The Book of Lies

51

From the museum, to the parking lot, to the ride back past the burned-out storefronts of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, I keep peeking in the side mirror, searching every headlight behind us and being careful that Naomi doesn’t see what I’m—

“Who’re you looking for?” Naomi asks, glaring at me in the passenger seat.

“Just making sure we’re alone,” I tell her. It’s mostly right.

When we left the museum, the exhibit hall was empty. The good news is, Serena was smart enough to stay out of sight. The even better news is, she had the keys to our rental car in her purse. But the bad news is, as we turn onto Kimberly Avenue, all the cars disappear, leaving nothing but darkness behind us.

“You think Ellis is out there, don’t you?” Naomi asks, squinting through the night and fighting hard against the poorly plowed street.

“He’s gotta be somewhere,” I say as we pull up to the blue-and-red house with the crabapple tree along the left-hand side.

“They painted it Superman colors?” Naomi asks, offering something close to a laugh.

It’s an easy joke, but I know why she’s making it. If she warms us up, she’s hoping we’ll start talking.

“The city won’t even give them a plaque,” my dad says, laughing back as he hops out of the backseat. I shoot him a look that tells him to stay quiet. Naomi was kind enough to take off his PlastiCuffs, but after our last encounter with an ICE agent—she’s still Timothy’s partner.

“How’s it look?” Naomi asks as I scan the rest of the block. She knows how I work. We had the same training.

“There’re a few cars that weren’t here before, but nothing too nice for the neighborhood,” I say, eyeing an old, pale gray Mercury across the street and a silver Ford pickup down the block. Thanks to the snow, I get footprints, too. They’re hard to read because of our own previous trampling up the front porch, but at least there’re no dog tracks.

Everything’s clear. Until Naomi taps a knuckle on the front door, which yawns slightly open at the impact.

My dad steps back. I step forward.

“Mr. Johnsel . . . ?” I call out.

No one answers.

“Maybe they’re at prayer group,” my dad offers. “Didn’t they say they had prayer group?”

It’s a fine explanation, but this isn’t the kind of neighborhood where people leave their doors unlocked.

“Mr. Johnsel!” I call again.

Still no response.

Next to me, Naomi doesn’t move. I know how she works. Federal agents need warrants before they can march into a strange house.

“C’mon, I’m a potential suspect wanted for questioning—you can chase me inside,” I tell her, grabbing the doorknob.

“Cal, wait!”

Too late. “Mr. Johnsel, you there? Anybody home?” I ask as I step inside.

The main hallway and kitchen are both empty. All the lights in the house are off. That’s a good sign. Johnsel and his wife are at least eighty years old. Maybe they did forget to lock the door.

“Mr. Johnsel? . . . Mrs. Vivian?” my dad adds, halfway up the stairs.

I turn to follow. Naomi’s right behind him, her gun clutched in both hands and pointed down by her knees.

We keep calling their names, circling upward past the second floor. A few of the bedroom doors are closed, but again, all the lights are off. Nothing but an empty house. I head for the third floor.

“Dammit!” my dad shouts.

“What? What’s wrong?” I call out, racing up the stairs two at a time.

Stumbling onto the third-floor landing, I follow the noise into the open room with the exposed wooden slats along the ceiling and the milk crates and religious books stacked along the walls. The heart of creation. Jerry Siegel’s bedroom.

“So this is where he came up with Superman?” Naomi asks.

“Doesn’t matter,” my dad says, pointing to the walls. “It’s already picked clean.”

He’s right about that. The rest of the house is filled with ancient peeling wallpaper that hasn’t been changed in decades, but up here . . . I didn’t notice it before . . . all four walls are peeled away, revealing nothing but cracked plaster and some fake pine paneling just between the windows.

“Can we possibly be more stupid?” Naomi asks.

“Don’t say that,” I shoot back. “We had to come and check.”

“But to think that after seventy years, no one would come here and pull the wallpaper themselves—”

“Okay, let’s just regroup . . . rethink,” I jump in. “Maybe there’s something we missed.”

“What’s to miss? We heard the story fifteen times,” Naomi says. “Young Jerry lying awake in this room . . . staring out at the stupid crabapple tree and pining for his dead dad. Where else is he gonna hide it? In his sock drawer? Under the floorboards? Maybe he tucked it behind the wood paneling,” she shouts, kicking at the pine panels between the two windows.

“What about the attic?” my dad asks. “Was there wallpaper up there?”

“No,” I say. “It’s completely—”

“Crabapple,” Naomi blurts.

“Wha?”

We both turn to see Naomi staring out of the room’s side-by-side double-paned windows. “The crabapple tree. You can’t see it from here.”

My dad and I race next to her. Sure enough, the never cleaned windows are thick with dust and remnants of cracked paint, but they still give a muddy view of the front lawn as well as the snow-covered street and the equally beat-up houses that sit across the way.

“I don’t get it,” my father says.

“Look!” Naomi insists, pointing out to the right.

We press our foreheads against the cold, filthy glass, but no matter how hard we push, there’s no view of the crabapple tree that sits in the alley on the right side of the house.

Pulling back, I check the far right side of the room, but there’s nothing but wall.

“These are the only windows in here,” Naomi points out, still at the front windows.

“So if you can’t see the crabapple tree, either the whole Superman creation story is wrong . . .”

“. . . or this wasn’t Jerry’s room,” Naomi says excitedly. “Is there another room with windows that overlook—?”

“Right below us,” I say, already rushing toward the stairs.