Do You Know the Monkey Man?: A Novel

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  “I know it is. I recognized his voice.”

  “You recognized his voice?” She sounded doubtful. “Sam, it’s only been five months since I talked to my father and I hardly recognized his voice.”

  “You’re kidding!” Even for Angela, that sounded extreme.

  “Why would I recognize a voice I hardly ever hear?”

  “Because he’s your dad.”

  “Father,” Angela corrected.

  “Whatever.” I didn’t want to argue over words. “The point is there’s a connection between you. A father-daughter connection. You’ll always recognize your dad’s voice because of that connection.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Angela said. “Look, Sam. I don’t know whether this guy is your dad or not. But just because you’re father and daughter doesn’t mean you’re always connected. Sometimes connections get broken.”

  True. But that didn’t mean they had to stay broken.

  It was almost ten o’clock when Angela and I hung up. I knew my mom would be home soon. I would’ve thought that wherever my dad was, he would be getting home soon, too. I could picture him walking into his house. I didn’t know what he might look like now. I’d only seen that one picture of him, and it was really old. I imagined a man with really blond hair like mine pressing the message button on his answering machine. I could see the look of surprise on his face when he heard my voice, because of course he’d recognize my voice, too. I could see him replaying that message over and over again just to hear my voice. And I could see him checking a clock on the wall, wondering whether it was too late to call me back.

  It’s not. I tried to send thought waves through the phone line. Call me. Please call me.

  He never called that night.

  Or the next day.

  Or the day after that.

  And there were a million reasons why he wouldn’t have called. Reasons other than he just didn’t want to talk to me. One, he could have been on vacation. Two, he could have been working a lot. Three, maybe he worked nights and slept during the day. That would make it awfully hard to find a good time to call me back.

  Right?

  It was also possible he had a new wife who had gotten the message and erased it before he’d even heard it. Even if he was perfectly happy to hear from me, a new wife might not be so happy about it. Now that I really thought about it, I probably shouldn’t have left a message like that.

  Or maybe there was another reason. Maybe he was afraid my mom would answer the phone.

  After three days, I figured it was okay to try him again. But what if he really didn’t want to talk to me? What if he didn’t care about me at all? I couldn’t deal with that possibility, so I decided to hold off a couple more days. We were coming up on the weekend. Surely he’d call during the weekend.

  But on Saturday Mom had a huge list of things she wanted to do. First she wanted to pick up the wedding invitations. Then she wanted to stop in at the bakery, the florist, and Xavier’s, the place where she and Bob were having the wedding reception, just to make sure everything was set. She also had an appointment at Julianne’s for her final dress fitting and then she was hoping to meet with the minister to make her final music selections. She and Bob’s mother had the whole day planned out, and they wanted to drag me along for all of it.

  I hesitated. “I don’t know.” I was sure my dad was going to call that day and I didn’t want to miss him. Sure, I could bring my cell phone along, but I couldn’t exactly talk to him in front of my mom.

  “Sam, taking care of these last-minute wedding details is supposed to be fun. I would’ve thought you’d want to come along.” Mom sounded hurt.

  “Fine,” I said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll go.” It wasn’t like I had a choice anyway. So when my mom wasn’t looking, I set my phone to vibrate and shoved it in my shorts pocket. At least I’d know whether my dad called or not. Then she and I headed out.

  We stopped to pick up Bob’s mother first. “Oh, I’m so glad you girls invited me along!” she said as she hopped into the front seat. “We’re going to have such a nice day.”

  Yeah, real nice.

  Then the two of them started talking about how close the wedding was and how it was finally going to happen. I just sat in the back with my hand resting on my cell phone and watched the world go by.

  We stopped at the florist first. Everything was in order there. Then we stopped at the bakery. Everything was in order there, too. On the way to the stationery store, my mom said, “They were supposed to tile the bathrooms at the new house yesterday. It’s not that far out of the way. Would anyone like to go over and see it?” She glanced pointedly at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Oh, I would love to see your new place,” Bob’s mother said. “I’ve been by it, you know. But I’ve never been inside.”

  “You haven’t seen the inside?” Mom asked, sounding surprised.

  “No.”

  “Well, then we’re definitely going to stop.” Mom put on her turn signal and moved into the left lane. Then she turned onto Ridge Drive. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen the house, too, Sam. It’s almost done.”

  “Great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  “This is such a nice neighborhood,” Bob’s mom prattled on as we drove past rows of identical two-story beige houses. “Dan and Becky really like it.” I couldn’t remember whether Dan was Bob’s brother or Becky was his sister. Either way, they lived about two blocks from where we were going to live, which my mom considered a huge plus.

  “I’m sure we’ll be very happy here,” Mom said. “Don’t you think so, Sam?”

  I gave the correct answer, which was “Yes, of course.” After all, my mom and Bob were plunking down a huge amount of money for this house. And most of my friends lived nearby. As far as my mom was concerned, there was absolutely no reason I shouldn’t be happy here. So, of course, I would be.

  Mom pulled up in front of a house that looked just like all the other two-story beige houses on the block. I don’t know how she knew which one was ours. There was no grass and no driveway yet. But there were doors on the house now. A front door and probably a garage door, too. Though it was hard to tell for sure because the garage door was up and there was somebody sawing something in the garage.

  We all got out of the car and the guy in the garage stopped whatever he was doing. It turned out he was the builder, so he was thrilled to show us around.

  Bob’s mother had nice things to say about everything—the new cabinets and hardwood floor in the kitchen, the screen porch that wasn’t screened in yet, the fireplace in the living room, the ceramic tile in the entryway… . The carpet wasn’t in yet in the living room and dining room, but the builder said it was coming in the next couple of days.

  He led us up the uncarpeted stairway so we could check out the bedrooms and the freshly tiled bathrooms. My bedroom was the first one at the top of the stairs. There was a guy working on the window seat in there. He had sawdust in his hair, on his face, and all over his shirt. He looked up when he saw me lingering in the doorway.

  My mom and Bob’s mom had continued on down the hall with the builder.

  “Are you the lucky lady who gets this room?” Sawdust Man asked with a wide grin that showed the gap between his two top front teeth.

  “Yup.” That was me. The lucky lady.

  It was a nice room. I loved the built-in bookshelves. And I couldn’t complain about the view of the woods from the window. But nice as it was, it just didn’t feel like my room. And the rest of the house didn’t feel like my house. It didn’t feel like anybody’s house. It had no personality. No feelings. No memories.

  The thing about houses is they’re filled with the memories of all the people who have ever lived in them. Our little house on Hartman Lane has memories of me, my mom, my dad, Sarah, and lots of people I’ve never even met. Those memories are all part of that house. When we move, my mom and I will remember things that happened when we lived there. But in
a way, memories stay with a house. Like ghosts.

  I knew exactly what my mom would say to that. She’d say, “Well, I guess we’ll just have to create memories for our new house as soon as we can. And there are no such things as ghosts.”

  The only problem is, this is a huge house. It would take a long time to create enough memories to fill the whole thing. Honestly, I just didn’t think I was up to it.

  It had been five days since I’d left the message on my dad’s answering machine and he still hadn’t called me back. What is the deal? I wondered as I paced anxiously back and forth in my room.

  Was his answering machine broken? Maybe he got the message, wrote my number down so he could call me back later, but then lost the number? Maybe he’d been tearing his whole house apart like a crazy person, trying to find my number, scared to death he’ll never hear from me again.

  Or maybe I was wrong? Maybe the person I called wasn’t my dad after all?

  No. One thing I was sure of—that was my dad’s voice on the answering machine.

  It couldn’t be that he just didn’t want to talk to me. That he just didn’t care. I remember stuff he used to do, like monkey back rides and monkey faces. He was the monkey man and I was his Sammy Bear. He had to call me back. He just had to.

  Maybe he was in the hospital? Or maybe he’d been in a terrible accident? What if after all these years I finally found my dad, only to have him die some terrible death before I could make contact with him? Like the Joseph Wright in San Diego did?

  Maybe I should call that number again and leave another message? This was a good time to do it—Mom and Bob were busy addressing wedding invitations. They weren’t likely to check on me for a while.

  I could say something like, “Hey, even if you don’t ever want to see me or talk to me again, at least call me back and tell me. Just so I know.”

  I reached under my mattress and pulled out the scrap of paper with the information about the three Joseph Wrights. I didn’t really need the paper, though. I had his phone number memorized.

  My heart pounding, I picked up my phone and punched in the number. But this time the phone didn’t ring at all. Instead I got a bunch of tones and a recording that said, “We’re sorry. The number you have dialed has been disconnected.”

  Disconnected? I stared at the cell phone in my hand. That couldn’t be right. I’d just dialed that number five days ago. Maybe my finger slipped and I dialed the wrong number?

  I tried again. But all I got was the same recording.

  Chapter Eleven

  It wasn’t fair. I’d tried so hard to find him. And just when I’d gotten close, he slipped away.

  Well, I knew where my dad was five days ago. Maybe I could call Information and find out where he went? Maybe there was a forwarding number? I dialed 411.

  The operator who answered told me she had listings for two Joseph Wrights and one D. Wright in Richland, Minnesota. I knew I needed the Joseph Wright who lived at 7430 Sheridan Avenue South in Richland, Minnesota. But the lady just said that that number was disconnected and there was no further information.

  Argh! “Thanks anyway,” I said, hanging up.

  I didn’t know what else to do, so I called Angela to see if she had any advice.

  “Drop it,” she said right away. “That’s my advice.”

  “I can’t!” I flopped back onto my bed.

  “Well, if this guy really is your dad, obviously he’s trying to tell you that he doesn’t want to talk to you. I’m sorry, Sam, but some fathers are like that. They walk out and then they pretend that whole part of their lives when they were married to your mom never happened. Even if they had kids. They just cut the kids out of their lives, too. Like they don’t even care.”

  Maybe Angela’s father was like that, but I never thought mine could be like that, too. I picked at a loose thread on my comforter. “He sent me a postcard when I was six. He cared about me then. What changed since then?”

  Angela’s voice softened. “See, this is what I was trying to tell you a couple of weeks ago. Back then you could still pretend your dad was a good guy and he loved you and you could tell yourself there were all these good reasons why he hasn’t been in your life—” I could tell by the tone of Angela’s voice that she was trying to be nice, but her words cut me to the core.

  “But now you have to face the truth about him,” Angela went on. “And you don’t even know the truth. The truth could actually be worse than you’re imagining. Your father could be some sort of criminal or something. He could be a drug dealer or a kidnapper or—”

  A kidnapper?

  “Oh no!” I cried as a new idea took shape in my head. I sat up on my bed.

  “I know. It’s terrible to think of your own father that way, but—”

  “No! Listen to me, Angela,” I interrupted. “What if he is a kidnapper? What if he…kidnapped my sister?”

  Angela let out a short laugh, then cut it off when she realized I was serious.

  “That would explain it,” I said. “It would explain everything: why I have this feeling she’s still alive, why he hasn’t been in touch all these years, why his phone was suddenly disconnected—”

  Whoa! What was I saying? That my dad…what? Faked Sarah’s death, then took her away? Was that what I really thought? That my dad was the kind of person who would do such a thing?

  It was possible. If he really wanted to hurt my mom. Grandma Sperling said my mom and dad never had a good marriage.

  Plus Sarah’s body was never found. I haven’t heard from my dad since I was six years old, and even then I didn’t actually see him. I only got a postcard. If my dad had my sister with him (the sister everyone thinks is dead), and then I called him up out of the blue, no way would he call me back. He wouldn’t want me to know about Sarah.

  “Sam, your father did not kidnap your sister. She drowned in the old quarry ten years ago.”

  “No, she didn’t,” I argued. I was nearly one hundred per cent sure of that.

  “Sam!”

  I could tell Angela thought I’d totally lost my mind, but I didn’t care. I needed a plan. I needed to figure out what I was going to do next.

  “Angela, do you know where Richland, Minnesota, is?”

  “I think it’s one of the suburbs near Minneapolis. Why?”

  “And how far is Minneapolis from where you’re going?”

  “I don’t know,” Angela said warily. “An hour to an hour and a half—”

  Angela was going to Minnesota tomorrow. “I’ve got to go to Minnesota with you,” I said. “Can I?” If I could get as far as Hill Valley with Angela, maybe once I was there I could figure out how to get the rest of the way to Richland.

  “What?” Angela cried.

  I took a deep breath. “I need to go to 7430 Sheridan Avenue South in Richland and meet Joseph Wright and find out why his phone is disconnected.”

  But I knew if I was right about all this, if this Joseph Wright was my dad, and if he really did fake my sister’s death and kidnap her all those years ago, he probably didn’t just disconnect his phone. He probably took Sarah and ran.

  “Sam, you’re scaring me,” Angela said. “This is just too crazy …”

  Still, I could go to 7430 Sheridan Avenue South and find out whether anyone was living there. Even if no one was, I could go to the neighbors and find out whether the man who had lived there had a young girl with him. Maybe I could even get a clue to where they went.

  “Please, Angela,” I begged. “I need to go to Minnesota with you!”

  “I don’t know, Sam,” Angela said. “If you really think this is what happened, I think you need to tell your mom—”

  “She won’t believe me!” She was too wrapped up in wedding plans to even listen to me. You and I are closing the door on this chapter of our lives. It’s time to look forward and put the past behind us.

  “Well, then maybe you could talk to Bob?” Angela suggested. “He’s a cop. Maybe he could—”

  “
I’m definitely not talking to Bob! Not about this. Come on, Angela. Please?” I pleaded. “If I can get to Hill Valley, I can maybe take a bus to Richland. Then I can go over to that house and see what I can find out. It is possible I’m wrong about all this, you know—” I didn’t think so, but I knew Angela was more likely to give in if I said it.

  “If I’m wrong, I’ll just come back to Clearwater with you and pretend it never happened,” I promised. “But if I’m right, don’t you think I have a right to know?”

  Angela didn’t say anything right away. Was she starting to come around?

  “I’d be with you in Hill Valley most of the time,” I went on. “We’d have fun. You could show me around and we could…well, I don’t know what there is to do in Hill Valley.”

  “Not much,” Angela grumbled. “But now that you mention it, it might be nice to have you there at my father’s. Especially if things don’t go well.”

  Yes!

  “I’ll call him and see whether he’ll let me bring a friend, okay?”

  “Okay!” I squealed. “Thanks, Angela. Thank you so much.”

  I was practically bouncing off the walls waiting for her to call me back. Oh my gosh! What if Sarah really was alive and living with my dad? The thought gave me goosebumps.

  Except…my mom and dad didn’t get divorced right away when Sarah died. So how could my dad have kidnapped her? Where would he have hidden her all that time? And if he really was a kidnapper, why did he just take her? Why wouldn’t he have taken me, too?

  Okay, maybe it didn’t all fit together as well as I wanted it to. But there was one thing I did know. The voice on the answering machine was definitely my dad’s. That was why I had to go to Richland, Minnesota.

  Come on, Mr. Hunter. Please say yes!

  Of course, I still needed to clear it with my mom. So I did what I could to pull myself together. I took several deep breaths and ran my fingers through my hair. Then I calmly went to see how she and Bob were coming on the wedding invitations.

  I was surprised to find her alone. But there she was, reading a magazine on the couch in the family room, Sherlock sound asleep in her lap. Except for the stack of stamped wedding invitations piled on the coffee table, it was just like how things were a year ago. Before she and Bob got engaged and started spending every waking minute together.