The House on Creek Road

by Caron Todd

  “Did you hear it?”

  “What was it?”

  “Whatever it was, it was coming to the barn.”

  In the morning, brave in the sunlight, they’d gone back to investigate. Three heifers looked at them calmly from the willows near the barn, munching the tall ripe grass between the trees, flattening branches as they went. At first they swore each other to secrecy, but over time they told everyone they knew. It was too good a story to keep to themselves. When they got back to school all their friends agreed they would have run, too.

  Bella and Dora darted out of the woods, pulling Liz’s attention back to the present. They circled the barn, chasing nothing Liz could see, then looped back into the woods. Hoping they were only imagining whatever had them so excited, she hurried after them. Now and then, they reappeared, eyes bright, tongues hanging out the sides of their mouths. As soon as they saw she was with them, they were off again. She didn’t notice they had led her to Jack’s until she was about to step out of the trees into the wide yard around his house.

  “He’s not here, girls. Remember? He’s away for the day.” It was too bad. She would have liked to see him, too. She tried to whistle, but just blew air. “Bella!” If Bella came, Dora would follow. She was about to call louder when she saw the car. A black car, squarish, parked almost out of sight behind the house.

  The dogs had seen it, too. They stood uneasily, ears swiveling like radar. When the kitchen door swung open Bella barked once, in a sharp Hey, what’s going on? tone. The man who’d come outside froze.

  Liz didn’t recognize him. She had opened her mouth to call the dogs back, but instead, obeying a feeling she didn’t stop to analyze, she moved deeper into the trees. Whether he’d seen or heard something, or just wanted to investigate, the man took a couple of steps in her direction, then froze again when Bella growled.

  A second person held the kitchen door open. Liz saw a man’s arm and heard a low voice. All she could tell was that it wasn’t Jack. Keeping an eye on the dogs, the first man backed up. When he reached the step, he turned and hurried inside.

  Liz managed a quiet whistle. One of four ears tilted in response, but the dogs kept watching the house. She started to walk away, hoping they’d sense her withdrawal and follow. She was almost home when she heard them behind her.

  She bent to rub their ears. “Good girls. Why did you take so long? Interrogating them, were you?” There was an unusual tension in their bodies. She knew just how they felt—her muscles were tight, too. Either they had excited themselves playing in the woods, and she had unsettled herself with too many memories, or the people at Jack’s were up to no good and anyone with two instincts to rub together knew it.

  Eleanor came into the kitchen to meet them. She looked worried, as if she sensed their unease. “Elizabeth? Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know. There were two men at Jack’s. In the house, I mean.”

  “Isn’t he in Brandon today?”

  “The dogs were guarding, Grandma. Hackles up, growling.”

  Eleanor looked at them in surprise. They had stayed close to Liz, pressed against her legs. “These girls?” She put a hand on Bella’s head. “Poor things. I send you out for a nice walk and you come back all in a flutter.” She smiled at the three of them. “I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll call Thomas to check into it, though, and then we’ll have tea while we wait.”

  Liz lifted the kettle and gave it a shake. It was nearly full, and almost simmering. She moved it onto the cast-iron burner directly over the fire, and found tea bags in the cupboard. By the time Eleanor came back to the kitchen, the tea was steeping.

  “Your brother must be out at the feedlot. I got hold of Martin, though, and he’s promised to take a look.”

  “Maybe I should go with him. There were two of them.”

  “You’ll stay right here with me.”

  Silently, Liz put two cups of tea on the table.

  “That’s a welcome sight.” Eleanor seemed glad to sit down. “What would you say to a game of cards to pass the time?”

  They’d had a few games of double solitaire during the week, and Eleanor had always won. At first Liz thought she was letting it happen, taking her grandmother’s poorer vision and slower reflexes into consideration, but increased effort hadn’t changed the outcome. She pulled out a chair. “I’ll get you this time. I’m alert and razor-sharp, and you’re drowsy from resting.”

  “Resting,” Eleanor repeated meaningfully. “I’m ready for you.”

  Eleanor’s hand and eye were consistently faster. After losing a third game Liz said, “You could make your living as a double solitaire shark, going from bar to bar with your deck of cards.”

  “Maybe that’s how I’ll pay for the roof.”

  The teapot was empty and Liz had yet to win a hand, when they heard a truck in the driveway. Liz opened the kitchen door before Martin had time to knock.

  “Hello, ladies.” While Eleanor moved the kettle back onto the heat, he told them what he’d found. “It was just some friends of McKinnon’s. From Winnipeg. They figured he’d be home all the time. Isn’t that typical? I don’t know how they think a farmer can get his crops to grow from his kitchen, even if it is pumpkins. They were planning to wait for him, so I told them what you told me, that he’d be out of town till late. They said at least they’d had a nice drive in the country.” Martin shrugged expressively.

  “Everything’s all right, then.”

  “Yup, everything’s fine, Grandma.” He took a couple of strides to the stove and reached across the dogs to lift the boiling kettle. “Liz was just using her imagination the way a good writer should.” He sniffed the air. “Do I smell lasagna?”

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, the three of them sat on the scratchy sofa in the living room with trays on their knees, talking over the voice of the CBC news anchor. Martin’s wife had surprised him by not minding that he wouldn’t be home for dinner. She had the cutout pieces of their two-year-old’s Halloween costume all over the kitchen table and nothing on the stove.

  “She’s going nuts,” Martin said. “I bet she’ll stuff that costume down the garbage disposal before she’s done. Halloween is this big deal now. You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “I do believe it,” said Eleanor. Martin’s daughter was her youngest great-grandchild.

  “I used to find some old coat and hat of Dad’s, throw on an eye patch, and I was done. Pat spent forty bucks on this fuzzy cloth to make Nell look like a teddy bear. When I left the house she was tearing out seams and swearing—it’s a good thing you called, Grandma. I was glad to get out of there.”

  “Poor Pat,” Liz murmured.

  “And where’s Nell while all this is going on? Scattering toys from one end of the house to the other and working herself into a mood. When I get home, I’ll be the one who has to deal with it. Pat will hide in the bathtub until I get Nell calmed down and ready to sleep.”

  Eleanor smiled. “What a thoughtful husband you are. Tell Patricia if she’s having trouble, I’d be glad to help. Ears and paws are such a nuisance.”

  “Thanks, Grandma.” Martin leaned forward to take a bite of lasagna, so tomato sauce wouldn’t drip on his shirt. “Did you know Mom and Dad heard from Sue?”

  Liz and Eleanor both stared at him, waiting for him to finish chewing so they could hear more. “How is she?” Liz asked. “She got to the Gobi Desert safely?”

  “After a crazy ride through a sandstorm. They’re falling over fossils, she says. Every time the wind blows, which is pretty much all the time, something new pops out of the ground.” He grinned. “Something old, I should say. Seventh heaven for Sue.”

  He used his knife and fork to fold a large piece of lettuce leaf into a small square and popped it into his mouth. “Mom keeps complaining about the wedding. The main thing is, Sue found a guy she likes and she married him the way she wanted to. Good for her.” He glanced at Liz. “Now you and Em are the only holdouts.”

  “Really, Martin,” said Elean
or.

  “Uh-oh. Sorry, Grandma. It’s just—” He hesitated, glancing at Eleanor. “I suppose I assume everybody else would like being married as much as I do.”

  “There’s a lot to be said for the single life,” Liz said. “Don’t you remember?”

  “No, I don’t! And I’m sticking to that story.”

  Martin didn’t stay long after dinner. Liz sent the rest of the lasagna home with him, in case Pat hadn’t eaten. After washing the few dishes, she started getting ready for the next evening’s meal.

  She was setting the table with Eleanor’s china when Will arrived to pick up the rental car. He leaned into the dining room to take a look at her preparations. “Fancy. Having company?”

  “Not until tomorrow. Jack McKinnon’s coming over.”

  Will made no effort to hide his interest. “Is that so?”

  “Grandma invited him.” Liz handed her uncle the rental agreement and keys. “Thanks for doing this, Uncle Will.”

  He tucked the folded papers into a pocket. Jingling the keys in one hand, he said, “Hope Mom’s not working you too hard.”

  “We’re having a good time. It’s kind of sad, though, going through her things.” She caught Eleanor’s eye and smiled. “And Grandpa’s things.”

  “Your aunt and I threw around the idea of buying the place. Keep it in the family. All your stuff could stay then, Mom. The table.”

  There was an uneasy silence.

  “Problem is, we’re attached to our own house. Kids grew up there.” He looked uncomfortable, as if he was afraid he and Edith were being unreasonably selfish. “You ever think of coming back, Liz?”

  Coming back? “To live?”

  “Why not? You can write and draw anywhere, can’t you? The Internet connects everybody, coast to coast. You could e-mail your books to your publisher.”

  “I can’t e-mail paintings.”

  “Courier. Next day delivery. The world’s getting smaller, hon. Think it over.”

  Eleanor put a hand on Will’s arm. Liz wasn’t sure if she was restraining or comforting him. “Elizabeth, he just likes to say these things. It’s a form of entertainment. Ignore him.”

  Liz started to laugh, but her uncle went on, apparently serious. “It’d be like old times. Imagine, going into the woods to get a Christmas tree, fishing the big creek in the spring, when the water’s high.” He had that look on his face, the one that had always convinced them how much fun it would be to take a polar bear swim or camp out in the north field all night to watch a meteor shower.

  “You make it sound tempting.”

  He smiled. “Think how happy it would make your Grandma.”

  “For heaven’s sake, it wouldn’t make me happy at all. She has her own life. And so she should.”

  “Just a thought.” With a farewell jingle of the keys, Will was out the door.

  JACK YAWNED AS HE HUNG HIS COAT on the hat stand beside the back door. He’d had a good day, but it had started at five a.m. He was ready to fall asleep on his feet. That changed when he stepped into the kitchen and saw a sheet of paper waiting in the fax’s document tray. In two long steps, he reached the machine. The logo at the top of the page, the provincial government’s stylized bison, was instantly recognizable, so he skimmed the text, looking only for numbers. Anything from 6 to 6.5 was the ph range he needed for white spruce and balsam firs.

  There it was: 6.2. Perfect! He was in business. Jack checked his watch, even though he already knew the time. It was too late to call Eleanor. She’d be pleased. She was almost as eager as he was to see a crop of Christmas trees growing in that field.

  A pang of longing for his uncle came out of nowhere. This was news Jerry would have liked to hear. The academic stuff, things like scholarships or being accepted into Waterloo’s graduate program, hadn’t excited him all that much. Not that he didn’t care. He just couldn’t see why anyone wanted to sit at a desk or do calculations all day long. Jerry liked working outside, with his hands, so as far as he was concerned his job in a lumberyard couldn’t have been better. He loved the grain and the smell of wood. He would have got a kick out of being on the other side of the equation.

  Jack nudged up the needle on the thermostat. Maybe he’d plant a tree for Jerry. Right in the middle of the field, a place where he could get some shade when he took a break from pruning or cultivating. The idea might be a little on the sentimental side, but he liked it.

  He left the lab results on the kitchen table and went to the living room. As he had each night since hiding the diskette, he reached for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Every time he checked the book it fell open to page 1005. The difference this time was that the paper door he’d glued shut was torn open and the disk was gone.

  That was fast. He really hadn’t expected Reid to come back so soon. How had he happened to pick a day when Jack would be gone for hours? It was enough to make a guy feel like he was being watched.

  Jack checked the tape in the VCR. It was full. Good to know the surveillance system had worked. He rewound the tape, turned on the TV and pressed the VCR’s play button. At the bottom left-hand corner of the screen was the time recording had begun—10:35 a.m.

  At first there was nothing to see except the outside of his house. That made sense. Whoever had activated the camera had to get up the driveway.

  Then, as casually as if he belonged there, Reid appeared. He wasn’t alone. Two other men had come along for the ride. One other man, anyway, and a pair of legs…the third man didn’t get close enough for the camera to catch more than that.

  “All right,” Jack muttered. “Show me how you got in.”

  The legs disappeared around the side of the house. Reid and his friend stood by the back door, as if they had rung the bell and were waiting for someone to answer. The friend had his back to the camera. Jack could only see dark hair and a black leather coat.

  He fast-forwarded until there was movement. Ten minutes into the tape, the door opened from the inside. The two men wiped their shoes on the mat before going into the house. “Thanks, guys. Nice of you to think about the floor.”

  He pressed the fast-forward button again, whizzing past five and a half hours of back door scenery. Then Reid appeared on the stoop. He seemed to be looking out at the yard, or toward the woods. He went down the steps and out of camera range. After a few minutes the door opened, and Jack saw an arm in a black leather sleeve. Reid came into view again, walking backward. Why would he walk backward? Away from something, watching something?

  There was nearly a half hour more of nothing to see, and then the recording was finished. Six hours at least, these guys had been in his house. Jack wished he’d installed cameras inside. He stopped the tape. It hadn’t told him much. Just that Reid had gone way over the line, and that he was angrier about it than he’d realized.

  He took a flashlight from the glory hole under the stairs, pulled his coat and gloves back on, and went outside. Going in the same direction as the third man, he shone the light on the downstairs windows. They were all shut tight. He didn’t see any broken glass. The cellar windows were locked from the inside. The air vents that prevented moisture build-up under the house were too small to provide a way in. He shone the light upward, to the second floor. Each pane of glass reflected the light. He’d made sure after Reid’s first visit that the upstairs windows were locked. They were heavy, with secure metal catches. He was confident they couldn’t be forced open.

  How had that little creep got in? Not through a door, not through a window, not through an air vent. That left the roof, and the ground. The house didn’t have a fireplace anymore, so there was no old brick chimney big enough to let sweeps and raccoons inside. The chimney for the Franklin stove was too small to climb down. The furnace chimney might let sparrows in, but that was all. When he’d climbed up to check for loose shingles and rot before he bought the place he hadn’t found any surprises. No hidden sunroof, no gaping hole into the attic.

  Jack began a slow walk around t
he house, flashlight aimed at the foundation. There wasn’t a coal chute, or a miniature two-way door system for milk delivery. Could there be an old well that led to the house?

  Finally he noticed a few branches broken from a foundation shrub. He held the bush away from the wall. Behind it was a simple, plywood door. A hook and eye held it shut. The hook lifted easily. That couldn’t be it, there had to a be a lock.

  The door swung open partway, stopped by the shrub. Jack got down on his knees and peered inside. It was a crawl space, under a newer part of the house, an extra bedroom the Ramseys had added.

  He lay on the ground and turned his body until it fit through the opening, digging his toes into the ground and pushing. At first glance, the space seemed empty. There was nothing but spiderwebs, and from a faint, unpleasant smell—mice.

  Wriggling on his stomach, Jack worked his way further in, shining the flashlight along the wall that met the original building. There. A window, one that would have let light and air into the cellar before the addition was built. It was wide open, accommodating a heating duct to the added bedroom. The window was small as it was, but the heating duct made it virtually impassable.

  Impassable for most people. The third man on the tape, as far as Jack had been able to see from the short, narrow legs, had a slight build. Slight enough? If he could squeeze through into the cellar, it would be a simple matter to open the trapdoor into the kitchen. But how had they found the plywood door? Jack hadn’t noticed it in the year since he’d bought the place. That would teach him not to weed the shrub bed.

  He crawled back outside. The hook and eye seemed a bit pointless, but he fastened it anyway. He brushed dirt from his coat and pants, thinking of Reid bringing strangers to break into his house while the other disk, the one that mattered, sat at the bottom of the potato bin.

  Reid didn’t know about it. Ergo, he couldn’t be looking for it.

  What if he did know about it, though? Would he look for it? Maybe. To try to persuade Jack to use it, yes. To suggest a business partnership, yes. To break in and steal it? Probably not.