The Black Cadillac (12 page)

Like always, he said hi to his sister and went to his room. He flipped on his alarm clock radio on his desk to the AM news station while doing his math work sheet. He wanted to hear an update on the missing girl. It was all the news reporters were talking about in the area. After a bunch of commercials, a reporter came on.

“Mandy Coefield had been missing for eleven days now. Police and authorities continue the search for the missing eight-year-old,” the reporter said in a low tone.

Cody turned off the radio. The butterfly feeling formed in his stomach. Something told him that time was running out.

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W
hen Cody woke up the next morning, there was a sense of urgency on his mind. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the phone book that Grady was bringing to school. Would the name of the man be in there?

At lunchtime, Cody circled the cafeteria, looking for Zach. He was nowhere to be found. Cody sat at the table with Frankie and Seth.

“Hey, guys, have either of you seen Zach?” asked Cody.

“Nope,” said Frankie, stuffing a piece of pizza in his mouth.

Seth didn’t even respond because he was occupied by a crossword puzzle.

Cody sat down at the table and pulled out his peanut butter sandwich that was in a small container in his book bag. Just before he could take the first bite, Zach was walking quickly toward the table.

“Dude, the new kid came through!” he exclaimed, making sure that no one really knew what he was talking about.

“You got it?” asked Cody with a wide eye.

“Yep, it’s in my bag. Let’s look at it at your house later,” said Zach.

“That’s probably a good idea,” replied Cody. “Meet me after school by the playground.”

Zach nodded and walked toward the food line. He rarely packed a lunch like his friend. Mrs. Madden always gave him lunch money.

Lunch came and went.

When Cody got to math class, Mr. Jones stopped him before he sat down. He pointed to his desk. Cody quietly placed the completed work sheet on the desk and sat down in his seat. He really appreciated what Mr. Jones had done for him. Mr. Jones acknowledged Cody after he sat down.

None of the other students had any clue what Mr. Jones did for Cody. Mr. Jones started teaching class.

“Okay, guys and gals, pull out your books and open to page 141. Welcome to geometry…” Mr. Jones’s voice trailed off.

Cody drifted off into a deep daydream. It was more like a day nightmare. He was at the man’s house on Braxton Street in Crestwood. It was night, and Cody was by himself. He was dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and was carrying a small flashlight. Cody opened the gate slowly to the front yard and walked up to the porch.

The house was dark, and there were some wooden boards on a couple of the porch windows. The outside floorboards made a creek as he gently tried to peer in a window. There was nothing to see because of how dark it was. Cody put the flashlight up to the window. He quickly turned it off when he heard someone walking toward the front door. The front door swung open…

The bell rang.

Cody snapped out of his daydreamed coma, grabbed his book bag, and headed out the door before Mr. Jones saw him.

Cody tried to stay focused for his last two classes. He was very anxious to meet up with Zach and the phone book. The final bell eventually rang two hours later.

Cody flew out of his last class down the hall, weaving through a plethora of kids to get to the back exit door. He arrived at the playground and sat on one of the benches. Cody could see his friend was about one hundred yards away just walking out of the building. He whistled and waved his hands in the crowded playground as Zach came closer. Zach caught up with his friend.

“Let’s go straight to your house,” instructed Zach.

“Let’s go,” fired back Cody.

The two boys chatted all the way to Cody’s house about the upcoming baseball season. Both of them loved baseball. Cody was actually a better baseball player than Zach though he would never say that to his friend.

When they arrived at Cody’s house, they headed straight to Cody’s room and shut the door. Cody grabbed a blanket off his bed, rolled it up the long way, and stuffed it under the door to prevent it from opening. The lock on Cody’s bedroom door had been broken for years. He needed to make his own lock, and the blanket would be sufficient.

Zach pulled the thick phone book out of his bag and placed it on the floor. Cody went in to his desk and removed his small notebook out of the secret compartment. He opened it to the correct page.

“Okay, Zach, the address is 1291 Braxton Street,” Cody informed his friend.

They sat on the floor and opened the phone book to the beginning.

“We just need to flip page by page, looking for an address that starts with 1291,” said Cody.

Cody reached into his book bag and pulled out a pen.

Page after page, the friends looked. The address never came up. An hour had gone by, and they were over halfway through the book. One of them read one page, and the other followed to double-check. With just twenty pages left to go, Cody suddenly stopped browsing. Zach saw what Cody was looking at.

“I think we found it,” said Cody.

“I think you’re right,” confirmed Zach.

There, on the right page, was the address that matched Cody’s notes.

It read, “
wermer, melvin t 1291 braxton st. (440)555-2448.”

The tired boys looked at each other.

“This is him, Zach. I just know it,” said Cody.

“Wow,” his friend said, that being the only word that would come out.

The boys had now put a name to the man’s face. What they thought of next was something unimaginable.

“I want to go back there,” blurted out Cody. “I need to know.”

“Dude, I go where you go,” his friend confidently said.

“We need another plan, and I’ve got one. How far of a bike ride do you think it is?” asked Cody.

Zach went to the front of the phone book with a map of Crestwood and a few surrounding cities. He looked at the scale that showed how much a mile was.

“Oh man, maybe forty-five minutes,” Zach responded. “It’s at least six miles based off this map.”

“We are going to ride to Crestwood. We will park our bikes at the top of the street and hide them somewhere. We will then walk to the house and try to get a look-in,” explained Cody.

“Okay, when are we going to do this?” asked Zach.

“This weekend but there’s one catch—we are going near dusk,” said Cody with a little pitch to his tone.

“Oh man, how are we going to get out and stay that late?” asked Zach, very unsure.

“We are going to try and pull something off on our parents, and we need to be completely on the same page if we are going to do it,” said Cody, trying to sound convincing.

Cody’s brain was firing on all cylinders.

Zach didn’t have a clue what Cody meant by that.

“We are going to each ask our parents if we can spend the night over each other’s houses. It will work, I promise,” Cody explained.

“It’s risky, but I think you’re right. I know I will be able to pull that off on my mom,” said Zach.

The plan had to work. After all, the boys did have quite a few sleepovers at both houses. Both of them believed in the plan.

“Once we get to the house, what are we going to do?” asked Zach, moving on with other agendas.

“We are going to get in,” Cody quickly responded. “Especially if the black Cadillac is not in the driveway.”

“Dude, I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t scared, but I’m sure as hell not letting you do this alone,” replied Zach.

“I’m scared too, but this is something I have to do. I wouldn’t be mad at you if you wanted out of this whole thing now,” Cody said to his best friend.

“I’m not opting out, I’m just scared,” said Zach.

“I want to leave Saturday around four o’clock,” Cody said but was then interrupted by Zach.

“Wait a minute, though, why don’t we go on Sunday when there’s a good chance he’ll be parked across the street from the church?” suggested Zach.

Cody didn’t think it was a bad idea but decided against it.

“That’s the daytime. People could see us. We need the darkness,” responded Cody.

“Good point but what if the guy is home? I can’t make up another fake lost dog,” said Zach.

“If he is home, we just need to be extra careful,” said Cody. “We have four more days to figure out any other details.”

The plan was in motion, and the boys fully intended to go through with it. It was dangerous and stupid, but Cody believed there was light at the end of the tunnel, and his friend supported him.

The next three days were a blur, and suddenly, it was Friday night. The boys had already told their mothers what they had talked about earlier in the week. As far as Zach’s mother was concerned, Zach was staying over Cody’s house just like normal. As far as Cody’s mother was concerned, Cody was staying at Zach’s house like they would do often. The boys would roam free in just one day.

Cody was sitting in his room, and then the phone rang,

“Hello?” answered Cody.

“Hey, it’s Zach. I wanted to run something by you. Suppose we do find something out of the ordinary, then can we call the police?” said Zach.

“Absolutely! It’s like we have said all along, Zach. This could be nothing, or this could be something,” Cody shot back to his friend.

“I know. I just wanted to make sure we were not going to try to be superheroes and take the man down with our bare hands,” said Zach.

“No, not at all. Our best defense is our legs, Zach. If something seems wrong or we get into trouble, we need to get out of there,” explained Cody, and there was seriousness in his tone.

“I agree, let’s just not leave each other hanging. I have your back, buddy,” Zach said genuinely.

“I know you do, and I have yours. Let’s get some rest, we have a long day tomorrow. Also, pack a book bag of things we will need. Flashlights and tear the map of Crestwood out of the phone book and bring it, in case we get lost in the dark on the way home,” said Cody.

“Okay, good idea. Good night, dude,” Zach responded.

“Good night, buddy,” said Cody.

That night, Cody had one long dream with no talking in it.

Cody’s Papa was standing outside with him, waiting to cross the street of a busy intersection. When the stoplight turned red, the two of them started walking toward the street on the other side. It was Braxton Street. His Papa stopped when they got to the street while Cody continued on.

As the boy turned around, he saw the same worried look on his face from previous dreams, and the index finger of the old man was pointing down. As Cody walked farther down the street, his grandfather faded in the distance. Cody was alone. The black Cadillac sat in the driveway of 1291 Braxton.

The boy walked by the Cadillac and into the backyard. Though it was pitch-dark, Cody could see all kinds of debris in the backyard. Right as he was getting to the back door of the house, there was a loud scream. Everything went black, and the dream ended. The dream occurred multiple times in the night.

Cody woke up at two in the morning drenched in sweat. The boy sat up in bed and looked above his head on the bottom part of the top bunk. There, stuffed in between the support bars, was a pewter guardian angel that his mother had given to him when his Papa died. The angel had been on the visor of his grandfather’s car before he died. When his mother gave it to him, she told her son that his Papa would always be watching over him. Cody reached up, touched the angel, and then fell back asleep shortly after.

It seemed like as soon as Cody closed his eyes, it was time to get up on Saturday morning. There was a knock on his door.

“Cody, are you up? I need you to watch your sister for a couple of hours while I run to the grocery store,” his mother’s voice came through the door.

“I’m up, Mom,” said Cody, his voice a little hoarse from waking up. “Let me change and brush my teeth, then I’ll be right down.”

“Okay, but please hurry. I need to be at the bus stop in twenty minutes,” Cody’s mother said, walking away from the door.

Georgiana didn’t own a car. She took the bus everywhere, even to work in the morning. The grocery store was about three miles down Bunting, and the bus stopped right in front of it.

“All right, Mom, I’ll be right down,” Cody politely yelled so she could hear him.

He hopped out of bed and went straight to his desk, opening the bottom drawer with the secret compartment. Cody pulled out all the items in the drawer and stuffed them into a drawstring sack. Then he opened his top drawer, took out a small black flashlight, and dropped it in the bag also.

Cody hung the bag on the back of his desk chair and walked downstairs.

“Morning, Ol!” he said to his sister, who was in front of the television, watching cartoons. Their mom walked into the living room.