Red Leaves

by Thomas H. Cook

  I'd reached the car and was about to get in when I saw Meredith open the front door, her arm outstretched, waving me back toward the house.

  "What is it?" I called.

  She said nothing, but continued to wave, so I closed the door and returned to the house.

  "It's Vince Giordano," she said, nodding toward the kitchen phone.

  I looked at her quizzically, then went to the phone. "Hey, Vince," I said.

  "Eric," Vince said starkly. "Listen, I didn't want to upset Meredith, but I have to know if you ... if you've seen Keith this morning."

  "No, I haven't. He usually sleeps late on Saturday morning."

  "But he's home? He came home last night?"

  "Yes, he did."

  "Do you know when that was?"

  Suddenly, I felt my answer assume unexpected weight. "Around midnight, I think."

  There was a brief silence, then Vince said, "Amy's missing."

  I waited for Vince to finish the sentence, tell me what Amy was missing, a ring, a watch, something Keith could help her find.

  "She wasn't in her room this morning," Vince added. "We waited for her to get up and come down, but she never did. So we went up to look ... and she was ... gone."

  I would later remember Vince's words not so much as words, but as a distant tolling, accompanied by a palpable change in the weight of the air around me.

  "We've looked everywhere," Vince added. "All over the house. The neighborhood. We can't find her anywhere, and so I thought maybe ... Keith..."

  "I'll get him up," I said quickly. "I'll call you right back"

  "Thanks," Vince said softly. "Thank you."

  I hung up and glanced toward Meredith. She read the expression on my face and looked suddenly troubled.

  "It's Amy," I told her. "They can't find her. She wasn't in her room this morning. They've looked everywhere, but so far, nothing."

  "Oh, no," Meredith whispered.

  "We have to talk to Keith."

  We walked upstairs together. I tapped at Keiths door. No answer. I tapped again. "Keith?"

  There was still no answer and so I tried the door. As always, it was locked. I tapped again, this time much more loudly. "Keith, get up. This is important."

  I heard a low moan, then the pad of Keiths feet as he walked to the door. "What is it?" he groaned without opening it.

  "It's about Amy Giordano," I said. "Her father just called. They can't find her."

  The door opened slightly and a watery eye seemed to swim toward me like a small blue fish through the murky water of an aquarium.

  "Can't find her?" Keith asked.

  "That's what I said."

  Meredith pressed near the door. "Get dressed and come downstairs, Keith," she said. Her voice was quite stern, like a teacher's. "Hurry up."

  We walked back downstairs and sat at the kitchen table and waited for Keith to come join us.

  "Maybe she just went for a walk," I said.

  Meredith looked at me worriedly. "If something happened to Amy, Keith would be the one they'd suspect."

  "Meredith, there's no point in—"

  "Maybe we should call Leo."

  "Leo? No. Keith doesn't need a lawyer."

  "Yes, but—"

  "Meredith, all we're going to do is ask Keith a few questions. When he last saw Amy. If she seemed okay. Then I'm going to call Vince and tell him what Keith said." I looked at her pointedly. "Okay?"

  She nodded tensely. "Yes, fine."

  Keith slouched down the stairs, still drowsy, scratching his head. "Now ... what did you say about Amy?" he asked, as he slumped down in a chair at the kitchen table.

  "She's missing," I told him.

  Keith rubbed his eyes with his fists. "That's crazy," he said, with a light, dismissive grunt.

  Meredith leaned forward, her voice measured. "This is serious, Keith. Where was Amy when you left the Giordanos' house last night?"

  "In her bedroom," Keith answered, still drowsy, but now coming a bit more to life. "I read her a story. Then I went to the living room and watched TV."

  "When did you read her the story?"

  "About eight-thirty, I guess."

  "Don't guess," Meredith snapped. "Don't guess about anything, Keith."

  For the first time the gravity of the situation registered on Keith's face. "She's really missing?" he asked, as if everything up to now had been some kind of joke.

  "What do you think we've been saying, Keith?" Meredith asked.

  "Listen," I said to him. "I want you to think carefully, because I have to call Mr. Giordano and tell him exactly what you tell me. So, like your mother says, Keith, don't guess about anything."

  He nodded, and I could see that it had sunk in fully now. "Okay, sure," he said.

  "All right," I began. "You didn't see Amy again, right? Not after you read her that story?"

  "No."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes," Keith answered emphatically. His gaze darted over to Meredith. "I didn't see her again."

  "Do you have any idea where she is?" I asked.

  Keith looked suddenly offended. "Of course not." He glanced back and forth between Meredith and me. "It's the truth," he cried. "I didn't see her again."

  "Did you see anything?" I asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Anything out of the ordinary."

  "You mean like ... was she acting funny ... or—"

  "Funny. Strange. Unhappy. Maybe wanting to run away? Did she give you any hint of that?"

  "No."

  "Okay, how about something else," I said. "Somebody around the house. Peeping Tom, that sort of thing."

  Keith shook his head. "I didn't see anything, Dad." His eyes swept over to Meredith, and I saw the first suggestion of worry in them. "Am I in trouble?"

  Meredith sat back slightly, the posture she always assumed when she had no immediate answer.

  Keith held his gaze on Meredith. "Are the police going to talk to me?"

  Meredith shrugged. "I guess it depends."

  "On what?"

  Meredith remained silent.

  Keith looked at me. "On what, Dad?"

  I gave him the only answer I had. "On what happened to Amy, I suppose."

  FOUR

  Later I would try to define it, the uneasiness of those first few minutes. I would go over the phone call from Vince, the way Meredith and I had trudged up the stairs together then returned to the kitchen and waited for Keith. I would try to remember if I'd heard something during that otherwise silent interval, the sound of tiny insect teeth or a steady drip of water, small, insistent, relentlessly undermining. Now I know the chasm that yawned beneath the lives we had so carefully constructed. I hear a gunshot, a resigned murmur, and in those sounds all I didn't know flashes clear and bright.

  But what did I know? The answer is clear. I knew nothing. And what do you do when you know nothing? You take the next step because you have to and because, in your ignorance, you can't possibly know how blind it is, the step you're taking, or how dire its unseen consequences.

  And so after Keith returned to his room, I simply called Vince Giordano and told him exactly what my son had said, half believing that that might be the end of it for Keith, Meredith, and me, that whatever terrible thing might have happened to Amy Giordano, her spilled blood, if it had been spilled, would not wash over the rest of us.

  "I'm sorry, Vince," I said. "I wish I could be more help, but Keith simply has no idea where Amy is."

  After a pause, Vince said, "I have to ask you something."

  "Anything."

  "Did Keith leave the house while he was here with Amy?"

  I had no way of knowing if Keith had left Vince's house at any point during the time he'd been there, but I suddenly felt the need to answer anyway, and so I gave an answer I deeply hoped was true.

  "I'm sure he didn't," I said.

  "Would you mind asking him?" Vince's voice was almost pleading. "We just can't figure out what happened."


  "Of course," I told him.

  "Just ask him if he left Amy ... even for a minute," Vince repeated.

  "I'll call you right back," I said, then hung up and walked up the stairs, leaving Meredith alone and looking increasingly worried at the kitchen table.

  Keith's door was closed but he opened it at my first tap, though slightly, so that only half his face was visible, a single eye peering at me through a narrow slit.

  "Mr. Giordano wants to know if you left the house at any point last night," I said.

  The eye blinked languidly, like a curtain drawn down slowly then reluctantly raised.

  "Well, did you?"

  "No," Keith answered.

  It was a firm no, and yet his answer had come only after a moment of hesitation, or was it calculation?

  "Are you sure about that, Keith?" I asked.

  This time his answer came without hesitation. "Yes."

  "Absolutely sure? Because I have to go back now and tell Mr. Giordano."

  "I didn't leave the house," Keith assured me.

  "It's not a big deal if you did, Keith. It's not the same as if you—"

  "As if I what, Dad?" Keith asked, almost snappishly.

  "You know what I mean," I told him.

  "As ... if I killed her?" Keith asked. "Or whatever happened."

  "I don't believe you did anything to Amy Giordano, if that's what you're accusing me of," I told him.

  "Really?" Keith replied. His tone was petulant. "It sounds like you do. Mom, too. Like both of you think I did something."

  "It only sounds that way to you, Keith," I said, my tone now changing with his, becoming suddenly defensive. "As a matter of fact, I told Mr. Giordano that you didn't leave the house before I came up here."

  Keith didn't look as if he believed me, but he kept his doubts to himself.

  "Anyway, I have to call Mr. Giordano back now," I said, then turned and quickly made my way down the stairs, Keith's door slamming sharply behind me, hard and unforgiving as a slap.

  Karen Giordano answered the phone.

  "Karen, it's Eric Moore."

  "Oh, hello, Eric," Karen said with a slight sniffle that made me think she'd been crying.

  "Has anything changed?" I asked.

  "No," she answered. Her voice was weak. "We don't know where she is." She was ordinarily a cheerful woman, but all her cheer had drained away. "We've called everybody," Karen continued. "All the neighbors. Everybody." Her voice softened still more and took on an oddly pleading quality, so that it struck me that dread was a kind of humility, an admission of one's helplessness, the fact that, in the end, we control nothing. "No one's seen her."

  I wanted to assure her that everything would turn out fine, that Amy would suddenly appear out of a closet or from behind a curtain, shout "April Fool" or something of the kind. But I had seen too many news stories to believe such a thing was likely. They really did vanish, these little girls, and if they were found at all, it was almost always too late. Still, there was one possibility. "Do you think that she could have ... well ... could be maybe trying to ... make a point?"

  "A point?" Karen asked.

  "A statement," I added, then realized that the word was ridiculously formal. "Maybe, that she wants you to miss her so she—"

  "Ran away?" Karen interrupted.

  "Something like that," I said. "Kids can do crazy things."

  She started to speak, but suddenly Vince was on the line. "What'd Keith say?" he asked urgently.

  "He said he didn't leave the house."

  Vince released a sigh. "Well, if that's what he says, then I have to call the police, Eric."

  "Okay," I answered.

  There was a pause, and I got the feeling that Vince was giving me, and perhaps my son, one last chance. So that's where we are now, I thought, he believes my son did something terrible to his daughter and there's nothing I can do to convince him otherwise, nothing I can say about Keith that he won't think tainted by my own protective fatherhood. Before I was a neighbor, a fellow tradesmen in a friendly town, someone he did business with and waved to and smiled at. But now I am an accessory to my son's imagined crime.

  "I think you should tell the police, Vince."

  It surprised me that my response appeared to take him aback, as if he'd expected me to argue against it.

  "They'll want to talk to Keith," Vince warned.

  "I'm sure he'll be happy to talk to them."

  "Okay," Vince said, his tone strangely deflated, like a man forced to do something he'd hoped to avoid.

  "Vince," I began, "if I can help in any—"

  "Right," Vince interrupted. "I'll be in touch."

  And with that, he hung up.

  "That's all Vince said?" Meredith asked, as she walked me to the car a few minutes later. "That he would be in touch?"

  We brushed passed the Japanese maple, a gentle pink light filtering through its leaves.

  "And that he's calling the police," I said.

  "He thinks Keith did something."

  "Probably," I admitted.

  Meredith remained silent until we reached the car. Then she said, "I'm afraid, Eric."

  I touched her face. "We can't get ahead of ourselves. I mean, there's no proof that anything has—"

  "Are you sure you don't want to call Leo?"

  I shook my head. "Not yet."

  I opened the door of the car and pulled myself in behind the wheel, but made no effort to leave. Instead, I rolled down the window and looked at my wife in a way that later struck me as shockingly nostalgic, as if she were already drifting away or changing in some way, these the dwindling days of our previously unencumbered life together. For a moment everything that had gone before, the best years of our lives, seemed precariously balanced, happiness a kind of arrogance, a bounty we had taken for granted until then, death the only clear and present danger, and even that still very far away. And yet, despite such dark presentiments, I said, "It's going to be okay, Meredith. It really is."

  I could see she didn't believe me, but that was not unusual for Meredith. She had always been a worrier, concerned about money before things got really tight, keeping a close eye on even Keith's most petty delinquencies, forever poised to nip something in the bud. I had countered with optimism, looking on the bright side, a pose I still thought it necessary to maintain.

  "We can't go off the deep end," I told her. "Even if something happened to Amy, it has nothing to do with us."

  "That doesn't matter," Meredith said.

  "Of course it does."

  "No, it doesn't," Meredith said, "because once something like this happens, once they start asking questions..."

  "But Keith didn't leave the house until the Giordanos came home," I said emphatically. "So it doesn't matter about the questions. He'll have the answers."

  She drew in a long breath. "Okay, Eric," she said with a thin, frail smile. "Whatever you say."

  She turned and headed back toward the house, a cool gust of wind sweeping the ground before her, fierce and devilish, kicking up those stricken yellow leaves I'd seen an hour earlier so that they spiraled up and up to where I saw Keith at his bedroom window, staring down at me, his gaze cold and resentful, as if I were no longer his father at all, no longer his protector or benefactor, but instead arrayed against him, part of the assembling mob that soon would be crying for his head.

  "Morning," Neil said, as I came into the store.

  It was nearly nine, so I knew he'd already prepped the developers and dusted the stock He was thorough and reliable in that way, the perfect employee. Best of all, he gave no indication of having any larger ambition than to work in my shop, collect his small salary, and indulge his few modest pleasures. Twice a year he went to New York to take in four or five Broadway shows, usually the big musicals whose glitzy numbers clearly thrilled him. While there, he stayed at a small inexpensive hotel in Chelsea, ate street food, save for his final night when he splurged on Italian, and usually came back with a new snow globe to ad
d to his collection of travel mementos. Briefly he'd had a partner named Gordon, a round, bearded man who often appeared in community theater presentations, though only as a bit player, listed in the program as "neighbor" or "prison guard." During the two years of their relationship, Neil's frame of mind had been closely tied to Gordon's severe mood swings, gloomy or cheerful depending, or so it often seemed, on the course of whatever show Gordon happened to be in at the time. Inevitably, they'd broken up, and since then Neil had lived with his ailing mother in a small house on one of the town's few remaining unpaved roads, an arrangement with which he seemed perfectly content, since, as he'd once told me, "anything else would require too much effort."

  "Running late, boss," Neil added.

  I nodded silently.

  Neil cocked his head to the right. "Uh-oh, bad morning."

  "A little," I admitted.

  "Well, you'll perk up once the money starts rolling in. Speaking of which, I should probably go to the bank. We're low on change."

  He left a few minutes later, and while I went about the usual preopening routine, restocking shelves, a quick sweep of the sidewalk outside the shop, I thought about Amy Giordano and how Vince seemed determined to lay the blame for whatever had happened to her at Keith's door.

  But there was nowhere to go with such thoughts. I had no idea what had befallen Amy, whether she'd run away or suffered some monstrous fate. And so I retreated to the refuge I usually sought when I was feeling uneasy about money or Keith's grades or any of a hundred other petty troubles.

  It was at the rear of the store, my little refuge, no more than a large table, really, along with a square of particle board hung with a modest assortment of stained-wood frames. Little skill was needed to frame the family photos that came my way. Usually people chose colors they thought appropriate to the scene: blue for families on the beach; greens and reds for families in forest encampments; gold or silver for families posed beside the tall sea grass that adorns the nearby bay; white for photos taken while whale watching.