Grace (16 page)

THURSDAY, DEC.
27

Predictably work was boring, but it was not without some pleasure: Dean quit. I would have shouted with joy had decorum allowed; I did buy myself an Orange Crush to celebrate. I couldn't wait to tell Grace. At eleven o'clock sharp I locked the back door, hopped on my bike, and pedaled home.

As I rounded the corner at the top of my street I heard a strange noise, a loud chirp followed by a blast of static. It wasn't until I was two houses away from my home that I discovered the source; there was a black and white patrol car parked in my driveway. I wanted to turn around, but I didn't; I didn't know what to do. As I rode to the garage to put my bike away I wondered if I should tell Grace.

Instead, I walked through the back door hoping the police were parked out front for any reason other than the one I feared. Maybe they'd found out I had played hooky from school.

“I'm home,” I said as I entered. I headed straight for the darkened corridor that led to my bedroom.

“Eric,” my mother called from the living room.

I stopped. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it.

“Come here, please.”

My father sat in his La-Z-Boy and my mother sat next to him in a chair she'd pulled in from the kitchen. Two police officers sat across from them on the couch. Everyone was looking at me.

One of the officers was young and tall with yellow hair, the other older, balding, rotund, and as short as my mother. Their guns and holsters looked remarkably out of place in our living room. My father looked angry and my mother just looked tense.

“Yes?” I tried to keep my voice from cracking.

The older officer spoke first. “Eric, I'm Officer Steele of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office and this is Officer Buttars. Do you know this young woman?” He lifted a copy of the poster of Grace I had seen at the Queen and a dozen other places.

My throat suddenly felt impossibly dry. I swallowed.

“Eric,” my father prodded. “Answer them.”

“Sure. Everyone does. She's the girl from my school.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“No.” I looked past them to a family portrait on the wall.

“We've been told by a witness that you've been seen with her,” the young policeman said.

“Who told you that?” I asked.

“That's not important.”

How was that not important?
“I don't know where she is,” I said.

“Have you seen her in the last week?” he asked.

I shouted, “I said I don't know!”

My explosion caught everyone off guard including myself. No one spoke for a moment. Then Officer Steele said, “Young man, this is a very serious matter. Taking someone against their will is kidnapping. It's a crime that carries a long prison term.”

“I didn't kidnap her.”

“Eric,” my mother said. “Where is Madeline?”

I glanced between them, feeling as transparent as Scotch tape. I was bad at this. I could tell that they knew that I knew. Dread grew heavy in my stomach like a cannon ball. I wanted to go to bed. “Can I go now?”

“Eric,” my mother repeated firmly, “do you know where Madeline Webb is?”

After a few minutes I took a deep breath then slowly exhaled. “I can't tell you.”

“Can't, or won't?” the young policeman said.

My mother said gently, “Eric. If you know where she is you need to tell us.”

“I can't.”

Officer Steele started, “Young man, if—”

My mother interrupted him. Her voice was still calm. “Why can't you tell us, Eric?”

“They'll hurt her.”

“Who will?” she asked.

“I can't tell you.”

Officer Steele looked at his partner, then at me. “Son, we've met with Madeline's parents many times. I'm sure they would never let anyone hurt her. They are as concerned as any loving parents would be for their daughter.” He turned to my parents. “Her poor parents…”

I glared at him.
Was he really that stupid?

The young policeman joined in. “Son, you're harboring a fugitive. Do the right thing here and tell us where she is.”

I looked at the floor for what seemed like ten minutes. I could hear the clock in the kitchen ticking.

“Eric!” my father shouted. I jumped. But still I said nothing. I don't know how long we were there. I felt like a fugitive myself held up in a house surrounded by the police.
Give yourself up. There's no way out of this, Eric.
My brain ached.

“Tell us where she is, son,” Officer Steele said gently.

I took a deep breath then slowly let it out. “She's in the clubhouse.”

Officer Steele turned to my mother. “What did he say?”

My mother looked at me sympathetically. “The boys built a clubhouse in the backyard,” she said.

Both the policemen were immediately on their feet, no doubt excited at the prospect of being the heroes who found the missing girl and brought her home. To me they were the enemy, as stupid as all adults seemed to be those days. And my parents had been complicit, abetting the enemy.

“Take us to her,” the young policeman said.

In times of high stress I've found that my mind fixates on the trivial. I suppose it's a defense mechanism. Suddenly all I could see was the guy's feet. They seemed impossibly large, like frogman flippers. I just stared at them until my thoughts were broken by the sound of my dad clearing his throat. I looked up at him. He had the gray look of disappointment in his eyes but I honestly didn't care. His disappointment in me couldn't be a fraction of mine in him. For the first time in my life I measured my thoughts against his with equal value. No,
more
so. My actions came from love and duty. His came from ignorance. I suppose it was at that moment I became a man.

Officer Steele walked to my side, grabbing the back of my arm. “Let's go.”

“I need my boots.” I walked to the kitchen to get them. I considered making a run to the clubhouse to tell Grace, but Officer Steele followed me back. I picked them up and returned to the front room. I sat on the floor slowly putting them on, but I could only delay so much.

We went out the front door, then turned back down the driveway, trudging through the snow. I felt as if my feet were carrying me against my will.

Even the moon betrayed Grace that night. It was bright and naked, only slightly blistered by thin, black clouds. It turned the snow-packed ground luminescent. I felt like Judas leading the Roman soldiers to Gethsemane.
At least Jesus knew he'd been betrayed.
It sickened me that Grace had no idea what was coming.

Then I grabbed on to a thought as frantically as a drowning man grabbing a life preserver. Maybe
she did know
we were coming. Maybe she had, like me, heard the police radio. Of course she had. I heard it all the way down the street.
Or maybe she had seen it all in the candle.

We stopped a few yards in front of the clubhouse.

“This it?” Officer Steele asked.

I didn't answer. It was a stupid question.

He walked over as if inspecting Joel's and my work. He pointed at the door. “Is this the only door?”

My father, leaning on his crutches, turned to me. I nodded.

The officer put his hand on the front of our structure and leaned in close. He knocked sharply on the door and said, “Madeline, it's Officer Steele of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office.”

We all stood there staring at the door. There was no sound.

“Madeline, we're not going to hurt you. We're here to make sure you're all right.”

Nothing stirred. The policeman got down on one knee and pushed the door open. It was as dark as a cave inside.

“She probably left,” I said angrily. “She probably knew you were coming.”

He looked at me. “How would she know that?”

“She just knows things.”

“Get me a flashlight,” Officer Steele said to his partner.

Officer Buttars left, the sound of his flipper feet clomping through the thick snow as loud as if he were stomping bags of potato chips.
With those paddles he should have just walked on top of the snow.
I could feel my mother's gaze on me but I didn't look at her. I didn't look at anyone. My eyes were fixed on the little door, fearing that Grace would suddenly appear. As the minutes passed, I started to feel some hope that maybe she had run away.

It seemed an eternity before the younger policeman returned carrying a long silver flashlight that no doubt doubled as a truncheon. He handed it to Officer Steele who pushed open the door, panning inside with the light until he fixed on one point. Then he looked back at his partner and nodded.

My heart stopped. I could only imagine Grace curled up in the corner, shaking and frightened. I wanted to run and tackle him and yell for Grace to run. But I didn't. I just stood as frozen by guilt as fear.

“Are you Madeline Webb?” he asked. I couldn't hear Grace say anything but from the officer's body language I knew that Grace had responded. “Let's go, Madeline, it's time to go home.”

Only then did I hear Grace's soft voice. I don't know what she said, but the sound of it sent chills through me. More than anything I wanted to run. The Bible talks of a sinner feeling shame so great that he wishes for a mountain to fall on him. At that moment I wished for that mountain. Or one of Khrushchev's missiles.

The officer stood back from the door. And then I saw her, her hands in the snow, her head crowning at the entrance. She pushed herself up. She had nothing with her but her coat.

“Are you okay?” Officer Steele asked. She nodded slightly. She didn't look at me. I didn't know what I would do if she did. “Have you been kept here against your will?”

“No.”

“You're not going to try to run away from us are you?” the young policeman asked. “We don't want to handcuff you.”

“Don't touch her,” I said.

Only then did she look at me, and I saw in her eyes that she was no longer mine to protect. I had lost the right to speak for her.

Officer Steele put his hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her forward. She walked ahead of us, flanked by the policemen. My parents walked behind me. When we got to the driveway the young officer opened the back door of the patrol car and Grace got in. She didn't even look at me.

My parents and I stood there at the edge of our driveway. I had never felt more alone in my life. I felt estranged even from myself, brimming with self-hate. In the darkness beneath the trees the policemen were no longer people, like Grace, they had turned to shadow, like shades in the land of the dead, on the banks of the river Styx.

The patrol car's engine roared to life, then its headlights blinked on, momentarily blinding us. The car pulled out of our driveway, crunching and spinning on the icy gravel.

I just stood there. After all we'd been through, just like that she was gone.

My dad said, “Let's go to bed, Eric. We'll talk in the morning.”

Then my mom said, “You did the right thing.”

At that moment I saw that my parents were as capable of evil and stupidity as anyone who has ever walked this planet. They were as capable of evil as me.

I walked into the house without a word. I kicked the boots from my feet and trudged off to my bedroom. The room was dark; as usual Joel had gone to bed hours earlier. I took off my pants, then climbed under the covers. The prospect of sleeping seemed ridiculous. I felt sick to my stomach. I wished I could vomit the whole night away.

I suddenly became aware of Joel's breathing. I don't know why but the sound filled me with rage. After a minute Joel said softly, “Did they take her?”

For a moment I couldn't speak. All the rage and fear and anger twisted my mind into a horrible, tight knot. Then I exploded, throwing back my covers and glaring wild-eyed at my little brother.

“You told them! You said you'd never tell and you did!”

Even in the dark I could see his eyes, wide and frightened. “No I didn't. I didn't tell
anyone
.”

“You're a liar!” I hissed. “And she's going to get hurt. Do you
know
what her father will do to her? And it's all your fault.”

His voice cracked. “I didn't tell anyone, Eric. I promise.”

Deep in my heart I knew he was telling the truth, but my heart wasn't in control. “I'm never going to talk to you again. Never. I hate you.”

My words fell off into silence. I could hear Joel softly crying beneath his covers, whimpering over and over, “I didn't do it.”