Something Missing: A Novel

by Matthew Dicks

  And then it hit him. Cindy Clayton owned an impressive set of Wüsthof knives that likely included a pair of poultry shears. Though Martin’s mother had forbidden him from ever using cooking shears for anything but food (once reprimanding him for using them to cut paper), he felt that this was an emergency.

  Moving at what Martin would have considered an unsafe speed on any other day he bounded down the stairs two at a time and skidded to a stop in the kitchen, finding the shears in the butcher-block knife rack, exactly where he expected them to be.

  Unfortunately, he had failed to bring the toothbrush with him, and his watch now read 4:31. Cindy Clayton could be home at any minute.

  Grabbing the shears, Martin turned and headed back upstairs for the third time today, faster than he had ever ascended stairs before, which was especially dangerous considering the kitchen shears in his left hand. Once inside the bathroom, he tried to remain calm and cut along the plastic in a spot that seemed most logical, but he quickly found himself tearing haphazardly at the plastic with the shears. He could feel the panic building yet could do nothing about it. Blind action had taken the place of reason, and he was acting on adrenaline and instinct. In a little more than a minute, the toothbrush had been extracted from its plastic shell and he was opening the battery compartment at the bottom of the brush in order to load the batteries.

  It was at that moment that Martin heard a car door slam.

  Cindy Clayton was in her garage.

  Martin had hoped to hear the automatic garage door issue a final warning to flee the premises in the event that Cindy arrived home before he could complete the job, but the noise of the kitchen shears battling the herculean plastic shell had apparently masked the expected sound. His hands began shaking uncontrollably at the double beep of a car alarm being activated. He looked up in the mirror of the medicine cabinet and saw a man about to fall apart.

  Despite the sweat that streaked his hair and face, his skin was frighteningly pale. His eyes were huge and seemed to be erupting from their sockets. His breathing was rapid and shallow. His heart raced. His feet felt rooted to the bathroom tile. He wondered if he would be able to move again before the police arrived.

  With the new toothbrush poised in his right hand, battery compartment now open, Martin paused in the upstairs bathroom of Cindy Clayton’s home, with the homeowner in the garage and just seconds from entering the house. He stopped all action, lowered his shoulders, unclenched his teeth, and relaxed the tight fists that he had unconsciously formed. He stared into Cindy Clayton’s bathroom mirror for more than thirty precious seconds, slowing and deepening his breathing, attempting to relax his body. He knew that he had one chance. If he could regain his wits and begin to think logically, he might have a chance to escape.

  Martin heard the connecting door between the garage and the house open, and listened to Cindy Clayton’s first step into the mudroom. Still he remained fixed in place, empty battery compartment anxiously awaiting its new arrivals. He waited fifteen seconds more until he was sure that he was calm enough to proceed, until the man in the mirror was ready for action. His breathing had returned to normal. The color was returning to his cheeks. The quaking of his hands was finally subsiding. As he listened to Cindy Clayton drop her keys onto the marble countertop of her kitchen, Martin began to move like the methodical Martin of old.

  As quickly and carefully as possible (for he couldn’t risk dropping something on the floor now), he removed the batteries from the old toothbrush and placed them into the new one, making sure that they were facing the correct way, positive side up.

  Cindy Clayton closed a door downstairs, and a moment later Martin heard a toilet lid connect with the toilet tank. He smiled. Even though she was home alone, Cindy Clayton was one of those people who always closed the door when using the bathroom.

  He wasn’t surprised.

  Martin placed the new toothbrush on its charger and quickly compared the old to the new. Though the bristles were not an exact match, they were close. Martin felt sure that Cindy Clayton would never notice the swap.

  Downstairs, a toilet flushed.

  Martin quickly scanned the bathroom, retrieving the four pieces of plastic that had been discarded in the sink during the extraction process. He placed the plastic shards, as well as the shears, into his right coat pocket and exited the bathroom, moving as silently and slowly as possible into the upstairs hall.

  Downstairs, Cindy Clayton was washing her hands. Martin was happy to discover that Cindy washed her hands after using the bathroom, even when no one was around to notice. He knew that only one in six Americans washed their hands after using the bathroom. He also knew that someone as predictable and neat as Cindy would be one of them.

  To Martin’s right was a six-foot stretch of hall that ended with the entrance to the master bedroom. To his left were two guest bedrooms and an office. He moved into the guest bedroom closest to the stairs, careful not to make a sound, and pressed himself against the wall adjoining the door. There he listened and waited.

  Downstairs Martin heard a refrigerator open and close, heard liquid being poured, and heard the refrigerator door open and close again. This also pleased Martin. He knew that Cindy Clayton was not the type to leave the refrigerator door wide open while pouring a drink. Everything that he might have guessed about the woman was so far correct.

  Confidence began to replace fear.

  Martin then heard steps and listened as Cindy Clayton moved through the kitchen, across the living room, and began ascending the stairs toward him. Again he was relieved. Had she spent too much time in the kitchen, she might have noticed the missing shears. Had she gone into the backyard, she would’ve seen his key sticking in the lock. Martin had left a great deal of evidence behind, but so far his luck had held out.

  At the top of the stairs, Cindy turned left toward her master bedroom.

  This would be Martin’s opportunity to make it down the stairs undetected. Only six feet of hallway to cross before the first stair. But the problem was that Cindy Clayton’s master bedroom was at the very end of the hallway. If she were standing in the center of the room, she would be able to see into the hall as Martin made his move.

  Quickly, he brought to mind the layout of the bedroom, a room he had been in dozens of times. Closets to the far left of the room, well out of sight of the hallway. The bed in the center of the room, facing the hall, with bureaus flanking it along the back wall. A hope chest and rolltop desk on the far right wall. The television just to the right of the door, positioned for ideal viewing while lying in bed. A treadmill off to the right, also far out of view.

  If Cindy decided to watch television, he would be trapped. She would probably be sitting or lying on the bed in order to do so. If she changed her clothing and opened one of the sliding closet doors, Martin would likely hear the door move on its track and could move then. He waited, listened, and hoped.

  A muffled thump. Probably a bureau drawer. A period of silence. Another thump. An exhale. And then the television. Oprah Winfrey’s voice. She was talking about some kid in West Virginia who had saved his dog’s life, or maybe the other way around. Martin’s shoulders sagged.

  He was trapped.

  As he began considering the possibility of hiding under the bed overnight and waiting until Cindy and Alan left for work the next morning, a loud humming emerged from the bedroom, followed by the rhythmic thumping of feet. Cindy Clayton had stepped onto her treadmill. Oprah was keeping her company on her walk to nowhere.

  Without wasting a second, Martin moved into the hallway with confidence, knowing that as long as he heard the thumping of feet, he would be clear of Cindy’s view. He moved to the stairway, staying as far left as possible, worried that Cindy might be able to see the edge of the stair from her treadmill if she was leaning over at all. He paused for a moment at the top of the stairs, took a deep breath, and began walking down, slowly and silently, his feet registering no sound on the carpeted surface. Though he felt the irresis
tible urge to run, a feeling similar to the one that he had experienced as a child when ascending the stairs from a basement that frightened him badly, he fought the urge and remained calm.

  As he reached the bottom of the stairs and began turning right into the living room, feeling home-free, he heard a toilet flush in the downstairs bathroom, just feet from where he was now standing.

  Alan Clayton was also home.

  Unlike his wife, Alan Clayton did not believe in closing the bathroom door while urinating, nor did he feel that washing his hands was terribly important. On the sound of the flush, a streak of fear, electric and tangible, shot through Martin’s body, and he began to involuntarily back up in the direction of the staircase that he had descended just seconds before. As he stepped back into the recess of the living room, he caught a momentary glimpse of the bald-headed homeowner as he emerged from the bathroom, turning right toward the kitchen. The button-down shirt that he was wearing was untucked and open, exposing a once-white undershirt underneath. Though shorter than Martin, the man was huge in bulk, his biceps and shoulders stretching the fabric of the undershirt. His hands also looked large, no doubt muscled from hours at a construction site.

  Had he not been fumbling to refasten the button on his jeans (completely dressing oneself before exiting the bathroom was apparently not a priority for Alan Clayton either), he might have seen Martin moving backward, just beyond his field of vision. A second later, the man appeared in full view, turning into the kitchen, his back to Martin.

  Martin stood less than fifteen feet from the man, a bulky thirtysomething, exactly one room away, the only demarcation between the two rooms being a changeover from beige carpet to kitchen tile. The two men were standing close enough for Martin to hear Alan Clayton’s breathing, and for this reason, he was holding his own breath.

  Martin knew that he had little time to make a decision. There were only three exits from the living room. The first was through the kitchen and out the patio door that still held his key. This exit was inaccessible as long as Alan Clayton occupied the kitchen.

  The second was through the front door of the house, located at the foot of the stairs, but Martin did not dare open that door and create the sounds surely associated with its opening.

  The third was back up the stairs to the second floor, where Cindy Clayton could still be heard thumping away on her treadmill. Though this was clearly the safest option, Martin wasn’t sure if he could make it back up the stairs quickly and quietly enough to remain undetected, and moving further into the house and away from his only method of egress was not at all appealing.

  In most homes, Martin would have been able to walk past the stairs into another room, customarily a dining room or den, but since the Claytons had designed the home themselves, a coat closet stood where an entrance to another room was usually positioned. Though this might also make a decent hiding place, the door to the closet was also closed, and Martin couldn’t risk the sound of it swinging open and shut.

  Still frozen in the southeast corner of the living room, Martin watched as Alan Clayton strode across the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and stuck his reflective head inside. He sensed that there were only seconds in which to act. If Alan Clayton turned even slightly, Martin’s frame would fill his line of sight.

  With beer in hand, Alan Clayton closed the refrigerator door, popped the tab on the can, and turned directly toward the living room. “Hey!” he shouted loud enough to send a second streak of fear through Martin’s body as he lay crouched behind the sofa along the south wall of the room. There was just enough space for a person to navigate between the sofa and the south wall, and Martin had ducked into the space with just seconds to spare, stomach pressed to the ground, shoulder jammed against a gold-plated lamp, willing himself to be small and compact as possible.

  This was actually a very good hiding spot. If Alan Clayton’s intention was to visit his wife upstairs, he would likely walk right past Martin without noticing him. Only by taking a severe turn to the right or looking over his shoulder while passing the sofa would he discover Martin’s location.

  “How’s it going?” Cindy Clayton responded breathlessly to her husband’s call, the first time Martin had ever heard the woman’s surprisingly soprano voice.

  “Good!” Alan replied from somewhere in the living room, probably less than ten feet from the intruder hiding behind his sofa. The voice was so loud and so close that Martin couldn’t believe that he hadn’t been seen yet and then began to wonder if he had been spotted and was now being stalked by the homeowner.

  “When are we leaving?” the man shouted.

  “In an hour or so,” his wife replied. “I’m going to run for another twenty-five minutes and then get ready, okay?”

  “Fine,” Alan replied in a cheery voice but then growled so that only Martin could hear, “Then why the hell did I need to be home by five?”

  “Did you need to shower?”

  Even without a wife, Martin recognized this statement for what it was. Cindy Clayton was telling her husband to shower, framing the command as a question.

  “Yeah, I’ll shower,” Alan Clayton replied without much enthusiasm, and Martin breathed an infinitesimal sigh of relief. With one homeowner on the treadmill and another soon to be in the shower, his opportunity to escape was likely near.

  The sound of the television, the voice of two men arguing about the state of American tennis, followed by the billowing of the fabric covering the rear of the sofa, caused Martin to quickly rethink this assumption. Though there might be a shower in his near future, Alan Clayton was settling in for some television, less than three feet away from Martin’s prone position. In fact, in turning his head and looking up, Martin could see the back of Alan Clayton’s bald head, almost within arm’s reach. The two men were literally inches apart.

  Martin’s situation had suddenly become even more dangerous. Though his hiding spot had made it difficult for anyone ascending the stairs to see him without looking back, someone coming down the stairs and turning into the living room would undoubtedly spot the strange man crouching behind the sofa. If Cindy Clayton came down the stairs to check up on her husband before Martin was able to move, he would almost surely be spotted.

  Violence was the first, albeit uncharacteristic, solution that entered Martin’s mind. With the element of surprise on his side and a relatively large, metallic lamp within reach, Martin felt that he could probably knock the considerably larger man unconscious and escape before Alan Clayton ever knew what hit him. The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that it was possible. He envisioned himself reaching over and silently unplugging the lamp from its socket (thankfully it was off), rising to his knees, head down, gripping the lamp’s thin stalk with both hands, and then swinging in one swift, violent motion. If his aim were true, the base of the lamp would connect with Alan Clayton’s skull and, if not render him unconscious, certainly stun the man long enough for Martin to effect his escape.

  Martin was not an aggressive man and had only once in his life committed any act that might be considered violent, and so his decision to spare Alan Clayton’s skull was likely the result of his natural aversion to violence. But what finalized this decision was twofold.

  First, despite his precarious position and potential for discovery, Martin continued to think of Alan Clayton as a client rather than an adversary, and so harming him in any way was unacceptable. After all, the client had done nothing wrong. Though it was probably his fault that the upstairs toilet lid had been left open that day, Alan Clayton was acting like any client should. Martin knew that the man was expected home by five o’clock that day, and so he had simply complied with his kitchen calendar. His actions were both scheduled and predictable, so if anyone was to blame for Martin’s current predicament, it was himself alone. Martin knew that it had been a mistake to reenter the house in the first place. He had violated one of his most important rules. There was no reason for Alan Clayton, a loyal and dependable
client for years, to suffer as a result of Martin’s failure. Though a bit of a slob and not the kind of guy Martin would normally befriend, Alan Clayton was also the man who wrote to his mother in Nevada at least once a week and always included a $100 check with a message on the memo line reading Have some fun on me, Mom!

  He might be disgusting by Martin’s standards, but he wasn’t a bad guy.

  But it was the lack of hair atop Alan Clayton’s head that truly sealed his decision. As Martin visualized the attack, he also visualized the result of the blow, and on a bald-headed man, this vision was not pretty. Had Alan Clayton been blessed with a full head of hair, Martin’s imagination might have been able to ignore the deep gash and spurting blood that would surely result from the head wound that he intended to deliver. But with a skull shaved perfectly bald, the result of the blow would have been impossible to ignore. Though he doubted that he would permanently harm or kill Alan Clayton, the exposed damage that would be left behind was too much for Martin to contemplate.

  With a violent solution cast aside, Martin began pondering other possibilities and accepting the notion that he might soon be found. Only once before had he been discovered by a client, and that incident had occurred long before Martin had turned professional.

  In many ways, the event had propelled him forward on his career path.

  Martin had been nineteen years old at the time. He had been on his own for about four months, living with Jim in a two-bedroom apartment in Vernon, Connecticut. Working part-time at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Talcottville Road, he had had almost no disposable income and was often forced to eat elbow macaroni and Campbell’s soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Jim was attending the University of Connecticut, and his parents were paying his tuition. But other than the check that they sent to the college twice a year, Jim was also supporting himself. And with a full class schedule, he was under even worse financial constraints than Martin. Between the two of them, they could barely afford rent and electricity and had spent their first winter together without heat except on the coldest of nights.