More laughter.
I started to get dizzy again. The sunlight beating down on me so hard, for so long. I don’t know how I lived through that day. I really don’t.
When it was over, I retrieved my envelope from behind the tree, put it on the top of the pile, and then dumped my last load of dirt on top of it. A fitting burial.
I can’t overstate what that day had done to me. I really can’t. When I was new to the school and feeling like I had absolutely nothing, that was a bad time. But now it wasn’t just a matter of having nothing. It was having nothing and knowing exactly what it was that I didn’t have. What I’d never have. I had seen it in living color that day. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing it for one more minute.
Somehow, it all seemed to come back to that one stupid lock. Like if I had been able to open it, everything would have turned out differently.
Crazy, I know, but I fell asleep with that thought ringing in my head. The lock with the serrated pins. The lock that beat me.
I woke up. I sat straight up in my bed and looked around the dark room.
That’s it, I thought. That’s why I couldn’t open that lock.
I got out of bed and grabbed the first clean clothes I could find. It was just after 2:00 A.M. I rummaged through the things on my desk, found my handmade tools. The pieces of scrap metal bent into the right shapes. I put them in my pocket, grabbed the keys and a flashlight, and sneaked out of the house.
I drove across town on the dark, deserted roads. I had no business being out there, nothing beyond a simple idea so insane I couldn’t even begin to stop myself. I drove all the way to the Marshes’ house, seeing it now in the darkness as I had seen it the very first time. Only now I was alone, and I had a different kind of mission to accomplish.
I parked a good quarter mile away, left the car on the side of the road, and began walking. A regular, normal pace. When I got close to the house, I slipped into the backyard. I made my way back to the tree line, picking up the shovel on the way. I found the last mound of dirt I had made, then pushed the dirt aside, making my way down to where I had buried the envelope.
Careful, I thought. You don’t want to damage it any more than you already have.
When I found the envelope, I picked it up and brushed the dirt off. I stepped behind one of the bigger trees and switched on the flashlight. The envelope looked a little wrinkled, and of course it was dirty as all hell, but it had stayed pretty flat. I opened it and took out the picture and examined it carefully in the thin beam of the flashlight. The corners were a little dinged up. Some of the lines had been rubbed until they were blurry. Overall, though, it didn’t look too bad. Someday I’d have to write a letter to the company who made the envelope and thank them.
Now the tricky part. I turned off the flashlight and made my way to the house. I went to the back door, put my head against the window right next to it, and listened. Last thing I needed was Mr. Marsh standing in the kitchen, raiding the refrigerator for a late-night snack.
Nothing. Silence. It was time to do this. I pulled out my tools and got to work on the lock. As I worked over the pins, I started to appreciate how good the locksmith’s tools really were. I would have given anything at that point to have them in my hands. But no, I thought. These will have to do. As long as I have the right idea, these will work.
Serrated pins, that’s what the man had said. If a mushroom pin had one notch, then a serrated pin must have more than one, right? That’s what “serrated” means. So instead of one false set on each pin, there were many. Like what, three? Four? Five?
It was time to find out. I set the back pin, started working my way to the front. All six pins set, go to the back again, set them all again. Here’s where you have to be so careful, just enough tension to keep everything in place. One tiny bit too little and you lose it, one tiny bit too much and you can’t feel it anymore. I worked through the second sets, got to the exact point I had gotten to before, with the locksmith laughing over my shoulder. This time I knew to keep going.
Back pin again, third set. Work my way to the front. Damn, it was like balancing a house of cards. You have to keep going, but it gets harder and harder with each one, and one false move makes it all fall apart.
I got almost to the end of the third sets, lost the tension, and felt the back pins start to give. So hard to keep the front pin set and go back and fix the back. I let the whole thing go, took a deep breath, shook out my hands, and looked around the empty backyard. I heard a motorcycle revving its motor, maybe a half mile away. I started over.
I got into the fourth sets this time, felt them all start to slip again. These amateur tools, I thought. These worthless hunks of scrap metal.
I stood up and stretched. This is just beautiful, I thought. What the hell are you going to do now?
Try the garage maybe? If you can get through the exterior door, the inside door shouldn’t be too hard to crack, if it’s even locked at all. But hell, if it’s an automatic opener, how do you even get through that? God damn it all. If you hadn’t shown off and opened it the first time, I said to myself, then Mr. Marsh wouldn’t have switched out this lock. You’d be in the house already.
One last time, I thought. One more shot at this and then I give up. Drive home like an idiot and go back to bed.
I went for that last pin again. Only this time… hell, why don’t I try setting it all the way? Go through every notch until I get to the last one…
No, that won’t work. Think about it. As soon as you get to the first set on the next pin, you’ll have to let up the tension and you’ll lose the back.
Wait. Wait one minute here…
I pushed the last pin up, felt it go through all of the sets. Five of them. That last one being the true set. So what if instead of keeping it there… I push it past the last set? I overset each one until I get to the front, then I release enough tension…
I tried it. It was like picking a lock in reverse. I overset the back pin, then the pin in front of that one, and so on until I had gotten through them all. With all six pins overset, all I had to do was let up just enough…
Six little clicks. Six pins falling back to the sheer line. The plug turned and the lock was open.
I stepped into the kitchen. The same kitchen I had been in, how many nights ago was it now? The same feeling came back to me. My heart beating faster. My breathing shallow. Everything in sharp focus. My mind perfectly clear for the first time since… well, since the last time I broke into this house. Only this time, I didn’t have three accomplices stumbling around, putting fireplace pokers through aquariums. This time it was just me, and I felt in complete control.
It felt good. I admit it.
I stood there in the kitchen for a long time, listening carefully for any movement. I could hear a clock ticking in the next room, and nothing else. I made my way through the house, to the stairs. I paused again, listening. Then I went up the stairs, slowly. There was a single night-light plugged into one of the hallway outlets. I went to Amelia’s room, thankful that I knew exactly which door it was. My previous criminal activities coming in handy already. I stopped at her door and listened again. Then I took the drawing out from under my shirt. I was about to slip it under the door. That would have been my last chance to do something halfway smart that night. Instead of doing that, I tried the doorknob. It was locked.
I looked at the knob. There wasn’t even a keyhole, just a single round hole in the center. I took my pick out, slid it through the hole, hit the simple release lever, and slowly let it out so it wouldn’t make any noise. In my whole life, I’d never crack an easier lock.
I pushed the door open an inch. I stood there listening to the sound of her breathing. She was still asleep. I opened the door a few inches more, enough to peek inside and see her bed. A faint shaft of moonlight coming through the window. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and she was wrapped up in her sheet like she’d been wrestling a boa constrictor.