by Joshua Corin
Maybe it was that dickhead pseudo-journalist Grover Kirk. He had the size and the lack of common decency to track them down to a funeral and pay them a visit. Either way, Esme vowed to use her resources at the Bureau to learn more about Mr. Kirk, maybe pull his IRS records.
She poked her head to one of the windows. Two sheriff’s deputies, each the size of a Dumpster, stood there on the front stoop. They appeared cold and they appeared antsy.
She opened the front door.
“Morning, officers. What seems to be the trouble?”
“The sheriff told us to come get you, ma’am.”
Of course he did.
“Give me a few minutes. Would you like to come in?”
The deputies exchanged glances. “No, ma’am. We’re just fine out here.”
Sure they were.
She closed the door in their frost-tipped faces and made her way back to the bedroom.
“Was it the front door?” Rafe asked.
Ten minutes later, both she and Rafe were back downstairs, fully dressed. She half expected to find two ice statues on the stoop where the deputies had been, but no, the two men remained flesh and blood. When she opened the door, one of them was doing a little dance to keep warm.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Just you, ma’am,” replied the dancer. “Sheriff’s orders.”
Uh-huh.
Esme kissed her husband goodbye and joined the deputies in their brown squad car. She noticed that the streets were almost all clear of snow and that the sidewalks had already been salted. Impressed, she reclined in the stiff backseat as they drove downtown—and then past the county station and kept on going.
“Um,” she said.
They took a left toward the interstate.
“Excuse me…” she said.
“Sit tight, ma’am. We’ll be there in a jiffy.”
“That’s fine and all but, well, where’s there?”
There turned out to be Stewart International Airport some forty-five minutes later. They pulled up to the terminal. The dancer got out and escorted Esme to the curb while the other deputy remained behind the wheel.
Behind a door marked Official Use Only, Sheriff Fallon was waiting for them, a cup of coffee in his hand. His grin left little doubt in Esme’s mind; this, finally, was the cat that ate the canary.
“Good morning!” he said.
In an adjacent room, he went on to say, sat the Weiner family. A member of airport security was keeping them company. Their plane had finally touched down about two hours ago and he knew, just knew, that she’d want to be there when he questioned them.
“Thanks,” she replied, and added Sheriff Fallon to her list of IRS record pulls.
They began with the father, Todd, who could have carried the sheriff’s deputies in the bags hanging under his eyes. His hands couldn’t keep still, either twitching and fumbling with the zipper on his L.L. Bean ski jacket or fixing the part on his thinning brown hair. This was not a calm man—but then again, how often did one’s house get burned to the ground with a body left in the basement? Perhaps he was worried they suspected him. Perhaps he was worried they thought he put the body there.
“I didn’t know her,” he insisted. “We all looked at those photos and none of us had ever seen her before in our lives. I swear.”
The interview lasted about an hour. Most of it consisted of Todd Weiner repeating that he didn’t know her, or anything, or anyone, and asking several times if this would be covered by his homeowners’ insurance. Esme believed more and more that her hunch—about the house being the key—had been way off.
And then Todd said something odd.
“I knew it was too good to be true.”
Sheriff Fallon nodded at Esme, allowing her to take the bait.
“You knew what was too good to be true, Mr. Weiner?”
“This contest. I told Louise I didn’t remember signing up on their website.”
“What contest?”
Todd Weiner looked up at them like they’d just claimed two plus two equaled an apple. “Hammond Travel Agency. That’s how we went on this trip. We won it in a contest from Hammond Travel Agency out in New Paltz.”
6
Finally—finally!—Timothy had found the perfect pet. Like all true heroes of myth (the Norse legends of the Viking civilization being his favorite), he just needed to recognize his own hubris before achieving success. He had been so quick to blame his previous pet, Lynette, for everything that went wrong when, in fact, some of the finger pointing belonged in his own direction. Had it really been wise to capture an adult? Don’t most pet owners start with puppies and kittens rather than dogs and cats? How foolish he had been to think he could improve on centuries of domestication.
In short, Timothy needed to think younger, and he found his ideal in, of all places, his mother’s veterinary clinic. As the first snow fell Friday morning, he walked the familiar two miles from their house to her clinic, which was in the same strip mall as his father’s travel agency. He enjoyed the taste of the snowflakes, and made sure to catch as many as he could with his tongue.
On his way to the clinic he passed the middle school, where the rest of his peers (and that was the right word—as loath as the old Timothy had been to admit it, these were his peers; he was not a young god) were crowded inside. Timothy hadn’t stepped foot in that building in more than a year, ever since that incident in the cafeteria with Mr. Monroe’s earlobe. His parents had filed the appropriate papers for him to be homeschooled and that was that. Still, as Timothy passed by it, his heart filled with a sense of longing. He was, after all, the new Timothy, person of the world, no different from anyone else. Well, hardly different.
The purpose for his snowbound stroll to Mother’s clinic was to get his wrist reexamined. It had been three days since Lynette had bit him, and although his wound had been properly mended and treated, a bite mark was a bite mark. Perhaps Mother was going to give him a rabies shot.
The other businesses in the strip mall, besides the vet clinic and the travel agency, were a take-out Chinese restaurant, a discount shoe store and a nail salon. The nail salon always had its front door open and emitted such an overpowering reek of ethyl acetate that one whiff of it made Timothy gag. He had tried in the past to circle around and approach the strip mall from the back, but somehow that stench waited for him there. Lynette’s fingernails hadn’t smelled like that. He’d made sure to check each one before removing her hands.
As it happened, he still had the Taser C2 in the left pocket of his coat. He carried it around with him now wherever he went. It was soothing to hold and squeeze. He’d bought it with his father’s credit card from a website in Hong Kong that Cain42 had recommended. The soldering iron, which he’d used to cauterize Lynette’s stumps, had just been a purchase at the local Home Depot. He’d left it in the Weiner house. The soldering iron hadn’t been nearly as soothing to hold and squeeze as the Taser C2, which actually resembled the electric razor he used to trim his peach fuzz. Timothy had once used Father’s manual razor to shave, and had ended up slicing open his chin. He still remembered the blood droplets plunking into the sink—drip…drip…drip—like from a runny faucet. He had a tiny scar there now, a pale white hash mark, and late at night he sometimes ran his fingertips across it. That was soothing, too. He wondered what restful archaeology would be left by the teeth marks on his wrist.
These were Timothy’s aimless thoughts as he crossed First Street at the light and ambled into the parking lot. He held his breath but it did no good. The nail salon’s pungency attacked him, anyway, nauseated his stomach, sent acid up into his throat. He would be safe once he entered the vet clinic. The animals had a safe smell. He would be safe once he—
And then he saw her. Lying there alone in the backseat of a brown station wagon. The station wagon’s engine was still running. Its owner undoubtedly had some kind of pet emergency; otherwise, why leave the engine running? Why leave such perfection alone in the
backseat? She was sleeping there, so peaceful, her oversize head listing a bit to the left. A few tufts of blond hair covered what was otherwise a bare scalp. A soft scalp. Because the human skull took a while to completely harden, and this beauty, this wonder, this perfect pet of his, couldn’t have been older than three weeks.
Timothy swooned. Love at first sight.
He had to be swift and very, very careful. He had two options: try to steal her out of her car seat or simply slip behind the wheel himself and drive off to a more secluded location. Given the complexity of buckles and belts and snaps he beheld crisscrossing his new pet’s little body (most of which was swathed in a blue onesie that depicted a name—Marcy—outlined in red sailboats), he decided to pursue the latter course of action. His gaze danced to the clinic door, and then he moved, swiftly, carefully, to the driver’s door. This he knew would be unlocked; the keys, after all, were still in the ignition. He slid into the front seat. It didn’t need much adjusting. The infant’s mother must have been around his own five foot five. The old Timothy may have scoffed at such pedestrian concepts as coincidence, but this new Timothy offered up a thanks to the Powers That Be for his height and for giving him this perfect pet and for his uncle teaching him how to drive when he was twelve. He shifted the brown station wagon into Reverse.
He drove off to his secret place, his special place. His new pet, Marcy, slept through the entire trip. Every ten seconds Timothy would peek at her face in the rearview. The eyes were closed, but Timothy knew what color they would be. Blue.
He parked near his secret place. By now an inch had accumulated on the ground, and his sneakers crunched powder with every step. That was fine. The time for stealth was almost over. He went around to the side of the car, studied those buckles and belts and straps for a good five minutes and then went to work unfastening them, which took another fifteen.
Behind him, traffic passed. No one paid much attention to what they saw. They were too eager to return home before the snowstorm really hit.
Then Marcy awoke. Her eyes were more green than blue, and they searched Timothy’s face for the semifamiliar features of her mother or father. Her eyesight could discern shapes and colors, but details would be a mystery for another few weeks. This wasn’t her mother, she concluded. So it must be her father.
She wanted her mother.
She cried.
Timothy picked her up out of the car seat. Marcy’s face scrunched up and she cried some more. “Shh,” he told her. She ignored him. He held her at arm’s length. Snowflakes dissolved on her round reddening face. “Please stop,” he said. But she didn’t. They were not far from downtown, and although everyone was hurrying home, a crying baby would still draw attention. Had he chosen poorly? Was she maybe not his perfect pet?
“Please,” he begged her.
Silencing Marcy would actually have been relatively easy. All he had to do was cradle her head with one hand and then smash that head, forehead first, into the roof of the station wagon. Her soft skull probably would explode like a piece of citrus, all pulp and juice and ripped ripe peel.
But that was the old Timothy. He was fourteen now. He was a man. He was more patient. The new Timothy held Marcy against his shoulder and bounced at the knee. He’d seen people do this in the mall. It seemed to work.
It had to work.
It worked. Marcy’s face and body relaxed. Her cries stopped. Her eyes recommenced their exploration of the world around her. The sky seemed to be falling. How pretty.
Timothy didn’t waste any time. He hurried her, still on his shoulder, to his secret place. Nobody would find her here. Nobody would hear her. She would be safe and warm and his. He settled her into her new home, made sure she was secure and then rushed back to the brown station wagon. Its engine was still running. He thought about Marcy’s mother. By now she must have returned to the parking lot. By now she must have realized her child was no longer hers. He drove up to the university campus and parked in one of the more populated lots. He unrolled all of the car’s windows, tossed the keys into a sewer drain and caught the next bus back to town.
He bought his new pet some supplies: formula, a pink blanket, diapers, a plush smiling antelope. The stores were beginning to shutter their doors for the day. People in line were talking accumulation. They were talking one to two feet. They paid no mind to a fourteen-year-old boy running an errand for his baby sister.
Once he had returned to his secret place, once he fed his new pet and played with her little hands and watched her close her green eyes—how big they were!—he knew he’d best get on his way. Blizzards inconvenienced the best of intentions, even for the new Timothy.
That night, Mother made lamb. The three of them ate quietly. No mention was made of the baby-napping that had occurred right outside her clinic. Their household was as soundless as the falling snow. Once he was finished, Timothy excused himself and went to his room. It was time to share his great good news with Cain42.
Later that night, around 3:00 a.m., he borrowed his parents’ car, drove out through the snow to his secret place and spent some more time with Marcy. He wasn’t surprised to find her crying, so he fed her some formula and changed her diaper and rocked her in his arms. He was genuinely surprised how much that seemed to quiet her down and deeply regretted having to leave, but he needed to return home before sunup, if only because of the borrowed car.
Timothy awoke late the next morning with rare verve. His thoughts immediately went to Marcy. He couldn’t wait to see her again and play with her. Both of his parents had already gone to work. Mother had left him a note, reminding him to stop by the clinic, since he hadn’t done so yesterday. That would have to be his first destination.
The outside air was crisp. Timothy tucked his hands into his heavy coat. His left hand closed around his Taser C2. He walked slower than usual along the road, cognizant of slippery patches. Such was the price he paid for always wearing sneakers. It was almost noon by the time he first spotted the strip mall and—
There was a squad car parked in front of the travel agency.
Timothy’s mind whirred. Along the side of the squad car were the words Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department. This wasn’t about Marcy. This was about Lynette. Somehow they had made the connection between the house and the free trip. What had he done wrong? He had been meticulous! He had followed all of Cain42’s rules to the letter, hadn’t he? What would Father tell them? What was Father already telling them? If they had come this far, surely they would be able to piece together the missing child. After all, he had taken her from right in front of his mother’s own clinic. Stupid! The old Timothy had been right all along.
He needed to contact Cain42. Cain42 would know how to proceed. Timothy headed back to the house, quickly, his breath sending smoke signals into the sky.
On the walls of Hammond Travel Agency were posters, dozens and dozens of posters, all depicting a Wonder of the World or a Work of Art or Great Sight to See Before You Die. They weren’t arranged by country or even continent. Here was the Parthenon next to the Sydney Opera House next to an ad for a safari in Zaire.
It reminded Esme of a bedroom and a jewelry box and her heart sank a bit. How Lynette Robinson would have loved this place.
The proprietor of the travel agency was a pleasant-faced fellow named Patrick Hammond. “Call me P.J.,” he told them. “Everyone does.”
Esme and Sheriff Fallon sat down by P.J. at his geography lesson of a desk. Two globes occupied opposite corners of the desk. Esme spun one. She couldn’t resist. Her finger landed on the Canary Islands.
“We actually have a package,” said P.J., “that includes the Canary Islands and Casablanca, all expenses paid, for well under three thousand.”
She smiled at him. This man wasn’t one for the soft sell. He exuded confidence and calmness. It was only when she sat back in her seat that she wondered how much of it was an act. If Tom were here, Esme was certain that he would have been able to figure out Patrick “Call Me P.J.” Ha
mmond in half a second…if there were anything to figure out. But that’s why she and Sheriff Fallon were here.
“So tell us about this contest,” the sheriff said.
“Well, that’s our pride and joy!” P.J. flashed them a grin that spanned from wall to wall. “It’s a sales promotion, really, but you’d never know it. Once a year we offer a raffle. All you’ve got to do to enter is fill out a form on our website. That adds you to our emailing list, but it also makes you eligible for the annual contest. In the past, we’ve sent families on cruises to, oh, Bermuda, Cancún, Nova Scotia, the western Mediterranean. We have over a thousand subscribers to our weekly newsletter from all across the state and even a few in Massachusetts and Vermont. Sheriff Fallon, have you ever been to Tahiti?”
“Sir, as I said on the phone, this is a murder investigation.”
“Yes. You’re absolutely right, and trust me, Sheriff, when I read about what happened in the newspaper, I was horrified. What is this world coming to, right? I can’t imagine some of the truly terrible things you must encounter on a daily basis. Our jobs couldn’t be more different. I have tremendous respect for law enforcement. I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t that be funny, though, if instead of offering vacations to exotic places, we could take trips into other people’s lives? Now that would be some travel agency.”
Sheriff Fallon shifted in his seat. He was not charmed.
Esme, on the other hand, was enjoying P. J. Hammond very much. He was either a genuinely nice, optimistic human being or he was a fantastic performer putting out all the stops to conceal a bottomless darkness. Either way, it made for a great show.
However, Rafe was still stuck at the house, undoubtedly going stir crazy. “P.J.,” she said. “Could you walk us through exactly how you came to choose the Weiners to win the contest?”
“You bet, although it really wasn’t me who chose them.”