Friday, July 27
PETER SAT IN HIS COROLLA a half block down the street from Roger’s house, tucked behind a camper in the night shadow of a sprawling oak. It was ten thirty-five and Roger’s Suburban was parked in the driveway, the main floor of his house still brightly lit. If he was working the graveyard shift tonight, he’d be leaving in the next few minutes. If not, Peter would try again tomorrow.
At ten to eleven, just as Peter decided it was time to leave, Roger came running down the front steps, buttoning a blue work shirt. Peter hunkered down in his seat and thought, Good. Roger wouldn’t be back for at least twelve hours.
He waited another ten minutes after the Suburban roared away, then found a parking spot closer to the house. He emerged into the sticky night air and checked the street in both directions, finding it peacefully abandoned. Though Roger had left without turning off the lights, the houses on either side of his were dark, save porch lights and a few dim sources inside, a pilot light over a stove, maybe, or the shifting blue glow of a television set. The neighborhood had settled in for the night.
Heart racing, Peter strolled up the walkway as if he belonged there, then veered right at the base of the porch steps along a cracked cement path that led to a side door, a rickety fence separating Roger’s property from his neighbor’s. Here, between the houses, it was pitch dark and a few degrees cooler, and Peter realized he was trembling.
He continued past the side door, crouching now, and stepped onto desiccated lawn, dead grass crunching under his feet. The sound startled him and he paused, listening, watching the neighbor’s place for a light or a shifting curtain; but there was nothing, just the distant bark of a dog, a single lone volley and then silence.
Stepping as lightly as he could, he made his way to the small back yard, a low deck back here with a barbeque and some patio furniture, four chairs and a circular table shaded from the moonlight by a striped parasol. The deck creaked when he stepped onto it and Peter froze, thinking, What am I doing here? Thinking, Is this what it’s like to be insane? Is that what I’ve become?
But he crept up to the kitchen window—the one he’d noticed on his first visit here, that damp breeze sifting in through a ten-inch screen, the kind that just stood there, wedged between the window and the sill—and slid the window open, catching the screen before it could fall and make a racket. He rested the screen against the wall and took a last look around.
Nothing had changed.
He stood for a moment with his back pressed to the brick, waiting for the voice of reason to intervene, telling him to replace the screen and go back home, see a shrink and be done with it. Then he slipped into Roger’s kitchen through the open window, his heart a tripping jackhammer in his chest, his clothing sticky with sweat.
His first thought inside was, Motion sensors, and he froze again; but he’d been in Roger’s front hall a couple of times now and hadn’t seen an alarm panel. Still, he looked around for the telltale red glow and saw none. He took a deep breath and kept going, through the kitchen to the main hall and the front entrance, then the staircase to the second floor, trying not to think about what Roger would do to him if he came through that door right now.
He started up the stairs, every footfall creating a dry creak that echoed through the empty house. Then he was in the hallway at the top, the same hallway the kidnapper had trod with the same deliberate stealth. Had he felt the raw fear Peter was feeling now? The same withering sense of trespass? Somehow Peter didn’t think so.
He crept past the master bedroom and picked up his pace, his fear of getting caught doubling with each frantic breath. Jason’s door was closed and Peter got that same whiff of stale air when he pushed it open. The room was dark, the only light that eerie orange wash from the streetlights outside, filtered through gauzy curtains. He gave his eyes a few seconds to adjust, then tip-toed to the train set, as if Jason were asleep in here rather than lost to the world. He did not look at the bunk bed.
The train cars were small, each an easy fit for a child’s palm, and Peter reached for the shiny black engine. Then he paused, wondering if Roger came in here at night, the way he, Peter, sometimes did in David’s empty room. Wondered if he’d notice the missing engine.
There were about a dozen boxcars between the engine and an authentic-looking caboose, and Peter took one of these instead, joining the remaining ones together to hide the gap. Then he tucked the boxcar into his pocket.
He left the house quickly, replacing the screen in the window, then briskly retracing his steps to the front of the house, trying not to run. Halfway down the front walk, he saw a police cruiser roll to a stop at the curb, the passenger window humming open. Hesitating only slightly, he continued his strolling pace to the sidewalk, returning the nod of the female officer who looked up at him from the shotgun seat. From this angle he couldn’t see the driver. Absurdly, he found himself picturing which way he’d run if it was him they were after.
“’Evening, sir,” the officer said.
“’Evening,” Peter said.
There was a burst of chatter over the radio in there, then the woman said, “You didn’t happen to see a gang of about five boys run by here in the past few minutes, did you?”
“Afraid not,” Peter said, pointing back at the house. Sweat was running into his eyes. “I was just visiting a friend. Watching a movie.”
“Where are you parked?”
He pointed at the Corolla across the street. “Right over there.”
“All right. Get to your car quickly, sir. These boys just assaulted an elderly gentleman walking his dog. Beat him up pretty bad. We’ll wait right here until you’re safely inside.”
“Will do,” Peter said and started away on legs made of rubber. “And thanks.”
The woman nodded again, her expression sober, and Peter wondered if that was part of their training, that stern look they all wore, like those palace guards in England who stood like mannequins no matter what distractions were aimed at them.
Verging on hysterical laughter, he gave the cops a wave and climbed into his car, starting the engine as they pulled away, Jason Mullen’s tiny metal boxcar digging into his hip.
* * *
Peter said, “Sorry to call so late.”
“Not a problem,” Erika said, sounding wide awake. Peter heard the bright chatter of ice cubes against glass. “Just having a drink and watching the tube. Where are you?”
“In your driveway.”
Erika laughed. “Are you stalking me, Doctor Croft?”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, it’s late.”
“Nonsense. I was kidding. Come ahead in.”
Peter hung up and went to the door. Erika was already there, waiting for him in the narrow foyer. She led him inside and offered him a drink, which he gratefully accepted. “All I’ve got is gin and tonic,” she said and Peter said that would do fine. She brought it to him on the couch and Peter took a long swallow, the liquor bringing water to his eyes.
“Whoa,” Erika said, settling in beside him. “Rough night?”
Peter said, “You have no idea,” and dug the toy boxcar out of his pocket.
Erika gazed at it with widening eyes. “He didn’t give that to you, did he.”
Peter said, “No,” and held it out to her. “Can we do this?”
Erika put her drink on the table but didn’t take the boxcar. She said, “He hasn’t been back to group, you know,” and Peter lowered his arm. “Not since the last time you guys were there together. Have you seen him lately?”
“No.”
She pointed at the boxcar. “Then how did you get that?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“You broke into his house?”
Peter held the toy out again. “Please, Erika. Can we do this?”
Erika was silent for a beat, her eyes unreadable. Then she looked firmly at him and said, “If we do, Roger can never know.”
“Of course.”
“I mean it, Peter. No matter what the outcome. My instincts are telling me to refuse you. This is very personal stuff, and if it were me, I’d be furious to learn that people I trusted had gone behind my back.”
She was right, of course, and though Peter’s own instincts were screaming at him to pocket the stolen toy and forget the whole thing, he said, “You have my word.”
“The only reason I’m even considering this is that you’ve got a vested interest. Like it or not, you’re involved.”
“I understand.”
She stared at him a moment longer, as if reading him, then began rubbing her palms against her thighs, shifting her gaze to the boxcar now, a prosaic object that had once brought happiness to a child. Her breathing deepened and slowed, and Peter heard her whisper something, like a monk at prayer. Then she picked up the boxcar, her hand folding into a fist around it, and now her whole body stiffened, a pained gasp coming from her throat. Just as abruptly she relaxed and a tear escaped one staring eye. As she turned to face Peter, she dropped the boxcar into her lap.
“Jason is alive,” she said, her voice breaking. “I saw him...sleeping in the dark. But he’s in danger, Peter. They’re going to let him die...”
“Who’s going to let him die?”
Erika was sheet white now, breathing hard. She pointed at the boxcar in her lap, saying, “Take it. Please.”
Peter picked up the toy and put it back in his pocket. “Who’s going to let him die? Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Erika said, rising now, stumbling over his feet as she brushed past him, heading for the back of the apartment. “I need you to leave now, Peter. Please. Just twist the lock on your way out.” She paused by the planter separating the living area from the rooms beyond; to Peter she appeared on the verge of collapse. “That’s all I can tell you right now,” she said. “Really. But if you’d like, maybe we can talk about it more another time.”
Peter stood. “Are you all right?”
“Just go,” Erika said.
Then she was gone and Peter heard her footfalls, heavy and fast, and now the slam of a door followed by the unmistakable sound of retching. He considered going back there to check on her, but decided against it. She was a grown woman.
He let himself out, locking the door behind him. The night sky was flawless, a vast indigo vault flecked with diamonds, and Peter walked beneath it to his car, feeling even more bewildered than he had when he came here. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected from all of this, but what he’d just witnessed, authentic or otherwise, was of little value to him. The only thing he knew for certain was that David—his spirit, his essence, some immutable part of his son—was trying to tell him something. And about that part of it Erika had been correct: he needed to keep his mind open, do his best to decipher the signs. What he could not do anymore was sit passively by and wait. Whatever this was, it was about Jason Mullen and his missing look-alike, Clayton Dolan. That seemed as good a place as any to begin.
Peter knew he wasn’t a detective or even particularly intuitive. He’d spent the better part of his life believing only in what his senses told him was real. And what that brand of self-reliance had taught him was that knowledge was power, and that the path to knowledge was simple: research. He also knew that a hundred different people could examine the same body of evidence and see it in only one light—and that sometimes, all that was required to uncover the truth was a fresh pair of eyes.
He drove home and opened the Child Find site, bringing up the image of the boy who had lured him into this nightmare in the first place. Little Clayton Dolan.
* * *
The information on the site was surprisingly scant, something Peter hadn’t noticed before, his attention at the time focused almost exclusively on the boy’s image. What he did notice now was the age-enhanced photo of Clayton Dolan, displayed next to the one he’d first seen on the hospital bulletin board. Clayton had been almost six when he was abducted. The age-enhanced photo depicted him at twelve, digitally bridging the years since his disappearance.
At first glance, the twelve-year-old Clayton bore little resemblance to Clayton at six. The facial features were longer and more lean, the hair style modified to reflect current trends, the kid’s missing baby teeth replaced by a more mature set. And yet, on closer inspection, one could easily discern the likeness, most notably in the eyes, but also in the shape of the nostrils and ears, and in the way the boy’s smile altered the rest of his face. Peter could see how it might be a useful tool.
He printed the page in color, then did the same for Jason Mullen—whose photo had not yet been age-enhanced—starting a hardcopy file for each of them. He turned up similar information on another site, The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, but learned little more beyond the salient details of time and place.
He wanted to find out more about the Dolan case in particular, the kind of in-depth information Roger had given him about Jason’s abduction that day on the porch. It occurred to him then to look for any pertinent news articles. The abduction of a child was always big news, at least for the first several weeks.
He referred again to his printed information on Clayton Dolan. The boy had been taken in broad daylight from the back yard of his parents’ farmhouse in the Ottawa Valley, near the village of Fitzroy. The contact numbers at the bottom of the page included one for the Center for Missing & Exploited Children and a second for the Arnprior Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police. Peter had been to Arnprior a few times during his residency, visiting a respiratory tech who’d moved there after completing her training in Ottawa. He remembered it as a quaint rural town west of Ottawa, about an hour’s drive from the U of O campus. Fitzroy he’d never heard of.
He typed ‘Arnprior’ into the search engine and came up with a site called Welcome to Arnprior. Under Municipal Services, he found a map that showed the town nestled along the south bank of the Ottawa River. Using the zoom function, he located the village of Fitzroy about fifteen miles east of Arnprior. He printed a copy of the map and added it to the Dolan file.
He thought of another site he wanted to check, one David had introduced him to called Google Earth, and as he opened it he recalled his son getting off the bus one day last fall, excitedly digging through his school bag, bringing out a dog-eared satellite photo of a residential street. “Look, Dad,” he’d said, standing on the lawn with his school bag sliding off his shoulder, pointing at the greenish printout. “Know what this is?” Peter studied it briefly before admitting he had no clue. “It’s our house, Dad. See?” And there it was, the brown-shingled roof he’d paid a fortune for the previous spring, and the pool in the back yard, a turquoise gem in a bed of green. He thought he could even see his car in the driveway. It made him think of some of the things he and Dana had done in what they’d believed was the privacy of their own back yard. He and David had spent hours on the site that evening, zooming in on everyone’s house they could think of, making copies David wanted to give to them later. They’d had a ball with the thing.
He typed ‘Fitzroy’ into the search window and a lifelike globe of the earth spun slowly toward him, the focus sweeping out of the northern United States to zoom in on a rectangle of land centered by the village of Fitzroy, the illusion of movement giving Peter a brief sensation of vertigo. The place looked small and remote, an oval-shaped collection of quiet streets and rural souls, perched like its nearest neighbor, Arnprior, on the bank of the Ottawa River. Zooming out, Peter could see little for miles around but farmland, a tidy quiltwork of open fields and scattered homesteads.
Somewhere in this idyllic setting, a monster had surfaced and taken a child.
Peter reopened the Arnprior site, searching without success for the name of a local paper. Trying a different tack, he entered ‘Canadian Newspapers’ and found a comprehensive list arranged by province, but the only ones he could come up with for the Arnprior area were weeklies. Getting discouraged, he scrolled down to the listings for Ottawa, the nearest major city, and opened a link to The Ottawa Citizen, a paper he’d delivered as a boy. The site offered a 7-day archive, which Peter opened in the hope of accessing a wider time frame. Next to the 7-day search window was a second option offering articles from 16 major papers ranging as far back as 1997. The catch was, full text printouts cost $4.75 CDN per document, plus applicable taxes. The documents, once chosen, were then delivered by email.
Peter grumbled his way through the registration process and carried on.
Soon he was into the meat of the story, a deluge of information detailing the early days of the case, then, over the course of the ensuing weeks, the gradual—and inevitable—tapering off.
* * *
By sunup Peter had compiled a fairly comprehensive profile of the Dolan case, many of the details of which filled him with sorrow. The boy’s mother, Margaret Dolan, was clearly the hardest hit by the child’s disappearance. For this unfortunate woman, it was as if one tragedy spawned the next, an insidious ripple that grew into a tsunami, engulfing everything in its path.
Prior to her son’s abduction Mrs. Dolan had been the family’s principal breadwinner, her spouse, Lionel Dolan, on long-term disability due to chronic back problems. The Dolans had one other child, Aaron, twelve at the time of his brother’s kidnapping. According to one article from a tabloid called The Seeker, Aaron had been playing outside with his brother that day, the kidnapper striking the older boy from behind with a rock and leaving him for dead, the whole incident taking place not ten feet from the house. Though Peter had always shunned the tabloids, The Seeker article was among the most detailed he could find, providing a thoughtfully worded account of that terrible day and the lengthy ordeal that followed. The website also gave access to a photo gallery that included ground-level and aerial views of the farm itself, and a video clip of the tearful appeal the boy’s mother had made on national television just hours after the abduction. Watching the video, Peter couldn’t help but imagine Roger and his wife making a similar plea, using their son’s name repeatedly during the interview, as Margaret did, attempting to humanize the child to a faceless deviant who almost certainly didn’t care, who was perhaps even amused by the entire spectacle, or in his own mind, deified by it.
From other sources he learned that Margaret Dolan later spent thirteen months in a psychiatric hospital following a vicious attempt she made on the life of her husband, whom she blamed for allowing the abduction to occur. Apparently Lionel Dolan had been in the house at the time of the incident, nursing his back pain with a bottle of scotch. According to another article, Margaret’s break with reality progressed from a period of unappeasable rage to a state of catatonia, which persisted for the first three months of her incarceration. And though her husband’s lawyers pushed for an attempted murder conviction, Margaret was remanded to the care of a team of psychiatrists until such time as she was deemed fit to return to her home and her remaining son. A few weeks after the brief trial, Lionel Dolan went on a drinking jag with a couple of his buddies and slammed Margaret’s car into a bridge abutment, killing all three of them instantly.
Peter ran the video clip again, his heart going out to this tall, big-boned woman left to face this tragedy alone. She stood in sunlight on the steps of a quaint, well-kempt farmhouse, whitewashed clapboard with lush flowerbeds and a cane rocker on the porch, doing her best to dam back the tears until she’d had her say. “I’m begging you,” Margaret Dolan said, the camera gliding in smoothly to lock on her dark eyes, her trembling, down-turned mouth, “whoever you are. Please, let my son go. Let Clayton go. I’m his mother and he needs me, Clayton needs his ma. Clayton’s a brave boy and he’s smart. Just let him go. He knows his phone number and his address. Let Clayton go now and he’ll find his way home. Do that and I promise, I’ll do anything you ask. I’ll—”
Unable to stand any more, Peter clicked on the pause button and stared at the woman’s face, thinking, What now?
And then he knew.
He dug the boys’ pictures out of the files he’d created and lined them up on the desk in front of him. What he needed was a willing confederate, someone with nothing to lose and everything to gain from the resolution of this maddening puzzle. And since Roger had withdrawn his involvement, his next most logical ally was staring out at him from the computer screen, her plain face frozen in torment.
Peter closed the video window and returned to the photo gallery on The Seeker site, finding an aerial shot of the Dolan property that had caught his eye earlier on. Though the shot was blurry, he could discern the general layout of the area—a dirt road cutting in from route 22, ending in a T with a short arm on the right that led to what Peter assumed was another farm, the arm on the left, this one much longer, running on a gentle curve to the Dolan place. He flipped back through his notes until he found the name of the cutoff from Route 22: Muldoon’s Crossroad.
Now he brought up the Google Earth site and typed Fitzroy, Ontario into the search window. When the image resolved into focus, he found route 22 and followed it east, zooming in closer as he soared overhead, pulling the smaller side roads into focus.
And there it was, Muldoon’s Crossroad, neatly bisecting Route 22. Peter followed it north to the T, zooming in to bring the Dolan farm into focus at the center of the screen. A sidebar showed the viewing altitude at twelve hundred feet, but when he tried to move any closer the image started to blur. He printed a copy and added it to his files.
As he tossed a change of clothes into an overnight bag and climbed into his car—about to embark on a six-hour drive with no sleep and an empty stomach, planning to approach a complete stranger with a bizarre and baseless theory—it occurred to Peter—again—that perhaps he was losing his mind. Perhaps the best thing for him now would be a nice long stay in a padded cell at Algoma Psychiatric.
But by the time he got the car up to cruising speed, rolling east on Highway 17, what he was doing seemed not only sane, but inevitable. As crazy as it might appear to an outside observer, Peter was convinced his son was guiding him, and that he was on the right path. He wasn’t a stupid man. He had a degree in medicine, had at one time even considered a career in psychiatry. And on a strictly clinical level, he understood that everything he’d experienced up to this point could fairly be ascribed to the complex fallout of unresolved grief and the accompanying phenomena of sleep deprivation and flagging nutrition. He’d pondered these truths countless times and, as a clinician standing on the other side of the fence, would have used these very arguments weeks ago to explain this all away. But living it, feeling the truth of it in his every fiber, he had no choice but to act. Exactly what he hoped to achieve by sharing his beliefs with Margaret Dolan had not yet fully crystallized in his mind. Maybe when she saw the boys’ pictures, their unmistakable likeness, she’d recall something that had escaped her before, some apparently inconsequential detail which, in this new light, unearthed a link, however fragile. And maybe she’d just send him packing, as Roger had. He didn’t know. Right now he was simply following his heart.
He got a rock station blaring and settled back in his seat, running through different scenarios in his mind, how he’d approach Margaret Dolan, never doubting for an instant that he could find her, never fearing that she might run him off her farm, have him arrested for trespassing or worse.
* * *
After stopping for gas and a late breakfast in Mattawa, two hours east of Sudbury, Peter made the balance of the trip nonstop, pulling into Arnprior at two forty-five that afternoon. Using a map of the area he’d purchased in Mattawa, he followed Route 22 past the turnoff to the village of Fitzroy, checking every side road until he realized he’d gone too far. None of the roads up here had signs, and when he failed on his second pass to find Muldoon’s Crossroad, he pulled into a homestead that edged on the highway, a two-story farmhouse in a cluster of shade-trees, an assortment of sagging outbuildings arrayed haphazardly around it.
There was an old guy in a straw hat and faded coveralls sitting on the porch in a weathered Adirondack chair, and as Peter climbed out of the car the man nodded and said, “Help ya?” through a toothless grin.
Peter said, “Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind. I’m looking for Muldoon’s Crossroad.”
“Figured,” the old man said, tugging that brimmed straw hat a little further down over his eyes. “Seen you go by the first time. Reporter?”
“No.”
“Writer, then?”
Something told Peter to say, “Yes.”
“Figured that, too. The Dolan boy, right?”
Peter turned the engine off and shut the car door. “That’s right. How did you know?”
The man grinned again. “Hers’s the only place up there. And you ain’t the first come up here tryna get her story. Word to the wise, though, chum. You can go on up there and try, but I can tell you right now, you’ll be lucky if Maggie gives you the time of day. She thinks people like you’re bloodsuckers, aiming to get rich off the misery of others.”
Peter thought, Shit, why did I lie? and the old man patted the arm of the chair next to his. “But if you got a minute,” he said, the grin cagey now, “I can tell you most of it. It was my place she run to the night she took the pigsticker to ol’ Lionel.”
Peter made his way up the steps, trying to clear the fog of exhaustion from his head. As he passed the screen door, he heard a clatter of pans in there and caught a whiff of fresh bread.
The old man came partway out of his chair, stuck his hand out and said, “Wife’s baking. Name’s Albert Muldoon, pleased to meetcha. Crossroad’s named after my daddy. He’s an Albert, too.”
Peter felt his hand swallowed in Albert’s iron grip, the man’s hand all knuckles and grizzled callous. “Peter Croft,” he said, trying not to wince. He liked the old guy right away, those clear blue eyes shaded by the brimmed hat he kept adjusting like a cowboy, that gummy grin and laid back way of talking.
Peter slumped into the empty chair and sighed.
“Long drive?” Albert said.
“Six hours.”
“Can’t hack a run like that anymore,” Albert said. “Hips are gone.” He picked up a beer can from the porch beside his chair and showed it to Peter. “Get you one of these?”
“Thanks, no. I’ve still got some driving to do.”
“Some of Myrtle’s fresh lemonade, then? Myrt’s the wife. If I’m swift, I bet I can snag us a couple tea biscuits, too, fresh outa the oven.”
Peter didn’t want anything, but the old man was already out of his chair, his hunched gait arthritic but spry, hinting at the young man he’d once been. At a glance, Peter put him at around eighty years old.
“Besides,” Albert said, opening the screen door, “if we’re gonna have us a chinwag out here, I’ll be needing my teeth.” He gave Peter that gummy grin again and Peter had to grin back. “You sit tight,” Albert said. “I’ll be right back.”
The screen door clapped shut and Peter put his head back, the breeze cooling his light sweat, its chatter in the trees a gentle soporific. With his eyes closed he listened to the crickets’ chirr and now the rising buzz of a cicada, the sound impossibly loud in this peaceful rural setting. In an instant he was fast asleep.
Though it couldn’t have been long, when the screen door clapped again and Peter opened his eyes, he felt better, dreamy and relaxed.
“Country air,” Albert said, the grin filled with perfect white teeth now. “Getcha every time.” He handed Peter a tall glass of lemonade. Peter thanked him and Albert said, “Myrt’ll be along in a minute with the biscuits.”
Before Peter could comment, a round, blue-haired woman in a plain cotton dress came through the door with a plate of steaming tea biscuits. Albert took the plate, saying, “Pete, this is Myrt,” huffing when Myrtle started chatting with Peter, shaking his head as she waddled back inside. “You don’t want to start that woman up,” he said and took a biscuit, resting the plate on the wide arm of Peter’s chair. Peter took one, too, butter already slathered through its spongy middle. He took a bite and said, “Delicious.” Albert gave him a wink.
“Peter Croft,” Albert said now, taking a slurp of his beer. “Not ringing any bells. You write anything I might’ve read?”
“If I decide to do this one,” Peter said, feeling bad about the lie, “it’ll be my first.”
“I only read Westerns, anyway,” Albert said, fiddling with his hat again. “Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, that ilk.” He angled himself in his chair, turning to face Peter head on. “So what do you wanna know?”
Peter said, “All of it.”
Albert eyed him with a hint of suspicion. “You don’t have a tape recorder or nothing?”
Peter raised a finger to his temple. “Never forget a word.”
“If you say so,” the old man said. Then he fixed Peter with his keen, knowing eyes. “The way I see it, things started turning to shit for Maggie Dolan the day Lionel threw his back out and decided to go on the public tit. It wasn’t long before that waste of skin was drinking every dime and Maggie had to look for work in Arnprior. This’d be twelve, thirteen years back now, Maggie still a presentable-looking woman in them days, before she packed on all the weight.”
Peter remembered the tall, angular woman he’d seen in the video and couldn’t imagine her overweight.
“She lucked into an office job with a lawyer down there’d just hung out his shingle,” Albert said. “Maggie didn’t know the first thing about typing or computers, but she’s a fast learner and a hard worker...and the way I heard it, lawyer-boy’s interest in the woman wasn’t entirely professional, if you catch my drift.”
Peter took a bite of his biscuit and did his best to suppress a smile, realizing he was in the presence of the county gossip. He nodded, urging the old boy on.
“In them days, word was little Clayton came compliments of the legal eagle, too. If you’d ever set eyes on Lionel, you’d know what I’m talking about. Must’ve been an Injun in the woodpile somewhere in that fella’s clan. Aaron, Maggie’s other boy, he come out the same way—black hair, dark eyes and skin. That boy’s not all there, though. Never has been. Maggie had him in school in the village the first year or so, then took to homeschooling him, evenings mostly, as much as the boy could learn. By the time Clayton come along, ol’ Lionel was so addled with the booze he didn’t seem to notice the blond hair and blue eyes. Or maybe he just didn’t care. The lawyer fired Maggie the day he found out she was pregnant, and for my money that’s all the proof a body needs. But that’s neither here nor there. It all came out after the boy disappeared, the affair, but by that time the lawyer’d married and had two kids of his own. Cops cleared him of any involvement on day one.”
Albert took a bite of his biscuit and washed it down with a slug of beer. Intruding on the quiet, an old Pony tractor came over the hill on Route 22, hauling a load of manure. As it hummed past the house, Albert waved to the young man sitting shirtless at the wheel, and the young man waved back. “Garnet Teevens’ boy,” Albert said and popped the last of his snack into his mouth. He looked at Peter and said, “Sure you don’t want to jot a few notes?” spitting little missiles of tea biscuit onto the porch as he spoke.
“I’m good,” Peter said, touching his temple again.
Albert grinned and gave his head a shake. Then his expression grew dark. “Hell of a thing, that kidnapping. The last thing folks around here ever expected. Son of a bitch come out of nowhere, brained young Aaron with a rock, opened a gash like that in his scalp—” he showed Peter a space between his fingers about two inches long “—then run off God knows where with wee Clayton. Cops tried to get a description out of Aaron, but the boy never even seen the man, it happened that quick. When Aaron come to, he run in’n told Lionel what happened—Maggie was at work by this time, waitressing for that Chinese outfit in town—but Lionel was already half in the bag and didn’t believe him. Told him to go wash his face he was bleedin’. Maggie told me the whole story the night she took the knife to Lionel, her sitting right where you are now, waiting for the cops to come arrest her. What a scene that was. Ambulance, cop cars tearing up the yard. Myrt had Aaron in the kitchen back there, trying to calm the boy down. Maggie’d chased him through the fields with the knife, meaning to gut him too, I expect. Good thing the boy had the sense to head over here. Was all I could do to wrassle that woman down’n get the knife off her, she was that far gone. Snapped like a piece of kindling, that drunken fool setting her off. Clayton’d been gone a few months by this time and everyone’d pretty much given up hope of ever finding him. Everyone but Maggie. Lionel was stoked to the gills that night’n started in on her, telling her it was time she quit her whining, the kid was gone and that was the end of it. Told her if she wanted another he’d plant one in her right there on the kitchen table. That’s when she snapped, and who could blame the woman?”
Peter just shook his head.
“There was a trial, but by that time Maggie’d pretty much closed up shop.” Mimicking Peter, Albert pointed to his temple and grinned without humor. “That little boy meant the world to her. Had all her hopes wrapped up in him. Carted him around with her everywhere, even brought him to work a couple times ’til the Chinaman put a stop to it. Maggie’s got a sister, Marie, runs the corner store in Fitzroy, and after Lionel’s boozing got out of hand, she took to leaving the boy there while she was working. Myrt helped her out a few times, too. That day, though, we was down to Arnprior for a funeral and Marie was in the hospital having a hysterectoday—”
Peter heard Myrtle shout, “Hysterectomy,” and covered his mouth with his hand.
Albert scowled at the screen door, saying, “Nosey Parker,” then returned his gaze to Peter. “So that day Maggie was strapped. This was in June—goddam—six years ago now. And here’s where the woman went wrong. She made Aaron responsible. Now don’t get me wrong, the boy ain’t that bad. Not all the way retarded. Just...slow. Can’t stay focused.”
From the kitchen Myrtle said, “Like someone else we know,” and Peter laughed out loud.
Albert made an angry face, but his eyes were shining. He said, “Remember what I told you about that woman?” To Myrtle he said, “We’re tryna have a conversation out here,” and scooped up another biscuit. He took a bite and said, “This’s the only reason I put up with her. Go ahead, have another.”
Peter did, saying, “I did some research before coming down here. I know Mrs. Dolan was institutionalized for more than a year.”
“That’s right. Royal Ottawa, lockdown wing. Aaron spent that year in the village with his aunt. Boy seemed happier’n a clam down there, too, pumping gas, delivering groceries on his bike.”
“I also read that Lionel died in an accident.”
“Ejit was an accident. Took two mean bastards with him and good riddance to the lot. The only smart thing Maggie ever done where Lionel was concerned—besides putting a knife in him—”
“Albert.”
This time the old man ignored his wife’s admonition and went on, lowering his voice a shade. “The only smart thing she done was take out a term policy on the man. Gave her a nice little nest egg when she got out. That plus the fund the church set up. Myrt helped out with that. Amazing, really, once word got out about the boy, donations rolling in from concerned Christians all over the world. Tallied up a few hundred thousand before they was done. Far as I know, she’s still living off that money.”
Though Peter was enjoying the old man’s yarn, he wanted to take a shot at meeting Margaret Dolan before it got too late in the day. Most of what Albert was telling him he’d already learned on his own. What he wanted to know now was how to find her.
He stood, reaching over to shake Albert’s hand, the old man looking surprised and a little disappointed.
“There’s a lot more,” Albert said.
“I’m sure there is,” Peter said, “and with your permission we’ll talk again. But right now I’d like to go see if she’ll talk to me.”
Albert nodded, standing now too. “Fair enough. But if it don’t work out and you’re of a mind, come on back and we’ll feed you supper. Myrt’s got a roast in the oven, there’s more’n enough.”
Peter thanked him again and headed for the steps, saying, “Thanks, Mrs. Muldoon,” as he passed the screen door. There was no reply.
At the foot of the steps, Albert pointed up the highway and said, “Road’s right there at the top of the hill. People always miss it ’cause they’re too busy watching to see what’s coming over the hill. Slow ’er right down and you can’t miss it. Hang left, then left again at the foot of the crossroad. The old Misner place used to be up there on the right, but she burned flat back in ’98. The Dolans’ve lived alone back there ever since. Hardly ever see Maggie anymore. The odd time at church or doing her groceries in town, but even then the woman keeps pretty much to herself. Never been the same since losing her boy.”
Peter believed he understood. He thanked the old farmer again and got in his car, waving as he pulled onto Route 22. At the top of the hill, he turned left onto a narrow dirt road that angled sharply upward at first, then sloped gently down until it ended at the T he’d seen on the map. He glanced to his right, at the jutting, overgrown remains of the house Albert said had burned down, then turned left toward the Dolan farm, a quarter mile to the north.
* * *
A neglected looking L-shaped barn, the first thing Peter saw, stood in isolation far back to the right of the road, its sun-bleached boards roofed by rusted corrugations of tin. A broken line of trees blocked his view of the house, and it wasn’t until he’d angled past it into the yard that he saw the rest of the compound. To his immediate right stood a tall, barracks-like row of three buildings joined end to end, the first of them clearly a garage, its faded white doors latched shut, the other two long since boarded up. Then came the house itself, a smallish two-story wood-frame bearing little resemblance to the homey dwelling Peter had seen in the video. At a glance the place looked uninhabited, forgotten, the once lush flowerbeds overrun with weeds, the unmowed lawn scabbed with disease, the full-length porch and clapboard walls screaming for paint. It was hard to imagine a place could deteriorate so thoroughly in just a few years. It occurred to Peter that perhaps the remaining Dolans had simply pulled up stakes and moved on, their reclusive habits leaving their nearest neighbors none the wiser. There was no vehicle in the yard, no sign of life whatsoever.
Then Peter saw curtains in the dusty windows, and as he circled the turnaround, sheets fluttering in the breeze on a clothesline out back. He parked in front of the porch steps, slipped the boys’ photos out of the folder on the seat beside him and emerged into the dusty heat. He started up the steps to the screen door and heard a muffled shout from deep inside the house, then footfalls, distant and heavy, followed by a muted slam.
He approached the screen hesitantly, feeling like a trespasser now, fearful of a barnyard dog or a jealous boyfriend, thinking this had been a dumb and impulsive idea. He could feel the words he’d rehearsed turning to ash in his mouth.
He knocked twice and stood with his nose to the rusty screen, the sun at his back printing a rectangle of glare onto the cracked linoleum in there, casting the hallway beyond into a well of darkness.
Fresh footfalls now, scuffing toward him out of the shadow of the hall. Common etiquette bade him step back a few paces—he had his face pressed to the screen like a kid at a glass candy counter—but Peter held his ground, watching a ghostly mass resolve into a large woman, the details vague at first, sharpening as light dissolved shadow.
Then she was bathed in the sun’s glare, her dark eyes narrow in a face that was set in wariness, her body gliding toward him with a litheness Peter had seen in big people before. She had put on weight since that video was shot, but it wasn’t fat, not the doughy variety he saw on more than half the patients who came through the OR back home. This woman was full-figured and robust. And she had to be six feet tall, her close-cropped hair peppered with gray.
“Mrs. Dolan,” Peter said before she got to the door, the words rushing out of him. “My name is Peter Croft. I’m a doctor from Sudbury and I’ve got something I’d like to show you.”
She stopped inside the screen and wiped her hands on her apron. “If you’re selling something,” she said, her voice huskier than he remembered it from the video, “I’m not interested. You didn’t see the No Trespassing sign out there by the turnoff?”
He hadn’t and he told her so, apologizing for the oversight, saying, “But I’m not here to sell you anything.” He held up the two sheets of printer paper, the images turned discreetly away from her. Recalling Roger’s reaction, he didn’t want to blow it before he got started. He said, “I wonder if I could come inside? Or you could join me out here for a few minutes?”
“Listen, Mister...Croft, is it?” Peter nodded. “I’m busy and I don’t appreciate people just wandering in here, ignoring the sign I nailed out there myself, in plain sight. Now if you don’t mind—”
“It’s about Clayton,” Peter said, and saw her face clench like a fist, her dark eyes widening to look him up and down, gauging, Peter assumed, how little trouble she’d have tossing him off her porch. He took a step back from the screen.
Maggie Dolan said, “What about him?”
“If we could talk out here...”
Her hands dropped to her sides, her stance like that of a gunslinger. In a calm, modulated tone she said, “I’m about to walk away from this door, Mr. Croft, and go back inside to call the police. State your business, from where you’re standing, and do it now. If you knew the first thing about me, you’d know my boy was taken by a stranger, right here in this yard. For all I know it was you.”
“Look,” Peter said, “I’m sorry. This isn’t going anything like I’d hoped. I didn’t take your son, of course I didn’t. But I have an interest in his disappearance that’s difficult to explain.”
“I suggest you give it a try.”
Peter was beginning to feel intensely uncomfortable. “I have a friend whose son was taken, too. From his bed, three years ago. His resemblance to your son is amazing. Well, here, see for yourself...” He flipped Jason’s picture around and held it up to the screen.
The woman’s eyes widened slightly, then she said, “That’s not my boy,” and backed away, starting to swing the inner door shut.
“Please, Mrs. Dolan, I know it’s not your son. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to talk to you about—”
But the door continued through its arc until it latched. Peter heard it lock, then heard the woman’s receding footfalls.
Tired, discouraged, no shred of the thin logic that had brought him here in the first place remaining in his mind, he turned toward the steps, thinking he’d spend the night in Ottawa, book himself into a nice hotel, the Lord Elgin maybe. Thinking it was time to give up on all this lunacy.
He heard a sound then, a faint metallic jangle, like the rattle of keys only softer. He glanced along the length of the porch and saw a tall, thin boy of perhaps eighteen standing on the other side of the low railing, staring at him through crooked Buddy Holly glasses, a John Deere cap perched ridiculously high on a halo of curly dark hair, a set of dog tags—that jangling sound—slung around his neck on a chain, one of them silver, the other gold, the polished wafers setting off sunflares as the boy tapped his ankle with the baseball bat that hung from his hand.
Startled, Peter said, “Aaron?” but the boy just stood there, his mouth hanging open to show prominent teeth and a thick tongue he ran out every few seconds to wet his lips.
Peter got back in the car and accelerated too quickly, raising a rooster tail of gravel as he blew past the tree line onto the road. What he was leaving behind was a living tragedy, a once strong woman and mother broken by suffering and loss, her sanity fragile at best, its remaining shreds bound by depression, isolation, and paranoia, no one to keep her company but that strange boy, his own mind stalled somewhere in early childhood. For Peter the experience underscored yet again the harrowing cost of the missing child, and as he turned left onto Route 22, heading east toward Ottawa now, he could hear Roger’s voice clearly in his mind, posing one of the most chilling questions he’d ever heard:
“Now can you see how dead is better?”
And God help him, he could.
* * *
The Lord Elgin was booked solid, but Peter found a suite at the Chateau Laurier on Rideau Street. The place was a century-old landmark, its copper roofs and limestone walls mirroring the gothic style of the nearby Parliament Buildings. The interior was sheer opulence, marble floors, high ceilings, brass bannisters, and sparkling crystal chandeliers.
While he was waiting to register, Peter read an inscription on a plaque that said the man who’d commissioned the construction of the hotel in 1907, Charles Melville Hays, never made it to the grand opening in late April of 1912. Hays, a wealthy railway magnate, had been aboard the Titanic, accompanying a load of dining room furniture back from England.
Absorbing this information, Peter felt a stir in a forgotten part of himself, a part that had once reveled in facts like this, a part that would have felt an almost childlike excitement at the prospect of staying in a place like this, the privilege so costly it was pointless even to think about it. It made him feel young again, reminding him of the times before David was born when he and Dana had spoiled themselves, doing things that were reckless and spontaneous, spending money they didn’t have, creating memories they’d cherish forever.
When he got to the check-in counter, the uniformed clerk told him they were having a weekend promotion on some of their executive suites that included a lobster dinner catered in the suite, a double-decker bus tour of the downtown area, and a ticket to a Blue Man Group concert at the old Rialto Theatre on Bank Street. Peter said, “Let’s do it,” and handed over his credit card.
He slept like a baby that night, cocooned in down and air-conditioned comfort, and in the shower next morning decided to treat himself to a nice long holiday as soon as the schedule at work would allow. Australia came immediately to mind, a place he’d always vowed to visit one day. And as ghoulish as it seemed, it occurred to him that Dana’s death had left him more than able to afford such a whimsy, the various life insurance policies she’d insisted on having amounting to well over six hundred thousand dollars, money he hadn’t touched a dime of yet, leaving its investment to the estate planner.
He pulled into Sudbury in mid afternoon and decided on a whim that enough time had gone by to drop in on Roger. The Suburban was parked in the driveway, but when Peter rang the bell there was no response. Standing on the porch, he called Roger’s number on his cell phone and again got no response. He glanced back at the house as he pulled away and saw Roger standing in an undershirt in his son’s bedroom window, staring out into space.
The message light on the answering machine was flashing when Peter got home. There were five messages, one from the Toyota dealership wanting to know if he was pleased with their service, one was a hang-up, and the other three were from Erika. She wanted him to call her back, wanted to discuss what happened the other night. She sounded upset, but Peter just didn’t feel like getting into it with her. He erased the messages and went to bed.
He slept fitfully on that muggy July night, haunted again by his dreams, David’s touch almost electric in its intensity now, his expression in the glare of the summer storm that flared up fretful and distressed. His image lingered tauntingly in the room this time, long enough for Peter to sit up in bed and reach out for him.
And when his son faded like a whisper, Peter drove to the hospital and spent the balance of the night there, lying cramped on the couch in the deserted doctors’ lounge, sleepless and numb.
Just before dawn someone crept in and started picking quietly through the shelves of scrub suits. Pushing up on one elbow under his thin blanket, Peter said, “It’s okay, you can turn on the lights.”
A woman’s voice said, “Oh, okay, thanks,” and the fluorescents ticked and shivered into life, making Peter blink. The woman said, “Sorry to wake you,” and Peter saw that it was Lisa Black.
He said, “Lisa,” and the word hung there. He sat up, running a hand through his hair, rubbing his aching eyes. “No bother,” he said. “I wasn’t really asleep. What are you doing here?”
“A cancer patient of mine is having surgery this morning. I promised her I’d go into the room with her. She’s only four.” She showed him a set of OR greens. “I was just looking for some scrubs.”
Sighing, Peter said, “Lisa, I’ve been meaning to—”
“It’s okay, Peter, I understand.”
“Please, hear me out.” He patted the couch beside him and Lisa glanced at the exit. He said, “I won’t bite, I promise,” and Lisa’s shoulders relaxed. Smiling, she settled in next to him, her small hands fussing with the scrubs she’d chosen.
“I wanted to apologize,” Peter said. “I’ve been meaning to come see you, it’s just...”
She touched his hand and said, “Really, I understand.”
“You did what you had to,” Peter said. “I’d’ve done the same.” He took her hand and squeezed it, gazing into her pale brown eyes. “And believe me, I’m glad you brought me back. There are things I still need to do...for David.”
Lisa tugged her hand away and stood. “I appreciate you bringing it up,” she said, “but there’s really nothing to forgive. I just hope you’re moving on. I know it’s hard, the hardest thing in the world. I see it all the time. But you’ve got to let him go, Peter. You really must let him go.”
She left him then, almost fleeing, the scrubs she’d come in to get forgotten on the couch beside him.
Peter lay curled on the couch again, pulling the blanket over his shoulders, staring at the clock on the wall. And when the first few staff members started filing in, he trudged into the OR to face his day.
* * *
Over the course of the weeks that followed, Peter Croft began to lose track of himself, any thought of Australia or companionship or healing laughter sinking into a kind of sucking black mud that filled his psyche.
* * *
At noon on Wednesday, July 30, Roger Mullen stood with his boss’s nephew outside the cage, a narrow steel elevator that would carry them the last three thousand feet to the surface. Roger had spent the morning giving the seventeen-year-old a VIP tour of the mine, taking him all the way down to 4700 Level, showing him the rich vein of ore they’d been working for the past several weeks.
Now he pointed at the green call button and the kid thumbed it, looking up with wide eyes as the cables in the open shaft shuddered and started rolling.
Roger said, “Won’t be long now,” and turned to see three miners walking toward them from an adjoining tunnel. One of them was Reggie Diggs, a mouthy asshole Roger had gotten into a scrape with about five years ago at a retirement party. The guy was constantly running his mouth and today was no exception, his pals flanking him like groupies, hanging on every word.
Roger heard him say, “I told the bitch to keep her brat quiet when I’m sleeping,” and felt the muscles in his shoulders tense. “How hard is that? When I moved in I told her straight. I work shift, I put food on his plate, he’s got to respect that.”
One of the other guys said, “Right,” and Roger turned his attention to the shaft, the lower half of the double-decker cage dropping into view now. When the rig stopped, he opened the outer gate, then the one to the personnel compartment. He put his hand on the kid’s shoulder to lead him inside and Diggs said, “Hey, Mullen, who’s your new girlfriend?” and his two buddies laughed.
Roger said, “We’re heading up. You boys need a lift?”
Diggs said, “Jeeves, you’re a good man,” and brushed past him into the cage, his confederates right behind him.
The kid positioned himself at the back of the cramped compartment and stood mutely, avoiding eye contact with the men. Roger shut the gate and the cage started moving.
He thought, Three more minutes, and Diggs went back to his story.
“So Sunday morning I’m drifting off and the little peckerwood starts hollering at the top of his lungs. I yell at him to shut the hell up and the kid just ignores me.” One of the lesser assholes said, “Whoa,” like God himself had been provoked, and Diggs said, “So I get up and cuff him one in the ear. The kid starts bawling and now the bitch comes at me and I’ve got to belt her one, too. She threatens to call the cops and I tell her go ahead.”
Without looking at Diggs, Roger said, “You don’t deserve that kid.”
Diggs said, “At least I can protect him,” and Roger drove his fist into the man’s face, shattering his nose, using his full weight to drag Diggs to the floor and piston a few more shots into his bloody beak, the thing already swelling under the vicious assault. Diggs spluttered, “Get this fucker off me,” and his buddies dragged Roger to his feet, needing all of their strength to pin him to the wall. The cage was rocking in its shaft now, banging against the steel guides as it continued its unstoppable ascent, and the kid screamed, tears springing to his eyes.
Looking at the boy, Roger said, “Okay,” and let the men subdue him. Diggs wobbled to his feet, picked up his helmet and slammed Roger in the side of the head with it. Roger saw a sliver of daylight as the cage glided to a stop at the surface, then sagged unconscious to the metal floor.