Night of Reunion: A Novel

by Michael Allegretto

“At a sporting-goods store,” he said evenly. He reached in the sack and lifted out a small, heavy red-and-white box. Sarah saw the words “.38 Caliber—Super-X” printed in bold letters.

  “A gun, Alex?”

  “Yes, a gun. A thirty-eight caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, to be precise, capable of stopping Christine Helstrum.”

  He folded up the sack and laid it flat on the table.

  “I can’t believe this,” she said.

  “Believe it.” His face looked grim, almost haggard.

  “Alex, what’s happening to you? To us?”

  “She’s what’s happening, Sarah. And until the police arrest her or until she’s dead, this gun stays in the house.”

  “Do you think you could actually use that thing on someone?”

  “Not on ‘someone,’” he said. “On Christine. And you’re damn right I could. Sarah, she was in Brian’s room. She had a knife.” He shook his head. “It won’t happen again. If she tries it, I’ll stop her. And if I have to … I swear to God, Sarah, if I have to, I’ll kill her.”

  He picked up the gun and the box of shells and walked out. Sarah started to go after him when the phone rang. It was Janet Teesdale, Eddy’s mother.

  “We’re going to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo today,” she said happily, “and Eddy asked if Brian could go with us. The temperature’s supposed to be in the fifties and—”

  “No, Janet, we can’t, I … we just can’t. I’m sorry.”

  She hung up.

  We’re prisoners in here, she thought.

  She went upstairs to find Alex. He was just leaving the guest room. She followed him into the master bedroom. It still looked devastated to Sarah, with red paint spattered on the wall and the brass headboard and the mattress marred by a dark stain and the cut of a knife. The smell of paint, though, was gone.

  Alex walked to the window and closed it.

  “We need to get rid of it, Alex.”

  “The mattress? I agree. We—”

  “No, the gun.”

  “Sarah.” For a moment he looked angry. Then his expression softened, so much so that Sarah thought he might cry. “There are only two things in this life that matter to me,” he said. “You and Brian. This woman, she … I don’t know if I could stop her without—”

  “But the police—”

  “The police? What have they done so far?”

  He walked past her and stood by the bed, staring blankly down at the ruined mattress.

  “Maybe I’m being selfish,” he said, not looking at her, “but I know what it feels like to lose a wife and a son. And to lose them to her.” Now he raised his head and faced her. “I know exactly what she’s capable of, Sarah. I won’t let that happen again. I’m keeping the gun.”

  He held her eyes for a moment, then looked down at the mattress.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Finally, Alex said, “Would you help me with this?”

  Together they hauled the big mattress into the hallway. It was heavy and awkward, and it took all their strength to wrestle it down the stairs and out the front door. They dragged it around the walkway and leaned it against the house near the trash barrel. Sarah felt slightly winded from the effort. But she felt good, having worked off a lot of tension.

  “I wonder if we have any white paint,” Alex said.

  They found what they needed in the garage, then carried it all up to the bedroom—paint, brushes, a roller and pan, drop cloths, and masking tape. The room had been painted less than a year ago, so they decided to paint only the one wall, carefully masking it off at the corners. While they worked, they discussed getting a burglar alarm, or even a large dog. Neither of them mentioned the gun.

  By the time they were finished painting and cleaning up, it was well past noon and they were both famished.

  Alex volunteered to fix lunch while Brian took Sarah outside to show her the snow boy and snow lady they’d made yesterday. When they came in, Sarah was thankful to see that Alex had covered the table with a checkered cloth. They sat down to eat.

  They were still eating when Detective Yarrow arrived. Alex invited him to join them.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Some coffee?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes, please, if it’s no trouble.” He sat down next to Brian. “How you doing?”

  “Okay. My cat got its tail cut off.”

  He’d said it almost proudly, and Sarah nearly smiled.

  “Brian, maybe you should go upstairs and see if Patches is okay.”

  After Brian had gone, Yarrow said, “We found her car.”

  “Christine’s?”

  “The one she took from Patricia Green, yes. It was parked in the street three blocks from here. We’re doing a door-to-door search of the area. Officer Eastly told me he searched your basement, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How about the attic? Eastly didn’t mention that.”

  Sarah looked at Alex.

  “Do you folks have an attic?”

  “I bought a lock for it yesterday,” Alex said, “but I forgot all about it. I didn’t put it on.”

  Alex got the flashlight, and all three went upstairs. Yarrow climbed the wooden steps. He raised his head into the dark, square hole and clicked on the flashlight.

  “There’s something back there.”

  “It’s just a rolled-up carpet,” Alex said. “I’ve already checked it.”

  “Did you look inside? Or unroll it?”

  “I … no.”

  Yarrow disappeared into the attic. Sarah could hear him moving toward the rear of the house. A few minutes later he came back down, shaking his head and brushing dust from his suit jacket. Alex raised the steps and closed the attic door, then got a chair from his den. Yarrow steadied the chair as Alex stood on it and fastened the new padlock in place.

  “I heard of a case,” Yarrow said as they descended the stairs, “that happened right here in Colorado. It was fifty years ago or so. The widow of a murdered man kept hearing noises at night, and she thought it was the ghost of her dead husband. This went on for months after his death. It turned out that the murderer had been hiding in the attic all that time, and what the widow had heard was him sneaking down at night to steal food from the kitchen.”

  Sarah and Alex exchanged glances.

  “What?”

  Sarah told Yarrow about the missing food.

  “Let’s take another look in your basement,” he said.

  Yarrow and Alex were still in the basement when Sarah answered the doorbell. It was the locksmith, a young bearded man carrying a heavy toolbox. Sarah led him through the house to the laundry room. He asked her to show him the nearest electrical outlet.

  “I’ll need to do some drilling,” he explained. “Also, do you want the old lock left in or taken out?”

  “Didn’t my husband tell you that on the phone?”

  “No, ma’am. But …”

  “What?”

  “The more locks, the better, I always say.”

  “Then leave it in.”

  Alex and Yarrow came up from the basement, and Alex bolted the door. Sarah walked with them to the foyer.

  “Thanks for coming,” Alex said. “And I’m sorry about blowing up at you yesterday. I know you’re doing all you can.”

  “I can understand your feelings. Try not to worry. If Christine Helstrum shows her face again,” he said, “we’ll get her. We’ll get her, anyway.”

  Yarrow spoke with confidence, but Sarah still felt terrified. Christine had already proved that she could sneak into their house in spite of locks and police.

  That night all four slept in the guest bedroom, Brian tucked between Sarah and Alex and Patches curled up in a basket in the corner of the room.

  Sarah did not sleep easy. She felt as if she were waiting for something to happen, as if she knew something would happen and it was only a question of when. That Alex had insisted they all sleep together proved to her that he felt the same way.
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  We’re withdrawing, she thought. First into the house and now into a single room.

  There was something else that made her uneasy—the gun.

  She had always hated guns, particularly handguns. To her there was only one purpose for a pistol: to kill another human being. And now they had a gun in their house. She had seen Alex with it earlier this evening. He’d been sitting at his desk in the den with the gun before him. Next to it had been an open box of cartridges. Apparently he’d just loaded the weapon, because the cylinder was open, and Sarah could see six shiny brass disks. She’d watched him slowly close the cylinder until it clicked into place, and then she’d walked quickly away. She remembered how she’d handled a similar gun last Monday at the sporting-goods store and how she’d hurried away from that one, too.

  And now she lay awake, the loaded gun less than two feet from Alex’s side of the bed, ready for immediate use. She stared up at the darkness and listened to every creak and groan of the old house.

  Then she heard a noise.

  It had not been loud, but it had been quite distinct—the scrape of a chair downstairs, as if someone had bumped into it in the dark.

  Alex sat up quickly, causing Brian to stir in his sleep and move closer to Sarah.

  “Did you hear that?” Alex whispered.

  “I heard something. I—”

  “Shh.” He pulled back the covers and swung his feet to the floor. “Someone’s downstairs.”

  Sarah heard him fumble with the drawer in the nightstand.

  “Alex, no. Let’s call the police.”

  She could see his vague outline reach for the lamp and click the switch. The room remained dark.

  “She’s turned off the electricity,” Alex whispered.

  He pulled open the drawer and took something out. Sarah hurried out of bed and moved to the doorway, blocking Alex’s way. She reached down for his hand and felt something hard and cold. The gun.

  “Alex, please don’t go down there,” she said softly. “Let’s call the police and—”

  “Call them,” he said, then gently but firmly pushed her out of his way.

  He moved through the dark doorway toward the head of the stairs. Sarah hesitated for a moment, then ran into the den. She flipped the light switch, and when nothing happened, she stumbled over to the desk in the dark, found the phone, then pulled it toward the window. There was just enough moonlight coming in from this side of the house for her to make out the numbers. She hurriedly punched 911. After one ring, a woman answered.

  “This is Sarah Whitaker, and we need the police right away. There’s someone—”

  Sarah stopped when she heard the scream. It had come from downstairs, and it was unlike anything she’d ever heard before. It was not a scream of fright or of pain. It was a scream of rage—insane, bestial rage.

  She dropped the phone and ran for the stairs, hearing the sounds of a struggle even before she got to the banister. She shouted into the darkness below her.

  “Alex!”

  “Mom?”

  Sarah turned to see Brian outlined in the doorway of the guest bedroom.

  “Brian, get back in there and shut the door!” she yelled, moving toward him.

  He stood still. She shoved him into the room, nearly knocking him down. “Stay in here,” she said, and pulled the door closed.

  A gunshot.

  The sound seemed to echo up the stairwell and off the walls and ceiling, and it sent a shock wave through Sarah’s body. She ran to the head of the stairs.

  “ALEX!”

  His name was swallowed up by the darkness below. Sarah held perfectly still, listening. There was no sound, no movement. She started slowly down the stairs.

  When she was halfway down, she could see that the front door stood wide open. Moonlight spilled across the cold tile floor of the foyer. In the center of the floor lay a dark, huddled shape.

  There was a moan.

  Sarah heard her heart pounding in her ears as she hurried down the stairs and across the foyer to Alex. He was lying facedown, with one knee drawn up under him and his hands clutching the base of his neck. His head was resting in an ever-widening pool of liquid, which looked black in the moonlight.

  Sarah quickly knelt beside him and pressed her hand to the wound in the side of his neck. She felt his warm blood run through her fingers as she tried to stop the pulsing flow. She heard a woman’s voice screaming for help, a desperate, agonizing cry. It was her own.

  33

  OFFICERS PEARL AND MAESTAS arrived two minutes later; the paramedics, four minutes after that.

  They took Alex away in an ambulance. Sarah and Brian followed in the backseat of a police car, with lights flashing and siren wailing. Maestas drove, while Pearl, her cap off and her blond hair catching the passing night lights, sat half-turned in her seat and spoke through the wire mesh, telling Sarah that everything would be all right, that her husband would be at the hospital in a matter of minutes.

  Sarah was numb. Brian clung to her and cried, more from the confusing sights and sounds than from knowledge of what was happening.

  Sarah could understand how he felt. She’d looked through the rear window as the police car pulled out of their driveway. Their house had appeared to be under siege. There were police cars in the driveway and in the street, sending red and white lights chasing across the black shrubbery and snow-covered lawn and up the front of the house. Every window in the house was ablaze with interior light, and the front door was wide open as policemen moved in and out of the house. Some of Sarah’s neighbors were standing on their front porches, shivering in the cold night, straining for a look. Sarah never wanted to return to that house.

  They rushed Alex to the emergency room at Penrose Hospital. Sarah and Brian stood awkwardly in the hallway under bright fluorescent lights. Officer Pearl suggested that they all sit in the waiting room.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked Sarah.

  Sarah nodded yes, and in a few minutes Pearl returned with two steaming paper cups.

  “One’s black and one’s with sugar,” she said. “I forgot to ask, and I can drink it either way.”

  Sarah took the one with sugar. She blew on the hot liquid and then sipped it carefully. Just this small, familiar act made her feel better, gave her some semblance of normalcy. She took another sip and set the cup aside. Brian curled up beside her on the couch and put his head in her lap.

  “How long do you think my husband will … be in there?”

  “I don’t know,” Pearl said, “but he’s in very good hands.” She sipped her coffee, then changed the cup from her right hand to her left. “I know how upset you must be, and the last thing you want to do now is talk about what happened. But sometimes it’s better to get it out of your system right away. Also, there may be things you would remember now that you might not tomorrow.”

  Sarah looked down at Brian. He had fallen asleep with one hand tucked under his cheek. He looked so innocent and vulnerable to Sarah that she felt like crying. But she refused to allow herself that luxury. When she spoke, her voice was clear and firm.

  “What would you like to know?”

  Officer Pearl set aside her cup and got out a notepad and a pen. There wasn’t much to say, but Sarah told her everything that had happened from the moment she’d awakened to the noise downstairs to the moment Pearl and Maestas had come through the front doorway, service revolvers in hand.

  Pearl thanked Sarah, then went out in the hallway to talk to Maestas. They moved out of Sarah’s sight. She sat unmoving, with Brian’s head in her lap.

  Half an hour passed, and Sarah wanted to stand up, to walk around, to do anything but simply sit and wait. But she didn’t want to wake Brian. So she sat. And waited.

  An hour later, Pearl came into the waiting room with a young man wearing baggy green pants and a loose-fitting, short-sleeved green shirt. His dark hair was damp and pressed to his forehead, as if he’d just removed a cap.

  “Mrs. Whitaker?”


  “Yes?” Before she stood, she moved Brian from her lap and placed her coat under his head. He whined in irritation but did not come fully awake.

  “I’m Dr. Oakman.”

  “My husband … how is he?”

  “His wound is serious, Mrs. Whitaker, but not critical.” He explained how the knife blade had entered his body on a downward path beside his neck, just missed the artery, grazed his esophagus without puncturing it, and stopped short of the top of his lung. “The main thing is he’s out of danger now. He’s going to be all right.”

  Sarah felt her shoulders slump as the tension drained from her body. “Oh, thank God. Can I see him now?”

  “He’s still out from the anesthetic. He’ll sleep through the night. Tomorrow, you can—”

  “I just want to see him, Doctor.”

  Dr. Oakman paused, then nodded his head. Sarah followed him down the hallway. Pearl stayed behind with Brian.

  The room had two beds, but only one was occupied. Alex lay on his back. His eyes were closed, and his face was pale, almost as white as the dressing that covered his neck. Thin plastic tubes snaked around his face and into his nostrils. Beside the bed was a tall metal stand from which dangled a plastic pouch. A tube filled with clear liquid hung down from the pouch and disappeared under a bandage taped to Alex’s arm.

  Sarah watched his chest slowly rise and fall. She started toward the bed to touch him, to hold him.

  Dr. Oakman stopped her.

  “He’ll be awake tomorrow,” he said quietly. “You should go home and get some sleep.”

  Sarah followed him out of the room. Officer Maestas and Detective Yarrow were waiting in the hallway. Yarrow’s hair was slightly askew, and he wore no tie under his overcoat. Sarah guessed he’d recently been asleep in bed. She held out her hand to Oakman.

  “Thank you, Doctor, for … for saving him.”

  Oakman nodded, then walked away.

  “How is he?” Yarrow asked. He sounded genuinely concerned.

  “He’ll be all right,” Sarah said.

  She walked with Yarrow toward the waiting room. Maestas stayed behind.

  “Did you … did you get her?”

  Yarrow shook his head no.

  “But how could she get away?” Sarah could hear the strain in her voice. “I thought you were watching the house, the neighboring yards …”