Here After

by Sean Costello

  “I was sitting on a bench reading a book and I heard Graham scream. When I looked up, I saw this guy in a mask yanking him off the monkey bars over there”—she pointed to the play area behind her, to a set of igloo-shaped monkey bars surrounded by police tape—“then the guy was running away with him, heading for the trees. I tried to go after them, but I broke my foot last week and couldn’t run.” She pointed at the lime-green cast on her foot, red-painted toenails poking out the open end. “So I started screaming...”

  The girl broke down now, unable to respond to the barked questions of the reporters. Then Angela Ling was there, comforting the girl, urging the others to give her some space. When the girl settled, Ling was doing an exclusive, Risa Cade speaking only to her.

  “Thank you,” Risa said, taking the wad of tissue Ling offered, wiping her eyes with it.

  “What happened then?” Ling said.

  “I fell,” Risa said, sobbing again. “Lost sight of them...”

  “And where are your parents right now, Risa? Do they know about this yet?”

  “They’re at work.” She looked around with frightened eyes. “Someone was supposed to call them.”

  “I’m sure they’re on their way,” Ling said. Then: “Can I ask Graham one quick question?”

  Risa leaned her head back, trying to get a look at the boy’s face buried in her neck. She said, “Gray? Can she ask you one little question? It might help them catch that bad man.”

  The boy’s blond headed nodded once and Risa turned him to face the reporters, tucking his compact backside into the crook of her arm. The camera closed in on the boy’s tear- and dirt-streaked face and Peter felt the floor tilt beneath his feet.

  Graham Cade was the spitting image of Jason Mullen.

  Ling tucked the microphone under the boy’s chin, the other reporters silent now. Ling said, “Graham, how did you get away?”

  Graham said, “I bit him,” and managed a nervous smile. “On the arm.” Now he pointed into the park, at the monkey bars, their summit just visible beyond his head as the camera shifted to include them in the shot. “Tommy Boy told me to.”

  As a wave of gray curled over Peter’s eyes and he lost touch with the world, he saw the top of the monkey bars in the near distance. David was sitting up there with his back to the camera, turning now to look over his shoulder, his eyes as black as the hole Peter tumbled into.

  11

  PETER REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS AS THEY lifted him onto a stretcher. Ironically, it was Lisa Black’s voice he heard trying to reassure him, her cool hand tight around his forearm. “It’s okay, Peter,” she was saying. “You fainted and bumped your head. It doesn’t look like you broke the skin, but I think we should do a CAT scan and get some blood work done, look at your sugar and maybe your hemoglobin. You’re white as a sheet.”

  Now he heard her say, “Take him down to the ER,” and felt the stretcher move, angling out of the waiting area toward the orange exit doors. He waited until they were in the main hall and sat up, shaking his head against a swirl of dizziness. The porter said, “Maybe you should lie down,” and Peter slid himself off the end of the stretcher, telling the porter he was fine.

  He made his way down the hall without looking back, using a patient handrail for support. By the time he reached the locker room, he felt better and changed quickly into his street clothes. Lisa intercepted him on his way out and followed him down to the lobby, doing her best to talk him into staying. Peter said he was fine, assured her that if he dropped dead in the parking lot he’d accept full responsibility, then hurried out the door. He called Roger on his way to the car, asking him if he’d gotten the entire newscast on tape.

  “You bet I did,” Roger said. “The son of a bitch is at it again. I can’t believe they let him get away. Are you coming over?”

  Peter said, “I’m on my way.” The sun was bothering his eyes, the goose egg on his head beginning to throb. He wanted to ask Roger if he’d seen David on the monkey bars, but he knew how crazy that would sound and decided to wait, show it to him on the tape. He said, “See you soon.”

  “Make it quick. I’m going down there.”

  Peter said, “I’m coming with you,” and signed off, climbing into the car. For a moment the muggy heat inside threatened to turn his stomach, but the feeling quickly passed. He sped out of the lot onto Paris Street, cranking the air conditioner to its highest setting, the image of his son’s eyes, black in the sunlight, indelibly etched in his mind.

  * * *

  Sergeant Vickie Taylor, the lead investigator in the attempted kidnapping case, leaned against a picnic table in Warner Park with her cell phone pressed to her ear, waiting for the boy’s father to come on the line. A curt-sounding woman had told her Mr. Cade was out on a job site today and that it might take her a while to track him down. The woman offered to have Mr. Cade call Vickie back once she’d located him, but Vickie said thanks, she’d wait. That had been ten minutes ago. She was hoping to catch the man before he saw it all on TV.

  According to Cade’s daughter, Risa, Christopher Cade was a foreman for a Toronto-based construction company. Risa had given Vickie the mother’s number, too—Angela Cade worked as a teller in a Mississauga branch of the Royal Bank—but from experience Vickie knew that if there was a dad in the picture, it was generally better to start with him. It lessened the hysteria factor. Where their children were concerned, even if the kid was fine, mothers tended to go off the deep end early, becoming liabilities to themselves and to the investigation. And in spite of what Vickie did for a living, she knew that if something like this ever happened to her daughter, Samantha—the world’s most precocious three-year-old—she’d react in exactly the same way.

  Cade came on the line now, his voice shaky with apprehension, saying, “This is Christopher Cade. What’s this about?”

  In calm, measured tones Vickie introduced herself and said, “I don’t mean to alarm you, Mr. Cade, but there’s been an incident involving your son. He’s fine, he hasn’t been injured, but he was the victim of an attempted kidnapping in the park near your home today.”

  “Oh my God. When did this happen?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “An hour ago. Why wasn’t I notified sooner?”

  “I’ve been having some trouble reaching you, sir.”

  “Has anyone spoken to my wife about this yet?”

  “No, not yet. We were hoping you could handle that.”

  “Of course. I’ll call her right away. And Graham is fine?”

  “A little shaken up, but completely unharmed.”

  “My daughter...?”

  “She’s fine, too.”

  “Who was it? Did you catch the guy?”

  “Unfortunately not, but we’re in the process of accumulating evidence.”

  “What do you mean, ‘evidence’?”

  “I’ll explain it all to you when we meet, Mr. Cade. In the meantime I’d like you to contact your wife and have both of you meet me at the Oakville Regional Hospital. We’re taking your son there now.”

  “I thought you said he was fine.”

  “He is, sir. It’s just procedure. We’ll get him cleared, then go to the station and take everyone’s statements.”

  “Alright, Sergeant Taylor. And thanks, thanks very much. What about Risa?”

  “Risa will come with us.”

  “Okay,” Cade said. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  * * *

  Roger opened the front door and said, “Peter, I—”

  Peter said, “I know,” and brushed past him into the house. He said, “I need to see that video,” and sat on the couch in the family room.

  Roger had the tape already cued up, paused at the beginning of the newscast. He got it rolling with the remote and sat next to Peter on the couch, reeking of stale booze and bitter sweat, his strappy undershirt and blue work pants rumpled and stained. Peter was sure he’d been sleeping in them. The man looked like shit.

  Peter
watched the parts he’d missed, teaser clips that included a shot of the boy crying, then a bunch of commercials Roger fast-forwarded through. When it got to the Angela Ling segment Peter took the remote and fast-forwarded through the bulk of the story, thumbing the PLAY button just as Graham Cade turned in his sister’s arms to face the camera.

  When the boy pointed at the monkey bars and said, “Tommy Boy told me to,” Peter paused the tape and said, “Watch this.” Then he hit PLAY and the camera made its subtle shift to include the top of the monkey bars in the shot.

  David wasn’t there.

  The tape rolled on, Angela Ling doing a brisk wrap-up before the broadcast returned to the studio and the anchor moved on to the next story.

  Roger said, “What?”

  Peter said “Hang on,” rewound the tape and played it again, getting the same result. He said, “God damn it,” and his hand tightened around the remote, his sudden, furious disappointment making him want to pitch the thing through the screen. The pressure of his hand activated the PAUSE function and the video froze on Graham’s teary face.

  With a stifled roar, Peter buried his face in his hands and wept, huge, wrenching sobs that convulsed his body. At this moment more than any other, he felt critically unhinged, his connections with the world perilously frayed. He was so sure he’d seen David, and that kid had pointed right at him, calling him Tommy Boy...

  Now he felt Roger’s hand on his back, Roger saying, “Hey, hey, what’s up? They’re going to get this guy now, no matter how far he runs. And I want to be there when they take him down. They aired an update after you called, saying about a dozen people saw him, and they expect to get good DNA evidence off his mask. And somebody saw a white van they think he took off in. They’re going after him, chum, big time, a huge dragnet. If Jason’s still alive, this is the only way we’re going to find out. So I need you to snap out of it, right now. We’ve got to get going—”

  Peter stood up, sprang up, his wet eyes huge now, swallowing his face. He looked at Graham’s image on the screen, then at Roger, an expression of sheer revelation on his face, the face of a man who has just seen God. He said, “He’s not going to run. He’s going to try for this kid again.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Peter pointed at the Cade boy’s image on the screen. “Look at him,” he said. “He’s perfect.”

  Roger stood now, too, his own eyes widening, his body seeming to harden and swell. He said, “Jesus Christ, you’re right,” and headed for the staircase, saying, “Just let me grab a few things.” Then he stopped and said, “My truck’s in the shop.”

  “No problem,” Peter said. “We’ll take the Corolla.”

  “What about work? Can you get some time off? I’ll be staying down there till they nail this guy.”

  Peter said, “I’m retired.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “That’s what I was doing when you called. What about you?”

  Roger said, “Suspended, without pay,” and shrugged. “Got into it with an asshole in an elevator.”

  Peter blew air through his nose, the closest he could come to a laugh.

  Roger put his hand on the newel post and gave Peter a huge, dimpled grin, the grin of a blue-eyed boy about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, a treasure hunt for a prize whose value defied estimation. And though the chances of actually finding that prize were incalculably small—and this knowledge was there, too, in those smiling eyes—it was the hope that fueled Roger Mullen, the hope which, in this moment, made anything seem possible.

  “Be right back,” Roger said. Then he was gone, tramping barefoot up the stairs, and Peter rewound the tape, knowing it was pointless, but powerless to prevent himself. And this time, when he got to the correct spot, he paused the tape and moved through the sequence one frame at a time, searching for even a glimpse of him.

  But David just wasn’t there.

  He turned the TV off and set the remote on the coffee table. Roger came down a few minutes later in a blue T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans, a brown overnight bag in one hand.

  On the way out the front door, Peter said he wanted to drop by his place to grab a few things, then they’d get underway. Roger said that was fine and locked the door behind them.

  In the car, Peter said, “Shouldn’t we call the police?”

  “And tell them what?”

  “That we think he’s going to try for this boy again. Have them beef up security around the kid until they either catch the guy or he makes his move again. You could call your friend Bernie, work it through him.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you about this,” Roger said, “but I talked to Bernie a few days after we met with him. He called me at the house.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He asked if I was feeling better. Said I looked like shit that day in his office. Dazed, like a cult member or something. He wanted to know if I’d ‘cut that nutcase loose’, meaning you. Said he knew what I was going through was tough, but that I had to be careful, there was always some freak out there ready to take advantage of someone like me, the walking wounded. He reminded me of all the wingnuts that phoned or emailed me after Jason was taken.” Roger sighed now, the sound impossibly weary. “That whole thing with the mug shots and the sketch artist? Bernie was just humoring me, because we’re friends. He ran a check on you, you know. Called the chief of staff at the hospital.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he thought you might be the one.”

  “Jesus, why?”

  “Cop logic. Everyone’s a suspect. And when you think about it, it’s not that far-fetched. Maybe this guy, this kidnapper, maybe half his gig is outsmarting the cops. Showing his superiority. So when the heat dies down, maybe he feels neglected. Or just wants to put it in their face. So he studies me, finds out about the bereavement group and just shows up there one night with his own sad story. Nobody checks, you know, to see if group members are on the level. I mean, why would anyone lie about a thing like that? So for fun, he joins the group and starts spinning this weird tale about seeing the perp in his dreams. If he knows I’ve got a friend who’s a cop, the rest is easy to figure out.”

  Peter said, “A bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

  “Is it? Think about it for a minute. If you get off on showing people how smart you are, how cool would it be to walk right into the cop shop and start flipping through mug shots? When you’re the guy.”

  As they turned into the Moonglow subdivision, Peter said, “You don’t think I had anything to do with it, do you?”

  Roger smiled. “You think we’d be having this cozy little chat if I did? But I’ve got to tell you, after Bern brought up the possibility, I was glad to hear he’d cleared you.”

  Peter didn’t reply. The information made him feel violated, betrayed, as if someone he trusted had rifled through his belongings without his permission.

  They made the balance of the drive in silence. When they reached the house, Peter parked in the laneway, told Roger he’d be just a minute and hurried inside.

  The tomb-like silence of the house played on Peter’s nerves as he stuffed fresh clothes into a carry-on bag, grabbing things at random, socks and shorts and T-shirts and jeans, stopping only when the bag was too full to hold anything more. Then he thought of toiletries and had to take a few things out, replacing them with a zippered, see-through sack that held his toothbrush, toothpaste, shaver, and deodorant. On his way out of the bedroom, he saw Jason Mullen’s toy boxcar on the dresser and tucked it into his pocket, thinking that if an appropriate moment presented itself, he’d give it back to Roger. If not, he’d just leave it at the house the next time he was over. He stuck the files he’d compiled on Jason and the Dolan boy into a black computer bag and stashed it all in the trunk of the car.

  He paused for a moment after closing the trunk, looking up at the house Dana had been so in love with, thinking of all the wonderful times they’d shared here as a family, the
love that had transformed this artful collection of bricks and boards into a home. Then he climbed in next to Roger and backed the car into the street.

  * * *

  Graham Cade held on to his sister’s arm in the back seat of the police car. His two older brothers didn’t like it when he touched them or tried to hug them, but they were away at music camp this week and Risa didn’t mind. Sometimes she just grabbed him and hugged him like his mom did, giving him a big wet kiss on the neck. Mom said that was because girls were more affectionate than boys. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was glad they were. Everyone was always telling him he was a real huggy-bear.

  Risa was still very upset. She had her arm around his shoulders and her head resting against the police car window. She was looking outside, but Graham could tell she was crying. He’d been pretty afraid, too, when that man grabbed him and started running away with him, but he didn’t cry until after, when he saw how scared his sister was. He wondered if he was going to get in trouble for biting the man, because he bit him really hard. Then Risa told him the man was bad and that biting him had been a smart thing to do. It was how he got away.

  After the man dropped him and ran into the trees, Risa kept saying she was sorry, crying harder than he’d ever seen anyone cry, hugging him so tight he could hardly breathe. But he told her he was okay, just a little scrape on his elbow from when he landed on the ground. He looked at the scrape now and sucked air through his teeth. It was really starting to sting, and there was blood and some kind of juice leaking out of it, little drops that looked like the apple juice he had with his cereal this morning. Maybe it was apple juice. Curious, he rubbed off a bit with his finger and tasted it.

  Nope. Too sour.

  Now Graham patted his sister’s arm, trying to make her feel better, but it just made her cry harder and squeeze him too tight again.

  The mask, that was the scary part. Dark blue—like the sweater his Grandma made him for Christmas—with red stripes around the eyes and mouth. And the man was so strong. Graham had felt like an empty lunch bag flopping around under his arm. Graham even bit his own tongue once, when the man stopped too fast and Graham’s teeth clicked together. While the man was running with him he kept saying, “Don’t be afraid, baby, I got you now, I got you now,” like he was saving Graham instead of taking him away. His clothes smelled bad, too, like the blankets at the summer camp Graham went to last August. Musty, that was what his mom called it. That was a cool word. Musty. Graham liked new words and tried to remember them, mostly to please his mom, who read a lot and called him her little genius.