20
THE walls of my office consist almost entirely of windows, and because the room juts out from the rest of my house into the trees, I feel as though I spend my hours writing in a piedmont forest. My desk is pushed against the largest wall of glass, facing the forest, so that nothing but an occasional doe or gray fox distracts me from my work. I can’t even see the lake from my desk, and this is by design, because the water mesmerizes me and would only steal my time.
Books abound, stacked on disorganized shelves and lying in piles on the floor. In one corner, there’s an intimidating stack of manuscripts from fans and blurb-seekers. A mammoth dictionary lounges across a lectern, perennially open. There’s even a display case, which holds first editions and translations of my novels, standing on one side of the door; a small gold frame enclosing a mounted photocopy of my first, meager royalty check hangs on the other.
Staring into the black forest as streams of rain meandered down the glass, I sat at my desk, waiting for the Web page to load. This would be the fifth college Web site I’d checked. I was focusing my search on the history departments of schools in New Hampshire and Vermont, but as the doors closed one after another, I’d begun to wonder if that cowboy’s memory wasn’t askew. Franklin Pierce, Keene State, the University of New Hampshire, and Plymouth had given me nothing. Maybe Dave Parker was Orson bullshit.
When the home page for Woodside College had loaded, I clicked on 'Departments,' then 'History,' and finally 'Faculty of the History Department (alphabetical listing).'
Waiting on the server, I glanced at the clock on my desk: 7:55 P.M. She’s been dead twenty-four hours. Did you just leave her in that filthy basement? With his gig in Washington, I couldn’t imagine that Orson had gone to the trouble to take our mother with him. Depositing her body outside of the house would have been time-consuming and risky. Besides, my mother was a loner, and she’d sometimes go days without contacting a soul. My God, she could lie in that basement a week before someone finds her.
The police would have to notify me. I hadn’t even given consideration to reporting her murder, because for all I knew, Orson had framed me again. Matricide. It seems unnatural even among the animals. I couldn’t begin to wonder why. I was operating on numbness again.
At the top of the Web page listing faculty was a short paragraph that bragged about the sheer brilliance and abundant qualifications of the fourteen professors who constituted the history department. I scanned that, then scrolled down the list.
Son of a bitch.
'Dr. David L. Parker,' the entry read.
Though his name was hyperlinked, his page wouldn’t load when I clicked on it. Is that you? Did I just find you because of one short exchange with a stoned Wyoming cowboy?
The doorbell startled me. I was not expecting company. Picking up my pistol from the desk (I carried it with me everywhere now), I walked through the long hallway that separated my office from the kitchen and the rest of the house. Passing through the living room, I turned right into the foyer, chambered the first round, and stopped at an opaque oval window beside the door.
The doorbell rang again.
'Who is it?' I said.
'Trick-or-treat!' Children’s voices. Lowering the gun, I shoved it into the waistband at the back of my damp jeans. Because my house stood alone on ten acres of forest, at the end of a long driveway, trick-or-treaters rarely ventured to my door. I hadn’t even bought candy for them this year.
I opened the door. A little masked boy dressed up as Zorro pointed a gun at me. His sister was an angel — a small white bathrobe, cardboard wings, and a halo of silver tinsel. A calamitous-faced man in a brown raincoat stood behind them, holding an umbrella — Walter. Why are you —
'Give me candy or I’ll shootcha,' John David said. The four-year-old’s blond hair poked out from under the black bandanna. His mask was crooked, so that he could see through only one of the eye-holes, but he maintained the disguise. 'I’ll shootcha,' he warned again, and before I could speak, he pulled the trigger. As the plastic hammer clicked again and again, I cringed with the impact of each bullet. Stumbling back into the foyer, I dropped to my knees.
'Why, John David, why?' I gasped, holding my belly as I crumpled down onto the floor, careful that my Glock didn’t fall out. John David giggled.
'Look, Dad, I got him. I’m a go see if he’s dead.'
'No, J.D.,' Walter said as I resurrected. 'Don’t go in the house.'
I walked back to the door, caught Walter’s eyes, and looked down at the seven-year-old angel.
'You look beautiful, Jenna,' I said. 'Did you make your costume?'
'At school today I did,' she said. 'You like my wand?' She held up a long pixie stick with a glittery cardboard star glued to the end.
'Take a walk with us,' Walter said. 'I left the car by the mailbox.'
'Let me see if I can find some candy for —'
He rustled the trash bag in his right hand. 'They’ve got plenty of candy. Come on.' I put on a pair of boots, grabbed a jacket and an umbrella from the coat closet, and locked the door behind me as I stepped outside.
The four of us walked down the sidewalk, and when we reached the driveway, Walter handed his umbrella to Jenna. 'Sweetie, I want you and J.D. to walk a little ahead of us, okay?'
'Why, Daddy?'
'I have to talk to Uncle Andy.'
She took the umbrella. 'You have to come with me, J.D.,' she said, bossing her brother.
'Nooooo!'
'Go with her, son. We’ll be right behind you.' Jenna rushed on ahead, and John David ran after her and ducked under the umbrella. They laughed, their small buoyant voices filling the woods. His toy gun fired three times.
Walter stepped under my umbrella, and we started up the drive, the tall loblollies on either side of us. I waited for him to speak as the rain drummed on the canopy. The night smelled of wet pine.
'Beth’s packing,' he whispered. 'She’s taking the kids away.'
'Where?'
'I told her not to tell me.'
'She knows about —'
'No. She knows the children are in danger. That’s all she needs to know.'
'Stoppit!' John David yelled at his sister.
'Kids!' Walter shouted gruffly. 'Behave.'
'Dad, Jenna —'
'I don’t wanna hear it, son.'
I wondered where Walter’s anger toward me had gone.
'Do you really know where he is, Andy?' he whispered.
'I’ve got a possible alias in New England. Now, I can’t be sure until I get there, but I think it’s him.'
'So you’re definitely going?'
'Yeah.'
He stopped and faced me. 'You’re going there to kill him? To put him in a hole somewhere, where no one’s ever gonna find him?'
'That’s the plan.'
'And you have no compunctions about killing your own brother?'
'None.'
We started walking again. I had an awful premonition.
'You’ve called the police, haven’t you?' I said.
