by Ike Hamill
# # #
Reynold looked up at the sound of a light knock on the door.
He could only stare at the figure in the doorway. It wasn’t one of his—that’s as much as he knew.
“Mr. Carroll?”
When he craned his neck forward, trying to figure out who it was, she said, “It’s Nicky? Nicky Baker?”
“Oh. Sure,” Reynold said. He still wasn’t sure who it was, but she seemed to think he should. He stood and waved her in. “Come on in. What’s, um… What can I do for you?”
She was too old to be here for Jessie, and he didn’t recognize her from Lily’s little squadron.
“Is Eric here?”
“Eric?”
“Your nephew?”
“Oh! Yes, I know who Eric is, but he hasn’t lived here for… Oh, you’re Nicky. Nicole, right? You’re Ellen and Kirk’s daughter.”
“Yes. You haven’t seen Eric?”
“No, like I said, he has been gone for a couple of years. He moved to Ohio to live with his mom.”
She swallowed, hard, like she was trying to make a decision. Reynold knew the look—the truth was trying to come up and out of her, but she was trying desperately to keep it inside. Instead of interrogating her, he simply raised his eyebrows and waited.
She didn’t move and didn’t say anything.
Reynold had another tactic.
“You know, I was just trying to puzzle out this electric bill. The kids take the lights and radios and the TV for granted, but everything costs something. Seems like it costs more and more each minute, too.”
“I… I don’t...” she started to say.
Reynold waved a dismissive hand, letting her off the hook for his financial problems. The ruse worked. She was so off balance from his weird remark that she forgot to not tell him what she was trying so desperately to keep inside.
“Eric is back.”
“Back where?”
Nicky’s secrets came tumbling out.
“He came to the store today. Dottie’s—I work at Dottie’s. Eric came by so I thought he would probably be here. He was going to look for Lily. She was at the store too. I was going to call you, but then Eric said he would find her, and then when I didn’t hear anything I did call you but they said that you had already left work.”
“Look for Lily? She’s at work.”
Nicky shook her head. “No. Nuh-uh. Maybe she went, but she left. She came into Dottie’s and she was acting pretty strange. I think… I don’t know why, but I think that she was planning to leave town. She said, ‘Sayonara, suckers,’ and then she… Well, she left.”
Reynold’s brow furrowed with his confusion. There were a lot of words to Nicky’s confession, but few of them made any real sense.
“Lily’s not at work?”
“She wasn’t before. I… I should go.”
Reynold raised a hand. “Thanks.”
Nicky pulled the door shut behind herself. That made Reynold laugh. The thing had been open since he had gotten home. His sons had walked right through without giving a thought to closing it, and he had looked at it from the kitchen table like there was nothing he could do about the issue. It took a neighbor girl to come in and shut it for them.
Killing his beer, he crushed the can. Reynold went to the hall that led to the front staircase.
# # #
Wendell’s door was shut—no surprise there. The door was always shut when Wendell was upset. Across the hall, Jessie’s door was open a few inches. Reynold kicked it and smiled at Jessie’s wide eyes. The kid was lying on his bed, with a magazine on his chest.
“Dinner’s up to you tonight.”
“It’s Wendell’s turn.”
Reynold pointed. “It’s up to you. Here’s twenty. Get us China Town.”
“All right!” Jessie said. He caught the twenty that Reynold tossed to him.
“Something for everyone.”
“Got it.”
Reynold pulled back and paused at Wendell’s door. He wanted to go in, but figured it would be best to leave it to Zinnia. She had a better sense of how to cope with their son’s tantrums. Continuing down the hall, Reynold paused to yell, “Clean up your bathroom,” over his shoulder.
“Okay,” Jessie said.
The door to the rear hall was locked. Reynold slid the bolt and clicked the latch on the handle. The locks were there just to remind them to be careful. The new flooring was still stacked down in the back room, as it had been for a month. Flipping on the light, Reynold eased a foot out onto the joist. It creaked as it accepted his weight. When he got his second foot onto the joist, he closed the door behind himself. Then, leaning agains the wall for balance, he eased his way down to his daughter’s room.
His knock was unnecessary. With the lights out and the door cracked open, it was clear that nobody was home. Flipping on the lights, Reynold surveyed the damage. Books had been spilled from the shelf. There were t-shirts and shorts in a pile on the bed. The floor was covered in dirty clothes and the closet was open. Moving closer, he saw that the dresser drawers were open and empty. Reynold put his hands on his hips and turned in a slow circle. Aside from the naked joists in the hall, the only way in or out was the window.
Reynold crawled across his daughter’s bed and looked through the window to the back yard. He wasn’t about to try his luck on the ladder that was attached to the back of the house. With the window closed and latched, Reynold took one more look around the room and exited carefully to the hall. This time, he went to the back stairs and saw footprints in the dust when he reached the place where the floor resumed. There was no way to tell if they were hours or days old.
The odd news from Nicky hadn’t really worried him at the time. She seemed like a nice girl, but it was possible that she was overreacting. With only her claim that Lily had been acting strange, there really wasn’t that much to worry about. The room was a different animal. It looked like it had been ransacked.
He was halfway down the back stairs when he heard a door close. Reynold rushed through the piles of building supplies in the mudroom and reached the kitchen in time to catch Zinnia as she headed for the living room.
“Shit,” Reynold said.
“Good to see you too. How was your day?”
“Pretty shitty so far. I thought you might be Lily.”
His wife rolled her eyes. She stood there, unbuttoning the cuffs and top button of her blouse. Next, she would take off her shoes and wiggle her freed toes. This was all part of her winding down process when she got home.
“Jessie’s going for headache food?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Reynold said. “Listen, one of Eric’s old schoolmates came over and said that Lily was acting funny. I was just up in her room and it looks torn apart.”
“It always looks that way.”
“This is serious—you don’t think that maybe Brett…”
Her mouth turned and face wrinkled up with concern and distaste.
“Let me go change and then look at her room.”
Reynold nodded and pulled out a chair. He piled up all the bills from earlier and set them to the side. It wasn’t the time to worry about those. His leg began to bounce nervously and he regretted his decision to put the matter into Zinnia’s hands. If there was action to be taken, he was going to have to fight her to get anything done. When she got home from work, the last thing she wanted was turmoil. If he had just made an excuse, he could be out at that moment, checking the movie theater, bowling alley, and, of course, Brett’s house to see if he could spot the yellow Buick.
# # #
“Looks the same to me,” she said. She had taken the time to change before she came back to the kitchen.
“The same?”
“Why can’t you put some boards down in that hallway? Why do we have to do a high-wire act just to get into Lily’s room?”
Reynold ignored the question. They had fought about that topic in a hundred ways. She always wanted to admit defeat and install a temporary wor
karound when the real solution was to just roll up their sleeves and finish the job correctly. He clawed away from that argument before he could be sucked in.
“There were things missing. Her bag was gone and most of her clothes,” Reynold said.
“Maybe,” Zinnia said. “But it’s also possible that she didn’t put her things away after that camping trip. Hell, maybe she finally decided that she didn’t like rust stains on her clothes so she took them down to Sunshine to wash them. She did ask if we had any quarters the other day.”
“Those were for pinball,” Reynold said, but he wasn’t completely sure. She had a point—Lily was constantly complaining about their washing machine, even though the rust stains were almost certainly from the dryer.
“I don’t know why you’re so concerned. She probably just went out for a drink after work.”
“Because that Baker girl got in my head. She said that Lily was acting strange and that she called me at work. When was the last time a random kid called you at work to tell you your daughter was acting strange?”
Zinnia tilted her head like she was considering the question. She wasn’t.
“Nick and Alex,” she said. “What do you mean ‘Baker girl’?”
“Nicky—her name is Nicky.”
“Could have fooled me. Stocky boy? Wavy hair?”
Reynold grunted as he got up.
“Go watch your news. I’m going to look outside.”
She shrugged and headed for the living room. Upstairs, a door slammed. Reynold thought about telling Zinnia about Wendell and then dismissed the idea. She would find out at dinner if he was still too upset to come down.
Outside, the yard was brighter than it had looked through the windows, but Reynold wished he had remembered a flashlight. The yard was a little squishy from the rain. He thought that maybe he could spot something below Lily’s ladder. Brett always wore big, heavy boots. They would have definitely left marks in the dirt below the ladder if he had come by. Reynold crouched down, not really seeing anything at all in the grass.
The crickets were singing. In the neighboring house, yellow lights streamed from the kitchen windows and a flickering blue from the living room. Mr. Caswell was probably watching TV while he heated up his TV dinner. Once he finished, he would open his living room window to exhaust the cigar smoke. From the house across the alley, Reynold heard Mrs. Riday’s wind chimes. As his father might say, everything in their little neighborhood was five by five.
He stood up slowly, trying to sense what was off. His father might say it was five by five, but there was something.
Walking back towards the side door, he saw it—there was a bag on the little chair near the bulkhead door. Reynold got close enough to see the name stenciled in black.
“Hoffer,” he whispered. His heart started pounding.
Gripping it tight, he rushed for the door. The backpack smelled and was cold.
Just climbing the stairs, his son was holding his own bag. It was an oil-stained paper bag from China Town.
Through a mouthful of egg roll, his son said, “Hey, Dad.”
“You didn’t see me. Turn on the porch light.”
“Huh?”
“Just go inside and turn on the porch light. Tell your mom that I’m… Just don’t tell her anything.”
“Okay.”
Reynold sat on the step and waited for the light to come on.
# # #
With everything packed back into the bag, Reynold went inside to find Zinnia and the boys sitting at the kitchen table, eating the takeout Chinese food. He raised the backpack and tilted his head at his wife. Licking her fingers and wiping her mouth, she got up and came to him.
“I found this out back,” Reynold whispered, gesturing at the backpack.
“It stinks.”
“Yeah. I think Nicky was telling the truth—Eric is back in town. I don’t know what’s going on with him and Lily, but I think I should go down to the police station and report this.”
“Report what?”
“I found this,” he whispered, shaking the bag. “In the backyard.”
She took a moment to really study the backpack. Her finger pointed at the stenciled name, stopping just short of tapping it.
“It’s my brother’s. I’m sure that Eric just left it here and one of the boys took it outside to play with it or…”
“Zinn, it has Eric’s stuff in it. It has his driver’s license. He brought it here today. You stay here in case Lily comes by or calls. I’ll be back.”
She shrugged and he held out his hand for her keys. She always kept them in her pocket until she went to bed, like she was afraid that someone was going to steal her car. She plopped them in his hand and then raised up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek.
“Call me if you find anything.”
“Okay.”
On the way to her car, he wondered at the bag in his hand. He thought he needed to take it to the station so he would have some physical evidence to back up his questions. He also didn’t want to take it down there. He was pretty sure that he had removed all the illegal stuff from it—that was all stashed under the porch—but the other random possessions inside could have been stolen or part of some crime that Eric had been involved in.
With one more glance at the bag, he whispered, “Fuck it,” and got in his wife’s car.
Driving up Elm Street, Reynold opened the window when he felt the sweat dripping down the inside of his shirt. His fingers drummed on the wheel. It wasn’t as if he had ever had any terrible interactions with the local police. The captain—Williams?—had seemed very sympathetic and kind. And the one time that Reynold had been stopped for speeding, the young officer had seemed almost embarrassed and apologetic to even give him a warning.
Still, his heart was pounding as he turned into the parking lot of the brick building. He imagined that everyone was watching him. They were all wondering what kind of trouble he was in.
Taking a deep breath, he got out, closed the door and then had to open it again to fetch the backpack. He tried to appear casual as he walked to the door.
A man coming out held the glass door open for him. Reynold felt the man’s eyes on him and glanced to see that he was correct—the man was studying him as he passed.
There was a woman behind the desk. She put on a fake smile as he approached.
“May I help you?”
“Yes. I hope so at least.”
He put the smelly backpack up on the counter and saw that her glance only flicked to the bag before returning to assess him.
“I found… Let me…”
“Is this an emergency?”
Reynold finally took a deep breath. “I don’t think so, no. This bag belongs to my nephew. He used to live with us, but he moved back to Ohio. I think he might have come by my…”
“Eric?”
“Yes!” Reynold said. His excitement quickly crystallized into fear—why did she know his name?
“Hold on a second,” she said. Her chair rolled back and spun in one easy movement. She disappeared through a doorway for just a second and then was back in her chair, rolling towards Reynold.
“Officer Saunders will be right…”
A door banged and a tall, uniformed man strode towards Reynold.
“…with you,” the woman said.
Reynold was staring at the officer. He thought the man was going to put out his hand to shake, but he only looped his thumbs through his belt so he could puff out his chest.
“You know Eric Hoffer?”
“Yes. He’s my nephew. He used to live with us and I found his bag at the house today. Is he here?”
“He have any ID in that bag?” the officer asked, narrowing his eyes.
Reynold glanced down at the name’s name tag and realized he had already heard the name from the woman at the desk—Saunders.
“Yes, Officer Saunders? I’m his uncle,” he bent to open the bag and find Eric’s wallet.
“Do you have ID?”
>
“Sure. Just a sec.”
Reynold fished out his own wallet. Handing it over, he thought about his father, who had always been a strict law and order guy. Before Reynold had gotten his driver’s license, he had first been required to ace his father’s own written test. Each answer had to be correct.
“You think it’s acceptable to obey the law ninety-percent of the time?” Reynold’s father had asked him when he was sixteen. “When you run a lady off the road because you didn’t use your turn signal, is it okay because you did ninety other things correctly that day?”
But, even as a law and order guy, his father had never put up with abusive power. He studied the statutes and knew very well the extent of the authority of the police. God help the officer who might ask for his father’s ID.
“Wait, why are you looking at my ID?” Reynold ask.
Saunders looked up slowly, sensing the shift in compliance.
“I’m just trying to establish the veracity of the perpetrator’s story, sir.”
“My nephew perpetrated a crime?”
“I did not say that. As to any crimes, I’m not at liberty to say.”
The wave of indignation rose up from Reynold’s feet and threatened to travel down his arms towards his fists. His father was still alive, but he felt the old man’s spirit wash into his own body on a foul wind.
“Not at… Wait a minute—you’re holding a minor? What do you think you’re doing with my nephew? I am his legal guardian. Bring him out here right now.”
“Sir, you’re going to have to calm down,” Saunders said, gesturing with both hands, one of which still held both ID cards.
Reynold snatched them from the man’s hand and saw where that hand went next—down next to, but not quite on, the holster on his belt.
“Your supervisor—right now!” Reynold said. He picked up the bag from the floor and turned back towards the counter where the woman had been sitting. He meant to run this up the chain of command right away, but she was gone. A moment later, he saw why. She had disappeared through the door and was returning with a big man in a suit.
“Saunders, get back to your desk. How may I help you, sir?”
