Twitchell looked at Johnny, thinking guys like him redefined what it means to put too much trust in a first impression. But he kept such callous thoughts to himself.
Instead, he just met his visitor’s gaze, heart booming in his chest, and flashed him a wry smile.
Johnny had no idea.
AFTERMATH
JESS CHECKED THE CLOCK. It was nearly 10:00 p.m. Her husband should have been home from his Friday-night therapy session by now. The appointment had been written down in black pen on the cartoon bunny calendar she kept tacked up on the wall beside the kitchen table: “Mark appt.” The usual start time was 7:00 p.m.
She picked up the phone and dialled his cell. Twitchell’s phone was on vibrate and he pulled it out of his pocket after a moment or two.
“Hi, babe, what’s up?” Twitchell had call display and was trying to sound cheerful.
“Not much. Where are you?”
“I’m just leaving the gym, hon.”
“No, the gym is closed. The gym closes at nine.”
“What are you talking about? It closes at ten.”
“The big gym by our place?”
“No, my old gym, babe.”
“I thought you cancelled that membership a month ago?”
He explained to Jess that his membership at the gym near their old rented townhouse was still active. “I procrastinated and changed over my membership a few weeks ago, but I still have a couple weeks this month that are paid for, so I figured I’d take advantage since it takes an hour to cross town anyway.”
She thought for a moment. “Okay, well listen, on your way home can you pick up a case of ready-made baby formula at Shoppers?”
“Will do. Anything else?” Twitchell cringed and hoped she wouldn’t ask him to get her a latte from Starbucks or some other inconvenient errand.
“No, but I’ll probably be in bed by the time you get home.” She yawned. “I’m so tired.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“ ’Kay, bye.”
She hung up the phone and checked on Chloe. In the little room next to the main bedroom, her baby was asleep under her crescent moon night-light. Her crib was sturdy oak. There were pictures of cartoon giraffes stuck beside it. Across the room, a stuffed tiger was perched on a dresser drawer. Below on the grey carpet a bright yellow plastic bucket was adorned with a smiley face, as if to say, “Don’t worry, be happy.” Chloe frequently slept through the night.
Jess crawled into her own bed in the adjacent room and pulled the covers around her. She kept a fan in the corner to blow air around the room and a baby monitor on the dresser next to her jewellery. Since Chloe sometimes slept next to her, she had put up a little gate on the side of the bed to prevent her from rolling onto the floor. On the other side of the bed, an Ernie doll from Sesame Street stood watch over a copy of the Yellow Pages, a box of tissue, and an alarm clock tucked in near the wall. Jess kept a pair of ear plugs on the floor, handy for days when she needed to block out the noise. She was a light sleeper.
DRIVING HOME IN A car that had become a mess of papers and bags, Twitchell was thinking about his evening as he pulled up to the store. The parking lot was nearly deserted and most of the store lights were off. He knew his wife was going to be pissed. He was too late. It was past midnight, the store was closed, and he had failed Jess yet again.
He decided he could avoid her wrath if he awoke early and rushed off to the store before Jess and the baby woke up. He cruised home in a long solo drive back north to St. Albert.
When he got out of the car, he felt a blast of frigid night air. He pulled his duffle bag out of the car and swung it over his shoulder. He opened the door to his house slowly and quietly, trying not to stir Jess or Chloe awake as he tiptoed down the flight of stairs into the basement. The room was littered with dirty clothes, boxes, and junk strewn over the blue carpet. In the corner, he had his own mattress and box spring set draped in red plaid sheets adjacent to his computer desk.
Twitchell was exhausted and decided to take a shower. The basement had its own ensuite, which he had been using since he started sleeping down there. He jumped in, showered, and dried himself off.
It had been a long day.
But before he went to sleep, he decided to do some laundry. He dumped out his clothes from his duffle bag into the washer. He washed his socks, pants, and shirt, as well as one of his newest purchases: a dark green hoodie. He threw his sneakers into the wash too.
All of the items were soaked in blood.
SILENCE
DALE RETURNED TO HIS computer later on Friday evening. He used it far less frequently than his friend Johnny, but he would fire off a short message in reply whenever he did get an email.
Checking his inbox, Dale noticed Johnny had sent him an email a few minutes after 7:00 p.m. Johnny had relayed how he was going back to the woman’s place since she was finally at home. But why hadn’t he sent on the address when he got there? He regretted not asking again for the woman’s address during their brief phone call a few hours ago.
Dale headed to his house phone and dialled Johnny’s number. It rang five or six times. Finally, the line was answered: “I listen to Joe! This is John. Altinger. I am not here right now, so leave a name, phone number, and I will get back to you soon.”
Dale hung up. He tried again a few minutes later and at least once more before he went to bed. There was no answer each time, the silence adding to his heightened concerns.
THINKING OF THE WORKWEEK ahead, Hans wished Johnny a “Happy Thanksgiving” as he sent an email in anticipation of a new possibility. “On Tuesday I’m going to view two condos in your block,” Hans wrote. “You know what that means: let’s set up a car pool!”
ARRIVING BACK AT HOME from a Saturday-morning funeral, Dale dialled Johnny’s number once more. Still nothing. Every call went to his voicemail. Dale called one of his friends and told him the strange news. His concerns were mounting.
By Sunday, he was even more worried. Johnny had failed to show up for their planned motorcycle lesson. He would never have cancelled without an explanation. Dale sent him emails and phoned him a few more times but received no reply. He phoned another friend with a feeling of dread. “I think Johnny is missing.”
WILLY NOTICED JOHNNY HADN’T logged in to MSN Messenger all weekend. He could only imagine what his buddy had been up to instead. He began typing an offline message Johnny could read the next time he signed in. “How’s it going? You still at the chick’s place?”
DALE JOINED HIS FAMILY for Thanksgiving dinner on the evening of Sunday, October 12, but he found himself in the lowest of spirits. His mind kept drifting back to Johnny. Where was he? What could possibly be preventing him from returning his calls? Who was the filmmaker in the garage Johnny had mentioned? It had been two days since their last phone call. His anxiety increasing, Dale abruptly cancelled plans to visit with a few friends after dinner. Instead, he called another friend and his wife for support. He was determined to begin searching for Johnny.
Under an autumn sunset, the three of them parked at Johnny’s condo tower and headed for the main door. The metal door latch popped open with a big tug. Dale hurried down the hallway and arrived at Johnny’s front door. He knocked. He waited. There was no response.
They took the staircase to the underground parkade, treading over an expanse of concrete and oil stains. In Johnny’s parking stall, his car was gone but his two motorbikes were still sitting there, uncovered and gathering dust.
Feeling defeated, Dale and his friends tried Johnny’s patio door. It was locked too. Dale leaned in for a look through the window. He pressed his hands to the glass, staring into the nothingness; not even the moonlight offered him hope of seeing movement inside.
His friend Johnny had disappeared.
DARK COMEDY
TWITCHELL LET OUT A big yawn as he stirred awake on Saturday morning. He had overslept. Jess and Chloe had already started their day by the time he finally awoke from his deep slu
mber.
Jess spotted her husband as he trudged up the stairs. “Where’s the baby formula?”
“Oh, sorry,” he said, trying to wake up. “When I went there last night they were all out of stock.” He told her he didn’t mind jumping in the car now and getting some. He could tell she wasn’t impressed.
He drove to the store, returned, and the three of them had noodles for lunch. Jess was then free to run a few errands before they dropped off the baby at Twitchell’s parents’ house. Finally, there was some free time for the two of them to spend together without the responsibility of caring for a baby.
That evening, Jess and Twitchell decided to drive to Bourbon Street, a wing of West Edmonton Mall decorated to look like the famous French Quarter in New Orleans. After dinner at one of the strip’s loud restaurants, the couple headed to a comedy show a few doors down. They settled in at one of the black-top tables, staring at a stage with a fake city skyline.
Twitchell found himself in a flurry of conflicting thoughts. But as he sat there, looking at the main act rip one-liners and get the crowd going, he saw his wife experience a moment of happiness. She had no idea what was going on in his life, not a clue about what he had been doing with his Fridays. He wanted that facade to continue.
So he began to join in the merriment, first with snickers and soon with howls of laughter. With every joke the comedian told, Twitchell laughed a bit louder. Soon he was roaring, his mouth wide open as his tongue leapt back from his teeth.
The couple shared a lot of laughs that night, actually. In fact, Jess looked at her husband in amusement and assumed he was having a blast. For the first time in a long while, he seemed to be in good spirits and his easygoing self again. Over the weekend, she saw how her husband had even worn his green hoodie, fresh out of the dryer and smelling great, still looking new.
ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, TWITCHELL and Jess picked up Chloe while dropping by to have Thanksgiving dinner with his parents, Norm and Mary, at their home. They arrived around 4:00 p.m. and enjoyed plates of wonderful food. He would get a second big meal the following day when they went to his in-laws. But Twitchell wasn’t a fan of the traditional turkey. He found the meat too dry and stringy.
When he and Jess returned to St. Albert with Chloe three hours later, the jovial mood had disappeared. Twitchell suddenly became spooked and jumpy when they arrived at the front door.
“It’s not locked,” he said, pushing it open.
Twitchell looked at Jess, who was usually quite good at remembering to lock it. She thought she could have forgotten but was pretty sure she didn’t.
“Maybe someone tried to break in,” he said. He entered the house first and took a look around as quietly as possible. Jess and Chloe waited outside. He quickly scanned each room, looking for any signs of an intruder. Seeing none, he made sure nothing had been stolen. Everything seemed fine. He walked back to the door and the incident was passed off as nothing but a sudden rush of paranoia.
When he finally had a chance to relax, Twitchell reflected on the past few days of his life – his Friday afternoon movie date with Traci, followed by the experience in the garage, his weekend of suburban get-togethers – and he couldn’t resist returning to the Internet and dropping major clues about what he had been up to. Renee found herself treated to an ambiguous message describing how busy his weekend had been with a double helping of Thanksgiving meals. “I’ve also had something else keeping me busy,” he wrote, “but I’m really concerned about telling anyone because of the implications. Suffice it to say I crossed the line on Friday … and I liked it.”
She was struck by his odd choice of words and demanded an explanation. “You wouldn’t have brought it up unless you needed someone to confide in,” she wrote. “So spill it, Mark.”
He asked for her phone number and she passed it along.
It was as if Twitchell was looking for someone to unload on. Over the course of late September and the first few weeks of October, he had also returned to S. K. Confessions and written about how having a child could be a source of great comfort in this area:
The cool thing about a seven-month-old is that you can openly tell them anything, and they can’t rat you out. I needed that from my daughter, since anyone else I could spill to would be dialing 9-1-1 before I finished. I knew I only had a limited amount of time before Zoe’s comprehension got to the level where that wouldn’t fly, so I got in as much talk time as possible in her early development when the words were just soothing sounds to get her used to the English language.
What he was up to required discretion, a level of privacy to block unwanted attention. Renee was a stranger on the other side of North America and he thought talking to her could be comforting. “Cheers and good health to all you care about,” he replied to the message she sent with her phone number. He settled on plans to finally reveal to her what he’d been up to in a matter of days.
CHANGING STATUS
FOR JOHNNY’S FRIENDS, THANKSGIVING Monday had begun with hope under threat. He had been missing for almost three days, but as if hearing their growing calls of concern, he finally reached out during a morning binge of Internet activity.
Willy was the first to hear from him. At 8:42 a.m., his friend and co-worker had finally replied to his offline MSN message. “Hey man,” Johnny wrote in an email. “No worries on my end.… The girl and I hit it off big time. I know it’s only been a few days but I think I’m falling hard and she feels the same way.” Johnny explained how he was planning to leave on a tropical vacation and his new girlfriend was footing the bill. “Never done anything so spontaneous and it would be a great experience to get in before I die.”
Ten minutes later, Johnny created an out-of-office message that automatically sent emails to his friends, bragging about the “extraordinary woman named Jen” he had met who was taking him to Costa Rica for a few months. An email of resignation was quickly sent to his boss. “I thank you for the opportunity,” Johnny wrote in conclusion, “and rest assured I would not be leaving unless the new path I’ve chosen was truly life-altering.”
His Facebook page also lit up with activity. In his first post in nearly a month, he wrote: “John Altinger is taking off to the Caribbean for a few months. See you all when I get back!” He changed his relationship status to “in a relationship.” Some of his friends were thrilled to hear it. “Have fun! Take lots of pictures,” replied one friend. “For a couple of months?” another asked. “Tough life!” And as if to prove that he was finished with online dating now that he had found this amazing woman, Johnny’s plentyoffish.com account was deleted that same morning.
DALE RECEIVED THE SAME email as everyone else, which added to his suspicions. He doubted Johnny would leave the country without calling his best friend to at least make arrangements for his motorbikes to be covered and looked after. Besides, Johnny was more likely to go to Germany and visit a car factory than take a Caribbean holiday. He hated the heat. Dale typed a reply: “Who’s going to pick your brother up at the airport?” It was a lie to test what Johnny’s response would be, but the question remained unanswered.
Dale finally had enough of the continuing strange activity. But when he tried to file a missing persons report, an officer told him to go away. A middle-aged single man running off on a wild romantic getaway with some woman? The officer didn’t think it sounded like a crime had been committed at all – some would call the guy damn lucky, actually – and it would be a waste of police resources to launch an investigation.
DEBRA TEICHROEB HADN’T THOUGHT of Johnny in a while, but reading over his email about a tropical vacation brought back memories of how she had rejected his romantic intentions. The Johnny she knew and cared about didn’t do things on a whim. He planned trips months in advance. Running off on a whirlwind romance took her by surprise. But maybe he had changed.
Sitting at her computer, Debra thought about responding but didn’t know what to tell him. She found it odd that he had not called her “Sunshine” the way he
did when he had written to her so many times before. The tone of his email was so formal, as if all his personality had been stripped away. She considered telling him to be careful on his trip, but then she turned away from her keyboard and decided to let it be. With their history, she knew it was not her place to question his relationship decisions.
Later on, Debra noticed Johnny signed in to MSN Messenger. His new status update on the chat service confirmed how happy he had become. Words displayed beside a little icon and his name told of a life on holiday, a life of pure bliss. She could almost imagine the palm trees he was seeing, nearly taste the cocktails of coconut and lime. “I’ve got a one way ticket to heaven,” Johnny had written of his trip, “and I’m never coming back.”
A BLAZE IN THE SUBURBS
THE LIT MATCH TUMBLED out of Twitchell’s hand and dropped in a free fall into the oil drum. The flame ignited an explosion that flashed in a burst of orange and yellow, shooting flames up into the sky. The air smelled of burning gasoline as light smoke billowed, carried by the wind.
Twitchell did not detect this expanding odour. He had no sense of smell. He simply stood back, watching the contents of the barrel slowly burn. He had spent a few hours loading up the barrel from his garage film studio into the back of his car. He then drove it across town to his parents’ house, where he planted it in the middle of their backyard. Nearby, a grouping of full garbage bags had been piled up, each one twisted tight and sealed with duct tape. Twitchell had soaked everything in the barrel in a splashing of gas from his jerry can. As he had hoped, his parents weren’t home, so he had the whole place to himself.
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