Crooked Page 25

  Nothing.

  She peered out her window. Lights showed from the opposite houses. So it wasn’t a general neighborhood blackout. Which meant a fuse was probably out downstairs. Clara told herself that was all the problem was. It was an old house, built before circuit breakers, built before microwaves and dishwashers. Her father had explained it a hundred times. Clara quickly toweled dry, threw on her nightgown, buttoned it up, and headed downstairs.

  In the pantry, Clara lit a candle and opened the black metal fuse box. She looked and looked again. None were burned. She tightened them and wiggled them in hopes something would connect, but nothing did. Everything stayed dark.

  There in the candlelit pantry, Clara suddenly felt afraid. It was an unreasonable feeling, she told herself, but that didn’t make it go away.

  Clara went to the front door. “Ham?” Clara called out. “C’mon in, Ham.” While she was listening for the tinkling of his metal collar, Clara heard something else.

  A creak from the rear of the house. She waited and it came again, and then from another direction another noise: a breaking twig from somewhere just beyond the front porch. Clara quickly closed the front door. She locked it tight. She couldn’t look out through the front-door window. A strange numbness came over her, making her feel rubbery. She blew out her candle. She stepped back from the door and nearly tipped over. She held on to a table and grabbed for the phone. There was no dial tone, nothing. She looked down at her hands and thought, These aren’t my hands. I have no feeling.

  A creak from the kitchen, and another. The creak of floorboards beneath a moving person. Her father, maybe, home early from his trip.

  “Dad?” Her voice seemed to come slowly up from under water. “Dad?”

  No answer.

  More creaking, to her left. With difficulty, Clara shifted her gaze. The front doorknob turned. She had locked the door, but now the doorknob was turning.

  “Dad?”

  Nothing.

  Clara put her hands on the banister and pulled herself up step by step. This was like a nightmare. She tried to call for Ham, but nothing came out. The insides of her lips were so dry they stuck together. Finally, at the top, she sat back on her knees and looked down. There was no one there. But there were noises everywhere. And then low voices, thick low male voices.

  “There?”

  “Nup.”

  “Here neither.”

  A low male murmur. “Where now?”

  “Up.”

  Clara wanted to cry out, or fall down and cry. She picked up the hall phone. Dead. She let it drop, bang. She looked around.

  Down below, it became suddenly still.

  Clara opened and closed the door to her room without going in, then dragged herself to the hall closet. She pushed aside the garment bags, began to pull herself up the wooden ladder. She had to take a breath between each rung. Finally at the top, she eased open the trapdoor and hauled herself through. She gasped and sucked for air. She couldn’t get enough air. She could hardly keep her eyes open. She closed the trapdoor. She knew she should’ve pulled the garment bags together to cover the ladder, she’d known it all the time, so why hadn’t she done it? Why couldn’t she do it now?

  It was dark in the attic. The only light came from the streetlight through a single gabled window. Clara thought of hiding among the boxes of Christmas stuff or behind the rack of Halloween costumes but knew she’d be found there. She thought of going to a window, trying to shout out. But what if she couldn’t make sounds? Or what if they heard her before a neighbor did?

  Clara closed her eyes and lay with her ear over the trapdoor. There was nothing to do. Just wait. Wait till they went away. Or wait till they found her.

  She heard doors opening and doors closing. There were no voices now. Just footsteps. Footsteps into the bathroom. Into her parents’ bedroom. Then into her own bedroom. A long time in her bedroom. Drawers opening but not closing. The little scream the last drawer makes, the drawer with her underthings. Then laughter. Low voices and muffled laughter.

  Below, the footsteps grew dimmer. Footsteps on the stairs. Footsteps going away.

  Then coming back. Going again slowly, so slowly, room to room. And finally coming to the hall closet. Coming to the hall closet and stopping.

  “Hey!” A low tight whisper.

  Heavy footsteps from behind. Them stopping, too.

  Clara, on the other side of the trapdoor, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t speak. She just listened. It seemed like full minutes passed. Finally she heard the hangers move, heard a boot on the first rung.

  They’d found her. They were coming up.

  Clara stumbled for her hope chest and did a funny thing. She put on Amos’s green shirt over her nightgown. She buttoned it all the way up to the throat.

  A slow creak from behind her.

  Clara turned.

  The trapdoor lifted.

  First the large one came through, then the small one.

  44

  BIG SUIT

  Amos was running.

  After leaving the Tripps’ apartment, he’d run down the gravel driveway, across the street, and through the Kensington District, planning a route over Bandy Ridge through the business section into Clara’s neighborhood to Clara’s house. He turned uphill and ran steadily, a boy in a big suit. He charted the shortcuts he could take, the alleys he would use, and all the while, he ran steadily, sucking in the cold night air, his heart close to bursting, but running steadily, slanting across streets and yards, pounding along sidewalks, sweat streaming down his face. And yet the distances seemed to stretch, each block seemed to grow longer, and the harder he tried to run, the slower he seemed to go, so that the growing fear that he might be too late felt more and more like a fact, the kind of hopeless fact that made him want to stop, just stop and catch his breath.

  On Walnut, he cut across a corner lot and saw a large, familiar form on the sidewalk in front of him. It was Bruce.

  “Hey,” Bruce said, stopping to let himself be approached.

  Amos kept running. “Clara’s,” he panted, and then, over his shoulder as Bruce turned to watch him pass: “Something’s wrong at Clara’s.”

  “Everything’s okay,” Bruce yelled after him. “I just saw her a half hour ago. Everything’s fine.”

  Amos knew in his bones this was wrong, but had no time to explain. His lungs ached for air, and his feet felt heavier and heavier. Each time they hit pavement, pain shot up through his calves. Threading across traffic on Albany, he glimpsed the Bank of Jemison clock tower: 11:37! Already 11:37 and he still had blocks and blocks to go. He was too late. He was way too late.

  For one second, and then another, Amos slackened his pace, as if to slow to a walk and then just stop, but at that moment, a calm, steady, and familiar voice came into his ears. Amos knew whose voice it was. It was his father’s. “Run, Amos,” he said. “You can do it. You just need to put one foot in front of the other, and run.”

  And Amos, without quite realizing he’d begun, was running again.

  45

  IN CLARA’S ATTIC

  It was dark, but as the two forms crawled up from the trapdoor and raised themselves to full height, one short and wiry, the other huge and hulking, a sudden terrible certainty came over Clara. It was the Tripps. She was certain it was Eddie and Charles Tripp. Eddie was one thing, but Charles... what was Charles doing here?

  The small one—could it be anyone but Eddie?—switched on a flashlight and aimed it directly at Clara. She tried to stand, but sat back down, her back against her wooden hope chest. She wanted to cry, but nothing would come. She closed her eyes. She waited a long time and opened them again.

  They were talking. One of them was talking. Charles was talking to her in a low, spooky, crooning voice. A question. “Didn’t you want company? We thought you wanted company. That’s why we’re here. As an accommodation to you.”

  Eddie said nothing.

  “Isn’t that why you told people your father was gone th
is weekend?” Charles said in his oversweet croon. “Because you wanted some company?”

  No. Clara tried to say no, but what came out was something strangled and dry and not human.

  This seemed to encourage Charles.

  He took several steps forward. Eddie kept the beam of light trained on her. They were looking at her, trying to see what she looked like. She knew what she looked like. Like something without bones. Like a bag with loose things in it. With effort, she tried to straighten her back, to stare hard into the beam of light. “What’re you doing here?” she said in a dry, cracking voice.

  “We’re here to see you,” Charles said. “We even brought you something. Show her, Eduardo. Show her what we brought.”

  Eddie brought out a necklace from his coat pocket and shined his light on it. It was a gold-colored necklace. “Twenty-four karat,” Charles said in his sweet voice. “A token of our good intentions.”

  Eddie extended the necklace toward Clara and again flashed the beam of light glintingly across it, but the light caught something else, too. A fine crosswise scar across the forearm.

  “Why’re you doing this, Eddie?” she said in a small voice.

  Eddie flinched slightly, pulled back his extended gift.

  “His name is Eduardo,” the big one said sweetly. “But if you like, you can call him crazy.”

  “I’ll call him Eddie,” Clara said in a sullen voice.

  There was a long still moment, then Charles laughed. Eddie didn’t. “Oh, Eduardo,” Charles crooned. “This is a rabbit with spunk. This is a rabbit worth catching.”

  Clara breathed in and breathed out. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said. “What you’re doing is illegal.”

  Again Charles laughed, followed uneasily by Eddie. “The spunky rabbit has a sense of humor, Eduardo,” Charles said. “She dispenses free legal advice.”

  “I know you,” Clara said. “I know who you are.”

  Charles laughed casually. “Of course you do,” he said, exuding sweetness. “We’re all well acquainted. You invited us. That’s why we’re here.”

  Sullenly Clara said, “I didn’t invite Eddie and I didn’t invite you.”

  Again Charles issued an amused laugh. “Oh,” he said in his calm, caressing voice, “that’s what you can tell your father and your boyfriend Amos and maybe even yourself, but deep in your heart, you invited us. You wanted us to come. This is your own little dream. You made it up, and now we’re here.”

  Clara hated this person, hated him with all her heart. She turned to Eddie. She didn’t know what to say. She said, “I trusted you, Eddie.”

  This time Charles’s laugh was harsher. “Trust? Trust is just another name for mental deficiency. Show me someone who trusts and I’ll show you a village idiot.”

  Clara didn’t look at Charles when he said this. She kept her eyes fixed on Eddie. “I did trust you, though. You told me you didn’t kill Amos’s pigeon and I believed you.”

  Again Charles’s laugh was sharp. “He didn’t kill the pigeon. He didn’t have the cojones for that little task.” Charles grinned. “He did, however, point out the treasured bird.”

  Clara’s eyes were still on Eddie. “Is that right?”

  Eddie didn’t speak. In the dark, his face was just a dim, immobile mask.

  “It was a simple matter of choices,” Charles said. He was using his sweet voice again. “I told him he could either point out the milkboy’s personal fave or I’d just kill them all.”

  Clara turned slowly to Charles. “How come you do this stuff?” she said. “How come you do all this stuff and make people hate you?”

  “How come who does hateful stuff?” Charles said sweetly.

  “You. You and Eddie. The Tripp brothers.”

  Charles grinned. “This is some weird case of mistaken identity. We are not the Tripp brothers. My name is...Rico! Yes, Rico. And my compadre’s name is Eduardo. But we have heard of the Tripp brothers.” He made a little laugh. “To be truthful, they scare us.”

  Charles waited a moment or two. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “I understand you’re one of the really, really smart kids, Clara,” he said in his crooning voice. “So let’s have a review quiz. What is my name?”

  Clara didn’t answer. She felt her body going rubbery again.

  In the same coaxing voice, Charles said, “What is my name, Clara?”

  Again Clara said nothing. Her eyelids drooped. She didn’t see Charles’s hand fly out as much as feel it. But with sudden terrible quickness Charles was upon her, grabbing her shirt, jerking it tight around her throat.

  “Hey!” Eddie said. “I thought you said—”

  “Relax, Eduardo,” Charles said in his sweet voice. “Your little itch and me are just getting up close and personal.” He returned his gaze to Clara. “Okay, now. You understood the question, didn’t you, Clara?” he said with exaggerated patience.

  “Yes,” Clara said in a small, tired voice.

  A moment passed. In the dark, as Charles held her shirt front, she could smell his sour breath and the too-rich smell of his Right Guard deodorant. Abruptly Charles released his grip and leaned back. He pulled something from an interior pocket, a metal case, from which, with a quick decisive click, a blade flashed open.

  “Clara Wilson,” Charles crooned, “meet Mr. Persuasion.” Charles’s voice was still gentle, lilting, full of compassion. “Mr. Persuasion’s here to help you see things from a different point of view. Now, what is my name?”

  It was quiet in the room. From somewhere outside, a dog barked, but it wasn’t Ham’s bark. Clara looked through the dimness toward Eddie. He wasn’t going to help. He wasn’t going to do anything. He was just a silhouette. A silhouette of a statue. Something collapsed within Clara. “Rico,” she said.

  “Splendid!” Charles said with exaggerated pleasure. “And my compadre?”

  “Eduardo.”

  “Excellent,” Charles said, and he tilted his head down at the unsheathed blade, as if considering it. “Now, earlier in our lesson, we were talking about choices. Let’s return to that. What I heard through the grapevine is that Eddie Tripp took you up to Lookout Surefire Getting Plenty Point.” Charles’s head lifted toward Clara. “Is that true, Clara?”

  “He took me somewhere. I don’t know what it was called.”

  “Oh, that’s what it’s called, all right. Lookout Surefire Getting Plenty Point.”

  Clara said nothing.

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “Did you get any at Getting Plenty?” Charles asked soothingly, and then rolled out a low rumble of laughter that reminded Clara of distant thunder.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  Charles laughed again. “Oh, you can say that, Clara, but don’t insult us by expecting us to believe it.” His shaved head turned. “Do you believe it, Eduardo?”

  Eddie’s head shook slowly: no.

  After a moment or two, Charles said, “Okay. Back to our little lesson on choices. Now, when I take a gal up to Lookout Surefire Getting Plenty Point, I take the key out of the ignition and say, ‘You have two choices, and one is to run.’” Charles’s low laugh rumbled more fully this time.

  “Hey, c’mon,” Eddie said out of the dark in a low, pleading voice.

  Suddenly Charles was leaning forward, and with a quick swiping motion, he cut first one button and then another from Amos’s shirt. It happened so fast, Clara hardly knew what had happened, and then, as she peered down at the shirt, the knife sliced the other buttons free. She saw one hit the floor and roll into darkness. Was she about to be killed? The thought came to her that this was how murders occurred. One second you’re talking to the killer, and the next second you’re not.

  In a low voice, Eddie said, “C’mon, you said no physical stuff.”

  Charles laughed. “I said I wouldn’t touch her. You got to pay more attention, Eduardo. I haven’t touched her. Mr. Persuasion has.”

  Charles tugged Clar
a’s buttoned nightgown away from her chest and started cutting those buttons one by one. The tip of the blade nipped into her bare skin. No, she thought. No, please, no. And then she managed to say it: “No. Please, no.”

  Charles laughed a deep rich greedy laugh, was still laughing this laugh when something strange happened.

  From behind Charles, looming as if from the mouth of a dark cave, Eddie stepped forward and said, “No. No more. No freaking more.”

  Charles’s laughter roared louder. He could hardly contain himself. “Oh, yes,” he said, and the knife worked through the last flannel-covered button.

  “No,” Eddie said, and laid a hand on Charles’s shoulder, which made Charles recoil abruptly and swirl toward Eddie, flashing the knife now at his brother.

  It took Clara a moment to understand she was free of Charles’s grip. She clamped her nightgown together with both hands.

  “Oh, Eduardo,” Charles was saying with exaggerated disappointment. “I’d had such hopes for us tonight. This, after all, was your little itch. But then a funny thing happened, Eduardo. I got an itch for her, too, and as it turns out, mine is the bigger itch.” Charles laughed, but there was something inside him lying in wait, Clara could feel it. “Now that I’m here and I see what I see, I begin to understand that I’m in one of my moods, and when I’m in the mood, Eduardo, I’m in the mood.” Charles waited. “Your little Clara is very fetching.”

  All at once Eddie in wild rage charged into his giant brother. There were the heaves and grunts of furious contact, the sound of the flashlight pummeling flesh, and then something swift and silent, followed by a low, short oofing sound. Eddie sat heavily down. He was gasping.

  Charles was breathing normally. His voice held steadily to its exaggerated sweetness. “Sometimes you forget yourself, Eduardo.” He beamed the flashlight toward Eddie, who held his hand over his face as if expecting another blow.

  “You’re lucky I’m a nice guy, Eduardo. A nastier character would’ve used the knife.” Charles slid the point of the knife into Eddie’s left nostril. “You understand, don’t you, Eduardo?”