The Hand on the Wall

by Maureen Johnson

“Who else stayed?” Janelle said. “Not just you, right?”

  “You mean aside from you maniacs?” Pix said. “Mark from maintenance. Dr. Scott and Dr. Quinn. Vi, I’ll make up the upstairs room for you.” The upstairs room was Hayes’s room, but no one was going to say that. “You two”—she indicated both Janelle and Vi—“separate rooms.”

  Vi and Janelle passed a silent look. Even Pix picked up on it.

  “It’s nice to be back,” David said. “I’m going to go to my room, read. Enjoy the snow. See you all in the morning.”

  “I think I’ll do the same,” Vi said. “I’m pretty tired.”

  “It’s so weird not to be the first person who wants to go to bed and read,” Nate said, when those two had gone to their respective rooms. “Anyone want to play a board game or something?”

  “I’m not really in the mood for a game,” Janelle said. “Night, everyone.”

  Pix looked at the rapidly dwindling group at the table.

  “Okay . . . ,” Nate said. “Well, the game I had in mind is better with a bigger group, so maybe I’ll call it a night too. Work on my book or something.”

  Things had gotten dire. Now it was Stevie, Hunter, and Pix. Stevie knew that the right thing to do was sit and talk to Hunter. But she heard the footsteps overhead—David was once again in the house. After this storm, they would all be blown in different directions across the map. She would not be able to talk or focus. The best idea was to go the way of the others and try to go to sleep.

  After an awkward good-night, she shuffled back to her room. She climbed into bed and stared at the wall, unable to turn out the light. It was unlikely any message would appear there, but she had an uneasy feeling that someone was watching, someone not in the house. This was impossible. The snow was driving down hard and the school was empty. She got up anyway and went to the window. It took a bit of effort to open; the cold had half frozen it shut. Once she did, arctic air and a blast of snow shot into her face. She picked up her heavy-duty flashlight and shone it out.

  They were alone. Deeply, unnaturally alone, in a rugged, very serious way.

  Stevie fought the wind to pull the window shut, then shivered and brushed the snow off herself. She climbed back into her bed.

  She did not see the figure that reemerged from the shadow of a tree just outside.

  13

  IT DIDN’T WORK. IT WAS NEVER GOING TO WORK.

  First of all, it was frigid in her room, and Stevie kept having to get up and put on more clothes—warmer pj’s, then a second pair, more socks over her socks, her black hoodie, and then her robe. She got into bed, squashed into all of these layers like a human burrito.

  Then there was the noise—the whistling outside. It was like being in a room with a dozen teakettles going full blast, spitting steam and hot water. The blizzard had arrived, and its rage startled Stevie. The wind put its fingers through the edges of the window. She put in her earbuds and tried to listen to a podcast to distract herself, to bring herself back to some kind of normal, but the familiar voices felt strange. The walls of her room made her nervous.

  Why had he denied her a tablet? Why come back and then not let her do the one thing he needed everyone to do? Was this a test? A game? A lesson? All of the above?

  She itched from it.

  It would be a mistake to go upstairs. That’s what he wanted. It was also what she wanted.

  Why were humans wired like this? Why were we built with a current that could short out our powers of reason and judgment at any time? Why were we filled with chemicals that made us stupid? How could you feel so excited and enraged and like you were being pierced with a thousand emotional needles in the brain all at the same time?

  She would not go upstairs.

  She would just get up, that’s all. But she would not go upstairs.

  She would go to her door, but no farther.

  Definitely no farther than the hallway.

  Bottom step of the stairs. That was the limit.

  Halfway. Top of the stairs, then turn back.

  So she was at his door in the dark of the hall. There was no light from underneath the door, no sound inside. She strained, trying to pick up any noise, any sense of what was going on. There were no other voices. She shifted from foot to foot, her body coursing with anticipation.

  No. She had to go back to her room. Don’t give in to this.

  “Why don’t you come in?” she heard him say.

  She heard a sharp intake of breath and was surprised to find that she was the source of the noise. Bodies, constantly betraying us. Stupid meat sacks. She put her hand on the doorknob, cursed everything, everywhere, and cracked open the door. David was on the bed, on top of the covers, fully dressed, bent over a tablet.

  “You want something?” he said.

  She didn’t know what she wanted. She had come with some vague notion that once she arrived in David’s doorway, all would become clear. Nature would move her, and him. Words would not be necessary. But nature had missed the memo, so she found herself wobbling in the threshold like a vampire.

  David’s room was filled with things ordered from catalogs by someone who didn’t look at prices. These items created a blank canvas that set off all the things that were evocative of him. The battered backpack, the lingering smell of illicit smoke, his Sherlock coat flung carelessly on the floor, a cup of ramen noodles, his banged-up phone. She was looking for clues to explain him, and everything she found made her synapses dance with activity.

  “You didn’t give me a tablet,” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re so busy,” he said placidly. “I don’t want to keep you.”

  The glass rattled in the pane. The light from the tablet was enough that she could see the contours of his face, the hollows of his cheeks, the sharp peaks of his eyebrows. She wanted to walk over to the bed now, stretch out next to him. Do something. Anything.

  She took a few more steps forward, hesitantly. He set the tablet down in his lap.

  “Oh, did you want to make out?” He folded his hands neatly on the tablet and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Really go for it? Hit those bases?”

  There was no edge in his voice. This was a dull knife.

  “Could we . . .”

  “No,” he said. “We couldn’t.”

  “What did you come back here for?” she said. “You could have read this stuff on your own.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” he replied. “And I’m slow. Better to get a few big brains on it.”

  “Bullshit,” she said.

  “You think I came back to see you?” he said. “Is that it? You, the person who worked for my dad, who came back to spy on me—”

  “I didn’t spy on you,” she said. “I don’t like your dad either. My parents work for him, and I do everything I can to stop that. . . .”

  “Yes, you told me. You put SeaWorld on the call list. Well done.”

  “Your dad,” she said, “put a giant, racist billboard up down the street from where we live. You think I’m going to work for that guy?”

  David remained in his same casual pose—legs long, body relaxed. But his manner grew tense.

  “Let’s run through the facts,” he said. “My dad brought you back here on his plane, with the agreement that you would keep an eye on me, keep me on the straight and narrow. I trusted you. I confided in you. I told you about my mom and my sister, what my dad did to us.”

  “After lying to me,” she said. “A lot. Telling me your family was dead . . .”

  “And I apologized for that. Clearly not enough. I did everything I could. I put myself out there.”

  He had. This was all true. He had told Stevie all about his life that night in the tunnel. And when they found Ellie, he sobbed. He laid himself bare. And in response, Stevie had panicked, spit out all the information about how his father had made a deal with her—she could come back to the school if she helped keep David on the level.


  “The thing with your dad—I told you, I wasn’t spying. He brought me back. That’s it. I don’t even really know what he wanted from me.”

  “Something he thought you could give,” David replied. “That’s how he works. My dad can sense where people are weak. That’s how he’s gotten to where he is. It’s also how I know that if I look through his stuff, I’ll find something. See, devious malcontents spawn devious malcontents. The evil eat their own. I needed some smart people, people who know stuff about politics, like Vi. That Hunter guy was a lucky find too. People who give a shit about making a difference for the future. Whereas you . . .”

  She couldn’t see his expression that well in the dark, but she felt the smirk.

  “. . . want to solve the great crimes of the past so that everyone will think you are Nancy Drew. And in the process, what? Ellie dies, and—”

  Here, he cut himself off. But the knife had already gone in. It didn’t matter that she had given Edward King nothing. Edward King saw weakness in her.

  “I think it would probably be better if you went downstairs,” he said. “Keep warm. It’s going to get colder, I hear. A lot colder.”

  February 24, 1937

  FOR FIVE NIGHTS, GEORGE MARSH KEPT WATCH OUTSIDE OF MANELLI’S Restaurant.

  Someone had gotten the word to Andy or Jerry that George was in town and looking for them. They had been spooked enough to try to warn him off. When you tell someone to stay back, it’s because you’re going into a corner and can’t get out. The postcard told him that at least one of them was in New York, and whoever it was was frightened. He would wait and watch, as long as it took.

  It was too risky to stand out on the street. There was a grocery across the way on the diagonal that accepted two hundred dollars a night to let him sit inside and look out the window. Additional funds went to a few guys who sat at the bar at Manelli’s all night and listened, reporting back anything of interest. Money had no meaning now—it was just something he handed out, small fortunes in a city rocked by the Depression. He would pay everyone on Carmine Street if he needed to.

  Right after nine o’clock on an icy night, as he was opening a new pack of cigarettes and the owner of the shop was sweeping up, George saw a figure walking toward Manelli’s, head down but casting furtive backward looks. Whoever it was had a scarf wrapped high, covering his face. It was a very poor attempt not to be noticed. The person went to the door of Manelli’s, looking in both directions before going inside.

  “Sal,” George said, never taking his eyes off the window, “dial Manelli’s for me, huh?”

  The shopkeeper set the broom aside and dialed the phone, then passed the receiver to George. The bartender picked it up after a few rings.

  “A guy just walked in,” George said, as a greeting. “If that’s Andy or Jerry, say ‘You gotta come downtown. No delivery.’ Otherwise, say ‘Wrong number.’”

  After a pause, the bartender said, “Yeah, no delivery. Come downtown if you want it.”

  George handed back the phone.

  About a half hour later, the door to the restaurant opened and the same figure hurried out with his hat down and a scarf wrapped around his face. George stubbed out his cigarette into an ashtray on the grocery counter. When the figure reached the end of the block, George began to trail him. The snow helped—it was fresh and clean, so it was easier to track the newest set of prints as they turned left. He caught sight of the figure weaving between cars and heading for an alley. George quickened his pace but stayed out of the man’s sight. It wasn’t for nothing that George Marsh had been so decorated a police officer and that he was now in the FBI. These were his streets, and he knew how to work them.

  The man stopped by a car and was in the process of opening the door when George made his move.

  “Hello, Jerry.”

  “Jesus, George,” Jerry replied, already out of breath with fear. “Jesus.”

  George punched him in the face, sending him crashing into some trash cans. When he was down, he flipped Jerry on his back and slapped a pair of cuffs on his wrists, pinning his arms behind him. George quickly patted him down, pulling a gun from his waistband and a switchblade from his sock. Then he hauled Jerry to his feet.

  “George . . . ,” Jerry began. “I—”

  George removed his own coat and threw it over Jerry’s shoulders, concealing the cuffed wrists.

  “Walk,” he said. “You run, you scream, I shoot. You so much as look funny, I shoot.”

  “Jesus, George . . .”

  “And you shut up.”

  On the morning he’d arrived back in New York City, George purchased a car from a reliable thief down by Five Points. George had busted him many times as a cop, but the man held no grudges and was happy to supply a vehicle for a paying customer. It was a good, solid car that George had outfitted with blankets and extra lights. It was toward this car that George pushed Jerry now. Once he got Jerry inside, he bound his ankles together with rope, then tied him to the seat. When he was fully secured, he walked around and got in the driver’s side.

  “The girl,” he said. “Alice.”

  “George, I . . .”

  “The girl. Is she alive?”

  “I could never kill a kid, George. We didn’t even mean to kill the woman. And I never wanted you to get beat down. That was all Andy . . .”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s alive,” Jerry said eagerly. “She’s alive. We left her with some people to watch her.”

  “Where?”

  “Up in the mountains, on the other side of the lake. The New York side. These people have a cabin up there. Nice people. Family people. We told them she was my sister’s kid and we were trying to keep her out of a bad situation. Nice people, George. We were just keeping her up there until we figured it all out.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere up there in the woods. Some cabin. I forget where.”

  George punched Jerry in the side of the head.

  “Jesus, George . . .” Jerry was sweating profusely, despite the cold.

  “You kidnapped a girl and forgot where you left her? Here’s what I’m going to do in that case: I’m going to attach you to an anchor and throw you in the East River.”

  “Jesus, George!”

  “You remember where the cabin is,” George said calmly. “You think about it.”

  “Maybe if I saw a map or something I could remember.”

  George had prepared for this. He had a large selection of maps next to his seat, maps from all over the country. He was prepared to drive to California if he had to. He held them up.

  “New York,” he said, unfolding the map. “Assume that I’m going to kill you. You can only improve your situation. Impress me. Look at this map. Tell me, where are we going?”

  14

  STEVIE STOOD IN THE DARK OF THE UPSTAIRS HALLWAY AND CONTEMPLATED how she had managed to ruin her life.

  She had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And so easily too! She had jumped right into that gaping maw. She had solved the case—she had done the impossible thing—and now, she was a freezing reject in a hallway, the world crashed, her limbs numb with sadness.

  All the badness in the world swirled around her head. She had just pulled her last Ellingham stunt in staying here. Her parents would not only not let her come back here, they would likely never let her go anywhere again. They might take college money off the table, if they had any. Ellingham itself would probably tank her grades. She would go back to Pittsburgh and be hopelessly lost, stuck forever.

  For what? The chance to spend a few nights in a snowstorm with someone who hated her.

  And the Ellingham case? What if she was completely delusional? She had the tin—she had some concrete proof that the Truly Devious letter wasn’t connected to the kidnapping. That was something. But her other conclusions—they were all conjecture. And what did it matter, really? Maybe she could try to show that the letter had been written by two students. Was that worth throw
ing away her life?

  She couldn’t stand in this hallway forever. She considered going to Nate’s room, but her troubles were too large. She could not explain the feeling of the world being swept away. She put one leaden foot in front of the other to get back to the stairs, half wishing she tumbled down them in the dark and broke her noncompliant legs and knocked herself out. But she didn’t really want that, because she held the rail and the wall and took the steps with care.

  Maybe David would come out of his room and stand at the top of these steps, looking down at her, eyes soft and contrite. His hair would be standing up a bit from where he’d run his hands through it in despair at what he had just said. He would say something like, “Hey, why don’t you come back up.” And she would pause like she was considering it and then say . . .

  Maybe the sun would get around to it and finally swallow the world.

  Now she was standing in her own dark hallway, which felt even bleaker. She was too confused to cry, too broken to sleep, too lost to move. But there was a light on in the common room. Someone was awake. Stevie didn’t want to see anyone, but she also didn’t want to be alone. She was trapped in the hall, stuck in every space in between where she needed to be.

  But you can’t stay in the hall forever. That’s not what halls are for. She made her way to the end and peered around the doorway and caught sight of the inhabitant. It was Hunter, wearing the fleece she had gotten for him that day in Burlington, huddled on the sofa, bent over a tablet. The room still smelled of old smoke, but the fire was out in the fireplace. He didn’t see her, and she considered backing away, but she couldn’t make up her mind about going forward or backward. She must have made a noise by accident, because Hunter looked up and jolted.

  “Jesus!” he said, almost dropping the tablet.

  It was a good look, probably, just her head poking around the corner, like a ghoul.

  “Sorry! Sorry. Sorry, I . . .”

  “It’s fine,” he said, recovering himself. “I’m not used to this place. Are you . . . okay?”

  Stevie would sooner have dropped into the molten core of an erupting volcano more willingly than she would tell someone she was not okay. She nodded briskly.