was in Tongue and Groove with Will Smith and Eugene Levy.”

  “Missed that one,” Vincent said. “I had a small role, long ago.”

  “Yeah? In what?”

  “Nothing worth mentioning.”

  “Maybe it’s at Blockbuster.”

  “No,” said Vincent. “It’s not.” He pulled over, stopped the car. “Three thirty-seven Packer Street,” he said. “Your place.”

  Ingrid looked out. The house, two doors down from Kate’s, was dark, not one light shining inside. But all the streetlights had been fixed since the murder. They illuminated the FOR SALE sign on the scrubby patch of lawn—RIVERBEND PROPERTIES.

  “Looks like no one’s home,” Vincent said.

  “They’ll be back soon,” said Ingrid.

  “Just the three of you?” Vincent said.

  “And my brother Ty.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Fifteen.”

  Vincent gazed at the house. “Have you got a key?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see it’s for sale.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Your mother’s a real-estate agent?”

  “Yes.”

  “So that must be her company,” said Vincent. “Riverbend.”

  Uh-oh. Ingrid saw a possibly tricky situation lurking in the future, namely Vincent and Mom doing some bed-and-breakfast deal together. How about saying it wasn’t Mom’s company? Dumb, essence of. Was there ever an agent in the whole history of real estate, going back to grass huts, who’d listed her own house with someone else? “She’s with Riverbend all right,” Ingrid said. “But they don’t do bed-and-breakfasts.”

  “Really?” he said, slowing the word down the same way that in the audition he’d changed the meaning of the Mad Hatter’s line about not having the slightest idea. “I wonder why not.”

  “It’s not a bed-and-breakfast kind of town.”

  “Funny,” said Vincent, “with the falls and the jazz barge in the summer, I’d have thought…” He turned to her. “What does your father do?”

  “He’s a financial adviser for Mr. Ferrand.”

  “Chloe’s father?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Small world.”

  Ingrid opened the door. “Thanks for the drive, Mr. Dunn.”

  “Vincent, please. And you’re entirely welcome. I’ll just watch to make sure you get in safely.”

  “That’s all right,” said Ingrid. “I’m fine.”

  “It’s no problem,” Vincent said. “The street is rather dark.”

  Not really, with the lights fixed, but Ingrid didn’t argue. She got out of the car and walked to the front door of 337. There were three brass keys on the ring, all pretty similar, Ingrid tried one in the lock. No dice. Then the second, which also didn’t work. Fumbling now for the third, she felt Vincent’s eyes on her back, read the obvious thought: How come she’s having so much trouble getting into her own house?

  Key number three. Presto, like in a fairy tale, where everything came in threes. Ingrid let herself into 337 Packer Street, turned with a little wave, and closed the door. She heard the car drive off.

  Other than that, nothing. The house was silent.

  I’m home. A little shudder went through Ingrid when that thought popped unbidden into her mind.

  Light leaked in from the street through one of those fan-shaped windows above the door. Ingrid saw she was in a small dark-wood paneled entry, bare of decoration or furniture. Two doors faced her, both painted black, identical. Eat me, she thought, drink me, and randomly tried one of the keys in the right-hand door.

  The key turned. Ingrid opened the door, saw a staircase leading down into darkness. Basement apartment. This was it. She went down, slow and silent.

  At the bottom she stood and listened, heard nothing, nothing human, like breathing, sighing, snoring, nothing from the machine world, like a humming fridge, rumbling furnace, or TV talk. The apartment was cold and empty, its occupants in the hoosegow. There was nothing to fear. She found a light switch and flicked it.

  A single light went on, shining from a naked bulb in a bracket on the far wall. The main room of the basement apartment had nothing in it but a small unplugged fridge and a strange mobile suspended from the ceiling, made of balled-up and twisted audiotape and resembling a full-size hanged man. Who had made it? Why?

  Off the main room was a tiny bathroom, completely empty except for a bad smell, and a narrow bedroom containing two iron bedsteads with nothing on their springs but green plastic garbage bags, one on each.

  Ingrid opened them up, both packed with clothes. She dumped them out on the floor and searched through, one at a time. Albert Morales—she knew which bag was his because the first thing she saw was a Midas Muffler work shirt with ALBERT stitched on the pocket—had left behind three pairs of shoes: stinking green flip-flops, scuffed and cracked black tie shoes with worn heels, and dark yellow loafers with pointy toes and tarnished buckles. Lon Stingley had only a pair of felt slippers, very wide, probably because of his club foot. No Adidas with green paint spatters, no sneakers of any kind. Ingrid checked everywhere—under the beds, in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, behind the toilet. There was nowhere else. The apartment didn’t even have closets. No Adidas sneakers, absolutely for sure. Albert Morales and Lon Stingley were innocent—innocent of the break-in, and if Chief Strade was right about the connection between the break-in and the murder, innocent of that too.

  Ingrid knew she couldn’t let them stay in jail. But how to get them out? It was all so convoluted now, all so twisted around. Would anyone even believe her? Would she just end up looking like a crackpot, already a convicted math cheat, totally without credibility? And it was way worse than that. Chief Strade knew there’d been tampering and believed that the tamperer could have set up Morales and Stingley or even done the murder. The truth hit her, the very dangerous truth: She had set herself up. Maybe the chief was a hard-ass after all, an unjust one like Ms. Groome. Anything could happen in a trial. Innocent people were in jail right now. And she wasn’t even innocent: Tampering with evidence was a crime, crossing police lines was a crime, breaking and entering was a crime; and there were probably more. What would a jury think? A jury. A trial. Oh my God.

  Who could she tell? Mom? Could Mom take it? She might actually have a heart attack. Dad? How embarrassed Dad would be in front of Mr. Ferrand, the contrast between the two daughters set in stone for all time. Ty? Forget it. Grampy? She already knew what he would say—mouth shut, head down, deny everything. Stacy? What was the point of that? Stacy was a kid, just like her, with no power in the big world. She stared at the audiotape man, hanging perfectly still. That last line of poetry Mom had recited came back to her. “I say that we are wound with mercy, round and round.” Ingrid wanted to buy that idea, that she could blurt it all out and then sink into the merciful arms of others, but she just didn’t believe it. It was practically babyish.

  There was only one solution. She would have to—

  A noise came from upstairs: a loud metal clang that shook the house. Ingrid froze and, in the heart-stopping moment that followed, made a vow to herself: I’m never breaking in anywhere again, key or no key. My nerves just can’t take it. Then came a series of clangs, getting softer and softer and finally dying out. It was only an air bubble in the heating system, or some other technical thing like that. She started breathing again.

  Ingrid repacked the plastic bags, shut off the light, went upstairs, and let herself out of 337 Packer Street. There was no one around, just a few cars parked by the curb and a raccoon scuttling through the gutter. Ingrid walked around the house, crossed the alley, and entered the woods. This time it really was just like day except for the darkness, her path clear and unambiguous all the way home. She zoomed. Griddie, the night stalker.

  The garage door was open, only the TT inside. Ingrid went into the kitchen.
No one there except Nigel, who saw her and thumped his tail on the floor but otherwise made no movement. She went into the mudroom, hung up her jacket. The door to the basement was open and she heard Dad: “Come on, one more, push, push, push, come on now—PUSH.”

  Ty let out a furious grunt.

  Ingrid went downstairs. She realized she loved 99 Maple Lane, everything about it.

  “Hi,” she said. “What’s happening?”

  They both looked at her: Ty on his back on the bench press with a surprising amount of weight on the bar, Dad at the head of the bench where the safety stood.

  “Bobby Moran broke his arm in practice,” Dad said. “Ty’s starting next game.”

  “Even after that flea-flicker fiasco?” Ingrid said.

  They both gave her a mean look, the identical mean look, a gene Grampy probably had too, and other Hill men all the way back to some knuckle-dragging patriarch. It was kind of funny. Ingrid went upstairs, heated Ta Tung leftovers, opened an ice-cold Fresca, sat at the table.

  The outside lights were off, making her reflection in the window very clear. Because of the window’s angle in the nook, this wasn’t her usual mirrored self but something a little different, maybe the way others saw her. She looked older, for a moment even imagined she was seeing the adult Ingrid, her face harder and determined, a formidable person. Yeah, right.

  But something about her reflection prompted Ingrid to finish the thought that had been interrupted by the air bubble clang at 337 Packer Street. A big thought, probably the biggest of her life: She was going to have to solve this case—the murder of Cracked-Up Katie—herself. There was no other way.

  Mom came in, the two vertical lines on her forehead very deep.

  “Oh, good,” she said. “You’re home. Sorry I got tied up.”

  “No problem.”

  “Is Dad here?”

  “Downstairs with Ty.” Mom’s forehead lines got shallower, almost completely smoothing over. “He’s starting,” Ingrid added.

  “He is?”

  “The coach has Alzheimer’s.”

  “Ingrid!” Mom said, but she was smiling at the same time. She threw her coat on the chair next to Ingrid, kicked off her shoes, slid her feet into the sheepskin slippers, wriggled her toes.

  “Who drove you home?”

  “Vincent.”

  “Who’s Vincent?”

  “The Mad Hatter.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Nice.”

  Mom went into the pantry, started eating something crunchy, crackers or potato chips. “I hope you thanked him.”

  “Of course,” Ingrid said. She took out the keys to 337 Packer Street and slipped them into Mom’s coat pocket.

  seventeen

  “INGRID. TIME TO get up.”

  Ingrid opened her eyes and knew right away she’d had a good sleep. She didn’t feel the slightest bit tired, unlike every other school morning since she couldn’t remember when. What had happened last night? Ta Tung leftovers, chitchat with Mom, zip zip through her homework, of which there hadn’t been much, thank the Lord, and early to bed, Alice script in hand. But she didn’t remember reading any of it, must have gone right to sleep. She felt great.

  Mom, already dressed for work, sticking a pearl earring in her earlobe, opened her door. “Ingrid? You awake?”

  “I feel sick,” Ingrid said.

  “Sick?” said Mom, stepping into the room. “What kind of sick?”

  “In general,” Ingrid said, and realizing she sounded rather perky and energetic, added in a more subdued tone, “just not very well.”

  “How not well?” Mom said, coming to the side of the bed.

  “Hard to describe,” Ingrid said.

  “Take off the appliance,” Mom said.

  My God! She’d remembered to put it on. Ingrid knew that was going to be a big help in terms of whatever happened next, even though she could see no logical connection.

  Mom reached out, laid her palm on Ingrid’s forehead. So gentle. Mom loved her, with a huge basic love that asked for hardly anything in return. Ingrid felt bad, tricking her like this, but what choice did she have?

  “You do feel a little warm,” Mom said.

  Wow. The power of suggestion. Maybe everything human ended up being subjective and nothing could be known for sure. Ingrid didn’t know whether that was good or bad, but Sherlock Holmes would have hated the thought, and she had to get in line. Wasn’t the whole point to find out exactly what had happened to Cracked-Up Katie, without uncertainty or subjectivity? That was number one. At the same time, she had to outmaneuver Ms. Groome till the end of the year so she could stay on the calculus track—number two; while playing soccer to win right through to the play-offs and the championship game—number three; plus give a performance of Alice that would blow them all away—number four. There: her life on a platter. And that was leaving out Joey.

  “Ingrid? Are you in pain?”

  “No.”

  “You had a strange look in your eyes.”

  “No pain, Mom. It’s just…the fever.”

  Mom removed her hand. Keep it there, Mom, a bit longer. But Ingrid squashed that thought. She was thirteen years old, for God’s sake.

  “I guess you’d better stay home,” Mom said.

  “I guess,” said Ingrid.

  Ty, a towel around his waist, his chest and abs starting to look like something out of the Abercrombie catalog—although the effect was undermined by the blood seeping unnoticed from a cut on his chin—stuck his head in the room. “She’s staying home?”

  “The name is Ingrid,” said Ingrid; the ugliest name in creation, but her own.

  “How come she gets to stay home?” said Ty.

  “Your sister’s running a little fever,” said Mom. “And you’re bleeding.”

  “Huh?” said Ty. He touched his face, stared at the blood on his fingers. “Those blades suck,” he said. “Can’t you get me better blades?”

  “But they’re the ones your father uses,” Mom said.

  “They suck,” said Ty, and went off down the hall.

  Hey. Ty had a bunch of pimples on his back even though he’d always been one of those lucky acne-free kids. And all those muscles. Whoa.

  Mom turned back to her, gave a little shudder.

  Hang in there, Mom.

  “I’ll get you some Advil,” Mom said.

  “That’s all right.”

  Mom shook her head. “Bring down that fever,” she said.

  Mom went off for the Advil. Ty came in, buttoning his shirt, a scrap of toilet paper on his cut, white with a red circle in the center, like the flag of Japan.

  “You’re faking, right?” he said.

  “Mister Cynic,” said Ingrid.

  “You’re such a dork,” said Ty.

  Ingrid gazed at him. The punch-in-the-eye episode: She was getting new glimmerings about the cause of that, glimmerings she didn’t like at all.

  “Is that look supposed to scare me or something?” Ty said.

  Would he do something that dumb? Probably. Anyone who’d fall for the flea-flicker twice was capable of idiocy across a broad range. The opposing coaches for the next game would be studying the films. They’d spring the flea-flicker again the moment they saw good ol’ number 19 out there.

  “What’s that stupid smile about?” Ty said.

  If only she could see into her own future the way she could see into his.

  Mom and Ty left soon after. Dad came up a little later, buttoning a button on the sleeve of his suit jacket; Dad actually had suit jackets with buttons that worked.

  “On the DL today?” he said.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He rumpled her hair. “Got a game on Saturday?”

  “Yup.”

  “Plenty of time to get better.”

  “I’ll be better way before that, Dad. Like tomorrow.”

  “Good girl.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you kno
w Philip Prescott?”

  “Actually know him? No. I might have seem him once or twice, but I was just a kid when he took off, like I said.”

  “How old was he?”

  “In his twenties, I’d say.”

  “And he was the last one?”

  “Yup.”

  “What happened to his parents?”

  Dad rubbed his chin, a chin much like Ty’s but not bleeding. In fact, Ty’s face was starting to resemble Dad’s, just not nearly as good-looking. “Something not good, I think,” Dad said. “I don’t recall. They ran out of gas, the whole family. It happens. Why do you ask?”

  Ingrid shrugged. “Just curious.”

  Dad rumpled her hair again. “Remember that cat.”

  Cat! My God! What had happened to that huge cat of Kate’s? And what was wrong with her, only thinking of that now?

  Dad gave her a puzzled look. “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “The cat that curiosity killed, I’m talking about,” Dad said. “Don’t you know that expression?”

  Twenty minutes later he was gone too. Ingrid got up, had a quick shower, dressed, and went into the garage, MapQuest printout tucked in her pocket. Her bike, a Univega mountain bike, red of course, with fat knobby tires and twenty-three gears, of which she used one, stood against the back wall. Ingrid brushed off a few cobwebs, got on, and pedaled down Maple Lane.

  Not a bad day for biking—no wind, the sky pale blue. A little on the cold side, though. Ingrid kind of wished she’d put on gloves. She turned right on Avondale, left on Nathan Hale, right on Main. Ahead lay Starbucks—the new Starbucks, Echo Falls now having two—Harrow’s Fine Men’s Clothing, Championship Sports, and yes! The Echo. THE CENTRAL VALLEY’S SECOND OLDEST NEWSPAPER, read the gold-leaf letters on the plate-glass window: ESTABLISHED 1896—THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT. Ingrid locked her bike to a lamppost, one of those old-fashioned black ones they had on Main Street, turned toward the door of The Echo, and saw a dog trotting up behind her, a dog who looked something like—

  Nigel.

  Oh my God. He must have gotten into the garage, followed her the whole way. His tongue hung out, all floppy and absurdly big, hand-towel size, and he was panting like crazy.