The street where Ray Boelens lived, or used to live, was lined with dismal fifties-era row houses. After the war, the town planners’ focus had not been on aesthetics; everything was squalid and gray. Shabby and nondescript. I parked my car in front of number 13.
“What we doing?” asked Aaron from the backseat.
“We’re looking for Ray. Ray is the owner of the fishies.”
“Kee-Kon?”
I kicked myself, realizing it wasn’t smart of me to have broached the subject. Aaron hadn’t asked for King Kong all morning; he had even been behaving unusually sweetly, and I wanted to keep it that way. I sometimes thought Aaron was a bit like a radiator that needs the excess air let out from time to time. After a big blowup he was always remarkably calm and good.
Before he could give King Kong too much thought, I said quickly, “Let’s go get an ice cream after this, okay? What would you like? A cone with candy topping or a Popsicle?”
“Candy!”
“Right. That’s what we’ll do.” I lifted him out of his car seat and put him down on the sidewalk. “First you’re coming with me like a good boy, to see if Ray is home.”
We walked hand in hand to the front door of number 13. The house looked seriously neglected. The front yard was untended, although you could tell that in some distant past it had been lovingly maintained. Someone had once planted lilacs here, hydrangea and delphinium. But the flowers had not been deadheaded; there were weeds everywhere and the overgrown hedge looked as if it might explode.
A worn burgundy curtain hung at the window. It was drawn, although it was nearly noon.
I felt uneasy, but rang the doorbell anyway. Nothing happened. After half a minute I decided to try again. I heard the bell ringing somewhere inside. After what seemed like hours I saw a shadow lumbering into the hallway.
At least four locks were turned. The door opened.
“Yes?” Facing me was a man of around forty in a dirty pair of jeans and no shirt. A pile of mail lay at his feet, shoppers’ guides and flyers. A musty smell assaulted me. I had to repress the urge to pinch my nose.
“Ray?”
He didn’t respond and went on staring at me aggressively from beneath his greasy hair.
“Are you Ray Boelens?” I tried again.
“He doesn’t live here anymore.” The man was about to slam the door shut.
“Do you happen to know where he lives?” Aaron had crouched down and started playing with the envelopes on the mat.
The man began to laugh. A loud, unpleasant sound. He struck me as the type who only laughs about unpleasant things. “Hey, there’s a good one. Where oh where might Ray Boelens be? Try jail, I’d say. And if he ain’t there, you could try hell.”
I wanted to say something, but the guy was already shutting the door. “And tell Mr. Smartypants here to keep his fingers off my mail.”
I picked Aaron up and mouthed asshole at the door as it was slammed in my face.
As we walked back to my car, I heard all four locks being turned again. “Asshole,” I said again, this time out loud.
“Asshole,” Aaron repeated, and began to shout with laughter.
“You think that’s funny, don’t you? And now we’re going to get an ice cream.”
I belted Aaron into his car seat again and kissed him on the forehead. “What a good boy you are today. Good for you!”
Around the corner was a bakery that also sold ice cream. While waiting in line I watched the baker at work behind a glass wall.
“It isn’t as good as it used to be,” confided an old lady standing next to me. “The baker they used to have, he was great. This one’s just so-so.”
Aaron and I took our ice cream cones and sat down on a bench across from the store. If Ray really was behind bars somewhere, it should be possible to find out. I could check the aquarium’s logbook for the date Ray had stopped looking after the fish. Then I could try Googling again. I realized that I should probably try Ray B., as last names of convicts were always initialized because of privacy reasons.
I took out my iPhone and typed his name. Slaughtered, I read. And Ray B., the Monster Next Door. In the Daily Record I read that Ray had become obsessed with his neighbor, and had murdered her and her daughter because she hadn’t returned his love.
I felt sick to my stomach. What was my mother doing with an aquarium belonging to a murderer with the same last name as hers?
The chocolate ice cream was dripping onto Aaron’s shirt. I took a wipe out of my bag and dabbed him clean. “You have to lick quickly, sweetie, before it all melts.”
The two bodies had been found in the front hall, bathed in blood. The woman had been stabbed fourteen times with some sharp implement, the little girl five times. An innocent little kid. But the most gruesome detail of all was the one about the cigarette stubbed out on the little girl’s body. After his savage rampage, Ray sat there puffing on a cigarette. How could anyone be so utterly depraved?
The rest of Aaron’s ice cream dropped onto my shoe.
I pressed the off button on my phone, produced the last wipe from my bag, and dabbed at the blob on my shoe. It left an unsightly stain. Only then did it occur to me that I should have saved the wipe for Aaron’s face.