by Chris Beakey
No, he thought. You never would have gotten in the car tonight if Sara hadn’t been in trouble. Never would have driven after all that drinking.
And now he had to do everything possible to keep from getting caught.
The clock over the stove read 2:45 a.m. when he stepped inside the house, which still held the light smell of pine from the cleaner he had used to wipe everything down after dinner. Sara had gone straight upstairs and probably wouldn’t be down until the morning, and by then the death of the boy would be a leading item on the local news. For once he was gratified that neither of his kids read the morning paper.
But he knew it would only be a matter of hours before they learned what had happened. He thought about the first short conversation with Sara in the car. He had said nothing to incriminate himself, nothing about the boy. And yet it seemed impossible that she wouldn’t eventually realize the truth. If she asked him he would have to lie. And if she didn’t believe him he would have to stick by the lie. And if the police ever did connect him and she was questioned…
Stop. One thing at a time.
He looked at the note he had written to Kenneth on the message board: GONE TO RESCUE YOUR SISTER IN THE SNOW. Kenneth had been asleep when he had left and it was doubtful that he had gotten up and seen it.
With a swipe of the eraser it was gone.
He sat back down at the counter. The Jeep was still parked in the yard of the boy’s house. When the police investigated, the boy’s family would report that Sara had been there, and that she had called and asked him to pick her up.
Which would probably lead them here.
So he had to be prepared to admit to it.
She told you the Jeep broke down and she was stranded at a friend’s house. You’ll tell them you drove straight there and back without seeing anything.
But he had also called 911, and there would be a record of that call. If questioned, the dispatcher would probably mention his confusion, his slurred speech…
Groggy, not slurred, he thought, because the call had happened in the middle of the night. He heard the defense as if it had been spoken by an attorney representing him. As if he was already being judged, a jury listening to fact after incriminating fact.
Yet he knew that physical evidence would be the most important connection. Tire tracks. Damage to the car. Footprints.
Pressed by the urgency of Sara’s call, he had left the house in the shoes that were closest to the door of the mud room—a pair of loafer-style Dockers. The shoes had a light tread on the soles that would probably have made an impression in the snow. He had taken them off just minutes ago, and had left them by habit on the mat to protect the family room’s maple floors.
He felt the skin tingling on the back of his neck as he went into the laundry room; felt as if there was an invisible camera watching him as he grabbed a plastic garbage bag from the closet and dropped the shoes inside.
After living in the house for only four months, he had managed to keep the garage tidy, with built-in storage and a workbench lining one wall, and the kids’ bikes hanging from the ceiling next to one another. For the moment he stuck the bag in a corner behind two big bags of mulch, then went back into the mud room and saw the L.L. Bean boots he had only worn a few times.
If you’re questioned you’ll tell them that you wore these when you went out tonight, he thought. The footprints won’t match what they find at the accident scene.
He stepped into them and went out the side door to the yard. He sank up to his knees in the snow. His teeth chattered as he walked in a slow circle, making sure the boots were good and wet. He then left the boots on the mat in the mud room and went back inside and tried to think through everything else that would incriminate him.
The damage to the car was the worst. There was nothing he could do about the dent. But the taillight cover could be replaced.
He went upstairs, stood at Sara’s door long enough to know she had already gotten into bed, then went back into the study. The computer was still on and the Mapquest page of directions filled the screen. Stephen moved the cursor to the browser and typed in Advanceauto.com.
A mistake.
He took his hands away from the keyboard an instant before going to the page. If he did become a suspect the computer might be seized, and evidence that he had visited the site of an auto parts store just hours after the accident would be one more strike against him.
He cleared the browser, stepped away from the computer, and went back downstairs for the hard copy of the Yellow Pages. Advance Auto was a mega-store for do-it-yourself mechanics, and there were nearly a dozen locations in and around the cities of Rockville, Frederick, and Baltimore. The stores opened early—6 a.m. on Saturdays. If the roads were halfway passable it would be possible to get a new cover for the light and get back home before Kenneth and Sara even got out of bed.
You can replace it in the garage. Put the broken pieces in the bag with your shoes. Take them to the landfill, or toss them into a trash can somewhere.
He sat down on the couch. He was still wearing his coat, but felt as if the night’s chill had worked its way inside of him. He crossed his arms over his chest, then reclined back, wide-awake and eerily alert to the sound of the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer and the moaning wind outside. In the middle of the night the family room felt familiar, yet strange. A territory between two very different realities. Hours earlier he had stood here by the fire, an ordinary law-abiding suburban father. Now he was waiting to be arrested and jailed. Yet even if he escaped that tangible, real-life punishment, he knew his conscience would haunt him, like a curse.
And everyone who sees you is going to know.
Lori had told him long ago that his face was a mirror of his emotions, and that she could always tell what he was feeling by the look in his eyes. There were so many times in his adult life when those feelings had very nearly overwhelmed him. He had wept with happiness in the operating room when Sara and Kenneth were born, and had cried like a five-year-old boy in the intensive care ward at the hospital where his father had squeezed his hand, closed his eyes, and died.
“Oh God. I am so sorry. Please help me.”
He folded his hands into a fist, pressed it hard against his chin.
You’re praying for help because you killed a child. Someone’s son.
The utter wrongness of it filled him with a new fear: the damnation of his soul; the certainty of judgment that would doom him at the end of his mortal life.
He reached into his pocket for his phone, tried to imagine what he would say if he called the police now, an hour and a half after the accident. Even if the alcohol was no longer detectable in his blood he would still be charged with hitting the boy and then driving away.
Sara and Kenneth have already lost their mother.
The reality was the same now as it had been at the scene of the accident.
And now they’ll lose you.
He wondered if that would make any difference when the judgment came; if there was some kind of spiritual check-and-balance that could justify what he had done. It was a frail wish, sustainable by nothing but hope.
Somehow, you’ll make up for this. Do something good with the rest of your life.
The thought rang hollow, like the cry of a coward. A man trying to justify a crime. But he held on to it as he thought through everything that would have to happen in the next few hours, the tactics that might protect him from the inevitable questions to come.
A few days after moving into the new house Lori had spoken of throwing away the things they no longer used nor wore, including old denim and leather jackets from the years before the kids were born, and dresses and suits from her days at the ad agency. But her death had disrupted the plan, so they had all stayed in the basement, right where the movers had placed them. The box marked “costumes” was tucked into a corner, behind se
veral others. The seam was still sealed with strapping tape and Stephen had to use a carpet knife to slice it open. In earlier years Halloween had been one of Lori’s favorite celebrations, usually commemorated with costumes she had assembled herself. She had saved most of them over the years, right down to the action hero and princess get-ups that Kenneth and Sara had worn when they were in elementary school.
It took a bit of sifting to find the smaller box that he was looking for. It was from a company called StageEffects. Lori had found the company through her volunteer work with a local theatre group run out of the Silver Spring Boys & Girls Club, and had utilized quite a few of its offerings through the years.
He took what he needed and resealed the box with a new piece of tape, but put it back exactly where he had found it, thinking once again of the need to have everything as it had been hours before.
He then opened the boxes of clothing that had been slated for Goodwill. There was an old navy-blue jacket made of poly-fiber that had been a gift from his parents years earlier. The coat had been way too large and had never been worn. In the same box were half a dozen baseball caps and hats. He took the most non-descript—a black knit that could be folded down to his forehead and over his ears.
He went back upstairs and into his bedroom, where he put on two heavy sweaters and a hooded sweatshirt to be worn underneath the jacket. In the bathroom he turned the halogen lights all the way up and stood in front of the mirror and put on the glasses he had taken from Lori’s box. They had an outdated tortoiseshell frame. The lenses were non-prescription but thick. Stephen vaguely remembered them being worn by a teenager in one of the plays Lori had directed. She had evidently saved them on the off-chance that she could talk him into actually dressing up for one of the costume parties they were always invited to at Halloween. She had given it a try every year, and every year he had begged off.
The sweater, sweatshirt and jacket made him look twenty pounds heavier. The knit cap completely covered his scalp and came down over his ears. The glasses didn’t feel quite right, but without them he was almost certain that the shape and color of his eyes would give him away.
He checked his wallet to ensure he had enough cash, then turned out the lights and crept as quietly as possible back down the stairs. It was 4:30 a.m. now, probably the quietest time of the night. The squeal of the automatic door sounded like it would awaken every household on the street as it shuddered open and closed with a slow grinding sound behind him.
The closest Advance Auto store would have taken him a mere half hour to get to, even with the snow. But he had shopped there too often in the past. It took twice as long to reach the next location, in a neighborhood of strip malls and garden apartment complexes at the edge of Montgomery County.
There were only a handful of cars parked in the lot, most halfway buried under the night’s snow. He parked between a white van and a pick-up truck, kept the engine running for warmth but turned off the headlights and waited. At a minute after 6 a.m. the store lights flickered on and a large black man unlocked the main doors from the inside.
Stephen got out of the car, realizing then that it was the worst possible time to be in a store. As the solitary customer there was a far greater chance that he would be remembered.
But he had no choice. He forced himself to keep walking toward the entrance.
A bell over the door announced his arrival. In his peripheral vision he saw the security camera pointing directly at him. With a visible shiver, he pulled the collar of his jacket a bit higher around his neck, and ducked his head, a gesture that hopefully made it even less likely that his face would be recognizable on tape.
The aisle marked LIGHTING had well-stocked shelves of headlight and taillight lenses and bulbs. He selected the lens cover that he needed and moved quickly to the register at the front of the store. With the box in his hand he considered the possibility that buying a singular item would also make him easier to remember, and turned toward the aisle containing waxes and cleaners.
The aisle ended in front of the store’s large windows, which revealed a police car, moving slowly through the parking lot. He stood frozen in place as it pulled to a stop just a few feet from the Explorer.
He awkwardly stepped back and turned around. His thoughts raced as he walked back through the store. They already know it was you. They have your license plate and your name. They’re going to arrest you with the taillight in your hand. Right now. Right here.
The aisles ran perpendicular to the front of the store, and he now stood at the front of the one that was farthest from the door, enabling him to view the police car less conspicuously. He watched as it made another slow circle of the parking lot and then drove on.
He took a deep breath, felt rivulets of perspiration sliding from his armpits and popping out around his neck. It was still dark outside. The store was probably seen as an easy target for robbery at this time of the morning. He told himself that the cop in the car was probably just going through his rounds, on patrol.
The clerk was now behind one of the registers, and was picking up the phone to make a call. A welcome distraction. Stephen pulled out his wallet and waited until he heard the man engaged in a conversation before moving quickly forward.
He was at the register, with his back to the door, when the bell announced another customer. Without thinking he turned around, and looked straight into the face of the cop.
His face flushed with heat as he jerkily looked away.
“Yeah we’ll be open till five,” the clerk was saying into the phone, and fumbling with a ring of keys at his belt. Stephen kept his back to the door and shifted his weight from one foot to the other as the clerk took a key and inserted it into the register. The clerk was nodding and listening intently to whatever was being said on the other end as the countertop scanner slowly pulsed with light. The monitor was tilted mostly toward the clerk but Stephen saw the words warming up on the screen.
From the corner of his eye he saw the cop walking toward an aisle that was just a few feet from the registers. The muscles in his legs twitched as he reached into his wallet and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.
The register screen was unchanged, the machine still not ready to work. He looked toward the door, contemplated the possibility of simply leaving without the cover, but put the cash on the counter instead.
The motion finally drew the clerk’s attention. Stephen pointed to the price tag and briefly tapped his watch. The clerk frowned in annoyance. Stephen mouthed “sorry” and attempted a good-natured grimace and then said, “Keep the change. I have to go.”
The clerk glanced down at the money and looked confused, the phone still at his ear, the register still warming up. Stephen looked for the cop and didn’t see him, then took the box with the taillight cover and headed toward the door.
He felt as if he was floating as he stepped out into the cold, as vulnerable as a target in a shooting gallery with his ear cocked and ready for the voice of the cop telling him to stop and turn around. He managed not to run as he headed for the Explorer. The windshield had started to freeze over again. He cranked the heat and the defroster all the way up. It took a lifetime for the hot air to start melting the ice on the front windshield and rear window. He gunned the engine, flinching at the loudness of it in the near empty lot, his shoulders hunched forward as he drove toward the exit of the parking lot.
The sudden, shrill ring of his cell phone filled the air. He thought immediately of Sara, knocking on his bedroom door, finding his bed empty, and wondering where he would be. He had no sense of what he could say to her. No way to explain where he was. But he reached for the phone deep within the pocket of the oversized coat anyway, pulled it out and glanced at the incoming caller ID.
John Caruso
He stared at the screen. He remembered Caruso telling him that he lived in a cabin up on the mountain, which probably wasn’t too far from where the boy had
been struck; remembered trading cell phone numbers during their first conversation after Lori’s death. Caruso was calling him at 6:15 on a Saturday morning, which could only mean that he knew about the death of the boy, and had already connected him to it.
He dropped the phone on the passenger seat without answering, forced himself to breathe as it continued to ring. The snow was falling heavier now, blowing in an onslaught at the front windshield, obscuring his vision of the pavement as he drove up the entrance ramp to the highway, still expecting the red revolving lights of the cop to appear in his rearview mirror. But after what felt like several miles he realized he had somehow escaped. He was driving alone amid the sparse early morning traffic, without any sense of direction at all.
He acted on reflex as he came up on the exit sign and made another hard right. The ramp emptied onto a road lined with office buildings. He turned into the first parking lot he saw.
He cut the lights as he came to a stop, then picked up the phone. There was no message from Caruso. But the man’s name on the “missed calls” screen proved he was already in the detective’s sights.
He leaned forward, with an iron grip on the wheel. The sensations of the last several minutes cycled like a nightmare through his mind. The straight-on eye contact with the cop; the twitch in his cheek as he gave the twenty to the clerk; the fear that one or both men would see his car racing away from the parking lot.
He glanced up at his reflection in the rearview mirror, and saw the alien reflection of himself in the glasses. Once again he felt cast-off and adrift, with every action taking him further away from the decent man he had been before—
He sat back, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. Looked at the taillight cover in the passenger seat. The evidence of his criminality. His guilt.
You can’t do this, he thought.
You have to stop it, right now.
But there was no stopping. No going back. Stephen knew it for certain as he watched the first frail daylight in the eastern sky. The next steps were vital and he had counted on the cover of darkness to pull them off. Now every minute of the approaching dawn put him in greater danger.