Death Comes eCalling (9 page)

My personal problems paled in comparison.

The lights in their house went out. Then a second car pulled out of the driveway. This car passed directly underneath the streetlamp. It was definitely Steve driving. He turned the same direction as Lauren, but was moving considerably slower. My stomach knotted.

Unable to sleep, I went downstairs to work. My mind was on Lauren. The only scenario I could concoct for the two cars was they’d had such a bad fight that Lauren got Rachel out of bed and drove off, perhaps to some hotel. Steve had thought about it for a minute or two, then drove off after her, hopefully to convince her to return home.

Thinking of our friendship, I designed a silly card of two men dragging themselves across a desert. Overhead is an enormous buzzard, casting a shadow on them. As one man looks at the buzzard in fear, the other says, “Finally! Some shade!” The caption read: THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME TO LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE.

A fax came in, with no sender listed. I sat there frozen, willing myself not to read it. Finally my curiosity overcame my better sense. I grabbed it and read:

Your husband is cheating on you. Serves you right. If you were any kind of a wife, you’d be with him right now.

I crumpled it, cursing rabidly, wanting to cram it down the sender’s throat. I flung it into the rubber trash can, then kicked the can. It banged off the far wall. “Yes, damn you. If I were a better wife, I’d. be with him. But my husband is faithful to me. I know that. Not because I’m a perfect wife, but because he’s such a good, decent man.”

After taking a few calming breaths, I realized this was a clue. The sender knew me, not my husband. Not much of a clue, though, on second thought. No one here knew Jim, except for the kids and me.

I glanced at my watch. It was after midnight. I tried to figure out the time-zone conversion. It was about 1:00 p.m. Saturday in Manila. I called my husband’s hotel.

In a thick accent, the receptionist said, “One moment please,” then put me on indefinite hold. A minute later I tried again and got a busy signal. Next the line disconnected during my ensuing conversation with the same receptionist. I was in no mood to risk a fourth call, at which point I’d be so edgy if I ever did get Jim, I’d greet him with tears or shouts; probably a combination of both. He deserved better than that.

If only I knew everything was okay with Lauren. This was getting to be too much for me to bear. I dashed upstairs and looked out the window at the Wilkinsens’ house. It was dark, deserted.

The next morning, I awoke with a headache. The children were already downstairs, watching cartoons. I got them breakfast and battled an inexplicable but overwhelming urge to check my email. I went downstairs and felt a tremendous sense of relief to see no new messages. Just as I was leaving the office, I heard the fax motor activate. I dashed back to my computer. The fax had been sent from the Wilkinses’ house. Written in childish print was:

Molly,

HELP ME PLES HELP

Rachel

My heart drumming wildly, I called the Wilkinses’ house. Their machine was on. Dear God. What if Lauren and Steve were having a violent argument? I raced upstairs. The children were still in front of the set.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Nathan asked.

Karen, too, turned and looked at me.

“I don’t know what to do.” I combed hair back from my face with both hands.

Call 911 and stay put!

But Rachel might need instant help. Or she might just be playing a childish joke on me. I should at least knock on their door before I call the police.

“Goddamn it!” Oops. “Don’t repeat that.”

Normally I wouldn’t worry about leaving my children to run next door for a few minutes. This was not a normal situation. I clicked off the TV.

“Karen, Nathan, we’re going to play a game. A…spy game.” I grabbed the portable phone, which had an intercom button. I stretched the phone cord till the base of the phone sat on the floor between them. “I’m going to go next door to Lauren’s house. We’ll see if we can use the phone like a walkie-talkie. Okay?”

“Cool!” Nathan cried. Karen, though, was studying my face. She didn’t buy my play-a-game routine.

What if I got in there and Steve was totally out of control? “One more thing. This part is very important.

Karen, if you hear me say the word
Oklahoma
, that means I want you to call the police.”

“But you’ve got the phone, Mom,” Karen said, sounding alarmed.

“I know. Just go right away to the kitchen phone. Do you remember what number to call?”

“Nine-one-one.”

“That’s right. And tell the police to come right away to the Wilkinses’ house at twenty-ten Little John Lane. Nathan, Karen, stay right here and listen to me over the phone, all right?”

Before they could get more curious, I ran over and pounded on the Wilkinses’ door. No answer. It was completely silent inside. If a violent struggle
had
taken place, it was over. Too bad there were no garage windows for me to look through and find out if their cars were inside.

“Can you hear me?” I said into my phone.

“Yeah, Mom. Nathan spilled some milk on the carpet.”

“It was your fault!” Nathan cried.

“I’m going to call someone on this phone for just a minute or two, then I’ll put it right back on so you can hear me again. Okay?”

I called the police and asked for Tommy. While waiting, I remembered Lauren once told me Carolee had a key. I ran across the street and rang her doorbell. No one was home. In the meantime, the receptionist told me Tommy wasn’t there. She asked if I wanted to speak to another officer. Undecided and not wanting to leave my children incommunicado. I just told her to have him call me ASAP and hung up.

I pressed intercom and ran into Lauren’s backyard. Steve had once shown me their alarm system. It consisted of sensors on all the windows, set in such a way that the alarm would sound only when the glass was broken or the window was opened by several inches.

The first window I looked through was Rachel’s bedroom. Her pink chiffon curtains swayed in the breeze, her window open a crack. I called for Rachel a couple of times. The house was completely still.

If the alarm was set, opening the window farther would trip it, signaling the monitoring company to call the police. That was fine by me. If Rachel’s note was just a joke, I could call the police immediately and tell them why I’d deliberately tripped the alarm. If Rachel was in there alone needing help, I didn’t want to wait for the police.

I lifted my phone. “… telling Mommy you did that on purpose!”

Still arguing about spilled milk. “Karen and Nathan.” Silence. “I’m going to crawl through the window into the Wilkinses’ house.”

“Cool!”

“Remember our code word to call the police?”

“Oklahoma,” Karen said in her you’re-boring-me voice.

I angled the screen off the frame, then dropped my phone through the window. Judging by the clatter, it landed on top of wooden furniture. As I forced the window open, an alarm went off. Over the noise, I yelled, “Rachel? Lauren? Anybody home?” No answer.

Getting up high enough to stuff myself through her little window was no easy task. I felt buffoonish as I hooked my forearms along the inside walls and cat walked up, no doubt leaving footprints on their white siding. Then I balanced on my stomach and pulled myself across her student desk, knocking over pictures and knick-knacks. I wondered how cat burglars did it. They must keep in shape through specialty aerobics classes: B&E 101.

I called hello a couple more times.

“What, Mom?” I heard Karen shout.

“Not you. I’m seeing if the Wilkinses answer me.” Where to put the phone while I looked around? My baggy cotton pants had deep pockets. I slipped the phone into one of them.

Except for the alarm, the house was silent and felt unoccupied. Nothing seemed amiss as I went through the hallway into the kitchen. The Wilkinses’ phone rang. I answered.

A man with a Bronx accent said, “Security Systems. What’s da password?”

“I don’t know. I’m the neighbor. I broke in.”

“You shouldn’t a done that, ma’am. Now I gotta call the police.”

“Good. But give me a couple of seconds before you do. I have to call them, too, and I don’t want their lines tied up.”

“Huh?”

I hung up and called 911. I told the woman who answered I was a friend of Sergeant Newton’s, that I’d just tripped the alarm, gave the address, and explained about the alarming message.

“Where are you now?” she asked.

“I’m on the phone in the kitchen.”

“You need to stay put. We’ve got a unit coming to that address. What’s your name and address, ma’am?”

I answered, and she asked me again what room I was in. The kitchen. Could I see the front door? No. Did everything in the kitchen look in place? She intended to keep me on the phone till the police arrived.

Rachel’s black-and-white cat appeared from somewhere in the house. Missy ran from me to the doorway, back to me, then to the doorway. This was a feline version of Lassie. She wanted me to follow her. Were cats that smart? Maybe not, but Missy was more fun to communicate with than the woman on the phone.

I’d committed at least two crimes I could think of off the top of my head. The least I could do was make sure Rachel wasn’t in Steve’s office. Instead of answering about my relationship to the child who’d sent the note, I said, “Oh. Just a second. I think someone’s at the door,” and hung up on her.

I pulled my own phone out of my pocket. “Can you still hear me?”

“Yes,” Karen said. “What did you say about Rachel?”

“Nothing important. She was probably just playing a joke. I’m sure she’s fine.” The Wilkinses’ phone started ringing. No doubt the police dispatcher was trying to get me back on the line. I ignored it.

Missy was running back and forth in front of the double oak doors to Steve’s office.

The answering machine came on.

Not wanting to leave prints, I pulled the bottom of my pink T-shirt free from my waistband and used that to try the doorknob. It turned. I swung open the door slowly, but stayed in the hallway.

The venetian blinds were down and the lights off. The air smelled stagnant. I could hear the faint hum of his computer and a monotonous periodic beep. The screen put out a bluish light, outlining Steve in the chair. He was slumped over, face down on his keyboard.

Please, God. Let him be asleep.

By now, the dispatcher was yelling at me through the answering machine. Her stern voice was demanding that I pick up the phone immediately. I ignored her.

“Steve?”

“Mom?” Karen’s voice called.

“Uh, Karen?”

“Yeah, Mom?”

“I may need to hang up here. If I do, don’t worry about me. Okay?”

“Steve? Are you all right?” I had my thumb right over the intercom button, prepared to press it. I needed to cut off the transmission instantly if I had to do something that might scare them. Such as scream.

I took a step closer and saw something in his back. A knife handle. I closed my eyes. I felt dizzy. I heard myself say, “Oklahoma.”

Chapter 8

I Want My Mommy

My head pounded. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep. Tommy Newton was in my bedroom and he wouldn’t stop talking to me. Someone was putting a cap on my head. There were other people in my room. Strangers. Police officers.

This wasn’t my bed. Someone was touching my face, shining a flashlight in my eyes.

Oh, God. I remembered. I tried to sit up but my stomach lurched and the hardwood floor swam. Two men in white uniforms were near me. One leaned back away from my face. Two other men were near Steve Wilkins, still slumped over in his chair. Tommy Newton, in uniform, was the only face in the room I recognized.

I muttered the word that popped into my head, “Oklahoma.”

“Sorry, Toto. You’re still in New York.” Tommy moved next to the men in white, one of whom pocketed his penlight They must be the paramedics. Or were these the men in white coming to take me away? They were directly in front of me, blocking my vision.

“Steve. Is he…“

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “He’s dead. Looks like you fainted and clonked your head pretty good.”

I struggled to rise, but Tommy held up a palm. “Don’t get up just yet. Have any idea where Lauren is?”

“No.” The back of my head smarted. I touched the sore area with my fingertips.
A lump the size of a grapefruit! My hair! Where was my—
Oh. It was a bandage. I groped my head and realized there was a pad of some sort on the back of my head, held in place by what felt like a headband. A tourniquet for my head.

“Leave that on,” a baby-faced medic told me. He and his partner set a cot next to me. “We need that to keep pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. We’re going to take you to the hospital now.”

“No!”

To my surprise, the paramedics backed off and quietly conferred with one another. The phrase “not life threatening” reached my ears. Always nice to know.

Maybe they weren’t allowed to take me to the hospital against my wishes.

How could I have hit the back of my head? Still groggy, I looked behind me at a puddle of blood.

“Lie back down,” Tommy said.

“I’m fine.” The black old-fashioned iron Steve had used as a doorstop was now on its side. Next to that was my phone. “Oh, my God. My children,” I cried, snatching up my phone. How long had I been out? What had become of my babies?

“They’re fine,” Tommy said. “A female officer’s with them.”

I pressed the page button, which made a loud beep at the phone base that could be heard from any room in my house.

“Karen? Nathan?” I had locked the front door to our house. Had the children let in the officer? Or was my front door kicked in, my children in a state of panic?

Physically unable to stand, I scooted my legs toward the doorway, hoping to inchworm myself into the kitchen. There I could look out the window that faced my house.