I didn’t want to spend my time arguing with the dispatcher the whole time I waited for a cop to show up.
Even after I called the police, my unease was evolving into panic. I went out to the porch, looking out to the road and to the left where, about a hundred yards away, our closest neighbor lived. A woman who’d been on her own since her husband died several years ago. I didn’t see anything else I could do right now aside from waking her up.
That was when a car started slowing along the highway, coming from the direction of town. About two car lengths from the end of our driveway, it edged off the pavement, tires crunching on gravel.
The car turned and started approaching the house. I came down the porch steps, worried that this was not someone bringing Thomas home, but someone bringing me bad news about him.
With the headlights shining directly at me, I couldn’t make out the car or tell whether anyone was in it beside the driver. It pulled up just behind and on the other side of mine, so that when the passenger door opened, I could see Thomas getting out, but not the person behind the wheel.
“Thomas! Where the hell have you been?”
He was holding something in his hand, about half the size of a clipboard. I realized it was one of those high- tech tablets that allowed you to do a hundred things, including surf the Web. He didn’t look the slightest bit concerned about the worry he’d caused me. “I went out to get something to eat. KFC. This thing is way better than the GPS in your car. What did you find out in New York? I want to hear everything. Come into the house because it’s cold outside.”
He strolled right past me, went up the steps into the house.
I heard the driver’s door open and close. Seconds later, someone appeared, looked at me, and smiled.
“Hey,” Julie said. “Your brother’s something else. We had a great time. And this thing about somebody’s head in a bag? Man, that’s some kind of story.”
THIRTY-TWO
Before saying a word to either Thomas or Julie, I took out my cell and called the police back and told them my brother was home safe. Then I said to Julie, “What’s going on?”
“You said drop by. I dropped by. You were out. Thomas was home. He was puzzling over what to do about dinner so I asked him if he wanted to go out and grab a bite and he said sure. You asking me in for a drink or am I gonna have to drive home sober?”
“What did you find out?” Thomas shouted. He’d come back out and was standing on the porch with the tablet in his hand.
“Give me a second here,” I said to him. “I’ll be right in.” To Julie, I said, “Where’d he get the thing?”
“I’m letting him borrow it,” she said. “I showed him how he could look up maps on it anywhere. Doesn’t have to be sitting at his desk all the time.”
“I want to get one of these, Ray,” Thomas said. “Can you get me one of these?”
“Thomas,” I said, aggravation creeping into my voice, “I’ll be in, in a minute.”
Thomas went back into the house.
“He’s right,” Julie said.
“About what?”
“The way you talk to him,” Julie said. “He said you’re mean to him.”
“I am not-he said that?”
Julie nodded, and said offhandedly, “That’s what he tells me.”
“I’m not mean to him. I’m trying to do my best.”
She smiled. “I’m sure you are.”
“You’re patronizing me.”
Her smile broadened. “Yeah, I guess. Listen, I suppose I’ll just head back and-”
“No, come on in,” I said. “You can fill me in on what a terrible brother I am.”
“How much time do you have?”
As we were going up the steps, I said, “I’m surprised you got him to leave the house. He hates leaving the house.”
“Letting him play with the gadget helped. That, and offering to get him some KFC.”
“That would do it,” I said as we walked inside.
Thomas could be heard clicking away upstairs. He called down, “Come upstairs!”
“I better deal with this,” I said. “You wanna come up?” She nodded. “I kind of need to prepare you for what it looks like up here.”
“Thomas already showed me,” Julie said. “No big deal. My brother used to have naked women all over his wall. I’ll take maps.”
I looked at her for a second and shook my head. “Okay.”
“Well?” Thomas said as we came into his room, his eyes on the center monitor, advancing forward through some metropolis somewhere.
“If we’re going to talk about this, you have to stop and look at me,” I said.
“That’s just what he was talking about,” Julie whispered to me. “You talk to him like he’s a kid.”
I shot her a look as Thomas lifted his hand from the mouse and did a quarter circle on his computer chair. “So what happened?”
I cleared my throat. “Okay, so I went to Orchard Street, and I found the address. Here.” I took out my phone, opened the camera app, and handed it to him. “There’s a picture of the place.”
Thomas studied the tiny image, then compared it to a printout similar to the one he had given me before I’d gone to Manhattan.
He nodded. “That’s the window. The brick patterns all match up.”
“And as you can see,” I said, “there’s no head in the window.”
“You say that like it proves something,” Thomas said.
“I’m just pointing it out, that’s all.”
“If someone had a car accident at the end of our driveway six months ago, and you took a picture of it, taking another picture at the end of our driveway today wouldn’t prove that the accident never happened.”
“He’s got ya there,” Julie said.
I ignored her. “I know, Thomas. I’m just telling you what I saw.”
“What else did you do?”
“I did go up to the apartment,” I said. “Knocked on the door.”
Thomas studied me. “Then what?”
“No answer. The place is empty.”
“Empty?”
“Apparently. A woman down the hall told me. No one’s lived there for months.”
“Did you ask her if anyone had been killed in the apartment?”
“No, I did not ask her if anyone had been killed in the apartment. I’m guessing that’s the kind of thing she might have mentioned.”
“Not if she did it,” Thomas said.
“She didn’t look like a murderer to me. She said the girls or whatever had moved out a long time ago.”
“And the apartment has been empty ever since?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“Isn’t that kind of weird?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve heard that apartments are in very short supply in New York City,” he said. “Why would someone let an apartment sit empty all that time?”
“I don’t know, Thomas.”
“What did the landlord say when you asked him?”
