THREE

LeRoy Gets His

RYAN Daley was glad Lionel had decided not to go to his own home, where Talia Grey was alone. Ryan knew Lionel had intended to go without him, and Ryan had been left alone enough. It wasn’t just that he was afraid, though that was a large part. But there was nothing to be afraid of at Judd’s house. As far as he knew, none of the people who had invaded Lionel’s house even knew about Judd or his place. Ryan felt safe enough there.

But also, Ryan had no brothers or sisters. He and his parents had been the extent of his family, and he’d had enough alone time when they were alive. That’s why he had spent so much time with Raymie Steele, who had also disappeared in the vanishings.

Ryan was slowly adjusting to the fact that his parents were gone. They were still on his mind almost every minute of the day, and he often woke up between midnight and dawn, wishing this were all just a bad dream from which he would soon wake up. He had cried until he was sure there were no more tears, and then cried some more. He was embarrassed about that, being the youngest and noticing that the others didn’t seem to cry much. But one night he had woken up with his sad thoughts and heard two of the others—he guessed Vicki and Lionel—sobbing in their beds too.

There was nothing wrong with that. What could be worse than losing your parents? Only missing out on going to heaven with them, Ryan figured. He put out of his mind the fact that his parents had not been Christians and that unless something very strange and very quick had happened before they died, it was likely they weren’t in heaven now.

Ryan wandered into the kitchen, where he found Lionel eating a sandwich. “Want something?” Lionel asked, his mouth full.

“Nah. Just bored.”

“Wish we were down there for the sting,” Lionel said. “I want to see LeRoy get his.”

Ryan nodded, and the phone rang. It was Talia. “For you,” Ryan said. Lionel had given her his number the night she had driven him to see André.

Lionel pointed at the rest of his sandwich and nodded, and Ryan decided he was hungry after all. He finished the sandwich while Lionel talked with Talia.

Vicki Byrne had been involved in a lot of mischief in her young life, but she decided this was about as exciting and scary as anything she had ever done. She was crouched behind a low table next to Judd. They were in a perfect position to peek over the top and through a huge one-way mirror that gave them a view of the entire storefront and front door. They could hear perfectly because the whole meeting was being taped in that same room by the police. The storefront was full of hidden microphones so Sergeant Fogarty wouldn’t have to wear a wire, as the police called it. In case the bad guys got suspicious and searched him, he would be clean.

Vicki watched as Fogarty unlocked the front door but opened it only a few inches.

“You can see there that we had an appointment,” LeRoy said, attempting to come in.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen. It does say that on the calendar, if you are . . . ?”

“Banks. Banks and Grey.”

“Yes, but Miss Diablo must have made a mistake. She knew I was off today.”

“But you’re here and we’re here, so let’s get this done.”

“Well, I’d like to, but I have to be in court in half an hour and—”

“This ain’t gonna take no half hour. We were told you had a check for us, and that’s all we need.”

“Really, gentlemen,” Fogarty said, still standing inside the slightly opened door, “this would be much more convenient tomorrow or next week—”

“No!” LeRoy said. “Now we’re here and you’re here and we know you’ve got a check for us, so let’s do this.” He pushed his way past Fogarty, and he and Cornelius planted themselves in chairs at the side of the secretary’s desk.

Fogarty was playing his part to the hilt. “To tell you the truth, gentlemen, I’m going to need you to refresh me on what this is all about.”

LeRoy let his head roll back and he sighed as he stared at the ceiling. “Connie here, that’s Cornelius Grey, he rents an apartment, well, he did anyway, on Halsted. It burned down.”

“Oh yes, and this is about the insurance settlement then,” Fogarty said.

“Exactly.”

“And what is your stake in this, Mr., ah . . . ?”

“Banks. LeRoy Banks. I’ve been paying the rent for Mr. Grey here for several months, so—”

“And why was that?”

“What business is that of yours?”

“Oh, none, I guess. Proceed.”

“Proceed? You proceed. Your secretary said she had a big check for us, so let’s have it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir. Were you expecting the check itself today?”

“Of course! That’s why we’re here!”

“Well, this initial meeting was just for paperwork, signatures, identification, that type of a thing.”

“So, we’ll sign some papers. Let’s get on with it.”

“Well, the documents have to be forwarded to the home office for verification, and then the check can be released.”

“So you’re saying the check hasn’t even been written yet? It’s not here, like she said?”

“Oh, it’s here, but if it’s released before everything is verified by the home office, then I’m in trouble.”

“You know what, Mr. Fogarty,” LeRoy said, his face clouded with rage, “you’re gonna be in trouble with somebody when we leave here, and you better hope it’s the home office.”

“But I can’t—”

“Yes, you can. You give us that check based on our word that we are who we say we are, and you deal with the home office yourself.”

“I’m afraid I can’t—”

“You don’t understand, Mr. Lawyer Man. We’re not negotiatin’. We’re walkin’ out of here with the check.”

Fogarty gulped and looked for the file. Vicki was impressed that there was an actual check in the folder. “OK,” he said, “just let me see some ID so I’m covered.”

Banks and Grey reached for their wallets and produced driver’s licenses. Fogarty made a big show of meticulously copying down every detail. “Now, the check,” LeRoy demanded.

“This is really highly irregular,” Fogarty said.

LeRoy closed his eyes as if struggling for a last sliver of patience. “Just hand it over,” he said.

Fogarty handed it to him, and LeRoy glanced at the figure. He smiled and showed it to Cornelius, then began folding it. Vicki noticed three cops a few feet from her, guns drawn, preparing to burst from the back room. “Hey,” Cornelius Grey said, “wait a minute. What’s that say?”

LeRoy had stood and was shoving the folded check into his pocket when he pulled it back out and studied it. Where his or Grey’s name was supposed to be were the words You’re under arrest.

“What?”

Fogarty flashed a badge from his pocket, “LeRoy Banks, you’re under arrest for the murder of André Dupree and for arson in the case of—”

LeRoy and Cornelius were reaching for their weapons when the cops rushed in. “Don’t even think about it!” one shouted, and the two were disarmed, handcuffed, and led away. Vicki decided it was one of the coolest things she had ever seen.

While Banks and Grey were being read their rights, Vicki heard another police officer on a walkie-talkie telling someone else to “move on Talia Grey.”

Lionel stood in the kitchen of Judd Thompson’s house, watching Ryan finish the rest of his sandwich. Lionel talked with Talia Grey on the phone, wondering what in the world she was so excited about.

“This is the weirdest thing,” she said. “You have to see this. Maybe you’ve already seen it.”

“What, what?”

“It’s a videotape. Connie said it was in the VCR he ripped off from a house not too far from here. Guy on the tape says he’s pastor of New Hope Church or somethin’ and that if we’re watchin’ this, it’s because he’s gone. He’s tellin’ all the stuff we must be going through, and he’s explainin’ what happened, just like what my mamma used to tell me. This is so cool!”

“Yeah, I have seen it,” Lionel said. “Like I told you before, I was the only person in my family who wasn’t a believer. That’s why I was left behind.”

“Me too, I guess,” Talia said sadly.

“You can do something about that, you know,” Lionel said.

“Um-hm,” she said, but from the background Lionel heard a doorbell and a loud knock. He recognized the doorbell as the one at his house, where Talia was. “Jes’ a minute, Lionel,” she said, and he heard rustling, as if she had slid the cellular telephone into a pocket. She had left it on.

As Lionel heard her walk through the house toward the door, he heard the shout, from a woman police officer. “Police, ma’am, open up!”

“I’m coming!” Talia managed. “Did something happen to—?” But her question was drowned out by louder banging on the door. “All right!” she said.

Lionel stood transfixed on the phone, listening as she opened the door.

“Talia Grey?” the policewoman asked.

“Yes! What—?”

“Miss Grey, you’re under arrest for—”

“What? Under arrest? What’d I—?”

“For home invasion, burglary, accessory to murder. . . .”

“What? No! I don’t know anything about—”

She grabbed her phone. “Lionel! Help! I’m being arrested.”

Lionel wanted to tell her there was nothing he could do for her and that actually he was glad she was being dragged from his house. Maybe he could go home soon. But someone grabbed her phone and said, “Who’s this?”

“Lionel Washington,” he said. “You’re at my house.”

“Does Talia Grey have permission to be here?”

“No.”

“And you’re working with Fogarty?”

“Sort of.”

“Thank you, son.”

“Thank you!” Lionel said. And he decided life was crazy.

Judd was fascinated with how cops celebrated a sting that had worked well. They seemed unable to stop grinning. Fogarty and two others he had apparently known from his days in Homicide took Vicki and Judd to a coffee shop, where they sat reminiscing and congratulating each other. Everyone was impressed with the plan Judd had come up with, the performance by Vicki on the phone, and especially Fogarty’s acting. “You sucked them right in,” the older of his cohorts said. “You’ll be back in Homicide in no time.”

“That’s what I want,” Fogarty said. “But the way I hear it, most of you guys have been working double shifts, just like the rest of us working stiffs.”

The cops sympathized with each other about how much work they’d all had to do since the vanishings. “What do you make of it?” Judd blurted, wondering if he should interrupt an adult conversation. But they had treated him almost like an equal up to now.

“Make of what?” Fogarty said, and Judd felt his face redden as everyone’s eyes seemed focused on him.

“The disappearances. Where’d everybody go, I mean, in your opinion?”

Fogarty shook his head. “I’ve heard every opinion from space aliens to Jesus,” he said. “One’s as good as the other, I guess.”

Judd was at a loss for words. What an opening! Bruce had told them to watch for opportunities to talk about the truth, and he predicted that at a time as dark and scary as this, there would be plenty of chances.

The younger detective said, “Seems like all we do is sit around asking each other if we lost anybody in the disappearances. Did you, by the way?”

“Me?” Fogarty said. “Yeah. Two elderly aunts. It was the strangest thing, something that would make you believe God did have something to do with this.”

Something in the way he said that made the others laugh, and Judd wondered why. Was it a joke? Did Fogarty pray that he’d lose the two old aunts? He didn’t get the humor.

“Why do you say that?” Judd asked.

“Oh, it’s just that nobody in our family has ever been religious, except on holidays, you know. Going to church on Easter and Christmas was all part of the routine, but none of us claimed to be church people. But those two aunts of mine all of a sudden changed.”

Judd thought the young cop looked particularly interested. Fogarty kept talking. “They started showing up to family reunions with their Bibles. That was kind of strange. We all had Bibles somewhere. The wife and I have one stashed in a drawer. It was a wedding gift, I think. That was weird, because this is a second marriage for each of us, and we didn’t even get married in a church this time. But one of the aunts gave us that Bible. It was real pretty but it didn’t look right sitting out, so we put it away.”

Judd noticed the young cop lean forward, ignoring his dessert. He had blond hair and wore his side arm in a shoulder holster. “But what about these aunts?” he said. “What’s their story?”

“Well, one of ’em had a husband die, and she kept living in their big old house for six or seven years. Then the other became a widow, and she didn’t want to live in the same house she and her husband had lived in for so many years. So she moved in with the other. They were still young enough to be healthy, and they got out and about quite a bit. Somebody invited them to some kind of a religious meeting. It wasn’t at a church. More like at an auditorium or something. Anyway, they started talking about getting saved and all that. They got religion, that’s all I know. Started going to church and everything.”

The young one, whom Judd thought he had heard Fogarty call Eddie, was still listening intently. Judd didn’t want to admit he had forgotten the man’s name already, so he asked if he had a card. The cop pulled one from his pocket. Judd studied it. His name was Archibald Edwards. No wonder he went by Eddie.

“But these aunts,” Edwards pressed, “they disappeared, didn’t they?”

“Yup.”

“You ever consider maybe they had been saved? I mean, anybody else in your family vanish?”

Fogarty shook his head. “Well, my first wife. And I can’t say I was sorry to see her go.”

The others chuckled, all except Edwards. He was on the trail of something, Judd decided. “She was religious too, right?” Edwards asked.

Fogarty’s body language made it appear he wanted to move on to something else, but he said, “Yeah, matter of fact she was. I think that’s why we split. That and the job.”

“Tell me about it,” Eddie said. “This job’s the enemy of marriage.”

Fogarty nodded. “I was no saint. Gone all the time. I used to drink a good bit, you know.”

The older homicide detective, a balding man with a huge belly, laughed. “That’s an understatement,” he said. “But it was what you did when you were drinkin’ that cost you your first wife.”

“All right,” Fogarty said. “Enough said.”

But Eddie the bloodhound was still on the scent. “So your wife and your two aunts—”

“My first wife.”

“OK, your first wife and your two aunts are the only people in your whole family who were religious, and they’re also the only ones who disappeared. Anybody else see a trend here?”

“We’ve heard and read all about the various theories,” Fogarty said dismissively. “For all I know they were the only left-handers or redheads in the family too.”

“Jeannie?” The old cop said. “Your Jeannie? She wasn’t either one!”

“I’m just sayin’,” Fogarty began.

“I’m telling you,” Eddie said, “there were guys on the job who told me about God and everything, and those guys are gone. It’s got me thinking.”

“That’s dangerous,” the old cop said. Fogarty laughed.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “You guys laugh it off. What if it’s true? What if this was something God pulled off? Where does that leave us?”

Judd turned to see if Fogarty had an answer for that one. Eddie must have taken Judd’s look as agreement. “You brought this up, kid. What’s your take on the vanishings? What do you make of it?”