“Let’s just wait here a second.”
“What for?”
“Just to be on the safe side.”
The boy picked up a twig off the ground and toyed with a black beetle that had the unfortunate luck of having crossed in front of him at just the wrong moment. Teri leaned back against the iron handrail and watched the kitchen window, half-expecting to see someone moving around inside. When that didn’t happen, she brought out the key Walt had given her the first night. She crossed the walkway to apartment B-242, and plugged the key into the lock. It toggled both directions without success. But before she had the chance to try it a third time, the door gradually swung open on its own.
“It’s unlocked,” the boy said, surprised.
“Shhh.”
Inside, the short entryway was cast in a crisscross of shadows. The kitchen was off to the right, bright under the overhead fluorescents. The living room was straight ahead, slightly off center, again to the right. Teri took a short step across the threshold and paused.
The boy stepped up behind her, his hand slipping around her wrist and holding on.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m just going to take a look. You stay here by the door.”
“I want to come with you.”
“Let me check it out first.”
At the first doorway, she stopped and slowly peered around the corner into the kitchen. It looked as if all hell had broken loose. Drawers were pulled off their tracks, utensils scattered across the floor, the refrigerator door left open. There was a pile of cereal boxes and empty soup cans, jelly jars and empty macaroni packages on the floor in the middle of the room. A three-fingered track of apricot jelly stained the walls above the countertop and the sink, and someone had squirted the ceiling with what looked like ketchup and salad dressing.
It was worse than that, much worse, but that was as much as she needed to see. She turned and started back out the door.
“We’ve gotta get out of here!”
[36]
It was getting cold out.
Walt blew into his hands to warm them, and settled a little deeper into the front seat of the car. The evening cloud cover had finally dissipated. The sky was a remarkable crisp, deep black, sprinkled with a garden of stars.
Four hours had passed since he had first arrived here. Across the street, the house had given itself to the quiet of the night. It was a small two-bedroom, Sixties tract home with a flat, gravel roof and an oak tree in the front yard. It belonged to Richard Boyle, though he was currently going by the name of B. L. Richards. He worked at a printing shop off of Fourth Street called the Ace Printing Company. He had been working there for nearly nine months, having moved into the area with his two kids from a small town in upper Oregon. That was the story he had pitched to his employer. It was the same story he had offered up to the secretary at John F. Kennedy Elementary where he had registered the kids. And it was all a lie.
Walt glanced at the clock. 10:20 p.m. He flipped on the radio, met with an instant barrage of static, and grumpily flipped it off again.
“Come on, Richard. Where the hell are you?”
He hadn’t seen Richard and he hadn’t seen the children, and that was not a good omen. It left him wondering if Boyle had somehow made him, if he had known Walt was getting close and had already pulled out of the area. A father who steals his children keeps them nearby. So if Walt’s information was correct and this was the place and Boyle was B. L. Richards, then where were the children?
There were no lights on in the house.
There was no activity.
A couple of the neighborhood kids had said they hadn’t seen Christy or Garrett, the Boyle kids, since late last week. The family had crammed into their old Datsun late one night, all three in the front seat, and had apparently driven off to run errands. Christy waved good-bye on the way down the street, but no one could remember them coming back. And no one could remember seeing any luggage when they had left.
“I thought they were going out to dinner,” one little girl said.
Walt blew into his hands again, and glanced up the street, where a dog was circling a pair of dented garbage cans. The neighborhood had been alive two hours ago, a group of boys playing street hockey, neighbors arriving home after work, a boy going door-to-door collecting for his newspaper route, a woman and her daughter out walking the family dog. Gradually, things had grown quieter, though, and now it was as if the block of tract homes had turned into something of a ghost town.
He watched the dog stand on his hind legs and knock over the smaller of the two cans. The lid fell off, rolled over the edge of the curb and wobbled to its death like the last throes of a coin that had been flipped. A loud metallic explosion of noise went echoing down the street. And not a soul stirred. Not a single person in the entire neighborhood.
That was enough for him.
He climbed out of the car and started across the street, tired of playing it safe and wasting his time. Odds were Richard Boyle had gathered up his kids and had checked out. It was that simple. Somehow he had gotten word and they had done a quick vanishing act. Heaven only knew how far they had traveled by now. Maybe all the way back to upper Oregon.
As Walt opened the side gate and made his way around back, he made a mental note to check the possibility that Boyle had taken the kids back to Oregon. People had a habit of tipping their hands, whether they were aware of it or not. That was by no means only true in poker. A tell was a tell, and upper Oregon was Boyle’s safe bet.
To Walt’s surprise, the sliding glass door opening to the back patio was slightly ajar. They had left in a hurry. He rolled open the screen door, which made an agonizing squeal, then slipped through the opening and into the house.
His eyes made an adjustment.
This appeared to be the family room. Linoleum floor. Sofa. Coffee table. Fireplace. He shuffled through the stack of T.V. Guides on the table, finding nothing of note, and wandered into the adjoining room, which turned out to be the kitchen.
It was darker here. Walt pulled a pen light out of his pocket and did a quick scan of the counter top. A stack of newspapers. A six-pack of Old Milwaukee. An overturned salt shaker. A toaster. Half a loaf of bread. An open jar of peanut butter. A sink full of dirty dishes. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but he noticed it now… the strong permeating odor of rotten food. Not only had they left in a hurry, they had left several days ago.
“Dandy,” he muttered. “Two days, three hundred miles, all for nothing.”
He turned off the pen light, returned it to his jacket pocket, and took advantage of the nearest light switch. It didn’t matter if the house was suddenly all lit up now, did it? Not unless you’re worried about alerting the neighbors. Which he wasn’t. Because he wasn’t planning on being here that long.
In the kids’ room, several of the dresser drawers had been pulled out, the clothes dumped in a pile on the bed and apparently sorted. It was much the same in the other bedroom, clothing strewed about on the floor and bed, closet doors open, a pair of tennis shoes left behind in the corner.
He picked up a matchbook from the dresser, tossed it aside, and wondered what had happened. How had Boyle been tipped? Walt sat on the edge of the bed, tapped the lamp shade with his index finger and watched the dust rise into the air like an angry swarm of bees.
He was going to have to start all over again.
From the beginning.
Social security numbers. Change of address requests. School transcripts.