by Marc Parent
He checked the house again. Making sure it was secure even though he did not feel secure. When he went back to the bedroom he started getting dressed.
“What are you doing?” Laura asked. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“I don’t know. I’m going to take a drive.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just want to take a drive, put the windows down.”
“Be careful.”
“I will be.”
THE PHONE DIDN’T ring the next day. No jobs came in. Brian called a foundry in Michigan and ordered drill bits to replace those he’d broken on the Robinette job. He then spent the rest of the morning in the garage workshop, trying to research the Le Seuil safe. He wrote a letter to his father about it. He went on the computer and Googled the name Le Seuil but only came up with a book publisher in France using the name. He checked the Box Man website, but no one had responded to his earlier post other than to say they had never encountered a safe of that brand.
When it was lunchtime he opened the side door to go to the house. Two men were standing there. They wore suits and dour expressions. It had been twenty years since he’d had to deal with cops but he still knew the type.
“Officers, what can I do for you?”
“Actually, I’m Detective Stephens with the police department, and this is Agent Rowan with the FBI. Are you Brian Holloway?”
“Yes. Is it Laura? The baby? What happened?”
“Who is Laura?” Stephens asked.
“My wife. She’s at work. She—”
“This is not about her. Can we come in?”
Brian stepped back. Despite the relief of knowing this was not about Laura, he felt the same sense of dread he had awoken from the dream with building in his chest.
“Then what is it?”
“Have a seat,” Rowan said.
Brian sat on the stool next to the workbench.
The two lawmen remained standing, looking around the shop as they spoke. Moving about. The detective looked like he was deferring to the agent in this matter, whatever it was.
“This is how I would like to work this,” Agent Rowan said. “We’re going to ask you some questions here and the first time you lie to us we pack it in and put you in a cell to think about it. Fair enough?”
“This is a joke, right?”
“No joke.”
“Then questions about what? Am I a suspect in something?”
“Not yet. We think you are just a witness. But like I said, the first time you lie to us you become a suspect and we treat you like one.”
“Witness to what? What happened?”
“I said we are going to ask the questions. But let’s start this thing off right by getting everything right. You are Brian Holloway, thirty-nine years old and you reside in the home that this garage is attached to. Do I have all of that right?”
“Yes.”
“And your father has spent the last twenty-two years in an Illinois state correctional facility serving a life sentence without parole for the crime of murder.”
Brian shook his head. The sins of the father always visited the son.
“This is about my father? I was nineteen when he went away. What’s that got to—”
“He was a box man, too, wasn’t he? Only he opened boxes for the Outfit in Chicago. He taught you everything you know, right?”
“Wrong.”
“He killed a man who came home and caught him in the act, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t do it. The man he was doing the job for did it. He panicked.”
“Oh, I guess that makes it okay.”
“Look, what do you want? I haven’t talked to my father in three years.”
“Do your clients know that you’re the son of Harry ‘Houdini’ Holloway?”
“Look, I run a clean, legal business. Why would I tell someone who my father is? Why would I have to? This isn’t Chicago and I’m not my father.”
“Where were you last night?” Stephens asked, suddenly joining in, changing the direction of things.
Brian started to think. Maybe the whole thing was choreographed. Maybe it wasn’t about the old man. Maybe it was all misdirection and sudden change.
“Last night? I was here. I was home.”
“From when till when?”
“Um, I got home around three yesterday and I did some work in here and then my wife and I went out for dinner and we got home about eight-thirty and that was it. We stayed home after that.”
“Okay, eighty-thirty until when? When was the next time you left?”
Brian hesitated. He looked at their faces, wondering what had happened and how much they knew. Cops always had the advantage. He knew this. His father had always said that when it came to cops to lie was to die.
He shook his head.
“Until now. I haven’t left yet.”
Each of the men in front of him visibly stiffened and their faces took on a stony resolve.
“Turn around,” Stephens said. “Assume the position. Your dad probably taught it to you, too.”
Instead Brian raised his hands as if to stop their advance on him.
“Okay, look. I took a drive last night. I was gone less than a hour.”
“When last night?”
“I never looked at the clock. I woke up, couldn’t sleep, and took a drive. It was the middle of the night.”
“And you never looked at the clock in the car, huh?”
“No, I took my truck. The clock in it doesn’t work and I forgot to put on my watch.”
“Where did you go on your drive?”
“I just drove around. All over the place. I even went over the bridge and cruised around the island.”
Brian knew he had to give them that. He knew they had something. It must be the electronic toll pass on the truck’s windshield. There would be a record of him crossing the bridge.
“Why the island? What did you do while you were there?”
Brian let out a deep breath. They were cornering him. He didn’t understand this. The FBI doesn’t come around for stealing trash. There was something else going on.
“All right, listen, I’ll tell you everything. The other day I had a job out on the island. I opened an old safe for a guy and the client had me take the door off the box and carry it out to the curb for trash pickup. He said the pickup wasn’t for a few days. So last night I went back by his place and I took the door. It would’ve been picked up this morning anyway. It’s not stealing. He put it out for trash pickup. To him it was trash.”
“And why did you take it?”
“Because until I was there I had never seen or heard of that safe or its maker and I wanted to study it. Maybe practice on it a bit. Besides, it’s a museum piece. I didn’t want it thrown away.”
“Where is it?”
Brian pointed to an object beneath an old mover’s blanket that was leaning against the opposite wall. Rowan walked over and lifted up the blanket for a look. He then dropped the cloth back down and looked at Brian.
“It was not a crime to take it,” Brian said. “It was trash.”
“So you say.”
“Look, what is going on? Why are you here? Did Robinette say I stole his door? Is that what this is about? I know the guy’s famous, but do they really send the FBI out on a call like that?”
“No, they don’t.”
“Then what is this?”
There was a pause and the lawmen looked at each other for a moment before Stephens spoke.
“We’re not worried about you stealing Robinette’s trash. We’re wondering if you stole his daughter.”
“What?”
“His daughter, Mr. Holloway. She’s disappeared.”
Brian thought of the little girl with dark, familiar eyes and the winter dress in the middle of the summer.
“He said I took his daughter?”
“It doesn’t matter what he said. We have to check everybody out. You were the last person other than
the family to be in that house. We understand that you and Mr. Robinette didn’t get along so well. So we’re starting with you.”
Inside Brian’s chest it felt as though his lungs were filling with wax. They were becoming heavy and hard. Again he thought of the little girl standing precariously at the edge of the safe. It was like she had been waiting there for him.
“Did you check the safe?” he suddenly asked.
“What do you mean?” Rowan asked.
“The safe in the office. When I was there she came in and was standing by the safe. Maybe she . . . I don’t know, maybe after I left she went back to it. There’s no door, but there was a piece of the flooring that covered it and that I put back in place.”
Rowan glanced at the shape of the safe’s door beneath the blanket. He then glanced at Stephens and another silent communication passed. Stephens turned and walked out of the garage.
Rowan looked back at Brian.
“The safe would be kind of small, wouldn’t it?”
“The box was pretty deep. It went down at least a foot and a half.”
“You said she came into the study?”
“I went out to my truck to get the vacuum and when I came back in she was just standing there.”
“What did she say to you?”
Brian thought for a moment. He tried to remember all the details. He was filling with fear for the little girl.
“She just told me her name and I asked how old she was. I told her she looked older. She said her name was—”
“Why would you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Ask the girl how old she was.”
Brian shrugged.
“I don’t know. I guess because we’re about to have a kid—my wife is eight months along—and, I don’t know, I never really thought about the ages of children before. Now I do.”
Rowan took a few moments to grind over the answer. Brian shifted his weight on the stool and started pumping his knee.
“Mr. Holloway, you seem agitated. Is something wrong?”
“Of course, there’s something wrong. That girl is missing and I just have a bad feeling about it. Look, I had nothing to do with it. You’re wasting your time. So do what you have to do with me and get it over with. I’ll take a lie detector, if you want. You can go search my truck, too. Just get past me and go find her. Before it’s too late.”
Rowan seemed to be taken aback.
“What do you mean, before it’s too late?”
“Isn’t that how these things always end up?”
Before Rowan answered Stephens came in. He looked at his partner and then at Brian.
“Safe’s empty.”
“Mr. Holloway has volunteered to take a poly,” Rowan said. “We can also take a look in the truck.”
Stephens nodded.
“What about your home?” Rowan said. “Can we look around inside?”
Brian flashed on the bag of stale dope in the bedroom dresser. Laura quit smoking when they decided to get pregnant. Out of fairness he had stopped as well and the bag had sat in the drawer with his socks for a year.
“If you’re just going to look around for the girl—closets and stuff—that’s fine. But I don’t want you going through drawers and stuff. Just make it quick. And don’t mess things up or my wife will know.”
“You know what I still don’t understand?” Rowan said. “You’re in there doing a job for Mr. Robinette and you go and ask his daughter how old she is. Why is that?”
“I don’t know. I told you. I wondered how old she was. What else do you ask? She was a cute girl and I wondered how old she was. I’m sort of hoping that we have a girl and so . . . that’s all.”
“You said was,” Stephens said.
“What?”
“You said she was a cute girl. Why’d you use the past tense? Is there something you want to tell us?”
Brian shook his head.
“Look, you’ve got this wrong and you’re wasting time. Don’t do this. You should be out there looking for—”
“Mr. Holloway,” Rowan said, “I think we are going to take you up on your kind offer to take a look around here and maybe take you down to the station to set up a polygraph. Your offer is still good, right?”
THEY KEPT HIM in a small, windowless, and—it seemed to him—airless room. There was no clock on the wall and he lost track of time. He was thinking about the girl he had seen by the safe. Lucy. They came in from time to time to talk to him, to ask him the same questions over and over. But unsatisfied with his answers they would leave again. He could tell it was dark outside. He could sense it. It had been at least that long.
Finally, the door came open again and Stephens looked in.
“You have ten minutes,” he said.
“What?”
Stephens backed away from the opening and then Laura appeared. Hesitantly, she stepped into the room and the door was closed behind her.
“Brian? What is going on? I came home and they were in our house. They had a search warrant. What did you do?”
He shook his head.
“I didn’t do anything. Robinette’s daughter is missing and they think I took her. All I did was talk to her.”
“You talked to her? When?”
“That day. I told you at dinner.”
“No, you told me she had the same name we picked. You didn’t say you talked to her.”
“She came in where I was working. I asked her what her name was and how old she was and that was it. I told her I had to get to work. She left and I never saw her again. That’s it.”
She slid into the seat across the table from him. She never took her eyes off of him.
“Did you tell them this?”
“Yes, I told them a hundred times. They’re wasting their time with me when they should be out looking for her. If you ask me, they ought to be talking to Robinette instead of me.”
Laura put her hand on her abdomen, as if calming the baby inside. She started rocking in her chair.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe this,” she said.
“Neither can I,” Brian said.
He reached a hand across the table and she put her other hand on top of it.
“Have you asked for a lawyer?”
“No, I don’t need a lawyer. I didn’t do anything.”
“Brian, just tell me. Did you take that girl anywhere?”
He pulled his hand back from her. His mouth came open and it was a moment before he found his voice.
“Laura?”
“Where did you go when you got up last night? You’ve been acting weird all week. What is going on with you?”
“They sent you in here, didn’t they? They convinced you out there and sent you in here to—”
“No, Brian, you’re wrong. You’re being paranoid. I just want to know what is going—”
The door to the small room suddenly came open and Rowan stepped in.
“Mr. and Mrs. Holloway, you can go on home now.”
“What do you mean?” Laura asked.
Brian started to push back his chair.
“We found her,” the agent said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I guess we owe you an apology, Mr. Holloway. We didn’t mean to give you such a hard time.”
Brian stood up, a weird mixture of relief and anger overtaking him.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
“She’s fine. Patrol just brought her into the station. Turns out she didn’t like moving into the new house.”
He forced a laugh.
“She thinks it’s haunted. So she split. She walked all the way back to her old neighborhood and hid in her best friend’s guest-house.”
Rowan stepped back from the doorway so they could leave. Brian walked slowly. He was having a hard time understanding what Rowan had just told them. He was having a hard time dealing with what his wife had just asked him as well.
“That girl found her way back to her old house?” he asked.
“That’s ri
ght,” Rowan said. “Step this way and I’ll get you back your property. Then you’ll be out of here.”
Brian was led down the hallway and into a large squad room. There were several detectives working at desks and moving about. Across the room was another room separated by a glass wall. He could see a boardroom table in there. Sitting at the table were Detective Stephens and a girl. She was maybe thirteen years old. She looked like she was crying.
Rowan went to his desk and got a manila envelope out of a drawer. He handed it to Brian. It had his wallet and keys in it. His loose change. He didn’t bother tearing it open. He just held it as he stared at the girl in the glass room. Rowan noticed his gaze and looked across the room as well.
“She’s okay. She spent the night eating potato chips and drinking soda pop. I guess she had such a good time she still doesn’t want to go back home.”
“Does Robinette have another daughter?”
“No, just the one. Just Teresa who doesn’t want to go home.”
Brian thought of the dream, of the dread he felt when he woke up from it. The feeling that he had let something loose.
“Teresa?”
Rowan looked at him.
“That’s right. I thought you said you—”
“Can I talk to her?”
“To the girl? No, I don’t think that would be proper, Mr. Holloway. Your involvement with this thing is over as far as I’m concerned.”
“I really need to speak to her.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen. Now it’s time for you and your wife to head on home.”
“What did she say about the house being haunted?”
“I’ll walk you out.”
He gripped Brian’s upper arm and ushered him toward the squad room’s exit. They went into another hallway and headed toward the door at the end. Rowan kept his hand on Brian’s arm. Laura trailed behind them.
“You know who owned that house before Robinette?” Brian asked.
Rowan didn’t answer.
“Arthur Blankenship.”
“So?”
“So maybe she’s got a point to why she’s scared. He built the plant. They say the runoff from the phosphate is responsible for all the fish kills. It’s like there’s a big cloud of black water in the bay. Hell, he built this city. He knew where all the bodies were buried. Maybe—”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s going home safe.”
