Night of Reunion: A Novel

by Michael Allegretto

  “They don’t let kids do that,” Eddy Teesdale said.

  Brian and Eddy were standing near the tall cyclone fence that encircled the school grounds. They shuffled their hiking boots in the wet gravel and watched most of the other kids start to drift toward the building.

  “They do so,” Brian said.

  “Do not.”

  “Do so.”

  Eddy snuffled and rubbed his freckled nose with the back of his glove. Then he pulled up the zipper of his ski parka from halfway to three-quarters. Brian adjusted his coat’s zipper accordingly, since, after all, they were best friends.

  “So, did you get a Christmas tree yet?”

  “Not yet,” Eddy said. “This weekend, I think.”

  “Will your mom and dad let you pick out which one?”

  “No way, Jose” Eddy said. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “Tommy Akins told me that his brother told him that there’s no such person as Sanny Claus.”

  “Tommy Akins eats boogers, too,” Brian said, and they both giggled.

  “But his brother said so.”

  “So?”

  “His brother’s a fifth-grader.”

  “So?”

  Eddy wiped his nose again.

  “So what if there isn’t a Sanny Claus.”

  “Course there is.”

  “But what if there isn’t?”

  “Who do you think brings you presents on Christmas?” Brian demanded.

  “Tommy Akins’ brother said it’s your parents that do it.”

  “Course they do. But so does Santa.”

  “Tommy Akins’ brother says your parents give you all the presents and they wait until you’re asleep and then they put them under the Christmas tree and they write, ‘From Sanny Claus,’ on them.”

  “That’s dumb.”

  “But he’s in the fifth grade.”

  “So?”

  “So, fifth-graders are supposed to know a lot.”

  “So, I bet he eats boogers, too.”

  They both giggled again.

  “So, what are you gonna ask Santa for Christmas?” Brian asked.

  “A radio-controlled truck and a pocket knife and a Lord Doom Sword of Power and I don’t know what else yet.”

  “They have those now?” Brian asked.

  “What?”

  “A Sword of Power.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, how can you ask for one, then?”

  “Maybe they’ll have them before Christmas.”

  “Maybe,” Brian said, discouraged, then, “Maybe you could make one.”

  “You could not.”

  “Could so.”

  “Could not.”

  The school yard was mostly empty except for some of the fifth-and sixth-graders who were hanging around near the asphalt-covered basketball courts. They, like Brian and Eddy, were waiting for the second bell.

  “Is that your mom?” Eddy was looking over Brian’s shoulder.

  Brian turned around and stared through the chain-link fence. A woman was standing on the sidewalk across the street. She wore a long dark coat and a plaid scarf that was wrapped over her head and ears and tucked under her chin.

  “Course that’s not my mom,” Brian said.

  “Well, she sure is staring at you.”

  “She’s not staring at me. She’s staring at you.”

  “She is not.”

  “Is so.”

  “Is not.”

  The second bell rang, warning them that they had five minutes to get to their desks.

  “Race you to the door!”

  They ran off side by side, just as they always did, toward the warmth and safety of the school building. But today they ran a bit faster.

  They ran as if Lord Doom himself was after them.

  7

  SHE STOOD IN THE mottled sunlight beneath a leafless sycamore and stared at the house. It was much larger than she’d expected. Apparently, Alex had taken a step upward since moving out of his apartment.

  She’d gone to the apartment this morning. In fact, it was the first stop she’d made after arriving in Colorado Springs. Certainly she’d been disappointed that his name was not listed in the directory by the outside phone. Disappointed but not surprised—people moved.

  And the manager had been most helpful.

  When she’d told him that she was an old friend of Alex’s, he’d invited her in and even poured her a cup of coffee. Perhaps because he’s old, she’d thought, and needed someone to talk to. In any case, he’d been extremely pleased with Alex as a tenant, and he spoke freely about him. Yes, he knew his new address and where he worked and even where his wife, Sarah, worked.

  “She was married before,” he’d said, “and has the cutest little boy. Brian, I think. He’s in the first grade.”

  She’d left Alex’s ex-landlord rinsing out coffee cups in the sink and had driven to the house. She hadn’t stopped, though. Instead, she’d driven throughout Alex’s neighborhood, searching for the nearest elementary school.

  It was Brian who interested her now.

  When she’d left New York, she hadn’t considered the idea that Alex might have remarried, much less have a son. That changed everything. In fact, it made it perfect. A son for a son.

  She’d found the school; it had to be the right one, she felt, for it was only a few miles from the house. She’d parked the car and climbed out before she’d realized that she didn’t know what she was going to do. She couldn’t simply walk in and start asking the teachers which child was Brian Whitaker.

  So she’d stood there for several minutes, trying to sort out her thoughts, staring across the street at the school yard. Two little boys stared back at her. For a moment she’d considered walking over and asking them if they knew Brian. But then the bell had rung, and they’d scampered across the gravel yard and into the building. So she’d driven back to the house and left the car parked safely a few blocks away.

  Now she left the shade of the sycamore tree and walked down the driveway and across the walk to the front porch. Obviously, no one was home. She wasted no time in taking out her crude picks and going to work on the front door lock.

  She grinned.

  At least I learned something at Wycroff, she thought.

  But after several minutes of concentrated effort, she had not opened the lock. After several minutes more, she was nearly angry enough to break the picks in half and hurl the pieces across the porch.

  She stomped around the side of the house.

  The garage was on this side, twenty feet from the house. She could see from here that the lock on that door would be a cinch to open. But it wasn’t the garage that interested her; it was the house. She saw two doors on this side. One was up half a dozen redwood steps and apparently opened into the kitchen. The other door was down half a dozen concrete steps and led to the basement.

  Neither lock would budge under her picks.

  She walked around to the rear of the house and then along the north side, her shoes breaking noisily through the thin, crusty snow. She looked up at the windows. Too high to reach. She looked down at the basement windows. They were all alike: square wooden frames holding four panes of glass. She knelt beside a window and rubbed dirt from a flimsy pane. The basement was uniformly dark. The weak, indirect sunlight illuminated nothing more than the inside of the window frame.

  And the simple latch that held it shut.

  8

  SARAH PULLED INTO THE driveway just as Alex and Brian were coming out the side door of the garage. They waited for her to park the Wagoneer, then walked together around the house to the front.

  “All right!” Brian said when he saw the tree lying by the front door. “Can we take it in now?”

  “I need to trim up the bottom first,” Alex said, unlocking the door.

  “And we have to change out of our school clothes,” Sarah said, ruffling Brian’s hair.

  Sarah followed Alex up the stairs
to the master bedroom. He removed his houndstooth coat and hung it in the closet. She watched Brian, who was followed closely by Patches, hurry to his room, out of hearing.

  “I talked to Frank O’Hara today,” she said.

  Alex turned, a look of surprise on his face. “When did he call?”

  “I called him.”

  “What?”

  Sarah explained how she’d gotten O’Hara’s number.

  “What did he say the police are doing about Christine?”

  “He knew less than we did. He’d assumed that she’d already been caught. But he’s going to check into things and call us back in a day or two. He said we shouldn’t worry.”

  “Right.” There was sarcasm in his voice.

  Sarah sat beside him. “Should we be worried?”

  “I … I don’t know, Sarah,” he said, and put his hand on her knee. “Maybe not. Maybe she’s forgotten all about me.

  “You don’t believe that, though, do you?”

  He paused. “No.”

  “But she doesn’t know where we are,” Sarah said hopefully.

  “I’ve considered that, too. But there are a number of people in Albany who know I’m out here. It wouldn’t be too difficult for her to learn that much. And once she knows which city we’re in …”He shrugged and looked at Sarah as if to apologize.

  “But, really, how could she get here?” Sarah said. “I mean, she probably has nothing but the clothes on her back, no money, no transportation. I’m sure the police have been watching the bus stations and—”

  “She could hitchhike, Sarah, or, or whatever. She could find a way.” His chest rose and fell in a sigh, and Sarah thought she’d never seen him so depressed. “She could do it,” he said. “And if she does …” He stood and stepped away from the bed, then spoke with his back to Sarah. “If she does, I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect you and Brian. I’ll … I’ll kill her if I have to.”

  “My God, Alex,” Sarah said, coming off the bed. She stood behind him, her arms around his waist, her head on his back. “Please, don’t even talk like that.”

  He said nothing.

  “Maybe O’Hara will call with good news,” Sarah said. “Maybe they’ve already caught her.”

  Alex nodded. “I’d better get busy if we’re going to get the tree up tonight.”

  Sarah changed into faded blue jeans and a baggy forest-green sweater, trying all the while to push Christine from her mind. She went downstairs and surveyed the living room.

  The room had a slightly formal air to it. But not too formal, Sarah thought. She’d spent a lot of time making certain that everything was just right. The carpet was a tight weave of light gray with a rose undertone, and the same shade of rose was present in the delicate floral design on the couch and chairs, and again in the floor-length drapes.

  Sarah stood in the doorway and pictured the tree standing in the bay window. Nestled there now were a small cherry-wood table and two matching chairs. They have to be moved, Sarah thought, and since there’s no room for them in here … She carried one of the chairs out of the living room, down the hall past the dining room, and into the family room. She looked around the room, frowning, then carried the chair back to the dining room.

  During the six months that they’d lived in the house, they’d used the dining room sparingly. It was a sizable room, with windows along the north wall. They overlooked the side yard, with its pair of huge sycamore trees and a copse of Russian olives, all leafless and bleak looking in the dying winter light. A large fireplace was centered in the west wall, back-to-back with the one in the family room. The two remaining walls were painted robin’s-egg blue with white trim and were hung with several framed prints. The center of the room was dominated by a dark polished wood table that could comfortably seat eight. Four chairs had been pushed up to the table and four more placed against the walls.

  A bit excessive, Sarah had always thought, but what the heck, you can’t have an empty room.

  She pushed together two of the dining-room chairs against the wall to make room for the chair she’d carried in. She knew the extra furniture in here would look out of place, but at least it wouldn’t be in the way.

  Alex came down the stairs as she passed by on her way to the living room. He’d changed into a plaid flannel shirt and heavy corduroy pants that were tucked into high-topped leather-and-rubber boots.

  “You look like Jacques the Lumberjack,” Sarah said good-naturedly, hoping to lighten both of their moods.

  Alex attempted a smile, and when he spoke, it was with a fake French-Canadian accent.

  “You want trees to be chopped down, ma cherie? You come to Jacques.” He poked his thumb in his chest.

  Sarah laughed. “Okay, but help me move the table out of here first. Then we’d better eat something before we turn you loose with a saw.”

  After they’d moved the furniture, they all agreed that they were more anxious than hungry, so they had sandwiches for dinner. Then they paraded out to the garage. Sarah and Brian picked up opposite ends of a sawhorse and followed Alex, who carried a crosscut saw back to the front porch. Alex lifted the trunk of the pine tree onto the sawhorse, squinted at it under the yellow glow of the porch light, then raised the saw and drew it across the bark.

  “Aren’t you supposed to draw a pencil line first?” Sarah asked.

  “Jacques need no line,” Alex said, and began sawing three inches off the trunk.

  Sawdust sifted down, and Sarah could smell the fresh-cut wood. Then a round plug of pine, thicker on one end than the other, hit the porch with a solid thunk. Brian ran over and grabbed it up with both hands.

  “Hey, cool! Can I keep this?”

  “For what, Brian?”

  “Um, I don’t know. Maybe to make the handle for Lord Doom’s Sword of Power.”

  “I wish Lord Doom was here to help us get this baby inside,” Alex said.

  It took all three of them to drag the tree through the front door, across the foyer, and into the living room. It looked decidedly out of place on the carpet—a huge blue-green mound. Its soft-needled branches reached like tendrils toward the feet of the surrounding furniture.

  Patches crept into the room. The big cat sniffed the very tip of the treetop, then moved away and eyed it suspiciously.

  “The tree stand?” Alex asked.

  “In the basement,” Sarah said. “I just hope we can find the darn thing. Plus all the ornaments.”

  Sarah and Brian followed Alex through the foyer, down the short hall to the kitchen, then through to the laundry room. It was crowded with a new washer, a new drier, and an old, deep-bellied cast-iron sink. There were small-paned windows set in the south and west walls. During the day they looked out over the driveway and the garage to the south and the sprawling backyard to the west. But now they stared blankly into darkness.

  Alex stepped to the door that was set in the east wall, a dozen feet from the doorway they’d just come through. Sarah always thought that it gave the illusion of leading back into the kitchen. Of course, she knew it was a step or two north of the refrigerator and the north kitchen wall.

  The door was equipped with a sliding-bolt lock that was nearly a foot long and as thick as Sarah’s thumb. It rested impotently in the stout guides fastened to the door.

  “Don’t we keep this locked?” Alex asked.

  “Not usually.”

  “Maybe we should from now on.”

  “But the outside basement door’s locked, isn’t it?”

  “Even so. Let’s keep this locked, too.”

  “Why, Dad?” Brian asked.

  Sarah glanced at Alex.

  “Just for safety,” Alex said.

  He opened the door, stepped onto the small wooden landing, then turned back and fumbled with the light switch. The dusty bulb above his head remained dead, but a light had come on at the bottom of the stairs. It lit Alex’s face from below and from the side, giving him a ghoulish appearance.

  “Let’s go,”
he said. “Be careful on the stairs.” He took one step down, then stopped and looked around. “Brian, maybe you’d better stay up here.”

  “I’m not scared,” Brian said, sounding scared.

  Sarah smiled. “That’s not what Dad meant, hon. You can come down, but stay right behind me and hold on to the banister, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Sarah looked at Alex. “We’ll be careful, Dad,” she said, “we promise.”

  Patches meowed at their feet.

  “That doesn’t include you,” Sarah said, gently pushing the cat away from the door.

  She closed the door behind them, and then she and Brian followed Alex down the dusty wooden steps. Brian stayed close to Sarah, giving her the feeling that he liked the basement even less than she did.

  Sarah had been down here only once, and that was when the real estate agent had shown them the house. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but she felt uneasy. The basement was the largest she’d ever been in, much less owned. It was large enough to live in. In fact, it had been lived in by servants sometime in the past.

  When they reached the foot of the stairs, they were facing a long, narrow hallway with faded wallpaper and a low, roughly plastered ceiling. There were two doors on the right and three on the left. Sarah hugged herself and rubbed her arms.

  “It’s cold down here.”

  Alex opened the first door on the right. It was pitch-black inside. He found a light switch just inside the door and clicked it on. A harsh, bare bulb lit up the large room, which was dominated by an immense furnace. Its cylindrical body was fully six feet in diameter and stood nearly as high as the ceiling. It spread its thick, round ducts upward like the legs of a gigantic spider.

  “Not in here,” Alex said.

  “What’s that?” Brian asked with more than a trace of fear in his voice.

  “The old furnace,” Alex said.

  He led them into the room, which was slightly warmer than the hallway.

  “Back in the old days,” Alex told Brian, “when this house was first built, the people who lived here burned coal in that furnace to heat the house. Later on they fixed it so it would burn natural gas.”

  “Which do we burn?”

  “Gas. But over there.”