Night of Reunion: A Novel

by Michael Allegretto

  Sarah could feel the tension in her shoulders and back. She tried to relieve it by busying herself around her station, brushing off the chair, sweeping up hair, straightening her combs and brushes. She looked out the window, but no one approached the door, no car drove up to the shop. She glanced at her watch: 11:04. She looked out the window again.

  Suddenly there was a scream and a crash.

  Sarah spun quickly around, banging her elbow on the back edge of the chair and sending a jolt of pain through her arm. In her mind’s eye she saw Christine Helstrum bursting in through a window. But the sounds had come from the back room.

  “You boys better calm down in there!” Jane Newhouse yelled from her chair.

  Sarah was startled by the loud voice. She held on to the chair to calm herself, squeezing so hard that it hurt her fingers. She noted that Billy and Lenny were dead quiet in the back room.

  “What’s going on back there!” Jane yelled.

  Sarah saw that Kay had stepped back to allow Jane to get up and go see to her sons. But Jane made no move other than to turn to Sarah.

  “Would you mind taking a peek back there,” she said, “since you’re not busy?”

  Sarah stared at her for a moment, her mind still filled with violent images.

  “Well?”

  “Oh, of course.”

  Sarah went to the back room and saw Billy and Lenny busying themselves with a pile of perm rods that they’d dumped out of a basket and were now arranging on the floor in cryptic patterns. Nearby lay pieces of a shattered coffee mug. Kay’s favorite mug, Sarah saw with dismay. She opened the closet and got out a whisk broom and dustpan and swept up the pieces.

  She was dumping the remains of the shattered mug in the wastebasket when she heard the front door open.

  Sarah froze, waiting for the sound of a voice, a cry, a scuffle. There was nothing. She went out to the front.

  Kay was still trimming Jane’s hair and listening to her complaints.

  Alex was gone.

  22

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” SARAH ASKED, her voice tight.

  Kay and Jane Newhouse both stared at her in the mirror.

  “Where’s Alex?”

  “He went outside,” Kay said, and suddenly she looked worried.

  Sarah rushed to the front door and pulled it open. Alex was standing just outside. He turned and stepped in, bringing with him a cloud of chill air. His eyes met Sarah’s, and he shook his head no.

  “It’s a quarter after eleven,” he said.

  They sat down and waited.

  Kay finished with Jane Newhouse. The woman wrote out a check, gathered up her sons, and left. Sarah checked her watch: 11:32.

  “Maybe she’s not coming,” Sarah said.

  “Or else she’s just late.”

  They were still waiting at noon, when Alex phoned the school to arrange for someone to fill in for his afternoon classes. And at one, when both Sarah and Kay had their next customers. At two-thirty, with still no sign of Mrs. Green, Sarah and Kay and Alex went out for a late lunch, returning an hour later. Sarah and Kay were both cutting hair when Alex phoned Brian’s school at four to say he’d be late picking up his son and to make sure that at least one teacher would be there with him for the next few hours. Kay left for the day at six, and at six-thirty Sarah finished with her last customer. Still no Mrs. Green. Sarah locked up the shop and walked out with Alex.

  The parking lot was awash with cold yellow light. Sarah and Alex both noticed a car parked under a nearby light standard. There were two men in overcoats standing beside it. One of them, Sarah saw, was Detective Yarrow.

  “I’m going to talk to them,” Alex said.

  Sarah got in the Celica and watched Alex walk over to the two men. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see that Alex was getting upset. Finally, he waved his arm in disgust and stalked back to the Celica. He swore under his breath as he started the engine.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Those cops,” he said. “They’re ready to dismiss the idea that Christine was ever in your shop.”

  “What?”

  He nodded, backing the car away from the curb.

  “They’re not dropping the case,” he said, “but they think this Mrs. Green was just a nut. They think that if Christine Helstrum had had the nerve to walk in your shop two days ago she would’ve done it again today.”

  “But there could be a hundred reasons why she didn’t come.”

  “That’s what I told them.”

  “What did they say? What are they going to do?”

  Alex slowed the car, then turned out of the parking lot onto Nevada Avenue. The headlights from oncoming cars glared on the windshield.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I walked away when Yarrow started to give me some bureaucratic bullshit.”

  Sarah could see the anger in Alex’s face. She put her hand on his coat sleeve. He didn’t respond, but stared straight ahead, as if fiercely concentrating on his driving. Sarah turned from him and looked out her window at the black night and the passing lights.

  Maybe Mrs. Green really was Mrs. Green, Sarah thought, just another oddball, as the police believed, who’d come in off the streets, made an appointment for a haircut, and then promptly forgotten about it.

  It was a distinct possibility, Sarah knew. But it didn’t put her mind at ease. Christine Helstrum was still out there somewhere. And Sarah and her family would not be completely safe until Christine was caught.

  Sarah wasn’t very hungry that night, and she definitely wasn’t in the mood to spend time preparing dinner. Tuna salad would have to do, she decided.

  She got three eggs from the refrigerator and put them in a pot of water to boil on the stove. Then she opened the cupboard and reached up for a large can of tuna fish. She stopped, frowning. There was only one can of tuna on the shelf. She thought she’d bought three cans just last week, and she was certain that she hadn’t already opened two of them. In fact, she couldn’t remember having opened any.

  “Maybe I didn’t buy that many,” she said to herself.

  “That many what?”

  Alex had come into the kitchen. He’d changed from his slacks, sports coat, and loafers to jeans, a flannel shirt, and fleece-lined leather slippers.

  “Cans of tuna. I thought we had more.”

  “Is that what we’re having tonight?”

  “If it’s okay with you.”

  “Sure.”

  “If not …”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Can I help?”

  “You can set the table.”

  While he did so, Sarah looked through the silverware drawer for the can opener.

  “Well …”

  “Now what?”

  “I can’t find the opener,” she said.

  Alex held up his hands in a mock-defensive gesture. “I swear, I didn’t take it.”

  Sarah smiled wryly and shook her head. “I guess my memory is shot.”

  She pulled open a lower drawer, then dug around until she found another opener. She started to shut the drawer, then stopped. She reached in and moved a few knives and utensils around.

  “Oh, no.” There was sadness in her voice.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The butcher knife’s missing. The one Brian used to draw his cardboard sword.”

  Alex sighed and stood next to her, looking down into the drawer.

  “Are you sure?”

  “It’s not in here, Alex, and this is where I put it.”

  “I thought we made it clear to him.”

  “So did I.”

  “Do you want me to—”

  “No,” Sarah said. “Let me talk to him first.”

  She followed the sounds of the television into the family room. Brian was sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching an ancient rerun of I Love Lucy.

  “Brian?”

  He looked up at her, his eyes wide with innocence.

  “What, Mom?”

&
nbsp; “Did you take the butcher knife again?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” she said, more sternly than she’d intended. “Did you take that knife again?”

  “No.” He shook his head quickly from side to side.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, Mom.”

  Sarah didn’t know what hurt worse—that Brian had disobeyed her and Alex or that he was lying to her now.

  “Brian, it’s not in the drawer where I put it.”

  “I didn’t take it.” There was fear in his voice.

  “Are you certain you didn’t borrow it again to draw another sword?”

  Tears formed in his eyes. “Honest.”

  “Brian, please … don’t lie to me.”

  “I didn’t,” he said. He stood up and faced her, his tiny fists clenched at his side, his bottom lip quivering. “I didn’t.”

  “Well, it’s not there, so somebody—”

  “I didn’t!” he yelled, and ran past her.

  Sarah stood unmoving, listening to Brian’s running footsteps fade down the hallway, across the foyer, and up the stairs. She heard the muffled slam of his bedroom door.

  “Oh, God,” she said softly.

  She met Alex in the foyer. He looked from the stairs to Sarah.

  “What happened?”

  She held on to him, her head on his chest, the sting of tears in her eyes.

  “I don’t know, Alex,” she said. “Either I’m losing it, or else he …”

  “Did he admit it?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think he took it. But I pushed him. I accused him.” She looked up into Alex’s face. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  “We’re both on edge,” he said, as if that were explanation enough.

  “I know, but still …”

  Sarah gently disengaged herself from Alex’s arms, then climbed the stairs alone. She found Brian in his room, sitting on the side of his bed. His back was to the door, and he was looking down at the floor, crying softly. Sarah sat beside him and put her arm around his shoulders.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” she said quietly.

  “I didn’t take the knife, Mom.” His voice caught on the words.

  Sarah gently wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I know you didn’t, baby,” she said.

  “Honest.”

  “I know. I was wrong to think that you took the knife. It was my fault, Brian. You see, lately I’ve been … upset, and little things that shouldn’t even bother me seem to make me, well, nervous.” She looked down into his upturned face. “I promise I won’t do that anymore. Okay?”

  Brian put his arm around her waist and leaned his head against her side.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s all right, Mom,” he said seriously.

  Later, they all sat in near silence at the dinner table. No one had an appetite for either food or conversation. Alex tried one humorous story about an incident yesterday at school involving the janitor, a bucket of soapy water, and Miss Horst. But Sarah could only manage a weak smile, and Brian didn’t even lift his eyes from his untouched food.

  Sarah was thinking about the knife. There were only three explanations for the knife’s disappearance, none of them satisfying, each of them disturbing in its own way:

  One, she’d misplaced the knife, along with the can opener, all because her mind had become preoccupied with Christine. Or two, Brian had taken the knife and was continuing to lie about it. That thought made her sick at heart. Or three, someone else had stolen her largest butcher knife. But why would—

  “Can I go upstairs?” Brian said.

  Sarah blinked, coming out of her thoughts.

  “Sure, honey,” she said.

  Brian started to get off his chair when suddenly the lights went out, plunging the kitchen into blackness. A second later, they came back on. Sarah and Alex and Brian stared at each other across the kitchen table. Then the lights went out again.

  This time they stayed out.

  “Son of a bitch,” Alex said.

  Sarah saw Alex’s dark shape rise from the chair and move to the counter, where he fumbled in the drawer, looking for the flashlight. She sat still, nearly as disturbed by the failure of the lights as by his brief outburst—she’d never heard him swear in front of Brian.

  Alex clicked on the flashlight, indirectly illuminating them in a pale yellow glow. He moved through the kitchen to the laundry room. Sarah heard him throw the bolt and open the basement door. A moment later, the lights came on, and Alex returned to the kitchen.

  “The main breaker tripped again,” he said. He put away the flashlight. “I’ll call the utility company tomorrow. Maybe it’s an outside line.”

  Sarah hoped he was right.

  Sarah awoke in her bed with a start.

  Someone was standing in the hallway outside their bedroom. It was too dark for Sarah to see, but she could sense someone out there.

  “Brian?” she called softly.

  Alex stirred beside her and mumbled something in his sleep.

  “Brian, honey?”

  Sarah stared at the doorway. She saw movement in the dark hall. Or perhaps her eyes were playing tricks on her. Then she heard the faint whisper of fabric. A large silhouette, black against the darkness of the hall behind it, filled the doorway.

  Sarah lay perfectly still, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. The figure in the doorway came forward and stopped just inside the bedroom.

  As Sarah stared at the silent visitor, details began to appear. It was as if the vague light from the window were adhering to the figure, gradually accumulating like a mist of luminescent paint, until Sarah could clearly see.

  It was a woman.

  Her hair was wild. She wore a hospital gown, and her feet were bare. She made no sound, no movement.

  Sarah could not clearly see her face, but she felt the woman’s eyes on her, studying her. She had the desperate notion that if she just lay there and pretended to be asleep, the woman might go away.

  Then she thought of Brian, helpless in his room. Had the woman already been in there?

  The woman came forward and moved toward the bed, slowly, one measured step at a time, her arms hanging loosely at her sides.

  Now that she was closer, Sarah could see that she carried something in her right hand, something long and pointed. It reflected the faint light from the window.

  The missing butcher knife.

  Sarah tried to move, to shake Alex out of his slumber, to get up and run, to do something—but she could only lie there, as frozen as a mouse staring into the eye of a snake.

  The woman walked slowly around to Sarah’s side of the bed, her eyes never leaving Sarah’s face. Sarah tried to cry out, to scream for help, but her throat was constricted in terror. She tried to move again but couldn’t. She was tangled in the sheets, and her arms were pinned to her sides as effectively as if she’d been bound in a straitjacket.

  Now the woman stood directly over Sarah, close enough to reveal her face, twisted in a devilish grin. She leaned over and put her left hand firmly on Sarah’s shoulder to hold her still. Then she slowly raised the knife high overhead until it was poised directly over Sarah’s left breast. With a terrible force, she brought the knife plunging down. …

  “Sarah.”

  Sarah jerked awake, her heart pounding. Alex’s hand was on her shoulder.

  “You were having a nightmare,” he said.

  “Oh, my God.” She rolled over and buried her face in his chest. She felt cold with sweat. “God, Alex, it was horrible,” she said, her voice partially muffled by his pajama top. “It was Christine.”

  “Shh.” He stroked her hair as if she were a child. “It was only a dream.”

  Sarah hoped it was only a dream. She prayed it wasn’t a premonition.

  23

  SARAH WAS NERVOUS ALL morning. She jumped every time someone came in the shop’s door, expecting it to be Christine Helstrum.

 
She’d wanted Alex to be with her at work today, but he’d told her that it was impossible for him to miss classes two days in a row. “Besides,” he’d assured her, “the police will be outside the shop. They’re not going to simply forget about us.” Sarah had searched the parking lot when she’d arrived at work, hoping to see plainclothes policemen crouching in unmarked cars. She’d seen none. She’d hoped that was because they were good at hiding.

  It wasn’t only the apparent absence of the police and the possible proximity of Christine Helstrum that made her edgy. Something else troubled her: the items missing from the kitchen. She could imagine herself misplacing the can opener, and even the knife—although she doubted it. However, she could not believe that she’d misplaced food.

  And so at one o’clock, when she went home for lunch, she’d already devised a simple plan, one that would at least resolve the question of the food.

  Sarah parked the Wagoneer in the garage, then walked back to the curb. This morning before leaving for work, Alex had dragged the large plastic trash barrel here from the side of the house. Today was pickup day.

  Now Sarah pulled off the lid, and to her relief the barrel was nearly full.

  She knew that their trash was picked up on Fridays, but she hadn’t been able to remember whether it was mornings or afternoons. What she still couldn’t remember was on which days she’d emptied the kitchen wastebasket into this barrel.

  Now she wrinkled her nose from the stale smell and began digging into the trash. At first she dug tentatively, afraid of getting gunk on her hands, afraid one of the neighbors might drive by and see her. But then she worked with greater energy, determined to find what she was looking for.

  She noticed that the contents of the barrel were not mixed in a totally haphazard fashion. They were more or less arranged according to rooms: Here was a concentration of pale green Kleenex from the wastebasket in the master bedroom; there was an accumulation of crumpled-up notes and typed pages from Alex’s den. When she began turning up kitchen waste, she knew she was close.

  She dug through sticky eggshells and soggy vegetable scraps and dripping soup cans. At one point she came across the shriveled body of a headless mouse, one of the three she’d found in her car last Saturday. She made a face, flicked the body aside, and continued to burrow through the trash.