The Trapdoor

by Andrew Klavan

  Now, with the electric trains and the office parks and the bulldozers coming, even what they’d fought for would probably be gone. Changed, at least, from what it had been. There’d be more houses, a wider range of people. Harder to keep it all bright and shiny. Harder to keep it just the way you want. Maybe it would be better for the kids in the end. Maybe not.

  I remembered the feeling I’d sometimes had, walking on a deserted road. I’d look at the lights in the window of a house, and it would seem warm and pleasant inside. I’d envy the family there. I’d feel left out. But I’d been inside, behind the lighted window too. It wasn’t always what it seemed, wasn’t always warm, wasn’t always pleasant. The people of Grant County knew that now, if they hadn’t known it before.

  After a while I wandered over to the courthouse again and talked to Bird. I asked him if they’d made anything of the paint they’d scraped off my car.

  “It’s black,” said Bird.

  “Modern detective work is a miracle,” I said.

  I wandered around town some more.

  At four the car was done. I paid for it on the company credit card. Then I drove back up to my hotel. I lay down for an hour to rest my weary bones. I woke up at six, had dinner at the hotel, headed down to the meeting.

  It was scheduled for eight. I got there at eight-fifteen. I was. hoping for a chance to sneak in the back.

  The faceless, concrete county hall was alight at every window. I wondered if it was the torchlight of the angry mob inside. I parked in the lot out back. I went in through two glass doors.

  It was a long walk down the hall to the meeting room. It seemed like a long walk anyway. When I got there, I stood outside the huge wooden door and listened.

  I could hear the booming voice of Walter Summers. To my relief, he was not talking about me.

  “I have exempted myself from this vote—just as I did when I was a member of the Z.B.A. But that doesn’t mean I can’t put in a word or two. As most of you know, my engineering firm played a major role in preparing the impact statements for the Capstandard office park. While not voting, I can assure you that the concerns of a small group of agitators are ill founded and should not stop this project from going through.…”

  I had time to recognize the name: Capstandard. It was that gash of a place on the hill beneath my hotel. Then a voice behind me said:

  “Mr. Wells?”

  I turned, startled. It was Michael Summers, Walter’s surviving son. Dressed in a gray suit with a port tie, he looked as handsome as any politician could wish his son to look. He had his handsome grin on, too, and it reached right into his blue eyes. He extended his hand to me. I shook it, grateful for a friendly face.

  “You’re a brave man, Mr. Wells,” he said quietly.

  I nodded. “How bad is it in there?”

  He made a balancing gesture with his hand. “If it were me, I’d be walking in the opposite direction,” he said. But the glint in his eyes told me differently.

  “When do I come up on the agenda?”

  He glanced at his watch. “You should be next. But seriously, you can’t just walk in there. The place will go crazy. Let me take you around to the legislators’ entrance. They usually leave the door open. You should be able to catch the whole show.” I hesitated. “Does that insult your courage?” he asked, smiling.

  “On the contrary, it compliments my cowardice,” I told him.

  He laughed, and led me down the hall. He took me around a corner to a door with a window of pebbled glass. He tried the knob. It was locked. He went into his pants pocket and brought forth a hefty ring of keys. He unlocked the door and I followed him inside.

  “It’s nice to have friends in high places,” he whispered.

  The room we were in was a small one. Directly across from us was the other door to the meeting room, the one the legislators came through to get to their table. The door was cracked open and a shaft of light fell through it to catch a lone hat rack, empty like the autumn trees outside.

  “If you position yourself there,” he said, “you should get a view of the worst of it. I do it all the time.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “I’ll have to leave you here. I serve as my father’s administrative aide.” This time his grin was appealingly boyish. “Practice,” he added.

  I smiled, patted his shoulder. He turned to go, but paused. He fixed me with his frank gaze. “I don’t want you to think I approve of what you did, of the stories your paper published,” he said simply. “But I’m a good judge of character.”

  “That’s true,” I said.

  “And it’s an imperfect world.”

  “That’s also true,” I said.

  “Well …”

  “Thank you, son,” I said. I meant it.

  “Chalk it up to making peace with the press. Political savvy,” he said, with another grin. “It runs in the family.”

  Then he turned and left the room. I heard the door click shut behind him. Alone in the semidarkness, I moved toward the shaft of light. Stepping into it, I peeked into the meeting room. I had a pretty clear view. To my left was the long curved table where the dozen members of the legislature sat. I could only see the ends of it unless I shifted and brought myself too much into the open. To my right was the audience. They looked like one of those cheap pictures in which the artist did not want to paint all the faces in the crowd so he paints the same face over and over again. In this case the same grim, angry face.

  But they were not the same. A few stood out. David Brandt was there, in the front row. He looked very pale in his dark suit, and his hair looked very red. He sat upright, staring directly before him, his hands folded in his lap. The portrait of a high school principal with a score to settle.

  The Scofields, Carla and Larry, were also seated in front. They looked nervous. She had a manila folder in her hand and she kept fidgeting with it. He kept leaning over to pat her hand.

  Chief Bird was there, seated by the door, looking huge. I also noticed a group of high school students sitting together near the back. Joanne and Mindy, Nancy Scofield’s friends, were among them. They were sitting very quietly, observing the proceedings.

  I did not see Chris Thomas or Janet Thayer. I scanned the audience more closely for them. And, as I did, I got a shock. There, seated in the back row, was Chandler Burke. Wearing a navy-blue suit buttoned high, her thin lips pressed tight enough to whiten, she looked formidable: the school-marm warrior. Maybe, I thought; maybe there’ll be one strong voice raised on my behalf.

  Just then a gavel whacked. A sonorous voice intoned:

  “Now let’s move on to the matter of John Wells.”

  26 Hands rose in the audience at once. The voice went on: “David Brandt is the first scheduled speaker. He is, as you know, the principal of the Grant Valley High School.”

  Brandt stood up. His face was solemn. He went into this jacket pocket and brought out a single three-by-five index card.

  “I know that the legislators have read the articles by Mr. John Wells in the New York Star,” he said, glancing at the card. “Most of you also know that I was instrumental in giving Mr. Wells access to interviews and information that made those articles possible. For this, I feel I owe you and the entire community an apology.”

  My heart sank. It had not exactly been bobbing merrily along to begin with, but now it went right down to the bottom.

  “The fact is, I was taken in,” Brandt continued. “Taken in, and then betrayed. I can only imagine that the need for the Star to boost its circulation, or for Mr. Wells to enhance his reputation, or both, superseded the requirements of ethical journalism. And most other ethical considerations as well. In any case, because of my cooperation with Mr. Wells and the Star, our community, our county, our high school, our police force—all of us—have been libeled. I have written a strong letter to the newspaper, and I ask the legislature to do the same. I have also had a few private discussions with attorneys, and I wish to strongly recommend legal act
ion on an individual and a community level.” He sat down.

  Carla Scofield was next. Her husband stood next to her. She clutched his arm for support. Her hands trembling violently, she opened her manila folder and removed a copy of the article about their daughter. The manila folder slipped from her grasp, slid to the floor. Larry stooped to retrieve it.

  But Mrs. Scofield was already speaking, holding the article before her. “Reading this,” she said in a trembling voice, “I felt as if my daughter had died all over again—”

  Which was as far as she could get. She broke down, sobbing into her husband’s shoulder.

  “Oof,” I said from my post behind the door.

  “Mr. Executive,” Larry Scofield said, “my wife can’t continue just now … if we could … maybe later …”

  “Of course,” intoned the executive. “We understand.”

  “Oof, oof, oof,” I said.

  And on it went. Chief Bird got up and assured the community that every one of the tragedies of the last few weeks had been thoroughly investigated. The executive assured him that that assurance was unnecessary. The crowd assured them both with a round of applause. Some students stood up and suggested various adolescent means of revenge on my poor person. Tar and feathering was one I remember. And that was the comic relief.

  Finally, Chandler stood up. I allowed myself a small glimmer of hope: maybe she would defend me. Then I got a good look at the expression on her face, and the glimmer went out.

  “My name is Chandler Burke,” she said softly. “I run a phone hotline for the depressed in Brentford, Connecticut. Mr. Wells visited me there yesterday. I hadn’t, at that point, seen the articles he wrote. Like Mr. Brandt, I trusted Mr. Wells. I had worked with him once before, and he had shown himself to be an able and honest reporter. Now that I’ve read the Star series, I understand that he was playing on our past association—and on my ignorance of what he was up to—to continue his so-called investigation into these events. When I heard about this meeting, I felt it my duty to come here and warn you that Mr. Wells is still on the warpath, as you might say. He’s still looking for proof that Michelle Thayer was murdered.” She began to sit down, smoothing her skirt behind in preparation. But she rose again, raising a finger.

  “Yes, Miss Burke,” said the executive.

  “I’d also like to say that I would be more than willing to participate as a witness in any legal action the legislature decides to take.”

  “Thank you, Miss Burke.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I muttered.

  She sat, but there was plenty more where that came from. The meeting had become an open discussion on everything from my ethics to my prose style to my parentage. Finally, slowly, the talk wound down. The matter appeared to be headed for a committee. Deadlines for legal action would be examined and so on. The discussion was over.

  At this point I briefly considered stepping out of my hiding place and making an attempt to explain. It was Chandler’s speech, in fact, that stopped me. She was right. For better or for worse, I was working Cambridge’s angle now. I was looking into the possibility that a suicide had been a homicide. I didn’t think I’d get a chance to explain much more than that before an ugly mob scene erupted, with me at the center.

  Instead I reminded myself that discretion is the better part of valor. Valorously, I crept from my hiding place, slinked down the hall, and escaped into the night.

  27 I got in my car. but I did not drive away. I needed a minute. Public evisceration takes it out of you. I sat there in the dark for a while, smoking a cigarette. Then I got my keys out and put them in the ignition. But as I reached for them, the doors of the county hall opened and the people began filing out. The work of the good folks of Grant Valley was done for the evening.

  I sat back. I watched them. I thought nasty thoughts. I listened to the sound of car doors opening and closing. I saw headlights going on all over the lot. I heard engines roaring.

  I glanced up and saw Chandler Burke. She was striding purposefully away from the lot. I could not hear her low heels rapping the asphalt, but I could imagine the swift, unforgiving sound they made. She reached the sidewalk and turned right. She disappeared around a corner of the building.

  I hit the ignition. The engine turned over. My brand-new headlights came on. I threw the car into reverse, backed out of my parking space. I joined the line of cars moving toward the street.

  I went right, after Chandler. I found her at a bus stop on Main Street. I remembered Chris Thomas had told me that Michelle took a bus to Brentford. I pulled the Artful Dodge over to the curb. I began to roll down the window. The mechanism had been damaged when the car went off the road, and I had to muscle the crank around. As I did, Chandler saw me. She looked this way and that, as if for help. By that time I had the window open.

  “Get in,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she told me. Her voice sounded the way I figured her heels had sounded on the pavement: clipped, hard.

  “Yeah, I heard your speech.”

  She seemed surprised. But she recovered quickly. “If you don’t leave me alone,” she said, “I’ll call for help.”

  “The cops would love that.”

  “Then just go away.”

  “I think you ought to give me a chance to explain,” I said. “It isn’t like you not to listen.”

  That was good: that got her. I saw her hesitate. I pressed the point.

  “There’s another side to this,” I said out the window. “Let me give you a lift home. Let me say my piece. I hear there aren’t many buses around anyway.”

  For another few seconds she weighed her anger against her sense of fairness. Her fairness won out, which is how I’d figured it.

  “All right,” she said brusquely. She stepped forward, reached for the door handle, and pulled. The door didn’t open. “Well, unlock it,” she snapped.

  “It is unlocked. It must’ve gotten busted last night.”

  I got out of the car and waited till she came around to my side. As she went by me, she threw her head back, her nose in the air. I caught the scent of her hair, her shampoo. Then she ducked down into the car. I went after her.

  I edged from the curb into the Main Street traffic: the ten or fifteen cars still pulling away from the county hall.

  “It’s a twenty-minute drive,” she said primly. “I’d start talking if I were you.”

  “Your concern touches me,” I said. I’d had enough. “So does your civic mindedness, come to think of it. ‘I’ll be happy to serve as a witness in a suit against Mr. Wells.’ Thanks a lot, sister.”

  “I’m not your sister.”

  “Thank God for small favors,” I said. “What the hell’s wrong with you anyway, lady? You could’ve called and talked to me about it. I hope this isn’t the way you run your goddamned hotline.”

  “You’re being abusive and obscene,” she said.

  I had an answer to that, but I set it aside. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. I drove in silence. We pulled out of town and onto the long road to Brentford.

  It was a crystal clear night. Cool, beautiful. The stars were out full force. Before me, the road was still clear. No night mist had risen.

  I stole a glance at Chandler’s unlovely profile. She turned on me.

  “What can there be to say?” she said, leaning forward. “I read your piece. It was cruel and it was sensationalistic. How could you, John?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Oh, what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I didn’t write the thing.”

  “It has your name on it.”

  “My editor got hold of it. He rewrote every word.”

  That stopped her a second. But it wasn’t going to be that easy. She plopped back against her seat, arms crossed.

  “Still,” she said.

  “Still what?”

  “Still—I don’t know. You could’ve withdrawn your name.”

  “I ne
ver saw it, Chandler. I read it in the paper just like everybody else.”

  Again she paused. The road beneath my tires grew narrow now and pitted. The town was gone. The houses were fewer and farther between. Soon the woods closed in and the road began to twist and roll between the trees.

  “Listen—” I said.

  “You’re driving too fast,” said Chandler.

  I slowed down.

  “So why did you come to the church?” she said. “Why did you ask me all those questions about Michelle.”

  “I’m trying to find out if she was murdered.”

  She let out an exasperated, “Oh!”

  “If she wasn’t, the editor will print a page-three apology. If she was … well, then we’ll have the truth.”

  “I never heard such nonsense in my life.”

  More silence. More driving. The road wound deep into the woods. It was dark on every side of us, for the most part. Now and then the gold light of a window shone amid the trees.

  “Someone tried to kill me last night,” I said.

  She turned quickly, concerned. She turned away just as fast.

  “Something’s going on up here, Chandler. Three kids are dead. I want to know why.”

  She still had nothing to say. Annoyed, I took out a cigarette, jabbed it between my lips.

  “I don’t like the smoke,” she said.

  “It’ll go out the window.”

  “It’s not good for you. They won’t have to kill you if you keep that up.”

  I threw the thing out the window, unlit.

  “Damn it,” I said. “I didn’t write that story, Chandler. Don’t you know me better than that?”

  Now she took one long look at me. Even in the darkness, I saw her eyes shine. When she turned away this time, she turned full away, to the window. She stared out, saying nothing.