Two officers stayed with us down in the TV room in the basement while the others rolled out.
They did a great job at terrifying us. If we told anyone what happened, it would weaken the case against the guy. That’s what they warned us. A single word about what we had found might put the guy back on the street. Nobody finished the thought—that if he was set free, he would immediately hunt after us for revenge. Matt and I had already pieced that fact together, so we swore our secrecy to the police and later to each other.
Neither of us said a word. Matt didn’t even tell his parents.
Months later, the story came out on the news and everyone claimed to know about it. The girl who lived across the street from the murderer was a couple of grades beneath us. She said that she watched out her window while the cops shot their guns through the walls and killed everyone inside. Her story lost credibility when kids looked at the house and saw that it didn’t have a single bullet hole in the siding.
Another kid said that his uncle was one of the victims in a trashcan. When he couldn’t come up with the uncle’s name, his story was debunked. By the time that Matt and I thought to tell our side of it, nobody believed us. Our story was one of many implausible tales that was circulating.
Our shameful secret faded away. Our contribution to the safety of society was never recognized.
I suppose it was for the best. Rumor has it that the man wasn’t acting alone. He was working for organized crime or something. Mobsters supposedly ordered a killing, my neighbor fulfilled the order, and the mobsters would eventually come to remove the trashcans. Maybe it was just another tall tale. Just in case it wasn’t, it’s a good thing that nobody knew about the two boys who cracked the case.
(What is that noise?)
What is that noise?
“Is anyone home?” I shout. I swear I heard a noise—a groan or something—from inside the house just as my shout is fading out. What are my options? I want to go home and forget about all this. I can’t do that. I suppose I could go home and call the police. That’s a really unappealing idea. First, I would have to track down the non-emergency number, right? You can’t just call 9-1-1 because somebody left their door open on a hot day, right?
Also, there’s a voice that lives down in the darkest part of my heart, and that voice whispers, “You won’t get credit.” That sinister voice is still upset that I never got credit for being right about the neighbor across the alley. Matt and I had discovered a murderer and nothing good ever came of it. I mean, aside from taking a monster off the streets, nothing good ever came of it.
I reach out and pause just before my fingers touch the door. It would be rude—maybe even illegal—for me to push my way into a stranger’s house. Maybe if the door were wide open, there would be no harm in my wandering inside to check on…
As I ponder the legality of walking through an open door, I reach out with my toe and swing the front door the rest of the way open. Now I can see everything inside.
There’s a sign on the wall over the bar.
“Work is the curse of the drinking class.”
Through the doorway to the left of that, I can see a counter and an oven that has to be decades older than I am. Stairs run almost up the center of the house. Leaning in, I can see what might be a dining room on the left. This place is nothing like my uncle’s house. The floor plan of this house seems completely intentional. Uncle Walt’s house, in comparison, accreted around some tiny nugget of a dwelling that was planted two-hundred years ago. In his kitchen, the pine floorboards still wrap around the original hearth that’s no longer there. I suppose I should stop thinking of it as “Uncle Walt’s House.” It’s mine now.
“Mr. Engel?”
Is it the echo of my voice, or was that another moan?
Entry
(Something changes when I cross over.)
Something changes when I cross over.
I shift from concerned neighbor to busybody. One might even call me an intruder.
Usually when I enter a house I take off my shoes. It’s not something I ask my guests to do, but I almost always do it when I’m visiting. I don’t even consider doing that now. It seems inappropriately intimate to walk around Mr. Engel’s house in my socks without him there to grant permission. Besides, I might have to leave in a hurry.
“I’m coming in. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
Hot, humid, and suffocating. The air inside the house barely seems breathable.
There’s a glass on the bar with a tiny ring of brown in the bottom. Whatever was in there has evaporated. Next to it, the TV Guide doesn’t have any dust on it that I can see, but David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston are on the cover. The magazine has to be at least twenty years old. I lean forward to see if Mr. Engel has collapsed behind the bar. Somehow I can picture it—the old man has a heart attack while he mixes a drink and gets ready for an evening of watching Friends. If that’s when he went, the body will just be a skeleton in overalls.
Nothing.
I let out a relieved sigh.
My hand is resting on the bar. I use the bottom of my t-shirt to wipe off the prints, exchanging fingerprints for DNA, I’m sure.
“There’s no dust,” I whisper. “He has to be alive.”
With one more step,
