Red Leaves

SEVEN

Here is the illusion—a normal day predicts a normal tomorrow and each day is not a brand-new spin of the wheel, our lives not lived at the whim of Lady Luck. And yet, now, when I recall the morning in question, a bright sunny morning, before that first ring of the phone, I see myself as living in a world that was almost entirely illusion. Then the phone rang and I heard Vince Giordano's voice, and suddenly the wheel stopped. Instead of falling on the number upon which I'd bet the full wealth and value of my life and which it had always landed on before, the red ball skirted past, made another circle around the wheel, and dropped into a very different slot. And like a gambler who'd won every spin before that moment, I stared, dazed, at the grim result of this latest turn of the wheel, and in my mind I set the wheel going backward, lifted the ball from the fateful slot, and sent it whirling back as if by sheer force of will it could be made to fall again where it had fallen so many times before. It was the afternoon of the day that Amy Giordano disappeared, but I refused to accept the fact that anything had changed.

And so, when I returned to the shop, I tried to appear normal, as if nothing were bothering me.

But Neil knew better. He attempted to hide it, but I often caught him glancing at me surreptitiously, as if I'd begun to manifest some curious symptom, a slight tremor in the hand, for example, or a peculiar tendency to stare into space.

"Something wrong, boss?" he asked finally.

By then the local radio stations had been reporting Amy's disappearance for several hours. People were searching her neighborhood, as well as more remote areas, particularly the woods that surrounded the subdivision where she lived. It was a big story, and so I knew that it was only a matter of time before the whole community would find out that Keith had been babysitting Amy the night of her disappearance.

"It's about Amy Giordano," I said. "Keith was at her house last night. Babysitting. The police spoke to him this morning."

The layer of jovial self mockery with which Neil presented himself dropped away. "I'm sure Keith didn't do anything wrong," he said. "Keith's very responsible."

Keith was no such thing, and I knew it. Although he was supposed to come to the shop immediately after school each afternoon, he often showed up an hour late, usually with a grudging look on his face, wanting only to go directly home, then just as directly up the stairs to his room. If there were deliveries to be made, he would make them, but always sullenly. He was not responsible in his schoolwork or in his chores at home. "When he raked leaves, he usually did little more than scatter them. "When he took out the garbage, a few pieces always failed to make it into the can. There was something desultory in everything he did, and for the first time, this very desultoriness took on an oddly sinister character, an outward carelessness and indifference to order that struck me as perhaps emblematic of an inner, and far more serious, disarray.

Neil touched my arm. "You don't have to worry about Keith," he said. "He's a good kid."

It was typical of Neil to say whatever had to be said to ease my distress, and the only response I could think of was a quick, false "Yes, he is."

Neil smiled warmly, then returned to his work, though I noticed that each time the phone rang he tensed and glanced over at me worriedly.

Until just before two that afternoon, all the calls were routine, and during those few hours I felt the sweetness of the ordinary, of needs easily met, promises easily kept, a world of choices and decisions that demanded no great store of wisdom.

At 1:54 the phone rang.

It was Detective Peak. "Mr. Moore, I wanted to let you know that—"

"You found her," I blurted.

"What?" Peak asked.

"You found Amy," I repeated.

"No," he said. "I wish we had. I'm just calling because I need your assurance that Keith will be around if we need to talk to him again."

"Of course, he will."

"This is an official request, Mr. Moore," Peak said. "Keith is now in your custody."

Custody. The word was abruptly laden with grave responsibility.

"He won't go anywhere," I told him.

"Good," Peak said. "Thank you for your cooperation."

He hung up, but for a brief instant, I continued to press the receiver to my ear, hoping for another voice to come on the line, to tell me that Amy had been found, that she was alive and well, just a little girl who'd wandered out of her house, crawled into a storm drain, and gone to sleep.

"Boss?"

It was Neil. He was staring at me from behind a counter piled with small boxes of film.

"It was the police," I told him. "They want to make sure Keith doesn't go anywhere."

Neil's lips parted, but he didn't speak.

I put down the phone. "I think I should probably go home, Neil."

"Sure," Neil said. "I'll lock up if you..."

"Thanks."

I walked to my car and got in, but didn't start the engine. Instead I sat, nearly motionless behind the wheel, watching people on the sidewalk, some alone, a few couples, a scattering of families with children. They strolled past the little shops with an air of complete casualness, like swimmers in the sea, untroubled, caught in that carefree instant before the dark fin breaks the surface and sends them thrashing toward shore.

Before I started home I snapped up my cell phone and called Meredith.

"Peak called me," I told her. "We have to keep an eye on Keith."

She could tell by the tone of my voice that I was feeling shaky. "That means they suspect him," she said.

"I'm not sure you can draw that conclusion."

"Oh please, Eric," Meredith said, her tone faintly irritated. "You can't live with your head in the sand forever. We have to face things."

"I'm facing them, it's just that—"

"Where are you now?" she interrupted.

"I'm just leaving the shop."

"Good. We need to talk."

She was waiting in the living room when I arrived.

"It's all that's on the radio," she said. "A big story for this shitty little town."

I had never heard her speak of Wesley in such a hateful way, as if she felt trapped by its smallness, ensnared and suffocating. Had she felt this way for a long time? I wondered. Had she sometimes awakened in the night and wanted to rush to the family car and drive away, out of Wesley, toward some bright horizon she'd never spoken of? In movies, people always had secret dreams, and I'd assumed that at least a few real people actually had. them, but I'd never thought Meredith afflicted by such dreaminess. Now I wondered if she harbored some thwarted fantasy, dreamed of yellow-brick roads and princely palaces, of being king of some hill she'd never had a chance to climb.

She walked over to the sofa and sat down hard, as if she were trying to squash the world beneath her. "They mentioned that Vince and Karen had gone out for the evening but not that there was a babysitter"—she shook her head—"but that'll come," she said crisply. "There had to have been a babysitter. Amy was eight years old."

"Was?" I asked darkly.

"You know what I mean." She looked at me determinedly. "I think we should call Leo."

I don't know why I resisted, except that some part of me was determined to keep the gravest consequences at bay, a hope, foolishly held, that if I simply refused to take the next step then no one else would take it, either.

"Not yet," I said.

"Why?" Meredith demanded.

"Because it'll make Keith look guilty," I answered. "You've seen how they do it on television. They say, 'So-and-so has retained counsel.' And people think, Okay the guy knows he did it and so now he's trying to protect himself."

Meredith stood up, walked to the back window, and peered out into the woods. "I hope you're right, Eric," she said.

I let her cool a moment, then said, "Do you think we should call the Giordanos?"

She shrugged.

"I think it would be a good idea," I said. "You know, to show our concern."

I walked into the kitchen, took the phone, and dialed the number.

A strange voice answered, but one I recognized. It was Detective Kraus. I told him who I was and that I wanted to express my hope that Amy would be returned safely home and offer my help, my family's help, in finding her. I asked to speak to Vince. Kraus said he'd get him. I heard him put the phone down, then his footsteps as he walked across the room. I could hear voices, but they were low and distant. Then the footsteps returned.

"Mr. Giordano doesn't want to talk," Kraus said. "He's a little ... well ... upset."

"Of course," I said.

"Keith's around, right?" Kraus asked.

"Yes."

"Because we have a few more questions for him."

I told him that Keith would be more than willing to help in any way he could, then put down the phone. Meredith was watching me worriedly.

"Maybe you're right," I told her. "Maybe we should call Leo."

Leo agreed to come over immediately, and so I went upstairs to talk to Keith.

The door to his room was closed and locked, as he'd insisted upon from the time he was thirteen. I'd never thought anything unusual about this. Teenagers were like that. They shut their parents out. It was a matter of asserting their independence, I supposed, part of the ritual of growing up and growing away. But now the fact that my son spent so much time in his room, at his computer, alone, behind a locked door, gave off an air of something hidden. What, I wondered, did he do in there? And in his solitude, what thoughts came to him?

I knocked at the door. "Keith."

I heard a strange scrambling, as if he were taken unawares and was now readying the room before opening the door, turning off the computer, closing drawers, perhaps quickly secreting things in his closet or beneath his bed.

I tapped again, this time more urgently. "Keith?"

The bolt snapped back, then the door opened to its customary two inches, and the single blue eye appeared.

"We've called a lawyer," I said.

The blue eye gave nothing away.

"Leo Brock," I added. "He's coming over in a few minutes."

The blue eye stared at me without sparkle, a tiny pool of unmoving water.

"I need to talk to you before he gets here."

Keith's voice was emotionless. "What about?"

I looked at the slowly blinking eye and wondered if Keith had taken something, inhaled something, if this, too, was a part of him he had hidden from me.

"Open the door," I said.

The door remained in place.

"What do we need to talk about?" Keith asked.

"Keith, open the door," I insisted.

He hesitated briefly, then drew back the door, but instead of ushering me into his room, he came out into the corridor and quickly closed the door behind him.

"Okay," he said. "Talk."

I looked at him closely. "Are you okay?"

He laughed softly, almost mockingly. "Yeah, great," he said.

"I mean are you ... able to talk?"

He shrugged comically and grinned at me, but it was a cold grin, like a bitter clown. "What do you want, Dad?"

"I want you to tell the truth, Keith," I said. "When Mr. Brock comes over here. Whatever he asks you, tell him the truth."

"Like with the cops," Keith said.

"Like I told you to do, yes."

Again, he shrugged. "Okay ... so?"

"The truth," I repeated, this time sternly.

"The truth, right," Keith said. His eyes narrowed slightly. "Is there something else?"

"In every detail," I said. "What you did while you were at Amy's. Where you went after that. How you got home. The truth, Keith."

"Yeah, okay." He waved his hand, as if batting away a pesky insect. "Can I go back now?"

I told him that he could, then watched as he slunk back behind the door and returned the bolt to its place, sealing himself off again.

Downstairs, Meredith was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, her long fingers fidgeting nervously with the top button of her blouse.

"What did he say?" she asked.

"Nothing."

She took a sip from the cup. "Typical."

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's the same way he acted when we told him Amy was missing. No real reaction. A shrug. Like it was nothing."

"He didn't know how to react," I said.

Meredith didn't buy it. "I don't know, Eric, there should have been some little expression of sympathy ... shock ... something." She took another sip of coffee. "He didn't ask a single question. Did you notice that?"

"He's afraid," I told her.

She drew in a quick agitated breath. "So am I," she said.

I could see that clearly, her fear, and in that first visible dread, felt the touch of something yet more dreadful still.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"How could I be all right, Eric?" Meredith asked. Her voice was edged in sarcasm. "How can anything be all right?" She took an angry sip from the cup, grim, resigned, though I couldn't tell if this resignation had to do with Keith or me or herself, or just the life that was hers, the whole course by which she'd come to rest in a shitty little town.

I had no answer for her, and so I did what we often do when things seem beyond us, wrapped in total darkness, when we sense the approaching precipice.

I reached out blindly and took her hand.