As she walked toward the front door of the Rutherford house, she thought of Shawna Wheatley and Abigail Murray, Richard Aldiss’s dead students. They had come this far; they had been this close. And then something had stopped them.
What had they found? What had they uncovered to get themselves—
Don’t, she thought. They made mistakes that you won’t. Aldiss has given you too much.
She knocked.
The door gasped open. Lydia Rutherford stood there with her robe cinched, her eyes suspicious. Something about her had changed. Does she know why I’m here?
“Mrs. Rutherford,” Alex said, “I’m sorry for coming so early.”
“What do you want?”
Everything froze. This moment—Alex had practiced it in the hotel room that morning. Ran over it in her mind, got her lines exactly right. But now, standing before the woman, she could say nothing. She dropped her eyes to the porch.
“Charlie had a bad night,” she heard Lydia say. “Got real sick.”
Alex looked up. “I’m sorry.”
Something in the woman’s glare broke. And as it did Alex saw that this woman only wanted an ally. She wanted someone to tell her that everything was going to be okay, that her son was going to make it. Pity shot through Alex and she said, “I know how it is. My father . . . he’s dying.”
Lydia moved back, her gaze still on Alex. She looked to be battling with herself, debating on the purpose of this student with her bed hair and her sleepy eyes. Finally, the better part of her won out and she opened the screen door wider. Said, “Come in. I’ll fix you tea.”
Then she was inside the house. There was a flash of light, a mad cartoon soundtrack. Alex turned and saw someone sitting in a corner chair.
“Charlie?” Lydia said to the man’s back, and when he didn’t answer she said it louder: “Charlie!”
Slowly he turned and looked at his mother. The television light bathed his face in sickly greens and reds. He opened his mouth slowly but said nothing.
Lydia looked down at the carpet. Alex saw it in her eyes: she was afraid of her own son. “Charlie, we’ll be in the kitchen,” she said weakly. Then, to Alex: “Come on.” Alex glanced at Charlie, who had turned away now. She knew that she would have to get alone with him, find out what he knew. The impossibility of the task made her shudder, and she turned and followed Lydia into the kitchen.
Alex sat at the table. Lydia moved around the kitchen, began slamming cabinets, muttering something to herself. Alex stared at the walls. It was 1960s Americana, unchanged probably since before Charles Rutherford’s death. Above the sink was a frame, and inside the frame was a needlepoint square: CHARLIE’S AND MOMMA’S KITCHEN.
Alex looked at the woman. She thought of Charlie in the next room. Now or never. “Where’s your bathroom, Mrs. Rutherford?” she asked.
Lydia pointed and Alex slipped out. Charlie was still sitting in his chair and watching his cartoons. She moved toward him slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, braced herself, and said, “Your dad—I bet you really miss him.” How idiotic, Alex! But it didn’t matter: the man didn’t turn, didn’t move.
Alex shook her head and continued down the hall. It would have to be done sometime; she would just have to find the right words. Approach him somehow. Get him to tell her more about his father. It was the only way. The mysteries are one and the same.
In the hallway she took in her surroundings. There were family photos on the wall, some of them of Charles Sr. Here was the man and a much younger Lydia, and in her arms was the baby. They were smiling, but Alex couldn’t help but read something in their gaze. Something of the future pain. She went on.
Into the bathroom, where she stared at herself in a streaked mirror. What are you doing, Alex? Why did you come back here? She splashed water on her face and then closed her eyes. She saw Aldiss sitting in that cell, head in his hands, his books arranged before him. His new information there on the cold stone floor as he waited for her to return and—
She opened the door and left the bathroom. She took one step and paused; something had caught her eye.
A room. It was there on her right. A cluttered room, boxes and detritus slung everywhere. Down the hall she heard Charlie’s cartoon soundtrack blipping, and behind that was the teapot beginning to churn. Alex turned to look at the room again, wondering, Could I?
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
The room smelled like must. Motes spooled down from buckled shelves, and Alex pulled the cord on a bare ceiling bulb and looked at the junk. The boxes were old and feathered, a skin of dust lying atop them. Some of them were unlabeled, but others were marked Charles. She removed the lid on one of these boxes and looked inside.
Books. Bound manuscripts, photocopied and laid perfectly inside the box.
But there was something about these books. Hands shaking, she removed one of them and flipped through it. As she did, the knowledge dawned on her. The slow, horrible knowledge that she was looking at what Shawna Wheatley and Abigail Murray had found before they died. The last piece of the puzzle, the final clue in Aldiss’s literary mystery.