I left the Bible on my bedside table when I left the room later the next day. I’d watched the clock all day long, trying to concentrate on a book, straightening my room. Anything to pass the time. The anticipation of getting the package Samantha had sent, was killing me. When six o’clock finally arrived, I half ran, half walked to Dylan’s house. The house was dark but the box was sitting on his front step. I pulled at the tape but it was the kind with the string in it and it didn’t tear easily. I was trying to pull it apart with my teeth when his car pulled up.
“So hungry you’re eating boxes now? Don’t they feed you anything in that house?” He said, getting out of his car.
I laughed. “Do you have scissors or a knife?” I followed behind him as he went to the kitchen.
He handed me a steak knife. I cut the tape apart and lifted the flaps. Dylan, still in his suit, watched over my shoulder. My hands shook a little as I pulled out a stack of letters bound with string, a yearbook and manila envelope, laying them all out on the counter in front of me. Dylan took his suit jacket off and threw it on the back of a chair.
“I’m going to change. I’ll be back,” he said.
I nodded after him and took everything to the coffee table in the living room. I cut the string with the knife and opened the letters spreading them before me. They were all from a Josef Heinz. He’d apparently sent the first letter with some money shortly after Nick left Philadelphia. I could gather from the rest of the note that Nick was staying at the home of one of Josef Heinz’s friends. In Maine.
The letter went on to say that Cora’s lawyer had been around the Heinz home looking for Nick. Cora was apparently irate, and was threatening to take some legal action. Nick was only sixteen. She certainly could have called the police. She was his only surviving parent. She kept his room like a shrine, not even so much as changing the sheets on his bed after he left, but she didn’t even lift a finger to get him back. And she didn’t even go to the house herself, but sent some lawyer instead. It made no sense. Dylan passed by in sweat pants and a T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of some Ivy League college.
“Do you want something to eat?” he asked. “I know I must have something here, but God only knows what.” He kept going without waiting for an answer.
I opened the second letter. It was written two months after the first one. Again, it had contained money. He wrote of his concern for Nick’s safety and well being. He said he wouldn’t be able to write often, but that he was thinking about Nick all the time. Cora was still demanding to know where he was living, making idle threats. He’d refused to give her any information. Two months had gone by and all Cora did was ask where he was? No fits of fury? No gnashing of teeth?
Three letters were written when Nick was in school at the University of Southern Maine. Josef Heinz presented Nick with a choice. Live without money and do the best he could, or collect his inheritance and take the risk that Cora would find him. He was of age at that point, and had obviously made his choice. I could testify to the number of student loans he took out to finish school.
The last of the letters was dated nineteen ninety-one. It came shortly after his graduation from the University of Southern Maine. It was short and sweet and full of well wishes. This was the last letter Nick had ever received from this man.
“Dylan?” I called He stuck his head out of the kitchen. “Where’s East Gowen Street?”
“Mount Airy. Not too far from where I used to live. Why?”
“This friend of Nick’s father lives there, or did. I was thinking of going to see him. How’s the neighborhood there now?”
“That part of it’s really nice.” He came out and handed me a coke. “I don’t have anything to feed you but I ordered a pizza. Plain. Is that okay?” He sat on the back of the couch, one leg swinging back and forth, watching me.
I opened the yearbook and sat back. I was flipping through the pages, just trying to get a feel for what Chestnut Hill Academy was like. The classes looked small, maybe fifteen kids. They were all shiny well-bred white faces smiling at me from the pages. Rich, privileged kids. When I found Nick’s picture, I had to look twice to make sure it was really him. It was a group shot and he almost faded into the background. He sat, unsmiling. His face was pale and drawn, his hair fell forward in his face, and he’d apparently not cared enough to brush it back before the flash went off. Part his face was obscured and the rest was nondescript.
“Let me see that.” Dylan leaned forward and took it from my hands. He turned the pages. “Did you notice that no one signed this?” He asked. He handed it back to me. “Hold on, I’ll show you mine.” He disappeared upstairs and came back down a few minutes later. He handed me a book identical to the one in my hand. I opened it. Notes went every which way covering the pages. They were written in that cryptic language that high schoolers use when they write to one another. Dylan took his seat on the back of the couch again, watching me. He had lettered in three sports, soccer, hockey and cross country. I picked up Nick’s book again.
I leaned my head back and looked up at him. “It’s sad. He was so isolated. Not even one teacher signed: good luck, or anything?”
“He probably didn’t ask. So what else’s in that box?”
I picked up the manila envelope and reached inside. I pulled out an old photograph of Ginny. She was sitting on the wrap around porch smiling and waving. It had to be at least twenty years old. The edges were curled and yellow. I handed it to Dylan. When I pulled out the second photograph from the envelope, I knew it even upside down and sideways. The black and white shot of boys sprawled across the grass was an exact duplicate of the one in Cora’s gallery. The small child reaching for the camera, the other three seated in the background. They were dressed in long sleeves, no jacket. No leaves visible. Spring time.
Nick was staring straight into the camera, showing no sign of distress. The boys to the side seemed comfortable in their surroundings. The toddler reaching for the camera was innocent and unafraid. His face was turned sideways, part of a chubby arm, visible. Cora had burned this photograph. Nick had kept it locked up in a safe deposit box. It had significance, connected to something important.
“Do you recognize any of these kids?” I handed it to Dylan.
He scrutinized it for a few minutes. “Its hard to tell, it’s a terrible picture but I think this one,” he pointed to the boy on the far right, “is Phillip Simmons. He went to school with us. His father is a lawyer at the firm.” Dylan flipped his yearbook open and pointed to his senior picture. I stared from one to the other.
“How about the others?”
“I don’t know the others off hand. Is it important?”
“It is to someone. This is the third time I’m seeing this. Cora, Ginny and now Nick. Do you still know Phillip? Can you ask him?”
“I haven’t seen him since graduation. He went to Stanford and never came back here.” He took the picture from me. “Let me make a copy of this? Put it on the internet? See if I can find anything out?”
“Not a good idea. Cora burned it. Nick hid it. I don’t want it out there, but maybe ask discreetly?”
He nodded.
The last thing in the envelope was a coin. Not exactly a coin. It was flat and round like a coin, but it was green. It had a horseshoe printed on it. The name Nick Whitfield was embedded in the metal. It was heavy, not made of aluminum. I turned it over in my hand. A lucky piece. I turned the envelope over and shook it. That was it.
Dylan was doing something to my hair. I could feel it. My hair was in a ponytail. He was pulling at a curl until it was straight and then he’d let it go. It was distracting. I put my hand up to the back of my head.
“Don’t mess up my hair-do. It took me all morning to get it like this.”
Dylan flipped back and forth through his yearbook, staring at the small pictures while we ate. I leaned back and watched him. He wasn’t the sort of person I would have ever been attracted to before. He seemed so contained, unemotional. If there was one emotion that Nick was very in touch with, it was anger. We had some good fights. Not that it’s wonderful to fight, but I had to respect someone who would go toe to toe with me, who was verbally adept, someone who would test my limits. Dylan seemed too placid.
“So, what now?”
“I’m going to start with this,” I gestured to the things spread out on his coffee table, “Like finding Josef Heinz. And Ralph Simpson.”
“Why the gardener?”
I leaned forward. “I have this feeling about him. He worked for Cora for sixteen years and then he was just gone.”
“Have you heard of the word retired?”
I thought for a second. “The same gardener works for her for years and years and now all of sudden, the new company has to rotate the crews? She doesn’t want the same person around the property anymore. Why? Did Ralph Simpson get too close to something?”
Dylan peered at me across the coffee table, his eyebrows raised, so dark against his skin it looked like someone had taken a black magic marker and drew them on. He didn’t answer but burst into laughter.
“What’s so funny?’ I was a little insulted.
He choked on pizza and it took a few seconds for him to swallow. “I just got this image of you as Nancy Drew. Are you going to wear a poodle skirt and carry a magnifying glass?” For some reason this amused him so much that he collapsed on the couch, dissolved in laughter.
“If you’ll be a Hardy boy. In fact you got the preppy thing down pat. All you have to do is slick your hair back a little and you’ll be all set.” He had gotten under my skin and I was angry.
He sat up, still laughing. “I’ll go with you if you want.”
My face flushed. I knew he was teasing me but I could feel the rage in my gut. I stood up and picked up my box. “I’m glad I amuse you, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to take my clues home and study them.” I walked to the door.
Dylan blocked my way. At full height I came up to his collarbone. “Don’t go.” He was standing in front of the door.
I adjusted the box in my arms. “I’m glad I could bring such excitement and amusement to your otherwise very dull life.”
I knew why I was angry. I was angry with myself for being attracted to him. I didn’t want to be. It was confusing and guilt producing. I’d just buried Nick and besides he was too upper crust, too blue blood, not spontaneous. A bland, boring lawyer like all those other lawyers at his party. He would look good with one of those plastic society women who go for facials and boob jobs at regular intervals; who always have on make-up, their eyebrows shaped into the perfect arch. A blonde with nice straight well-behaved hair that doesn’t stick up every which way, who has it cut every three weeks without fail. Someone who would enjoy the country club and watching a polo or cricket match on Saturdays sipping some kind of sweet drink with an umbrella in it. I put my hand on my hip and shifted the box under my arm. “And what the fuck is cricket anyway?” It came out of my mouth forcefully before I had a chance to sensor it.
He stared at me, not moving out of my way. “What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I tried to walk out past him but he grabbed my arm. I could feel the pressure of his fingers on my skin. He was confused, and I guess rightly so.
“I said I’d go with you, what’re you so upset about?”
My eyes shifted upwards to meet his. “Nothing. I’ll meet you here around 7 tomorrow night then?”
He let go of my arm and instead put both hands on my shoulders. “Mackenzie?” He stared down at me.
I just wanted to get out of there. I had this feeling that if we held eye contact long enough, he would be able to read my mind. “What?”
“Tomorrow is Saturday. Let’s do it earlier. I’ll call you.”
I nodded in agreement. I could feel his eyes following me as I walked out the door and down the driveway.