Lock and Key: The Gadwall Incident

by Ridley Pearson

  “Perfect,” I said. “What’s next?”

  “Off you go,” the officer said. “I’ll show you out.”

  James exhaled in a fashion that would have impressed the Big Bad Wolf. The officer heard him and grinned.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m glad you feel that way.”

  “So . . . grateful,” James muttered.

  “Me, too,” I said, though a little too cheerily, perhaps.

  The hallway looked like any business office. Nothing like television. It was quiet with a few uniformed officers at computers. That was all: the inside of a cop shop. What a letdown!

  We rounded a corner and the woman used an ID card on a retractable string hooked to her belt to unlock the door. We stepped into the reception area.

  The Stranger stood there waiting for us.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE STRANGER WALKED US TO THE TRAIN STATION. I was terrified. I’d been so sure it would be Ralph, that he would drive us home, that this would all be over with. Instead, we were in the hands of Father’s enemy. Or so I thought.

  “Who are you?” James asked boldly. “And what are you doing following our father around?” I wondered if James could possibly hide his fear that well, or was I the only one expecting this guy to do something horrible to us?

  “Who’s following whom?” the Stranger said. “The quad, the train, the bicycles.”

  “You saw us?” I blurted out.

  He smirked. “As to your question, James: I’m someone who cares. Someone who looks after him, which is, as you know, something to which he would never consent.”

  The man sounded so . . . thoughtful. I figured this was a ploy to get us to go along with him before he killed us and dumped us in the woods.

  “And because of that,” he said, “I need us to reach a point of mutual cooperation.”

  “I don’t think so,” said James, having no idea what the man might be offering.

  “We’re listening,” I contradicted. James snarled at me.

  “Your father’s an important, but stubborn man,” said the Stranger. “Important to many, many people.”

  Father? I wondered, curious if we were talking about the same person. He was a part-time college professor who taught the History of Criminology, European Economies Post Renaissance, and other courses I couldn’t pronounce. He was the overseer of a family fortune that was probably invested all over the world—for all I knew—but that hardly made him “important.”

  “He needs looking after even if he doesn’t want it. And you know him: pride goeth before the fall.”

  “I’m not sure what that means,” said James, “but yeah, we know he’s stubborn. I get it.”

  “What kind of looking after?” I asked. “How could Father possibly be in any kind of danger?” I felt James and I were the ones currently in danger.

  “This is the deal I’m offering,” the Stranger said, “and I keep my deals. If you don’t mention me to him, I won’t mention you following him and getting picked up by the police. Mind you: if you betray me, I will survive his anger. You will have to decide if you two can live with what I would tell him about your exploits.”

  “You don’t want him knowing,” James said.

  “I don’t think it’s to anyone’s advantage to make him aware of what transpired today, do you? The other option is for us to sit down over there and wait for him to return to the train and you two take a nice long hour ride with him.”

  “Pass,” James said.

  “Then we have a deal?” The Stranger stuck out his hand.

  James hesitated, but offered his hand. I pulled his arm down.

  “Why did Father visit that place? What was that about? You know, don’t you?”

  The Stranger looked at me with contempt. “That’s above my pay grade,” he said.

  “So you work for someone.”

  “Most everyone works for someone, young lady. I’ll tell you what: your father’s visiting Gadwall presents no threat to you. None whatsoever. I believe it’s personal, and I believe it should stay that way.”

  “Good enough for me.” James shook hands with the man. I did the same.

  “How did you pull that off with the police?” I asked. “Are you a policeman?”

  “Our deal includes no more questions from either side.”

  “So you are!” I said excitedly.

  “Believe what you want. People mostly do anyway.”

  That sounded like something a cop would say, or a lawyer, or a judge. It sounded formal and pretty discouraging.

  A train approached.

  “Revealing secrets can be beneficial or harmful,” the Stranger said. “You two will have to decide which this is.”

  “Was it a woman?” I asked. “A friend? Who was it?”

  “Remember what they say about curiosity, Moria.” His use of my name, his warning, combined to turn my stomach to cramps. “We have a deal. And believe me: I’ll know if you violate your end of it.”

  Despite the August heat I suddenly felt as if it were the middle of February. I swallowed dryly, accepted the ticket he’d bought for me, and climbed onto the train. It was the longest hour home I’d about ever had.

  RALPH WAS WAITING AT THE DOWNTOWN TRAIN station. He wore his typical black suit, white shirt, and black tie. Except for at July Fourth family picnics, it’s all I’d ever seen him wear. James, too tired to walk home, had called him, much to my objection.

  We waited to talk until inside the Lincoln.

  “Where were you two off to, then? And why hadn’t I heard about it?”

  “Day trip,” I said.

  “Beach,” James said.

  “Your father would skin the three of us alive if he knew that.”

  “Our little secret, then,” I said, meeting eyes with James.

  “You do this kind of thing again and it’ll be me spilling the beans.”

  “Noted.” James even sounded tired.

  “Truth is, you two, I’d bend every rule in the book if you ever needed a quick rescue. And I’d keep it to myself until my last breath. Fathers don’t need to know everything.”

  “You’re the best, Ralph,” I said, my eyes stinging for the compassion he was showing us. Ralph was family.

  I’d also cried in the police station, but Jamie hadn’t rubbed it in, as he’d done the same. He didn’t rub it in now.

  “Your father’s coming home for a late dinner. Some late business came up. Said he’d be going out again after. Be thankful he won’t be home when we arrive.”

  Jamie and I exchanged a second, more curious look. Father lying to Ralph, or Ralph lying to us? Either way, things just got interesting.

  “OK,” I said, currently the spokeswoman for the backseat.

  CHAPTER 13

  I’D HEARD THE EXPRESSION “LIKE PULLING teeth.” I’d always taken it to mean “something painful.” Sitting down to dinner expanded my definition. Excruciating. Long and dragged out. Agonizingly slow to the point of self-inflicted unconsciousness.

  No one spoke at dinner; the only sounds were the flatware hitting plates and the tinkle of ice in water glasses, the grind of the pepper grinder, the sound of chewing. Dinner was crispy duck, bok choy, and almond rice, one of my favorites, though a little heavy for a warm summer evening. Still, James and I were starving. We ate fast and ravenously. Father, who ate British style, with his fork in his left hand, knife in his right, ate ponderously slowly. He glanced up from time to time but said nothing. Typically, he brought a topic to the dinner table: a news item, something historical, or a word challenge from the dictionary. Not tonight. He was someplace else. The trouble was, we knew where: Manchester-by-the-Sea.

  Salad came after the main course, European style. Then dessert, another favorite, New York cheesecake shipped in from a restaurant in New York City.

  In place of conversation a level of tension developed like a rising flood. James and I climbed higher to avoid the water. I ate so much I felt sick. I savored the cheesecake and considered as
king for seconds, knowing if I actually ate another piece I would definitely barf. At last, I folded my napkin and carefully set it beside my empty dessert plate, my fork at 4 p.m. on the plate’s clock face.

  “May I be excused, please, Father?”

  “You may.”

  “And I, sir?”

  “Go on.” He waved dismissively.

  James folded his napkin and placed it alongside his plate as he stood and shoved in his chair. “Is everything OK, Father?”

  James means well. He doesn’t try hard enough in our family, so a moment like this was akin to firing a starter pistol inches from Father’s ear. Why he had to open his trap, I had no idea. But inches from clearing the wide entryway to our lovely dining room, I paused and hesitated. How could he? I thought.

  “Why do you ask, James?”

  “You’re quiet is all.”

  “A full day. You were quiet too, I might point out.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Am I to be the one to always start the dinner conversation?”

  “As to that . . . I mean, you usually are.”

  “You’re excused,” Father said, cutting him off. Father was rigid but rarely rude like this. Something was eating at him.

  I breathed for what seemed the first time in over a minute. I didn’t think about it, but I waited for James. My own mistake, as it turned out.

  Father spoke before we got out of the room.

  “But first tell me, exactly how did you obtain the bicycles?”

  CHAPTER 14

  BACK IN OUR SEATS WE WAITED FOR MISS DELPHINE to clear the table. Lois pulled the dining room’s pocket door closed and then made sure the swinging door into the kitchen was in position as well. I’d never known the dining room even had those sliding doors. It gave me a shudder. Nor could I figure out, for the life of me, how Lois knew to provide us such privacy. Some things just weren’t going to make sense, I realized.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Father said. Funny thing: he hadn’t asked James and me to sit; we’d done it of our accord. I would look back at this and wonder what drove us both to do so.

  “He promised,” James said.

  I nodded, probably slightly violently.

  “Ralph?” Father asked. “He said nothing to me, I assure you.”

  “The Stranger,” James blurted out.

  “Oh, no,” I coughed out, seeing Father’s reaction and wondering why James, who wasn’t much for speaking, would open his trap at a time like this. Of all the moments to get chatty!

  “Who?”

  “He promised if we said nothing he’d say nothing,” James rambled like a faucet that won’t shut off. “That you’d never hear about any of it so long as you never heard about him, that you needed protecting and didn’t like it and wouldn’t take kindly to learning he’d been following you. And we sure as heck weren’t going to say anything, given the police and all—”

  “James!” I chastised.

  “Police?” Father’s face was pasty white, his neck a violent red.

  “And how important you are and how you have business dudes who might be enemies and how if someone didn’t look—”

  “WHAT MAN?!” Father shouted so loudly the glass crystals in the three-foot chandelier shook and rang like little bells. I swear that happened.

  For me, it was not just the chandelier, but the whole roof about to come down onto James and me. I couldn’t believe he’d mentioned the Stranger. I recoiled, wanting to hide under the table.

  “The man following you, Father,” I said calmly, hoping a girl’s voice might help settle him down, hoping by making myself part of the equation Father might calm a bit. “The reason we followed you. Well, not the first time, but the second time. The first time it was because of the tie sticking out of your briefcase and how we thought maybe you were going on a date, and so we decided to kind of wait for you to finish with your class. . . .” Now it was me unable to stop herself. “Oh, this is just sounding worse by the second. We are SO sorry, Father.”

  “Tell . . . me . . . about . . . this . . . man. You will start at the beginning. You will talk slowly and coherently and you will skip nothing. Do we understand each other?”

  We nodded in unison, but there was no way we were going to share everything! Grounded for life? No way!

  “I want to hear you say it.”

  “Yes, Father.” Nearly in unison. If we’d picked different notes it might have passed for harmony.

  Our description of events took about forty-five minutes. Father paid strict attention. One could feel him making mental notes, highlighting certain parts, using italics. James wrapped up with our being picked up by Ralph.

  “As to that fellow,” Father said after a long, dark-cloud moment, “you mustn’t worry about him.” He laughed outright. An uncommon event to be sure. Uncomfortable as well for James and me.

  “As for Gadwall,” he said, “I have a friend, a dear friend in that place. We . . . you, Moria, you, James, and I, help him out. Financially, I’m talking about. Family money. You’re right about the cheap attempt at a disguise. The man had an unseemly run-in with the government some years ago. Got himself spread across the news in a lurid and unfair way, but one that made him a bit of a pariah, a situation that left him dreadfully isolated from society and unfairly smeared to the point we—the Moriartys—can ill afford any association with the man. I like to visit him periodically. It seems to cheer him up. I’m afraid he’s never likely getting out of that place, as ill-tempered and such as he is. But we Moriartys stand by our friends. Never let it be said otherwise.

  “As to the policewoman,” he continued, “she is absolutely correct. I will expect your written apologies to those families by morning, so you have your work cut out for you tonight.” He appraised the two of us as we hung on his every word. He seemed to collect himself, to realize he’d just spoken more to us in three minutes than he probably had over the past three months. “You are excused,” he said.

  “If you please, Father,” James said, overly formal. “What’s the name of your friend?”

  “I don’t please! What’s it any business of yours?” Father barked. “Never mind that!”

  “You said it was family money, that’s all. You said it was Moria’s and my money, too. I was just curious, that’s all.”

  Father’s face softened. “Well, that’s correct. It is. Very well: Hornknocker, Julius Hornknocker. Hard to escape a name like that.”

  James spelled the name. Father approved the spelling but looked at James suspiciously. “Why exactly do you care?”

  “I told you,” James said. “Family money.”

  “So you did. Yes. Off you go.”

  If you know a person well enough, you know the obvious stuff like when the person lies, when the person avoids an answer not out of forgetfulness but intentionally. I knew all that about James and more.

  And I knew Julius Hornknocker was not on the Gadwall resident list.

  CHAPTER 15

  WE SHOULDN’T HAVE CONTINUED SPYING ON Father. I know in our hearts we meant well. The trouble wasn’t with intent but execution.

  As Father left the house shortly after dinner, we jumped to look out my second-floor window. We both knew something was off. For one thing, he’d contained his anger when outing us. For another, his physical behavior as he prepared to leave the house—unusually jerky and anxious—exposed emotions running under the surface. Everything about him, even his tone with Ralph as he repeatedly refused to be driven, his clapping the door shut, spoke of a short temper.

  His stride across the romantically lighted street looked forced and mechanical. James had situated us in the upstairs guest room, which had a better view of the street than my room. Its Victorian, canopied bed with lace spread, the silver-framed mirrors, bone-handled hairbrush, and oil portraits supplied a historical, privileged air to the room. It looked like a room straight out of Downton Abbey, the one television show Father ever watched start to finish.

&n
bsp; The view from the window included two fake gas lamps, the cobblestone street, and the row of brick houses across from ours, all with sparkling enamel paint trim, flowering window planters, and lights glowing. Front doors were painted in sparkling solid colors: black, red, or royal blue, with black the preference by a long shot.

  James didn’t merely gasp—he seemed to choke on his own breath.

  “It’s him!” James wasn’t speaking to me, he was voicing his fear. “You see him? Wait!”

  Father stood directly below, struggling with an umbrella, as it had started to drizzle. Nothing prettier than wet cobblestone in the glow of imitation gaslight. But James’s attention, I realized, was on a shape just outside the brightest range of the lamp to our left.

  The Stranger.

  Had to be.

  James knew it.

  I knew it.

  Father didn’t.

  “Look!” James said. “There!” He pointed to the corner to our right. “The van. There are people in that van.”

  “It’s called parking, James.”

  “It’s called a fire hydrant, you turkey. The driver! Look at the driver! You see his face? You see how it’s blue?”

  “He’s on his phone. We’re all on our phones.”

  “Look . . . at . . . the . . . Stranger.”

  James grabbed the antique hairbrush, pulled open the window, and let the brush fly. Did I mention what a good throw James is? The brush landed about a yard in front of Father. Lucky for James, for all of us—it had to be luck—it landed on its bristles. It landed quietly even as it broke into several pieces.

  “James! He’s going to kill you.”

  “No, Moria. They’re going to kill him!”

  CHAPTER 16

  THE MOMENT FATHER LOOKED UP, JAMES WAVED, but more like a signal. James put his hand to his throat to mimic choking. He then pointed to our left, for Father’s sake. Pointed out the Stranger. As Father looked in the direction of the Stranger, James took off like a bee had bitten his backside. It took me only a few pulses of blood for my mind to make the connection he had. Stranger on phone. Van driver on phone.