Suddenly, Leo Brocks voice sounded in my mind: Were you ever over around the water tower?
Keith's answer had been typically short—no.
And yet, between the question and the answer, something had glimmered in my sons eyes, the same dark flaring I'd seen when he'd said that he'd walked home alone the night of Amy's disappearance.
I'd let all of this go for days, despite the fact that Amy's pajamas had been discovered in the general area of the tower, a fact I'd hardly thought about until that evening, when I suddenly felt the urge to go there, see the place for myself, perhaps even find some small thing, a lock of hair, a scrap of paper, that would lead me to her. It was an absurd hope, as I knew even then, but I'd reached the point where absurdity joined with reality, my son accused, however vaguely, of a terrible crime, and I unable to feel certain that he was not also guilty of it. That was the pressure that drove me forward, made me start the engine, drive out of the parking lot in front of my shop, turn right, and head toward the northern edge of town where, within minutes, I could see the top of the water tower glowing softly in the distance, motionless, cylindrical, like a hovering spacecraft.
The unpaved road that led to the tower was a bumpy winding one that grew ever more narrow as I drove down it. Two walls of green vines crept in from both sides of the road, sometimes clawing at my window like skeletal fingers.
The road curled to the left, then made a long circle around the looming tower and the high metal legs that supported its enormous weight. There were no formal parking spaces, but I could see indentations in the surrounding vegetation, places where cars had pulled in and parked with sufficient regularity to leave their ghostly images in the undergrowth.
I followed the road on around, then stopped, backed into a phantom space, and cut my lights. Now there was nothing to illuminate the darkness but the beams that swept down from the outer rim of the tower.
For a time I sat in that covering darkness, my gaze moving about the softly illuminated area beneath the tower. It was weedy and overgrown, and the wind rippled softly through the grasses. Here and there bits of litter tumbled briefly in these same breezes, then gently came to rest.
I saw nothing that I might not have expected of such a place. It was lonely and deserted and far off the beaten track, but beyond these common characteristics, it might have been reproduced in a dozen other towns throughout the region. They all had their own water towers, and nothing distinguished this one from those others except my gathering sense that it was used in some way, a designated meeting place, the sacred territory of a secret society. I half expected to see animal bones scattered about the grounds, the remains of some occult group's bizarre religious sacrifices.
That thought gave me an eerie chill, the feeling that I'd stumbled into someone else's territory, the way casual hikers are said to stumble onto marijuana patches in the middle of otherwise perfectly innocuous fields and meadows. Could it be, I wondered, that Amy Giordano had been brought here not merely because it was secluded, but for some specific purpose? My imagination fired luridly, and I saw her standing, stripped and bound, surrounded by a circle of robed figures, all of them mumbling satanic incantations as they slowly circled her. Then, in my mind's bizarre scenario, she was laid upon a makeshift altar, silver blades raised high above her as the incantation reached a fever pitch. Then the knives came down one at a time, each figure taking his appointed turn until—
That was when I saw the light.
It came down the same unpaved road I'd taken only minutes before, headlights bouncing jerkily as the car bumped toward the tower. At the tower, it circled slowly, the shadowy driver staring straight ahead as the car drifted past mine, so that I caught the face only in brief black silhouette.
Clearly, he was familiar with the place, because he drove directly to what seemed a preordained spot, then stopped, backed up, and turned off his lights.
I had backed deeply into the undergrowth, and so I doubt that he saw me as he passed, though surely he must have glimpsed the front of my car when he backed into his own place. If so, my presence did not in the least alarm him. Through the eerie haze cast beneath the tower, I saw him as he sat in the shadowy interior of his car. He did not get out, and for a time he remained almost completely still. Then I saw a slight movement and after that, the fire of a match and the glowing tip of a cigarette, rhythmically brightening and dimming with each inhalation.
The minutes passed, and as they did, the man became less sinister. I imagined him a harmless night owl, maybe plagued by an unhappy home, and so he'd found a place where he could sit alone, undisturbed, and either think things through or let his troubles briefly slip his mind altogether.
Then, out of the darkness, a second car made its approach, moving slowly, its headlights joggling through the undergrowth until it made the same slow turn, found its place, and backed in.
A woman got out, short and somewhat overweight, her blond hair hanging stiffly, like a wig. She walked to the second car and pulled herself in on the passenger side. Despite the darkness, I could see her talking with the man. Then she leaned forward, curling downward, and disappeared from view. The man took a final draw on his cigarette and tossed it out the window. The woman surfaced briefly, and I think they both laughed. Then she curled forward and disappeared again, this time without resurfacing until the man suddenly thrust his head backward and released what even from a distance I recognized as a shuddering sigh.
I wanted to leave, of course, to skulk away unseen, because there is a kind of intrusion that comes very close to crime. I felt like a thief, someone who'd broken into a secret chamber, and for that reason I remained in place, my head down, my eyes roaming here and there, avoiding the two cars that rested in the darkness several yards away. The sound of a car door returned me to them. The woman had gotten out of the man's car and was heading back toward her own. On the way, she grabbed the purse that dangled from her shoulder, opened it, and put something inside. Seconds later, she pulled away, the other car falling in behind her, both cars making their way around the circle, through the grasping vines, and back out onto the main road.
Even then, I stayed in place for fear that if I left too soon I might come upon one or the other of them and reveal what I'd seen at the tower.
Five minutes went by, then ten, and at last it seemed safe to leave. I drove back to the main road and headed home to where I knew I would find Meredith reading in bed and Keith secreted in his room, listening to music or playing his computer games. I thought I knew the things that were on Meredith's mind, either Keith or some problem at the college. But Keith was much more of an enigma now, a boy who smoked, cursed, perhaps even lied to the police and me about—I couldn't even say how many things he might have lied about. I only knew that I couldn't stop my own growing suspicion that the anonymous caller on the police hotline had been right, that there was something wrong.
THIRTEEN
The next morning Keith left for school at his usual time. From the front window I watched as he mounted his bicycle and peddled up the short incline to the main road. Physically, he was burdened by nothing more than the book bag that hung at his back, but I couldn't help but consider the other weights he bore—confusion, isolation, loneliness. Still, these were no more than the usual burdens of a teenage boy, and I worked to dismiss any doubts that they might not be the only ones he carried.
"Well, I guess no news is good news."
I turned to see Meredith standing a few feet behind me, her gaze following Keith as he made his way up the incline and disappeared behind a wall of forest undergrowth.
"Nothing new from the cops," she added. "I guess that's a good thing."
I continued to peer out into the woods. "I suppose," I said dryly.
She cocked her head to the right. "You sound pessimistic, Eric. That's not like you." She came over and drew me around to face her. "You okay?"
I smiled weakly. "I'm just tired, that's all. Thinking about everything."
"
Sure," Meredith said. "And it couldn't have been a very good experience, Vince Giordano coming up to you like that." She placed her hands on either side of my face. "Listen, we'll go to Dr. Mays's party tomorrow night, get out of this gloom, have a good time. We both need it, right, a chance to relax?"
"Yes."
With that she kissed me, though dartingly, spun around, and headed up to our bedroom to finish dressing.
I remained at the window, watching the morning light slant through the overhanging trees. I had never actually noticed how beautiful it was, the small piece of woodland that surrounded our house. For a moment I recalled the day we'd moved in, how before unloading the truck we'd taken a moment to stand and look around, Meredith with Keith beside her, how bright the day had been. How on that day, as we'd huddled together in this perfect wood, we had all been smiling.
It was a Thursday morning, and so, rather than drive directly to the shop, I headed for the retirement home where my father had lived for the past four years. I'd dropped in on him at exactly the same day and time since he'd first taken up residence there. Even in old age, he'd maintained his aversion to what he called "untimely surprises," by which he meant everything from a gift offered on any but appropriate occasions to un-scheduled visits by either of his two sons.
That morning he received me as he always did, in a wheelchair parked on the home's broad front porch. Even in winter, he preferred that we sit outside, though in recent years, he'd given in a little on that one, and so from time to time I'd found him in the front room, his chair placed a few feet from the fireplace.
"Hello, Dad," I said as I came up the stairs.
"Eric," he said with a crisp nod.
I sat down in the wicker rocker beside his chair and glanced out over the grounds. They were roughly tended, dotted with crabgrass and dandelions, and I could see how much they offended him.
"They'll wait for frost to kill the weeds," he grumbled.
He'd always been a stickler that the spacious grounds surrounding the grand house on Elm Street were always perfectly manicured. He'd hired and fired at least ten groundskeepers during as many years. They were lazy or inept, according to him, though he'd never permitted my mother to so much as pick up a spade to correct their deficiencies. Her job had been to maintain my father, see to it that his suits were pressed, his desk cleared, his dinner on the table when he triumphantly returned home each evening. A woman's work, he'd pointedly declared, is always to be done on the inside.
"I guess you heard about Amy Giordano," I said.
He continued to stare out across the unkempt grounds.
"The little girl who disappeared," I added.
He nodded, but with little interest
"I guess you've also heard that Keith was babysitting her that night," I said.
My father's lips jerked downward, "He was bound to get in trouble," he said sourly. "This or something else."
I'd never guessed that my father had any such opinion of my son.
"Why do you think that?" I asked.
My father's eyes drifted over to me. "You never stood up to him, Eric," he said. "You never made him mind you. Same with Meredith. Hippies."
"Hippies?" I laughed. "Are you kidding me? I was never a hippie. I went to work when I was sixteen, remember? I didn't have time to be a hippie."
He turned back toward the yard, his eyes now strangely hard. "From the first time I saw him, I knew he'd be trouble."
In all the fifteen years of my son's life, my father had never expressed such a grim notion. "What are you talking about?" I demanded. "Keith has always been a good kid. Not the best grades, but a good kid."
"Looks like a bum," my father growled. "Like he lives on the street. Lazy. Like Warren."
"Warren's been good to you, Dad."
"Warren is a bum," my father sneered.
"When he was a kid, he worked his ass off for you."
"A bum," my father repeated.
"He did all the heavy lifting around the house," I insisted. "Every time you fired yet another landscapes he took up the slack—mowed, cut the hedge. You even had him paint the house one summer."
"Looked like a melted cake when he finished," my father snarled. "Dripping all over. Splotches. Couldn't do corners. Messed up the latticework. Everything sloppy."
"Okay, so he didn't do a professional job," I said. "But he was just a kid, Dad. Sixteen years old that last summer."
That last summer. I remembered it with almost disturbing clarity. My father had been gone for days at a time, off to New York or Boston in search of cash. My mother had kept the house running by sheer will, secretly borrowing money from Aunt Emma, according to Warren, cutting corners at the grocery store, driving thirty miles to buy clothes at the Catholic thrift shop in a neighboring town.
"You refused to admit how bad things were," I reminded him. "You came back from New York with two new suits from Brooks Brothers."
My father waved his hand dismissively. "Nobody went hungry."
"We might have," I said. "If it hadn't been for Mom handling the household budget."
My father laughed coldly. "Your mother couldn't handle anything"—he waved his hand—"worthless."
"Worthless?" I asked, angry that he would say such a thing about a woman who'd spent her life taking care of him. "If she was so worthless, why did you have her insured?"
My father's head jerked to attention. "Insured?"
"Warren said there was insurance. When Mom got killed."
"What would Warren know about that?"
"The insurance man came to the house," I said.
I saw my father's face tighten slightly.
"He came one day when Warren was packing everything after the bank took the house."
My father laughed dryly. "Warren's nuts. There was no insurance man."
"According to Warren he was asking about our family, how things were between you and Mom."
"Bullshit!" my father grumbled, his voice now a low growl, like a dog driven into a corner.
I started to speak, but his hand shot up, stopping me. "What does a drunk like Warren know? His brain is soaked in alcohol." He lowered his hand, leaned back in his chair, and glared out over the weedy yard. "Nothing," he said bitterly. "When that old woman died, I got nothing."
"That old woman?" I repeated. "Jesus, Dad, she was devoted to—"
"Devoted to me?" my father bawled. His head rotated toward me with an eerie smoothness, and a caustic laugh burst from him. "You have no idea," he said.
"About what?"
My father chuckled to himself. "You don't know a thing about her. Devoted, my ass."
"What are you getting at?"
His laughter took a still more brutal turn, becoming a hard, hellish cackle. "Christ, Eric." He shook his head. "You always put her on a pedestal, but, believe me, she was no fucking saint."
"A saint is exactly what she was," I insisted.
His eyes twinkled with some demonic inner light. "Eric, trust me," he said. "You have no idea."
I was numb when I left him a few minutes later, numb and floating like a feather in the air. After his outburst, my father had refused to say anything more about my mother. It was as if their married life was a brief, unpleasant episode for him, a game of poker he'd lost or a horse he'd bet on that came in last. I remembered the effusive show of love and devotion he'd always put on for the well-heeled business associates who occasionally dropped by for a game of billiards or to sip his expensive scotch while they talked and smoked cigars in the grand house's well-appointed parlor. "And this is my beautiful bride," he'd say of my mother by way of introduction. Then, in an exaggerated gesture of adoration, he'd draw her to his side, cup her narrow waist in his hand ... and smile.
It was just after ten when I arrived at the shop. Neil was already at work, as usual. A less-observant man might not have noticed any change in my demeanor, but Neil had always been quick to gauge even the subtlest alteration of mood. He saw the distress I was laboring to hide, bu
t when he finally addressed the matter, he was miles off the mark.
"Business will pick up," he said. "People are just ... I don't know ... they're strange."
Strange.
The word abruptly swept away all my defenses, all my efforts to keep my fears in check. The dam broke, and I felt myself hurling forward on a rush of boiling dread, every dark aspect of the last few days now rising before me, demanding to be heard.
"Something wrong, boss?" Neil asked.
I looked into his hugely caring eyes and felt that I had no one else to go to. But even then, I had no idea where to begin. There was too much boiling within me now, too much hissing steam. I could barely sort one troubling doubt from another. And so I drew in a quick breath, trying to center myself and concentrate on the most immediate matter before me. Which surely, I decided, was Keith.
"I'd like to ask you something, Neil," I began tentatively.
"Anything," Neil said softly.
I walked to the front of the shop, turned out the CLOSED sign and locked the door.
Neil suddenly looked frightened. "You're going to fire me." His voice edged into panic. "Please don't, Eric. I'll correct whatever it is. I need this job. My mother, you know. Medicine. I—"
"It's not about the job," I assured him. "You do a great job."
He looked as if he were about to faint. "I know it wasn't a great summer, businesswise, but..."
"It has nothing to do with the shop," I said. I stopped and drew in a fortifying breath. "It's about Keith."
Neil's face grew very still.
I could find no alternative to simply leaping in. "What do you know about him?"
"Know about him?" Neil asked, clearly a little baffled by the curious urgency he heard in my voice.
"About his life."
"Not very much, I guess," Neil answered. "He talks about music, sometimes. What bands he likes, that sort of thing."
"Has he ever talked about girls?" I asked.
"No."
Red Leaves Page 10