Blood Red

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Mom—­you said never again, remember?”

  “That wasn’t me, that was Dad.”

  “That was all of us, including you. It took us a whole day to get home in traffic last time we went to see Aunt Noreen for Christmas.”

  “That was a freak blizzard. It doesn’t usually snow on Long Island over the holidays.”

  “Well, it always snows here.”

  Mick is right. In Mundy’s Landing, Currier and Ives Christmases are the norm. On the bank of the Hudson River, cradled by the Catskill Mountains to the west, the Berkshires to the east, and the Adirondacks to the north, the village sees more than its share of treacherous weather from October through May. But as the hardy locals like to say, “We know how to handle it.” Plows and salt trucks rumble into motion, shovels and windshield scrapers are kept close at hand, and it’s business as usual.

  Rowan opens three drawers before she finds a pair of scissors to slit open the packing tape on the box.

  It’s not from Amazon or Zappos or any number of places where she does most of her online shopping. There’s no return address, just her own, computer-­printed on a plain white label—­yes, the kind overachievers like Noreen refuse to use for their Christmas cards.

  Inside is a layer of crumpled newspaper.

  Slightly yellowed newspaper, which strikes her as strange even before she sees what’s beneath it.

  “What is it?” Mick asks, looking up from his pie.

  “I . . . I have no idea.” She pulls out a flat black disk, turning it over in her hands.

  “Who sent it?”

  She shakes her head, clueless.

  “I bet it’s from your Secret Santa.” Mick is beside her, rummaging through the box.

  “That doesn’t start until next week, and we leave the gifts for each other at school. We don’t mail them.”

  “There’s a bunch of those things in here,” he notes, counting.

  Yes . . . a bunch of what? Charcoal? There’s a charred smell to the disks, whatever they are.

  “There are twelve,” Mick tells her. “Thirteen altogether, with the one you’re holding. Unlucky number. Hey, this newspaper is pretty old. Cool, check it out. It’s the New York Times from fourteen years ago. I was only two.”

  Fourteen years ago . . .

  A memory slams into her.

  It can’t be. Nobody knows about that. Nobody other than—­

  “What’s the date?” she asks Mick abruptly. “On the newspaper?”

  “Whoa—­it’s November thirtieth, same as today! Think that’s a coincidence?”

  No. It’s not a coincidence.

  Nor is the fact that there are thirteen blackened disks in the box.

  A voice—­his voice—­floats back over the years; fourteen years: A baker’s dozen . . .

  It happened fourteen years ago today. A Friday, not a Monday. In Westchester. It was snowing.

  “Hey, I think these are cookies,” Mick says. “Looks like your Secret Santa burned your treat.”

  Cookies . . .

  Rowan’s fingers let go and the charred object drops back into the box.

  Either he tracked her down and sent this package as some kind of reminder, or a sick, twisted joke, or . . .

  Someone else did.

  Someone who knows her secret.

  Driving along the New York State Thruway, northbound from New York City toward Mundy’s Landing, Casey has had the same tune looping on the car’s speakers for almost two hours now.

  The songs are important. You can’t just play any random tune when you’re driving. That’s one of the rules. You have to play a specific song, over and over, until you get to where you’re going.

  Sometimes it’s country: Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” or Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

  Sometimes it’s rock and roll: Journey’s “Lights” or The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm.”

  Today’s song has great significance, a strong reminder of why this has to happen.

  Every time it begins anew, Casey’s fingers thrum the military drumbeat on the steering wheel with until it’s time to howl the chorus again: Sunday, bloody Sunday . . .

  By now, Rowan must have gotten the package that had been mailed on Friday from the city.

  If her weekday unfolded the way it usually does, she was the one who reached into the mailbox this afternoon and found it.

  Throughout the fall, Casey watched her, documenting her daily routine. Sometimes, that could even be accomplished from inside the school where she teaches. Security at Mundy’s Landing Elementary is a joke. There are plenty of news articles online that would seem to indicate otherwise, dating back to the most recent school shooting and meant to reassure jittery parents that their precious children were well-­protected under the new security measures.

  It’s true that all visitors have to be buzzed past the locked front door, but there are plenty of other ways into the building. It’s surrounded by woods on three sides, so you can easily hide there watching for some deliveryman to leave a door propped open, or try tugging doors and windows until you find one that’s unlocked.

  Once, feeling especially bold, Casey even showed up at the front door wearing a uniform and got buzzed in by the secretary. She didn’t even bother to request credentials or double check the made-­up story about a faulty meter in the basement.

  That was in the early morning, before the students arrived. Casey wandered the halls searching the teachers’ names, written in black Sharpie on cardboard cutouts shaped like bright yellow pencils and taped beside every classroom. Rowan’s was evident even before Casey spotted the pencil marked Ms. Mundy: she was in there talking to another teacher, and her voice echoed down the halls.

  Some might find her chattiness endearing.

  I used to.

  Now it grates.

  Four days a week, Casey knows, Rowan leaves school not long after the bell, just after three-­thirty. But she always stays at least an hour later on Mondays. That’s when she supervises the tutoring organization that matches volunteers from nearby Hadley College with local elementary school students.

  Perched with binoculars high in a tree across the road from the house—­a vantage that never failed to inspire a unique exhilaration in and of itself—­Casey loved to watch her pull up in front of the mailbox at the foot of the driveway. She’d usually rifle through the stack of letters and catalogs quickly, toss them onto the seat, and drive on up to the house. But once in a while, something seemed to catch her eye and she’d open an envelope or package right there at the curb.

  Sometimes, Casey seized the opportunity to stick around watching the house long after she’d disappeared inside, occasionally daring to scale a tree right on the property. Daring not because of the height—­Casey has always been exhilarated by great heights—­but because of the proximity to the house.

  All any of them ever had to do was take a good, hard look, and they’d have seen me. But they never did.

  Casey would sometimes stay late into the night until the last light was extinguished. Oblivious to a voyeur in their midst, the Mundy family went about their lives behind the sturdy plaster walls of the home that had been built well over a century ago—­one hundred and twenty-­seven years ago, to be exact.

  Casey had left no stone unturned when it came to investigating Rowan’s charmed life. One never knows when a seemingly irrelevant detail might come in handy.

  An entire year of preparation has finally paid off.

  November thirtieth has finally arrived.

  The endgame has begun.

  From the Mundy’s Landing Tribune Archives

  Real Estate

  March 18, 2002

  Just Reduced: Victorian Charmer

  25 Riverview Road

  Enjoy the ever-­changing Hudson Valley
landscape from the rocking chair wraparound porch of this lovely historic 3200-­square-­foot, 6-­bedroom, 1.5-­bath Queen Anne. Vintage features include elegant front entry, double parlors, formal dining room with built-­in cabinetry, butler’s pantry, full attic and cellar. Loaded with period charm including four fireplaces, stained glass transoms, and gabled dormers. Original oak, maple, and cherry floors, moldings, wainscoting, and pocket doors. Located minutes from business district on private 2 acre lot with mature trees and partial seasonal river views. Move-­in ready. Your TLC and decorating touches will restore this gem to its bygone splendor.

  Chapter 2

  Mick Mundy has been eating in the wood-­paneled dining room at Marrana’s Trattoria since the place was known as Marrana’s Pizzeria. That was long before the owners replaced the red vinyl table coverings with white linen and started charging twenty bucks for a plate of pasta. Which is ridiculous, according to Mick’s father—­although Dad’s willing to pay even more than that for the Cavatelli a la Mama Marrana, the restaurant’s sausage-­and-­cheese-­smothered signature dish.

  In the three months since Mick started working here, he’s come to see the place in a new light. At first, it was a novelty to know what was happening behind the scenes—­for instance, that the “world-­famous” gorgonzola salad dressing is just Italian dressing from a big plastic jug with a handful of cheese crumbles thrown in. At this point, though, that’s old news. Now that he’s the one who has to scrape the leftovers from diners’ plates into the garbage, he’s even lost his taste for Cavatelli a la Mama.

  Still, for the most part, he likes his job. The place tends to get busier as the week goes on, and those lucky enough to pull weekend shifts make decent money. But Mick often has basketball games on those nights and is stuck with Monday through Wednesday, when his portion of the waitresses’ tips amounts to barely enough to put a few gallons of gas in the car.

  When he actually has a car.

  Which he never will if he winds up having to pay for it himself. Not with this job, anyway.

  Monday nights always mean lousy tips, but tonight is surprisingly busy.

  “Why do you think that is?” he asks Brianna Armbruster, seizing any excuse to talk to her as they stand shoulder-­to-­shoulder loading desserts onto a tray.

  “No clue” is her reply.

  “Maybe it’s because no one feels like cooking after Thanksgiving.”

  “Maybe.”

  Brianna walks off with a swing of her red ponytail. Not in a snotty way—­just . . .

  Disinterested, basically. Which is the way most senior girls treat junior guys at Mundy’s Landing High. It’s not like he isn’t used to it.

  Still, he keeps trying with Brianna. Because this isn’t school. He’s not a junior here, he’s a working man. This is the real world, where age doesn’t matter. Well, anyway, it shouldn’t, he thinks, staring after her. She fills out her waitress uniform—­a basic black polo shirt and jeans—­nicely.

  He’s known Brianna forever. You can’t live in Mundy’s Landing and not be acquainted with all the kids in town who are roughly your age. For two years, they played on the same youth soccer team. He didn’t pay much attention to her, though—­didn’t fall in love with her—­until the summer before his freshman year.

  There he was, just riding his bike along Prospect Street on his usual morning paper route, tossing newspapers onto porches, when she jogged past with some guy. He hadn’t seen much of her since she’d left middle school as a freckled tomboy with an overbite and orthodontic headgear. Now the braces were gone, and she was wearing skimpy workout clothes, and he couldn’t miss the fact that she’d grown up—­not to mention out. He was so distracted he steered into a fire hydrant and found himself sprawled on the sidewalk with bloody hands and knees.

  “Nice going, carrot top,” the guy called, laughing.

  Brianna whirled on him and pointed out that she, too, was a carrot top. He stammered a lame apology, which she ignored as she came over to make sure Mick was okay. She even held his arm as he got to his feet. He kind of wished he wasn’t okay, because then she’d have to call an ambulance and ride with him to the hospital and keep a bedside vigil as he convalesced, maybe wearing a little white nurse’s uniform, or—­

  “Could she be less into you?”

  He turns to see Zach Willet grinning at him as he stares after Brianna.

  “Yeah, she could be into you,” he shoots back illogically.

  “That makes zero sense.”

  “Cut me a break, will ya, Lou? Can’t you see I’m lovesick over here?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sorry ’bout that, Lou.”

  He and Zach always call each other Lou when they’re here at work. He can’t remember how it started, but it’s become a thing, and they talk to each other in exaggerated mobster accents. Well, Zach’s is dead-­on, like he stepped out of the movie Goodfellas, but Mick’s needs work.

  They never hung out much in the past. Zach is part of a different crowd, the drama club kids. But they’ve gotten to be pretty good friends working together over the past few months.

  Mick puts a plate containing a powdered-­sugar-­dusted cannoli onto his tray and consults the order.

  “By the way—­” Zach drops the wiseguy accent. “I heard she’s going out with some college guy.”

  Mick’s heart plummets. “What? Brianna? Since when?”

  “Since a few days ago.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I swore on my life I wouldn’t tell.”

  That means it came from Gina Marrana, aka Jiffy Pop. Her parents own the restaurant, and she’s the only other high school kid here tonight. She always seems to know everything about everyone in town. On slow nights, she brings Mick up to speed on the gossip.

  “You swear on your life you won’t tell?” Gina always asks, wearing her usual I’m-­bursting-­with-­news-­and-­I’ll-­explode-­if-­I-­don’t-­tell expression that spawned her nickname.

  Mick always swears, although he’s broken that vow quite a few times. But he’s still alive, so . . .

  “Why would Brianna go out with a college guy?” he asks Zach.

  “Dude. Come on. Seriously?”

  “Okay, well, what else do you know?” Might as well size up the competition.

  “He’s from New York but he’s a freshman at Hadley and I think his parents have a summer house near Saugerties,” Zach rattles off. “Oh, and he went to private boarding school in New England.”

  So he’s rich. Mick thinks of the wealthy ­people—­most of them from New York City—­who have homes in the area. Back on Columbus Day, he served a middle-­aged Manhattanite who called his a “country estate,” which you’d think would make him a big tipper, but he left ten percent. Jerk.

  “When you say going out,” Mick says to Zach, “do you mean she’s going to go on a date with him in the future? Or going out like boyfriend and girl—­”

  “I hate to break up your little chill sesh back here,” Jiffy Pop herself interrupts, “but my mother’s looking for you guys.”

  Zach follows her back out into the dining room as Mick goes back to his dessert order.

  Tiramisu . . .

  Biscotti . . .

  Which reminds him of the crazy package that came in the mail today.

  The way his mother reacted, you would have thought someone had sent her a severed human head instead of just a bunch of burnt cookies.

  Mom tried to cover up how freaked out she was, though. First she claimed it was probably from her Secret Santa after all. But he reminded her that it wasn’t exactly a present and anyway, she’d said that didn’t start until next week. Then she said it was just a joke, and that one of her old college friends had sent it.

  He didn’t believe that for a second.

  She didn’t seem amused. She seemed terrified.

 
Even more troubling: she told Mick not to tell his father about it.

  “You want me to lie to Dad?” he asked, just to be clear.

  “No! I don’t want you to lie. Just don’t mention it unless, you know, he asks about it.”

  “So, like, if Dad comes walking in and says, ‘Hey, by any chance did someone send Mom a weird package in the mail today?’ then I can say—­”

  “Don’t be a wiseass, Mick.” She was almost her usual self in that instant, but in the next, she was digging through the box like a Survivor contestant digging for the hidden immunity idol.

  That’s what Mick told her, adding, “That’s a simile. Pretty good, huh?”

  She failed to appreciate his literary genius, which wasn’t like her. She just told him to go get changed for work. And when he returned to the kitchen ten minutes later, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “Are you all right?” he asked as she pressed a hand to her chest like she was having a heart attack.

  “I’m fine.”

  But she wasn’t. She was totally pale and jumpy, and she locked the house when they left. She never bothers to do that.

  “Why don’t you want Dad to know?” he asked her when they were in the car heading toward the restaurant.

  “Know what?” she asked, even though he knew she knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “About that package.”

  “Oh, because my friend Carolyn sent it, and . . . you know Dad doesn’t like her.”

  Mick barely knows who Carolyn is, other than that she went to the University of Buffalo with Mom and lives outside Rochester. “Why doesn’t he like her?”

  “He thinks she talks too much.”

  “He thinks all your friends talk too m—­ Look out!”

  Mom slammed on the brakes. She’d almost driven right through a stop sign into oncoming traffic.

  “Geez, Mom, you could have gotten us killed,” he said mildly.

  “I’m sorry! Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” She just sat there for a second with her forehead resting on the steering wheel. Then someone honked behind them and she drove on, but he could see her hands shaking and she kept biting her lip.