A Measure of Blood (27 page)

“Yes, I would. Crayon would be good, but I don't have my backpack.”

“Right, right, the backpack. What do we have?”

“Nothing.” He holds out his hands. He doesn't even have other clothes or the book he was reading. Just … nothing.

The man pats his pockets. “I have this.” He comes up with a pen. He frowns. “I don't think we'd see it.”

“I can use that!” Matt says excitedly. “It's good because it's a felt tip.” It will take time to mark with it, then time to see the blue ink.

“Plus, I'll try to remember.”

“And if we prop up a twig or branch against the trunk to point to it, to point to the blue mark … ”

“I knew you would be good at things. I knew.” The man seems excited and also angry at the same time.

Matt
is
good at things, but he doesn't want to be here, thinking them up. He marks the first tree, low down, changes his mind, and makes a mark at eye level. It's a small mark, hard to see, but he finds a fallen branch and makes a pointer of it.

“Very good.”

“What are we looking
for
?”

“We're looking just to look. To be in nature. To listen to sounds. To see the tracks.”

“Are those tracks?”

“Looks like it.”

“What kind?”

“Bear … could be elk.”

Matt never studied the woods before, and everything is beautiful, but he doesn't want to be here. “Can't we go back?”

“Just look. Take things in.” For a moment it seems the man really
is
his father and Matt almost doubts what he read on Jan's computer. But then he reminds himself he read it three times. So who is that other person—with the
Z
names?

Hesitantly, he asks, “You liked coming here with your father?”

The man stops, considers. “I didn't think so at the time. I thought he was always pushing me. But now, now I think it was a good thing to see something different, to get out of the city. I wanted to give you that.”

Something scatters in the distance. “I think that was a groundhog,” Matt says. “The shape.”

“Smart boy.”

Matt marks a tree and finds a branch.

The man stops. He leans on a tree and does something like push-ups, straining. Then he slumps with his head on his arms, then drags his head to the side, crying, trying to wipe off the tears on his sleeve without using his hands.

Matt pretends he doesn't see, stoops down, and studies a plant, hoping it's not something poisonous. He thinks,
Mark the trees, keep him calm.

He can hardly remember his mother or Jan and Arthur or the play he's in or his new school. He can hardly remember anything before this.

THEY ARE NEARING
STATE COLLEGE.
They already have some information because an hour or so after Christie and Dolan passed the police on the road, he got a call telling him some of the prints looked small, possibly a child's prints.

“Any blood?”

“No blood.”

“And the owner of the place?”

“Not in sight. We've been asking the closest neighbors, like you said.”

“And?”

“One lady said, ‘I haven't seen her this week. Is she okay? She's usually out in the yard, weeding.' Another lady said, ‘She was here last night. I saw her car.' ”

“What kind of car?”

“A red VW Bug. Nobody else knew anything.”

“Keep it up. We're almost there.”

Christie got the call back from the DMV minutes later. The car registered to Mala Brown was a red VW Bug. He updated the Amber Alert to look for a man and a boy and possibly an older woman in that car. The Pontiac was history, and this was the likely vehicle.

“No blood,” Dolan said. “That's good.”

“Hope so.”

Finally he and Dolan enter State College and spot the address for Mala Brown, a modest brick house of the three-bedroom variety bounded by a well-kept yard, like most others on the street.

The State College team is still there. Even though Dolan parks on the street, even though the forensic van is several doors away, any smart looker-on would guess something is up.

Christie enters a brick house not unlike his own. He is led to a room with a lock on the door. He studies what are probably the boy's prints.

“Any other child's prints?”

“Nope.”

“We still have to match these. Point me to the neighbors with something to say.”

They show him the house next door and one across the street. It is the woman across the street, a frazzled type, wiping her hands on an apron, who says, “I know she was gone somewhere. I mean, I could tell, not just from the car being gone, but because of the lights. Just one little light on in a downstairs window. And the drapes almost completely drawn.”

“Did you notice her car last night?”

“No. I wasn't looking, but no.”

“What time did you go to bed?”

“Ten. Or so.”

Christie and Dolan hurry to ask the neighbor next door. She appears angry that there is police activity in her neighborhood and that her next-door neighbor belongs in the undesirable category. Touching her molded hair, she says, “I was up, baking for a group I belong to. Then I locked up. I saw her car.”

“What time?”

“Midnight. After.”

“You were friendly with her?”

“We said hello. She was from Puerto Rico. I don't think she spoke much English. I was friendly with Mr. Brown's first wife. She was a nice woman.”

Right. A first wife and not foreign. “And, for our records, what time do you get up in the morning?”

“Five.”

“See it then?”

She shakes her head.

“Were you looking?”

“I wish. But I wasn't. Is this about that kid on the news?”

“Who said that?”

“The other police.”

Christie says, “We'll comment on the details soon.” So much for keeping leaks out of the case.

They are about to start down the street to talk to more neighbors when the State College detective, Sam Taylor, waves him over. “We ordered you guys coffee, figured you might need some.” He is kind looking, with a big mustache.

Dolan says, “I do. Thanks.”

Christie says, “Very kind. Would he send it after us? I want to talk to a few other neighbors.”

One block over they find a woman who says she knows Mala Brown fairly well. This woman, who might be Thai or Filipino, says she walks her dog for long hours and often saw Brown in her yard. “She was going away. She was excited. A vacation.”

“With her son? Did she say?”

“Nothing about him. To see a friend in Florida. She was nervous about flying because even when she first came up here from Florida, she came in a car.”

“I see. This is helpful. Did she say the friend's name? A city?”

“No name. Just Miami.”

“Very helpful.”

“Is she all right? Was there some kind of accident?”

“Nothing like that.”

“Because she was the nicest woman. Very kind.”

“Thank you.”

And back to the house. They go through papers. And Dolan has already put in a call for her phone records. But they don't need them. They find a piece of paper with
V
and a phone number with a Florida area code.

“Call?” Christie thinks aloud. “Send someone?”

He wishes he could plop down in Miami and knock on the door, but this time, there is no time.

STEPPING OVER FALLEN
BRANCHES,
Nadal tries to think of things he'd heard about how to wear out an active kid. After a two-hour hike in the woods, Matt does not seem tired, while Nadal, not having slept last night, not used to rugged activity, badly wants sleep. When he sees the log cabin in the distance, he feels immense relief. They have found their way back; at two points they could not find the code on the trees, but eventually they did. And now they approach the cabin, and nothing seems different, nothing amiss.

Nadal knows the owner used to set up a trail camera in one of the trees. He looks about but doesn't see it. If there is one, he needs to remove it.

He lets Matt open the door to the cabin, aware of the boy's energy, and also of his restlessness. Nadal wants to go to sleep now. His laptop sits on the only table—useless for getting news.

Matt doesn't say anything. He sits near the computer, looking toward it hopefully. Nadal says, “Go ahead.” He watches his son open it up, scan the buttons, find the power button, and get booted up. All the while, Nadal walks about, tries to eat a spoonful of soggy cereal, and finally ditches the rest in a garbage pail.

He comes back to look over Matt's shoulder. Matt quickly tries to close the lid of the computer but Nadal pushes it open. “No secrets from me. That's a rule. You understand?”

The screen says,
You are not connected to the Internet
. The request in the box was for
hotmail.com
.

“I thought you were smart,” he says. “I thought you were a smart one.”

“I am.”

“And you thought I would let you mess with the Internet?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Who did you want to write to?”

“My new … my other parents. To tell them I am all right.”

“I told you I wrote to them.”

“You told me my mother was alive. How do I know when you're telling the truth?”

“I did write to them. Are you worried about them?”

“Yeah.”

“They aren't worth your worry. But I did write to them. If they don't mess with the police, you'll be safe. We'll both be safe.”

“What if they called the police?”

“That makes our lives more complicated. Not impossible, but harder. You can't mess around with things without telling me.”

“I just wanted to do an email.”

“Can't. We're deep in the woods.”

“I know.”

“Look, don't you want to sleep?”

“I just got up.”

“We both need to rest up. Me too.”

The boy's face lights with interest. He isn't won over yet. He will run.

“We're going to take something to help us sleep.”

“I don't want to. I'll just sit.”

“There's nothing to do here. You'll get bored.”

“I'll go out in the woods again.”

“No. Not alone.”

“I'll just sit.”

“I already said no. We're going to rest up, so we're ready for anything. I'm going to give you something.”

“I don't want to.”

“You don't have a choice. It's all right. Everything will be better after. You'll see.”

Matt starts to cry. “I don't believe you. I try to believe you, but I don't.”

Nadal fetches his backpack from the floor and from it he takes the box with the packet of Benadryl. The backpack is almost empty except for the packets of cash and a T-shirt to cushion any blow to the laptop when he carried it in there. Nadal goes to the kitchen to pour a mug of water for his son, but when he comes back to the boy, the boy is sitting with his arms folded.

“No, please, I don't want to sleep.”

“This will help. You'll want to. Sleep is the big cure for everything. That's what my mother always said.”

“Where is your mother?”

“I'll tell you where if you're good. And maybe we'll find a way to visit her. Just take these.”

“Two?”

“Two is better.”

There is a long pause in which he holds out the pills which he's pressed from the packet wrap and he waits until his son takes them up.

“Everything will be better if we're rested. You'll see.”

Finally his son sighs and takes the pills.

Nadal longs for eight hours of oblivion, but he has other things he must do. When the boy is asleep, he carries him to the car and puts him in the backseat. It's not particularly cold out now, but he goes back in for the wool blanket on the bed Matt used and he covers the boy. Then he puts his backpack on the passenger seat of the red VW Bug, but he sits there for a long time, unwilling to leave the safety of the woods.

His head drops against the headrest. He's so tired he wants to sleep, but there's Wi-Fi in Bradford and he's not going to rest until he checks the news.

COLLEEN AND POTOCKI
are back in her house in Squirrel Hill in front of her personal computer. Waiting. The police in Miami proudly announced they use Skype and Christie told her to go ahead with it, even though he can't be there for the session. Instead he is on the open phone line while driving back with Dolan. She can hear both of them talking; they can hear her and Potocki.

The mechanical recorded ring that is her Skype alert interrupts both conversations. She leaves the cell phone on speaker and accepts the Skype call. In a living room setting, a face comes into view. Not Mrs. Brown, but a worried-looking detective who identifies himself as Detective Tinsley. “We're here with your witness. And her friend. For the record, here is the friend.”

A woman sits down in front of the computer. She has long hair pulled back and fastened at the neck. She is middle aged and probably stocky from the look of her face and arms. “I am Violetta Santos. I live here. My friend Mala Brown is here for vacation. I did not see her for nine years.”

The woman moves away from the camera and another, the same age, but leaner, takes her place. “I am Mala Brown.” This woman's voice is almost a whisper; she wipes a tear. “You want to talk about my son.”

Colleen says, “I am Detective Colleen Greer. Behind me is Detective John Potocki. We're working a case in Pittsburgh. We have to ask you a few questions. Your son is Nadal Brown, is that correct?”

“Yes.” The image disappears for a second—Mala Brown has moved away from the camera for a tissue and then comes back. “Yes.”