“…Isabelle, this way.”
Boyd turned on the flashlight, but kept it below his chin. Ever so slowly he turned it down toward the archway of the lounge. It danced over the couch closest to the entranceway, and then over the end table, but that was as far as Boyd could see. He tried to put the thought out of his mind on what he’d do if he heard the door to the corridor open. He started walking backwards on his heels, faster, then turned and reached the desk in the lobby almost at a sprint.
He pulled his jacket on and started gathering his dinner and the book he’d brought into his bag. He was searching for Lady’s leash when he looked down and noticed that the shepherd had her head at attention, but was looking off, looking behind him. Boyd froze and felt his jaw clench.
“Lady…?” he asked, but could barely get his voice above a whisper. “What’s wrong, girl?”
He wanted to turn, but couldn’t. It was like he had a deep paralysis in his neck. The handle of the flashlight felt slick in his hand from the sweat on his palms, and he gripped it hard and got ready to turn and strike …
But there was no one there.
Boyd let out a gasp of an exhalation and turned back to face Lady, but the dog was still looking at something behind him that he couldn’t see.
-10-
Boyd awoke to someone tapping on the glass of his driver-side window. He sat up with a start, and winced at the sting of pain he felt in his neck. Lady came awake next to him and gave a bark to whoever it was at his window. Boyd cursed as the sound shot through his eardrums. The shepherd went to bark again, but Boyd grabbed her collar and gave a firm tug on it and Lady bowed her head. Boyd turned his sore neck, and squinted into the burning glare of the morning sun. As the dots around his eyes cleared he saw Teddy looking in at him with a puzzled look on his face. Boyd unlocked the door to the truck and climbed out.
When his feet touched the pavement his right knee locked and he was forced to stutter forward to get some feeling back into it. He set a reminder to himself to pay a visit to the asshole perp who had taken an aluminum bat to his knee all those years ago. “What’s going on?” Teddy asked. He had his hands up as if he thought Boyd might fall over, which wasn’t too far from becoming reality.
Lady scampered out of the truck behind Boyd and ran toward a nearby tree to relieve her bladder. He made sure she stayed within his line of sight as he grabbed his stainless-steel canteen full of water and took a few swift chugs to chase away the dryness in his mouth. Teddy was still looking at him.
When Boyd first had retreated to his truck the night before with Lady in tow, all he could think about was how he was going to explain to Teddy that he was done working the Westinghouse site. He ran through all the valid reasons not to stay in his mind, but quickly realized that none held any water. Regardless, he was still planning to leave once he saw Teddy; but now, here in the daylight, Boyd was embarrassed to admit to himself that conceivably he had done exactly what Teddy had warned against — he had gotten spooked.
“Lady didn’t take to well to the storm last night,” Boyd said, looking away from his friend. “She was whimpering and whining, so I took her back out to the truck and must’ve fallen asleep. I didn’t get much the night before.”
Boyd could feel Teddy’s eyes on him. The other man sighed and gave Boyd a clap on the back of his shoulder. “You do look like shit,” he said. “Why don’t you head on home and come back a little later tonight?”
Boyd frowned. “That’s not necessary, Ted.”
“Hey, I owe you for covering me the other morning. Get some sleep and maybe a hot meal or two in you before you come back. Lady looks like she could stand a good one herself.”
Boyd looked down as the shepherd was nudging her head into his knee. He absently ran a hand over her spine. “You ever read up on this place?”
Teddy shook his head. “Nah. I used to early on, when I’d work a site, sometimes out of curiosity or boredom, but none of it is ever very interesting.”
“Some kids went missing in this building back when it was abandoned,” Boyd said, then cleared his throat. “No one ever found them.”
“Christ, Boyd,” Teddy breathed. “What are you trying to do? Spook me now?”
“No, it’s just something I stumbled across. I’ve been thinking about looking into it more and —”
“Stop,” Teddy said. “I’m not trying to be insensitive here. I’m really not, but that was how long ago, Boyd? What’s it matter? You’re not police anymore.”
“I know that.”
“Let’s just worry about getting through this rotation.” He started around the side of Boyd’s truck to head for the lobby. “And let’s let the past rest easy for now. It doesn’t like when you try to dig it up.”
***
Boyd dropped his keys on the end table near his front door and took his jacket off. His neck was still sore and he rubbed his fingers into it to try and relieve some of the stiffness, but it did no good. Lady took off for the kitchen and Boyd followed. He filled the faded red plastic dish for her food and took a Diet Coke with him into his study. He’d always liked the room because it had the bookcases built into the walls, and it was always on the side of the house that caught the best light.
He dropped down into the leather chair that had the large swatch of duck tape covering a tear and pushed some of the old newspapers aside to get to the keyboard. He leaned in and blew the dust off the keys while he waited for the old PC to boot up. Once it did he opened a web browser and did a search for the words Isabelle, Lansing, New York and attached the word missing.
The results weren’t very promising at first, as the search engine returned links for women named Isabelle Lansing who resided in New York. He tailored the requirements a bit and came upon the article he was looking for. As he scrolled down the page he came across the photo for a young girl named Isabelle Wheeler, and Boyd felt his chest get tight.
The small green eyes, long red hair hanging away from her face — Isabelle could’ve been Morgan’s sister, if he didn’t know better. The photo used in the article was a class photo, and Boyd couldn’t stop staring. He put a hand to his mouth and tried to force a breath in. He scrolled further down, needing to take his eyes off the photo, so he read. In the summer of ’92, during a July 4 parade, Isabelle had disappeared. The local police theorized that perhaps she had followed some friends on her bike up the hill to the then-vacant school. It was several hours later before her mother reported her missing. A neighbor had found her bike toppled over in front of the entrance to the building. Police searched inside, but she was never found.
Boyd leaned back in the leather chair and it squeaked under his weight. The other children who had gone missing went missing after the building had been abandoned. Isabelle had been the first. No one had seemed to put that together, as there had been no mention of her disappearance in the other articles he’d read. What did she see? Why were they all drawn to go inside? Better question, who had the man in the vestibule been that lured Joseph Ellis over? And why had he written “Badge Plays —” on his wall before he killed himself?
He cracked open his soda and took a pull from the can. His eyes fell back onto the article that sat on his screen. He didn’t remember scrolling back up the page, but there was the photo of Isabelle, and Boyd couldn’t shake the feeling that he was looking at Morgan at the exact same age. The girl looked like she had a scar on her chin; or perhaps he was imagining that, because Morgan had one below her lip from when she fell off her bike.
He shut the computer off. Maybe Teddy was right. What did it matter anyway? It was over twenty years ago. No one was looking for these kids anymore. However, the mere thought of that made Boyd agitated and before he realized it he was picking up the cordless phone and making a phone call.
***
Susan Wheeler lived about thirty minutes outside of Lansing in a converted farmhouse at the end of a dirt road. Boyd’s truck kicked up mud as he sloshed his way down toward the driveway, which was shaped
like a horseshoe. Lady had her head up at attention, but for the time being she was staying quiet. Boyd grabbed a treat from his jacket pocket and gave it to her before climbing out of the truck.
The day had a wet chill in the air and there was a light fog coming through the trees next to the house. The gravel of the drive crunched beneath Boyd’s boots as he neared the front step. He searched for a doorbell, couldn’t locate one, so he gave a loud knock with his fist. He stood, waiting, with his hands shoved deep into his jacket. He could smell manure, but wondered if that was just a smell that clung to the place after all the years.
The door opened and a woman with gray streaks in her red hair stood in the doorway. She had small, green eyes like her daughter, except she had wrinkles at the corners of hers. The woman studied Boyd for a moment and pulled her long sweater closed over her. “Help you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Boyd said. “I’m Boyd Dwyer. We talked on the phone. Susan, right?”
The woman bobbed her head, but made no motion to invite Boyd inside.
“So you’re the police man?”
“Used to be,” Boyd said.
Susan stepped aside and motioned with her head for Boyd to follow her. The foyer had tall ceilings with large wooden beams. Boyd inhaled a spicy, almost vanilla scent that permeated the home. Susan stepped away to the left and Boyd followed her into a modest living room with brown leather furniture and an afghan for the back of every seat. She took a seat on the couch and grabbed her coffee off the table, but didn’t seem in a rush to offer Boyd any, so he took a seat in the recliner across from her.
“Nice home,” Boyd said, the familiar phrase rolling off his tongue. It was something he’d used to break the ice back when he worked homicide.
“Thanks,” Susan said quietly.
Boyd nodded and waited to see if she’d say anything else. She hadn’t been too talkative on the phone either. Boyd had called a couple of his old contacts, the ones who would still pick up when he’d call, and had them do a little digging. It’d taken about an hour before he had the phone number for Susan. She’d been reluctant to speak to him, but he hoped that maybe it’d go better in person.
“You trying to open Isabelle’s old case?” Susan asked over her coffee. “You know you’re not the first one that’s tried to do that?”
Boyd leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “What do you mean?”
“Every three or four years someone tracks me down, comes out to the house, and tells me they’re going to find out what happened to Isabelle.”
Boyd frowned. “What ends up happening?”
“Nothing,” Susan said. “I never hear anything. I just assume they give up when they realize there’s nothing to look into. The last one, though — he was practically a kid himself — he called me to say that he wasn’t going to pursue the case further.”
“Did he say why?”
Susan shook her head and took another sip of her coffee. “I know it seems bad to say, Mr. Dwyer. But I’ve moved on. I do miss her, it’s not about that, I think about her all the time and what her life would’ve been like, but at some point as a parent you just have to come to terms with it, you know?”
Boyd was looking at the floor and gave a nod of his head.
“You can drive yourself crazy,” Susan continued, “thinking about all the what-ifs and things you could change or would change. But you can’t. Bad things happen, as I’m sure you know. All I can hope is that, whatever happened to her that she wasn’t in a lot of pain.”
“Of course,” Boyd said softly.
“Trust me, it’s taken me a long time to say that without tearing up.”
“I’m sorry to have come out here,” Boyd said, “and to make you go through this. I’ll be honest: I’m not trying to open old cases, I’m just trying to understand what happened, is all. Maybe that was a mistake.”
Susan looked over at him and gave him what he took as a sympathetic smile. “Have you ever thought, Mr. Dwyer, that maybe we’re not meant to understand?”
-11-
Teddy wasn’t at his post when Boyd arrived for his shift.
He stepped into the lobby, and the familiar feeling of being swallowed into a soundproof room overtook him. He set his bag down on the counter and took a glance behind the desk. The TV was gone, as were any other traces that anyone had been there. Boyd frowned and checked his watch. He was on time; he didn’t think Teddy would just up and leave, even if Boyd had been a couple minutes late.
He retreated back to the glass panel next to the automatic doors and looked out into the lot. Lady was staring in at him from the passenger seat of Boyd’s truck and had her paws up on the windows. He didn’t see Teddy’s pickup. How had he missed it not being there on the way in? A heavy, sinking feeling of dread started to worm its way into his stomach. He became concerned that something had happened to Teddy — there had been so many accidents on site already. His concern quickly moved to anger: if that was the case, why had no one called him?
He went back to the desk to pick up the phone to call Donnie, but stopped himself. He needed to be positive that Teddy wasn’t here. How would it look for him to call Donnie in near hysterics only to find that Teddy was taking a leak and Gina had given him a ride into work that day? So, first things first, he needed to do a sweep of the lobby and the surrounding area.
He checked the bathrooms first — they were empty, as were the conference rooms. As he walked past the elevator bank, the fear that Teddy was in an emergency room somewhere returned. He hoped it was irrational. It also felt better to focus on the fear that there had been an accident on site, and not on the idea that something else had occurred on par with what he had experienced during the power outage.
He stopped at the lounge and stood in the archway into the room, but it was empty and the lights were off apart from the lamps on the end tables. He started back up the corridor that would take him to the lobby when he heard someone talking. The noise stopped him in his tracks. It was too low and muffled, but as he tilted his head to listen, there was no mistaking the sound. Boyd looked up at the closed door for the security office that blended in with part of the wall.
He hadn’t been in the hotel’s designated security room. If he recalled, the room was locked on the first night he was in the building doing his rounds. He stood in front of the door and listened. Someone was definitely talking on the other side of the door. Boyd went for the handle, almost stopped himself, but then finally turned it.
Once inside, his eyes fell immediately to the chair in the center of the room, as the man sitting there had his back to him as he talked into a cell phone.The room was tiny. Most of the space was taken up by a large table that housed a wall of video monitors in three rows of three. Boyd glanced briefly at them. Each showed a different location of the hotel in black and white.
“Sure thing, everything should be operational by morning,” the man said. He swiveled in the chair, saw Boyd and gave a curt nod, and held his index finger up to let Boyd know he’d be right with him. Boyd put his attention back to the monitors while he waited. The man finally hung up the phone.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “That was the boss man and you know how that goes.”
Boyd gave a half-hearted nod, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the situation yet. The man was tall, almost cartoonishly too big for the chair, and had subtle, yet handsome features. He kept his dark hair cut close to the ears and combed back neatly in place.
“You must be Boyd,” he said.
“Yeah,” Boyd replied, and didn’t really know what else to say.
The man went to extend his hand, but brushed a Dixie cup full of coffee and the caramel brown liquid spilled across the table. “Ah, shit,” he said. He tore a few sheets from a legal pad to soak up the mess, then got to his feet.
“I’m Ed,” he said. “Ed Gambi.”
The handshake was firm, a real solid grip. Boyd let it go first.
“Well, Ed. Maybe you want to tell me wh
at’s going on?”
“I’ll be working with you and Teddy on this rotation. I wasn’t supposed to start until tomorrow. Boss Man asked me to get these monitors set up. I got a background in video surveillance, so I was more than happy to fill a few hours doing this. A site this large, you need something like this. I’m surprised it wasn’t up and running sooner, but oh well, right?”
Boyd was half listening as he looked around the cramped room. It was borderline claustrophobic. He couldn’t imagine anyone spending more than an hour in there. His eyes fell back on Ed.
“Where’s Teddy?” he asked.
“Oh,” Ed said, a look of concern on his face. “I thought he would’ve phoned you. I guess something came up at home and he had to take off. He called me and asked if I’d cover since I was already going to be here.”
Boyd felt his breathing slow and his face run hot for a moment with a touch of embarrassment. It made sense now, and Boyd felt beyond foolish for getting so heated and worked up. Again he had to remind himself that there was always a logical explanation for everything.
“I wasn’t expecting you until much later,” Ed called over his shoulder as they headed back toward the lobby. “I was going to step out to grab a quick bite to eat, but since you’re here now I could bring you back something if you like.”
Boyd shook his head. “You were just going to leave your post?
“I did for lunch, yeah,” Ed said, a sheepish grin spread on his face like he was filling Boyd in on a bad secret. “Sometimes you just need to get a little air, if you know what I mean. I’m only gone twenty minutes tops. Figure the place won’t burn down in my absence.”
“You’re in luck,” Boyd said. “That’s already happened.”
“So I’ve heard.”
A silence fell between them. Boyd thought about saying something to do with professional maturity, that leaving the site wasn’t a smart move, but that felt terribly hypocritical. When he looked up he saw that Ed was still staring at him, sort of like a puppy waiting to be told it was time to go for a walk.
Ghost Box Page 4
