Spackled and Spooked

21

It was full dark by the time we got back to the house on Becklea. A plastic-lined paper bag on the floor of the car leaked the mouthwatering smell of mozzarella, tomatoes, and pepperoni, and if I hadn’t already been stuffed to the gills with pizza, I’d have been tempted to dive in. As it was, I’d eaten enough for two people, or at least someone a lot bigger than myself, and Brandon was welcome to the calzone.

Everything looked just as it had when we left earlier, except that more lights were on in the houses we passed. I saw the blue flickering of TVs from behind curtains up and down the street, including in Lionel Kenefick’s house. Arthur Mattson and Stella the shih tzu were just coming home from their evening constitutional, letting themselves in through their front door as we passed, and in Irina’s house, I saw her shadow walk past the brightly lit front window, arm crooked at the elbow as if she were holding a telephone to her ear.

Venetia ’s house was, as expected, dark and deserted. More surprisingly, so was ours.

“That’s weird,” Derek said. “ Brandon ought to have turned on some lights by now.”

I nodded. “Maybe he fell asleep. It’s been a stressful day.”

Derek rolled his eyes as he withdrew the key from the ignition. “He’s not a toddler, Avery. I’m sure he doesn’t take naps anymore. And what’s there to lie on, anyway? We ripped up the carpets, remember? All there is, is unfinished floors. There’s not even a bathtub he could curl up in.”

“You’re right. That is weird.”

I let him help me out of the car, and we walked up to the front door side by side.

“Maybe he’s gone somewhere,” Derek said.

“Or maybe he’s investigating.”

He glanced at me. “In the dark?”

“On TV, they’re always investigating in the dark. Haven’t you noticed? It’s always nighttime, and they never turn on the lights; they’re always waving flashlights around instead. Maybe it’s easier to detect things that way.”

“That’s for entertainment purposes,” Derek answered. “When you watch one of the medical shows, it’s the same thing. They twist stuff around to make it more exciting. Most people don’t have weird, undetectable diseases with bizarre symptoms, and believe me, interns do not have sex on examining tables between patients.”

“Really? You and Melissa never…?”

He turned to me, eyebrow quirked.

“Never mind,” I said. He chuckled, but then his expression turned serious.

“Melissa and I have been divorced for over five years, Avery. Longer than we were married. She’s in the past.”

“She’s still around,” I said, as we started climbing the steps to the front door. “I see her often enough. And she’s always telling me how happy she is that we’re together.”

“So?” He tried the door, and when he found it locked, knocked on it.

“So, she doesn’t mean it.”

“How do you know she doesn’t mean it? She’s shacked up with Ray Stenham. She’s got what she wanted. Why wouldn’t she be happy that we’re together?” He knocked again, a little harder this time.

“She would rather you be single and pining for her,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

He laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Melissa doesn’t care what I do anymore. And I never pined. Dammit, why isn’t he coming?” He fumbled in the pocket of his jeans.

“You don’t think anything happened to him, do you?” I stepped aside, to give him as much light as possible when he tried to insert the key into the lock in the dark.

“He’s guilty after all, and now he’s hung himself from the beams in the den? I hope not.”

He turned the knob and pushed the door open. “ Brandon?”

There was no answer. “I don’t like this,” I whispered.

“Just stay close,” Derek answered, his voice low. His hand fumbled in the dark and found mine. We moved forward side by side.

The lights in the rest of the house seemed to work just fine; it was just the porch light that didn’t. As usual. Derek flipped the rest of the lights on as we went: through the living room and dining room to the kitchen, through the nook to the den, down the hallway to the bedrooms. Detour into the bath to turn on the light there and into what had been Patrick’s room, ditto. There was no sign of Brandon anywhere. Everything was-pardon the pun-deathly quiet, and the closer we got to the back of the house and the master bedroom, the harder my heart beat.

Derek snaked his hand around the door jamb and flipped on the light in what had been the guest bedroom in the Murphy house. Leaning in, he took in the room with a glance. “No one here.”

We moved as one to the dark hole that was the open door to the master bedroom, and as I took a deep breath, I heard Derek do the same. “Ready?” he asked. I nodded, swallowing. He flicked on the overhead light, and we peered in. After a second, Derek let go of my hand and stepped into the empty room. He stopped in the middle of the floor, hands on his hips. “Where the hell is he?”

The room was just as we had left it. The dresser was sitting there, two precise holes cut into its gleaming teak top, and the two top drawers missing. My brown paper bag sample panel leaned against one wall next to the missing drawers from the dresser. Pieces of wood and scraps of paper littered the floor. The only thing missing, that had been here earlier, was Brandon.

“Dammit,” Derek said, his voice disgusted, “he’s done a bunk.”

I was still looking around, trying to come to terms with the fact that Brandon wasn’t here. I’d been concerned that he’d tried to mess with the electrical system and had electrocuted himself, or something. “You mean…?”

“You have a better idea? We invited him to come with us earlier, in front of Wayne. When Wayne gave permission, Brandon couldn’t refuse. So he waited until we suggested going to dinner, and then he said he just wanted to stay here, and would we bring something back for him. He was probably gone before we turned the corner. Dammit!”

He reached for his phone.

“I don’t know…” I said, but he wasn’t listening. He’d already dialed Wayne ’s number, and a second later, was telling the chief of police what had happened.

“Yep, gone… nope, no explanation… what, you want a signed confession?” He rolled his eyes as he listened to Wayne ’s voice squawk. “Yeah, you do that. Good luck.”

He turned to me. “He’s gonna put out an APB on Brandon and then head over to Brandon ’s house. We’re four or five miles from the Village, and if he’s on foot, he may not have gotten there yet.”

“We didn’t pass him on the way,” I said. Derek shook his head.

“No, but he would have made sure no one saw him.”

“Unless you’re overreacting, and he just got tired of waiting and went home.”

“You don’t really believe that,” Derek said.

“It’s possible. Isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Don’t you think he would have called to tell us? Ask when we were coming back? Tell us not to bother spending money on food he wouldn’t be here to eat? He’s got a cell phone, doesn’t he? If not, he’d at least leave a note, don’t you think?”

“I guess.” I looked around, but there was nothing like that to be seen.

“I have his phone number,” Derek said. “I’ll try to call him.” He started dialing. No sooner had he put the phone to his ear, than we heard a distant ringing.

“What the hell…?” Derek said, taking the phone away from his ear again to stare at it. I was already on my way into the hallway.

The sound came from the front of the house somewhere. It got steadily louder as I hurried down the hallway to the den and then into the living room. I stopped in the middle of the floor and looked around.

“Out there,” Derek said, brushing past me to go out through the open front door onto the stoop. He stopped on the top step and looked around.

“There,” I pointed. A small, pulsing, green light glowed in the weeds next to the front porch. As I watched, it winked out, and the sound stopped. “It went to voice mail,” Derek said.

“Should we pick it up?”

“Not sure. Maybe he got a phone call and ran.”

“And the phone flew out of his hand and he didn’t take the time to stop and pick it up?”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Derek agreed, staring at the spot where he knew the phone was. I shook my head. “Why don’t you pick it up,” he added. “Wrap something around your hand so your fingerprints don’t get on it. I’ll call Wayne.”

I nodded. While Derek reconnected with the chief of police, I jumped off the steps into the grass and located the phone.

“Turn it on,” Derek instructed as I held it out to him, nestled in a fold of my turquoise T-shirt. He still had his own phone to his ear and was obviously relaying instructions from Wayne. “See if he made any calls. Or if anyone called him.”

I manipulated buttons. “No calls out. And none in since early this afternoon. His mom called him. Probably to tell him about Wayne showing up looking for Holly’s bag, don’t you think?”

“Most likely,” Derek agreed. “Any saved messages?”

I checked and shook my head. He passed the information on to Wayne. In the silence, I could hear Wayne ’s squawks, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Derek kept nodding and saying, “Uh-huh… yessah… uh-huh… nope… OK.”

He hung up and turned to me. “ Wayne said to leave the phone inside. He’ll come pick it up when he’s talked to Phoebe Thomas. Meanwhile, maybe we should have a look around here? See if we can detect any clues in the dark. Like on TV.” He grinned.

“Maybe one of the neighbors saw him. Maybe someone picked him up or he hitched a ride. Heck, maybe he’s just down the street visiting Holly’s mom! What makes you think he bailed? Maybe he just needed to move and think, so he started walking home. It’s not that far. There could be a shortcut through the woods in the back. And as you said, the poor guy’s had quite a lot of shocks in the past couple of days. No wonder if he felt the need for some quiet time.”

“That’s true,” Derek admitted.

“Or maybe he just wandered down the street to talk to a friend. Like Linda White. Or Denise. Or Lionel Kenefick. He knows a lot of people on this street.”

“Also true.”

“So what made you think he’s run away?”

“I’m not sure,” Derek said. “There’s just something about this that bothers me. If he’s not guilty and he didn’t run away, and all he did was walk home or go hang out with a friend because he got tired of waiting for us, why didn’t he call? Or at least leave a note?”

“Didn’t have anything to write on?” I suggested. “Or with?”

“There’s plenty of brown paper left. And several stubs of carpenter’s pencils lying around.”

“Maybe he just didn’t think about it.”

Derek arched a brow, just faintly visible in the darkness. “Does he seem that inconsiderate to you? Under the circumstances, it’s inevitable that we’d worry, don’t you think? Or think what we’re thinking.”

“I guess,” I admitted. “And no, he doesn’t seem that inconsiderate. But maybe he didn’t have time. Maybe someone came and knocked on the door and invited him to come over, and he left with them. Without taking the time to write a note. Maybe he didn’t realize how much time had passed, or he figured he’d be back by the time we got here.”

“So why isn’t he?” Derek said, an edge of frustration in his voice. “And how would anyone even know he was here, anyway? He rode with us, so his car isn’t parked out front.”

I shrugged. “No idea. Why don’t we go knock on a couple of doors while we wait for Wayne?”

Derek agreed, grudgingly, that we could do that, and we set off down the street.

Our first stop was Irina’s house, where Irina greeted us at the door with a smile. “Hi, Avery. And Avery’s friend. Do you want to come in?”

I shook my head. “No thanks. We’re looking for another friend. He was at the house when we left this afternoon, and now he’s gone. You haven’t seen him, have you? Young guy, twenty-two, blond buzz cut, cute in an unfinished sort of way.”

Derek rolled his eyes, and Irina giggled. “I’m sorry. I haven’t. But I only just got home. It’s a bit of a walk from the bus stop. I saw Arthur and Stella, but no one else.”

“Nobody boarded the bus when you got off? How often does it run?”

The bus ran every thirty minutes, Irina said, and no one had boarded at the stop at the end of Primrose Drive.

“Stella?” Derek repeated when we had said our good-byes and were on our way down to the next house.

“Arthur Mattson’s shih tzu. Yappy little thing. I saw them let themselves into their house when we drove by earlier.”

“So unless Brandon was waiting for him inside, he’s not there, then.”

I shook my head. “Probably not. But we should knock anyway. Just in case Arthur saw something.”

“While we’re at it, we should check that Arthur’s car is where it belongs,” Derek said. “I’m sure Brandon knows how to hotwire a car.”

I nodded, although I sensed that we were at odds here, that our expectations were different. Derek looked for evidence that Brandon had skipped town. I thought it was just possible that he’d gone home, that he hadn’t killed anyone. I was hoping we’d find him hanging out with Linda White, talking about Holly, or sharing a beer with Lionel Kenefick, in an effort to forget. At the back of my mind, however, a little pulse was beating, urging me to hurry up, that something was wrong.

Arthur Mattson hadn’t seen Brandon, or so he said, and his car was parked in the driveway, right where it should be. But he hadn’t been home long, either.

“Denise Robertson stays home with Trevor all day,” I said when we left Arthur’s property. Stella was still yip ping frantically inside and scratching at the glass in the picture window to be allowed to get to us. Arthur’s curtains were open, and with the light on, we could see right into his living room. There was no sign of Brandon.

“Then let’s try Denise next. Where is it?”

I pointed to Denise’s house, and we trotted across the street. But Denise claimed not to have seen Brandon, either. “I had no idea he was even here,” she said. “I saw him the other day, and the police cruiser, too, but I haven’t seen him today. Just your truck.”

“And you didn’t notice any lights going on at our house? Or anyone coming or going?”

But Denise hadn’t. “Sorry,” she said. “When Trevor’s awake, I spend time with him, and when he’s napping, I usually sit down and read or take a nap myself or watch TV or something.”

“Thanks.” We took our leave of Denise and stopped outside in the driveway.

“Down there is Linda White’s house,” I said, pointing to the house at the end of the road, on the corner. “Lionel’s house is up there, with the van out front.” I pointed in the other direction, up toward our own house.

“Let’s do Linda first. That’s likely where he is anyway, if he’s still around. And if we talk to Lionel first, and he’s not there, then we have to backtrack to get to Linda’s.”

Derek started walking in the direction of Linda’s house. I followed.

At first glance, the place looked shuttered and dark, with no lights on, and a knock on the door produced no results. “Maybe she went to work?” I suggested. “ Wayne said she works nights. At the Shamrock, wasn’t it?”

Derek nodded. “Or maybe Brandon killed her, because she knew he’d killed Holly. Or maybe she invited him over for dinner, and fed him strychnine, and now he’s dead inside and she’s the one who’s done a bunk.” He reached out and tried the door knob. It turned in his hand.

“We can’t just walk in!” I protested.

“Sure we can. It’s not breaking and entering if we didn’t break anything. And someone could be hurt. Either Linda or Brandon. Wayne broke down Venetia Rudolph’s door yesterday because she might have been hurt.”

“I think he saw her through the window,” I said. “And Linda could just be at work and in the habit of leaving her door open. Wayne said it was open this morning.”

“That’s possible, too,” Derek admitted. “But it can’t hurt to look. If something’s wrong, she’ll thank us. If she’s not here, she’ll never know.” He pushed the door open. “Yoo-hoo!”

I rolled my eyes but followed him inside, raising my own voice. “Linda? It’s Avery Baker, from up the street. And Derek Ellis. Are you home?”

There was no answer. I held my breath as Derek flipped on the lights, but everything turned out to be OK. Linda’s living room was messy but empty of people, living or dead.

“Since we’re inside, we should have a look around,” Derek said, and proceeded to do just that. As he walked from room to room, turning on lights and peering into corners, I took a closer look around the living room.

It was messy, with a slew of empty bottles on the coffee table, discarded clothes strewn across the floor, and a dingy bed pillow and blanket on the threadbare couch. It looked like Linda slept out here. Maybe she’d lie down to watch TV at night, to unwind, and then drink herself to sleep.

On the floor next to the sofa, a big book lay open, and I bent and lifted it, finding myself looking into row upon row of young faces smiling at me through the camera.

“Holly’s yearbook,” I said, surprised.

“What?” Derek asked from the next room.

“Nothing.” I flipped over a couple of pages.

I may have drawn some conclusions from Linda’s lack of concern about her daughter these past four years, but maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe the drinking was a recent thing, something Linda had started doing after Holly left. Loneliness, or the feeling that she’d failed her daughter, who’d left and never called…

The yearbook was filled with scrawled notations, greetings from classmates. Love ya, Holly! You’re the best! I’ll never forget you!

“What were you voted in high school?” I asked Derek when he came back into the living room.

“Voted? Oh, most likely to have the crap beat out of me by the Stenham twins.”

“Really?”

“Sure. That and most likely to become an MD. No surprise there.” He looked around, nose wrinkling at the mess and the sour smell of old beer.

“Holly was voted most likely to marry well. She was in the drama society, and a cheerleader and prom queen.”

“I’m not surprised,” Derek said, wandering over to look over my shoulder. “She was a knockout, wasn’t she? Are there any more pictures?”

“Of Holly? Probably.” I flipped pages until I found photos of the cheerleading team and the drama society. “Here. Feast your eyes on this. Looks like they did Grease that year.”

Holly was dressed in skin-tight capri pants, an equally tight halter top, and high heels, with her hair teased to monstrous heights.

Derek nodded. “She wasn’t cast in the lead, obviously. That’d be this girl; the chubby blonde in the poodle skirt and little white blouse in the middle. Candy, isn’t it? She’s lost some weight, hasn’t she?”

“Candy Millikin as Sandy,” I recited from the caption under the photo. “Holly White as Rizzo. Rizzo was the trampy one, the one who thought she was pregnant. Travis Robertson as Danny Zuko. So that’s Denise’s husband.” He was good-looking, dressed in the obligatory leather jacket and jeans, with his hair slicked back with Brylcreem. “No wonder she wanted to hold on to him. And look at this.” I pointed to one of the other young men peering over Travis’s shoulder. “Here’s Lionel.”

Derek chuckled. “He looks kind of like Opie, doesn’t he? Can’t be fun, having the voice to play the leading man, but to miss out because you look like an overgrown kid.”

I nodded. “It hasn’t hurt Ron Howard, but yeah, I bet nobody ever took him seriously. No wonder he never had a girlfriend; he probably never dared ask anyone out.”

“He asked Candy to the prom,” Derek said.

“But it’s not like he was interested in her. She said he always ogled everyone else. Including Holly.”

“Whatever.” Derek took the yearbook out of my hand, closed it, and put it on the table. I took it back, opened it, and left it on the floor, where I’d found it. “I think we’ve done all we can do here. Let’s go check out Lionel’s house.”

He headed for the door. I followed, making sure to flip the lights off as we exited the house and pull the door shut behind us.

The TV was on in Lionel’s house, but no one was watching. There was a gap in the curtains allowing us to see most of the living room and dining room combination, all the way into the kitchen. There was no sign of Brandon, but Lionel himself was sitting at the dining room table, eating dinner. He must have been really hungry, or else in a hurry to get somewhere, because he was scarfing down his food in a way any doctor in the world would tell him was unhealthy. Here I’d always thought Derek ate fast, but he had nothing on Lionel. And he kept glancing over his shoulder, furtively, as if he was afraid someone was sneaking up on him.

“Should we knock?” I whispered. Derek shook his head.

“Let me have a look around first. I want to go around the house and see if I can see in through the other windows. Stay here. Let me know if he moves.”

I nodded. “Be careful.”

“Always.” He grinned and disappeared. I put my eye to the window again.

Lionel didn’t seem to be aware of being observed. I didn’t know what Derek was doing on the other side of the house, but whatever it was, it didn’t alert Lionel, who just kept the fork going at warp speed between plate and mouth.

We’d had no qualms about knocking on Irina’s door, and Arthur Mattson’s, and Denise’s, but here, by tacit understanding, we were sneaking around, peering through the windows. Derek’s thoughts must have followed the same paths mine had, and he’d come to the same conclusion: that Lionel bore looking at extra carefully. He’d known Holly, and he might have been in love with her. Candy hadn’t seen anything romantic in his constant attentions and his devotion, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had romantic feelings toward Holly. He’d talked about wanting to go to New York to pursue a career in theater, but instead he was here, working as an electrician. Venetia knew him and would probably open the door for him. He knew Brandon, knew where Brandon lived, and he also knew where Derek and I lived, and where Derek’s truck would be parked. He saw our empty house every day of his life-so he’d known that it would make a perfect place to stash a body. And I didn’t like the way he was behaving. He seemed jumpy, nervous.

At this point in my cogitations, Derek came sidling around the corner again and crouched next to me.

“There’s no sign of Brandon,” he whispered, his mouth so close to my ear that his breath tickled, “although Lionel’s mom’s in the kitchen, cleaning up. There are no curtains anywhere, just blinds, and I was able to look into pretty much every room. I even peered into the bathroom, just in case. I don’t think Brandon ’s in the house.”

“Damn.”

He nodded. “This is interesting, though: Lionel’s room looks like a shrine to Holly. There are several pictures of the two of them, from school plays and field trips and such.”

“You’re kidding? That’s creepy.”

“Totally,” Derek nodded, with a faint grin. I opened my mouth to say something else, but before I could, Derek’s cell phone chirped. He slapped a hand to it, but it was too late: Lionel looked up and at the window, alertly. We both ducked out of sight.

“Damn,” Derek breathed. He glanced at the display. “It’s Wayne. Maybe he’s found Brandon.”

I nodded. “You need to take it. Run. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Right.” Derek scooted away from the window and faded into the darkness, up toward our house. I did the same, but before I could clear the yard, the front door opened and light flooded out onto the stoop and grass.

Lionel’s small frame stood outlined in the light. I threw myself flat on the ground and held my breath.

He looked around, suspiciously. I concentrated on not moving and on not making a sound. Lionel did the same. After a moment, his head turned. Away from me, up the street. Derek had opened the door to the truck, and the light inside had come on. I could see him standing there, cell phone to his ear, but of course he was too far away for me to hear what he was saying. Lionel watched for a moment, then ducked back inside the house.

He left the door open, so I figured he’d be coming back out, and I thought I might not get a better chance to move. So I got up into a crouch and made for the driveway, where I planned to duck behind the van. It was only a few yards from where I was; I didn’t think I’d have any problems getting there.

And I didn’t. The problem came when I arrived. I was slinking along the back of the van, preparatory to darting into the next yard and behind some bushes, when I heard a faint banging noise from inside.

Electrical tools don’t move around on their own, so obviously someone-or something-was inside Lionel’s paneled van. It wasn’t Derek, who I could see farther up the street. And it wasn’t Wayne, who was on the phone with Derek. And I couldn’t imagine Denise or Irina or Linda White scrambling around in the back of Lionel’s van. But Brandon was missing, and this was somewhere we hadn’t looked for him.

In retrospect, it might not have been the smartest thing to do. What I should have done was go get Derek and then make him check the inside of the van. But in addition to the banging, there were weird, muffled moaning or keening sounds coming from the van, and I was worried. What if Brandon was hurt? Or choking? What if he couldn’t wait another minute? I pulled open the back door and crawled in, pulling the door shut behind me. Gently, so it wouldn’t make a noise.

No sooner was I inside and had located the dark bundle that was Brandon, than Lionel came back out of the house and headed for the van. I looked around the dark interior. It was too late to get out, but was there somewhere I could hide so he wouldn’t see me?

Lionel decided to come to the back door, and I just barely had time to throw myself into the corner closest to the doors and make myself as small as possible. I closed my eyes, in the age-old belief that if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me. As it turned out, I was right. He didn’t see me. I was squished as far into the corner as I could get, and he looked right past me, seemingly concerned only with making sure that Brandon was still there. The beam of his flashlight illuminated a long bundle, the top of a fair head, and a pair of blue eyes blinking woozily. Every other part of Brandon seemed to be rolled in a tarp and a couple of blankets, and judging from the muffled sounds he was making, Lionel had gagged him, as well.

After a second, Lionel closed the door again. As his steps continued up the side of the van, I moved, as quietly and noiselessly as possible, to crouch next to Brandon. Hopefully any noises I made would be attributed to Brandon ’s thrashings. When Lionel went back inside, I’d get us both out.

It was a fine plan, as far as it went. It was even successful, to a degree. Lionel didn’t realize that I was there. He did not, however, go back inside. Instead, he opened the driver’s side door. I threw myself sideways, into the space directly behind the driver’s seat, praying that once again, he’d look right past me. Jumping up into the seat, Lionel chuckled, a highly unpleasant sound, made all the worse for the words that accompanied it. “Ready to go for a ride, Brandon, old buddy?”

And that’s where the brilliance of my plan blew up in my face. I’d expected Lionel to go back inside after reassuring himself that everything was okeydokey out here. He didn’t. Instead, he cranked the key over in the ignition. The van hiccupped, and we bumped backward out of the driveway onto Becklea and, with a grinding noise, barreled down the street toward the corner.