Dead Silence

by Brenda Novak

  “Your bare hands are touching that knob,” Grace pointed out. Talking helped calm her nerves, made their actions seem more natural somehow. But knowing her sister was leaving fingerprints everywhere didn’t help Grace’s peace of mind.

  “I’ll wipe it off before we leave.”

  “Maddy, I’m sure Jed had nothing to do with what happened eighteen years ago,” Grace said. “Can’t we just go home?”

  Madeline was too busy with the lock to listen. “Shh…”

  “What if someone comes by later, notices that the shop’s unprotected and steals everything? It’ll be our fault.”

  “Who’d steal a bunch of car repair tools?”

  “You’d be surprised. I’ve met folks who’ll steal anything.”

  “Not in Stillwater. People here rarely even lock their houses. But we’ll make the gate look the same as we found it, just in case.”

  “That’s some consolation,” Grace said sarcastically.

  “Quit worrying.”

  The lock-picking was taking forever. Grace hovered in the shadows of the corrugated metal building and glanced nervously toward the pool hall. “We’ll probably find a bag of pot or something. That’ll be the big secret. And what do we care if Jed smokes weed? It doesn’t affect our lives in the least.”

  “We could find something a lot more relevant than weed.”

  “If we ever get in.”

  With a curse, Madeline yanked her file from the lock.

  The tension in Grace’s body edged up yet another notch. “What is it?”

  “I can’t—”

  Two men ambled out of the pool hall. At the sound of their voices, Grace pulled her stepsister down to the ground, out of sight. The chain link fence surrounding the property certainly didn’t give them much cover. “Who is it?” she breathed when the two men stood talking in the parking lot.

  “Marcus and Roger Vincelli,” Madeline whispered.

  “Joe’s dad?”

  “And his brother.”

  “Oh, God,” Grace said. “Is Joe with them?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Finally, the men climbed into their respective vehicles and drove off. When nothing but music broke the silence, Grace and Madeline got to their feet.

  “Hurry,” Grace prompted, more than a little spooked.

  “I can’t trip the lock,” Madeline complained, frustration lining her forehead. “I can’t find the tumbler. It’s different than the ones Kirk had me practice on last night.”

  “So we can go home?” Grace asked hopefully.

  “No. We’ll have to use the crowbar.”

  “The what?”

  Madeline was already removing a crowbar from her pack.

  “Madeline, we can’t—”

  Before Grace could even get the words out, Madeline had inserted the iron bar into the doorjamb. A moment later, a terrible scraping and wrenching blasted the air, then a pop sounded as the door broke open and swung wide. The dog next door barked, then apparently returned to his steak bone.

  Grace stared wild-eyed around them. She was positive someone would come this time. But several seconds passed, and she heard nothing to indicate they’d drawn any attention.

  “I hope you’re not going to turn on the lights,” Grace said, thrusting her stepsister’s gloves at her as they hurried inside.

  “Of course not. Here.” Madeline put a long heavy object in Grace’s hands. A moment later, when Grace found the switch, she realized it was a flashlight.

  “You’ve thought of everything, I see.”

  “You take that side, I’ll take this one.”

  The shop was a rectangular room with a cement floor, a reception counter in front and a bathroom in the far corner. It smelled of motor oil and featured a scarred wooden desk and racks and racks of auto parts—definitely not the kind of place in which Grace felt very comfortable. But now that they’d broken the door, she decided it was better to commit herself to the task at hand. Maybe if Madeline saw that they weren’t going to find any evidence here, she’d give up trying to prove that Jed had caused the death of her father.

  “So far it looks like an auto repair shop,” she said.

  Madeline swept her flashlight around the room. “There’re some filing cabinets along that wall.”

  “There’re some on that wall, too,” Grace said, pointing at them.

  “I’ll take the ones behind the desk. You take the ones in the corner.”

  With a shrug, Grace moved to the three tall filing cabinets near the bathroom. The drawers of the first were labeled—work orders, parts orders, paid bills and catalogs.

  The constant whine of the toilet running in the bathroom got on her nerves as, behind her, Madeline opened and closed file drawers with wild abandon. The beam of her stepsister’s flashlight bounced as she moved—until she found a drawer that was locked.

  “Here it is,” she breathed.

  Grace turned expectantly. “You want me to help you get it open?”

  “No, I’ve got it. You might as well search the rest of the filing cabinets and the desk, just to be sure.”

  Madeline took another small tool from her backpack, along with the crowbar, and Grace turned back to her own searching. She didn’t want to watch what Madeline was about to do. The list of their crimes was already scrolling through her head.

  When she heard a large bang, Grace knew Madeline had managed to jimmy the drawer open and cringed at the thought of Jed finding it like that in the morning.

  “Try not to mess things up too badly,” she cautioned. “I feel terrible about this.”

  “I had to break the lock,” Madeline said. Her voice was too filled with anticipation to allow for much remorse. “That’s not a tremendous amount of damage—for a break-in. He’ll hardly know we were here.”

  “Right. He’ll probably think he busted his own locks. Happens all the time.”

  Madeline didn’t answer. She was too intent on going through the drawer.

  “Anything?” Grace asked.

  “Not yet,” she murmured.

  All Grace could hear of the music at the pool hall was the percussion thumping rhythmically through the walls. Jed had been in business a long time and, as she moved to the second file cabinet, she began to believe he’d kept every slip of paper he’d ever come across.

  “Talk about a packrat,” she grumbled. “Some of these work orders are more than ten years old.” The next drawer went back even farther than that.

  Madeline said nothing.

  “Maybe someone should tell Jed the IRS can’t audit you for tax returns older than seven years.”

  “You tell him,” Madeline murmured. She had a folder in her hand and was looking through it carefully.

  Grace was still halfheartedly rifling through her own files. “I’m not going to tell him anything.”

  “Mmm…” Madeline said.

  “Maybe you should write an article on record-keeping for the paper,” Grace suggested. “You could use Jed as an example.”

  “Good idea.”

  Madeline wasn’t listening. Giving up on the nervous chatter, Grace closed the bottom drawer of the middle filing cabinet and moved on to the third and last cabinet, which was pretty old and beat up. Dust an inch thick rested on top, along with baskets of ancient work orders yet to be filed and even a cracked coffee mug. In here, the records were fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old.

  “Jeez,” Grace said and almost shut the top drawer before even delving inside. What was the point? Madeline had already found the mysterious locked drawer and was busily combing through it.

  But then she noticed something that made goose bumps stand out on her arms. The dates on the folders were growing closer and closer to that fateful night eighteen years ago. She wondered if Jed had kept the work order from when he’d fixed the tractor, and what it might say.

  Her scalp began to tingle as she quickly thumbed through the August invoices. She didn’t find one dated that particular night, but she
found one for the following day.

  Taking off her gloves so she could grip the thin paper, she pulled it from the file. It was made out to her mother, which seemed a little odd. The reverend had always handled everything anyone could loosely interpret as “man’s work.”

  Holding it in one hand, she thumbed through the next drawer and the next. All previous invoices showed the reverend’s name. Had the sudden switch occurred because Jed already knew, the very next morning, that the reverend wasn’t coming back? If so, he was the only one. It had taken two days for the community to launch a search. A full-grown man had never gone missing from Stillwater before. The reverend’s car had disappeared, as well, so at first everyone had assumed he’d taken off somewhere and would soon be back.

  Grace checked on Madeline again. When she found her examining items and letters in a cigar box, she returned her attention to the invoice. Other than her mother’s name, Jed had meticulously recorded the parts he’d ordered and installed in the tractor, his time and the amount due. But unlike all the other invoices she’d seen in the drawer so far, this one wasn’t marked paid.

  Hadn’t he collected? Grace couldn’t remember. Of course, she knew he’d never come to the house that night. But what about later?

  “There’s nothing here,” Madeline said, dejection dripping from her words. “Just some old love letters from a woman named Marilyn, a two-dollar bill that has I love you written on it, and pictures of three kids I don’t recognize.”

  “I’m not coming up with anything, either.” Grace put the invoice back and was about to close the drawer when her eye caught something black and shiny stuffed below the hanging file folders. Curious to see what it could be and why it was there, she shifted so Madeline couldn’t see what she was doing. Moving some files, she pulled out a pocket Bible—and nearly dropped it again.

  It was the one the Reverend Barker had carried everywhere like a small day-planner.

  The one she thought they’d buried with him.

  Kennedy was hoping to finish Joe Vincelli off quickly by sinking the eight ball on his next turn, after which he planned to call it a night. He liked hanging out at the pool hall on Thursdays. Since Raelynn’s death, it was the only social outing he participated in with any regularity. Fortunately, his kids really liked Kari Monson, the middle-aged single woman who lived next door to his parents. Kari worked days but often helped Kennedy if he needed babysitting in the evening. He knew she’d already have the boys in bed. But it was getting late, and he had a big day tomorrow. He needed to head home.

  On the other side of the table, Joe bent over the smooth green felt, running his cue stick lightly through his thumb and finger as he considered the various shots open to him. Three striped balls remained on the table to Kennedy’s one solid, so Kennedy was trying to be patient. But he was beginning to wonder if Joe would ever take his turn. “Come on. I want to go home sometime tonight.”

  “Give me a second,” Joe barked and moved to the end of the table to check the angle of yet another shot. Although Joe’s earlier visit to Kennedy’s office hadn’t gone particularly well, they hadn’t mentioned it since arriving at the pool hall. They hadn’t talked about Grace at all. But Kennedy could feel the added tension between them. Joe really wanted to win this game.

  “I’ll give you an extra shot if you need it,” Kennedy said. “Just go.”

  “You won’t give me anything.” Joe straightened and raised one eyebrow to ensure he’d made his point. “I don’t need you to make concessions.”

  Kennedy waved off the waitress, who was coming around to ask if he wanted another drink. “Enough with the competitive bullshit, okay? You’ve circled the table three times. It’s only fifty bucks. Let’s go.”

  Finished with his game at the next table, Buzz carried his beer over so he could watch. “Who’s winning?”

  Kennedy didn’t respond, and neither did Joe, but that was answer enough. If Joe had been winning, he would’ve made some wisecrack.

  “That’s your best angle right there,” Buzz said, trying to encourage the continuation of the game. But Buzz was better friends with Kennedy than he was with Joe, so it didn’t surprise Kennedy when Joe discounted the advice and stooped to take an entirely different shot.

  Joe’s shadow stretched over the table, then the cue ball clacked against its target and sent the striped thirteen racing for the corner pocket.

  At the last second, it banked off the side and veered off in the wrong direction.

  Kennedy knew he was in a perfect position to end the game. Before he could do that, however, Ronnie Oates, who’d just left for home three minutes earlier, came rushing back into the pool hall.

  “I think someone’s breaking into the auto shop next door!” he said. In his excitement he sounded as though he’d been running much farther than the distance from the parking lot to the building.

  “Who’d want to rob old Jed?” Joe muttered. “Hell, if someone’s that desperate for a wrench, he can have one of mine.”

  “All I know is that I saw the beam of a flashlight inside,” Ronnie said. “Let’s go take a look.”

  Kennedy gazed longingly at the eight ball. One more shot…just one, and the game would be over. But Joe and the others were already pouring out the back. Even if he sank it, there’d be no one to witness the victory. Then, when Joe came back, he’d say they had to play again.

  “There is a flashlight or something over there,” he heard someone else shout.

  He laid his cue stick across the table. He supposed he might as well go see what was happening. Probably just a bunch of kids out to cause trouble, but it was Thursday, not Friday, which was a bit odd. And Jed’s Dependable Auto Repair made an unlikely target.

  “Call the police,” he yelled over to Pug, the bartender.

  Kennedy waited long enough to see the man pick up the phone and dial. Then he strode into the parking lot.

  Shouts rose outside as Grace stared at the Bible she’d just discovered and, for a second, her knees threatened to give out on her. They were going to be caught—exactly what she’d feared.

  A thump indicated that Madeline had dropped her flashlight. Scooping it up again, she turned it off. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The dog they’d been so careful to feed at the tire shop next door began to bark at the noise.

  Grace didn’t know what to do. Should she leave the Bible in the file drawer? Or try to take it with her?

  Panic made it difficult to think. Turning off her own flashlight, she shoved the Bible back inside the drawer. Then she realized that the break-in might raise enough questions that someone else would search for the reason they’d been interested in the place at all. If the Bible surfaced, embossed with the reverend’s name and containing his margin notes, whoever found it would go straight to Jed. Then he’d be forced to tell where he got it and how. And he could only have gotten it the night the reverend died. Grace remembered how the Bible had fallen out of her stepfather’s jacket as they dragged his body down the porch steps. She’d tried stuffing it back in, but…had it fallen out a second time, farther away, on the dark wet ground?

  She didn’t know. It could have. She’d been out of her mind that night; they’d all been out of their minds.

  “Grace!” Madeline cried, already at the door.

  Grace squeezed her forehead with one hand. Think! Oh, God. What do I do?

  There was no time to do anything. The shouting and footsteps were growing louder. She could even recognize a few of the voices.

  Slamming the drawer, she turned to follow her stepsister. But just as she reached Madeline, she realized she couldn’t leave the Bible behind. It could destroy her whole family.

  “We have to split up,” she said. “You go that way, and I’ll—” she searched frantically for another option “—I’ll sneak out the bathroom window.”

  “But what if—”

  “Go,” she said and gave her stepsister a little shove.
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  Madeline touched her arm to let Grace know she’d heard and ducked outside.

  Run, Grace thought, as though they could communicate telepathically. Run. But she couldn’t move very fast herself. She felt her way through the dark, back to the filing cabinet, where she retrieved the Bible and slipped it into the waistband of her shorts.

  The men were at the door. She had to reach the bathroom. Unless she wanted to try hiding under the desk, it was her only chance of escape.

  Her hands instinctively groped for her flashlight. She hated the dark. But she didn’t know where she’d put the damn thing after shutting it off.

  Then she heard someone yell, “I see him! Over there!” and the footsteps raced off in another direction.

  Madeline! Grace wasn’t sure whether or not her stepsister would be able to get away. But that suddenly became a secondary concern. She had to take the reverend’s Bible and destroy it while she had the chance.

  Finally she found the bathroom and eyed the small window above the toilet. She could see a slice of moon gleaming far above and longed to climb out, as she’d told Madeline she would. That window faced away from the dog and the noise. But it was too high. Even if she could get through, she was afraid she’d fall to the ground and break her neck.

  Going out the front was her only option, although she was afraid the police were on their way and might spot her as they drove up.

  Skirting the reception desk, she peered through the door, which stood slightly ajar from Madeline’s rapid departure.

  She could hear no sirens. Just the melee going on down the alley, and the dog next door, barking wildly.

  She had at most a few seconds in which to disappear before everyone came back to see what had been damaged or stolen….

  The leather cover of the Bible felt like a hot brand on the skin of her back—the reverend’s brand. She wanted to toss it away and pretend she’d never seen it. But she couldn’t. She had to burn it so no one would ever find it again.

  Begging for a miracle, she darted outside and hurried around the building.

  She managed to clear the yard with little sound. When she entered the alley, she began to feel more hopeful.