“Home, Albert,” he says, his sobs lost to the drumming of the rain. “Please, I just want to go home.”
“Home?” I lift the bag over my head, my head spinning and my vision clouding. “But you are home, Sam.” The crack of three cans of condensed onion soup making contact with that strong, perfectly chiseled jaw is louder than I expected. “Come on,” I say as he collapses at my feet. “Let’s go have some steak.”
Chapter 44
Franklin Sheehy is waiting for Annie in his cruiser when she arrives at the police station. “Jump in,” he says. “Let’s take a ride.”
She hesitates and then gets in. They stay quiet as Sheehy heads out of town on the desolate road along the railroad tracks. Three silent minutes later, they pull into the parking lot of Stor-Mor Storage. “With all the extra space, you’d think they’d have room for two extra e’s,” Annie said to Sam on her first visit to town, when they sat in this parking lot in the front seat of his mother’s Corolla, making out like schoolkids. Over lunch, she had begged him for a tour of all the places her once-virile young husband convinced the naive teen girls of Chestnut Hill to let him into their pants.
He happily complied, taking her to the abandoned drive-in theater; the strip mall, behind Payless ShoeSource; and then here, to Stor-Mor Storage, where he and Annie fooled around in the front seat and where, earlier this afternoon, the police discovered Sam’s nice new Lexus parked inside one of the units, in perfect condition.
“He dropped it off about six p.m. the night he disappeared,” Sheehy informs her as they stand in front of unit 12, watching a technician in the front seat dust for prints.
“Why would he do that?” she asks, numb.
“To keep the cops busy looking for something they’re not going to find.”
“So how did you find it?”
“The place was vandalized recently, and the manager was going through security footage. Saw the car driving in, the night of the storm, and recognized it from the news.”
Annie snaps her head at Sheehy. “Is there footage of him?”
Sheehy holds her gaze for a moment. “Come with me.”
She follows him toward a building that resembles a wooden shed. Inside is a metal desk with three television monitors and empty Styrofoam coffee cups scattered on top. A cop is sitting in a tattered rolling desk chair in the corner, checking his phone. Seeing Sheehy, he quickly clicks off the screen and drops the phone into his chest pocket. “Chief.”
“This is Dr. Statler’s wife,” Sheehy says. “I want you to show her the footage.”
The cop slides to the desk, turns a monitor so it’s facing Annie. She sees a frozen image of a blurry car, which starts to move when the cop hits the keyboard. It’s Sam’s Lexus driving into unit 12. A figure appears on the screen a few moments later. A man. He has his back to the camera as he slides the door shut and then takes an umbrella from under his arm and opens it. His face is obstructed by the umbrella when he turns to the camera, and the cop freezes the video. “This is the best we got,” the cop says.
“Can you make it any bigger?” Annie asks. The cop zooms in and then stands up to offer Annie the chair. She sits and leans close to the screen, her heart aching as she recognizes the jacket. A Brooks Brothers’ Madison Fit Wool Reserve Blazer in classic navy. The one she picked out for him, the one he kept at his office.
“Can you confirm that’s your husband?” Sheehy says. She nods, unable to speak.
Sheehy heaves a heavy sigh. “Sorry, Annie. I know this isn’t easy.”
The room feels claustrophobic. “Can you take me home?”
“Of course. Let me tell my sergeant.”
She stands up and walks outside. Two men in nylon jackets are standing near the gate, lighting their cigarettes from a shared match. “I knew this guy’s old man,” one says as she passes. “Guess it’s true what they say. Like father, like son.”
Chapter 45
Something buzzes in Sam’s ear, and he opens his eyes.
It’s pitch-black and cold.
He’s on all fours, in the middle of the street, just over the bridge. He can see Sidney Pigeon’s house, a hundred feet away. A light is on upstairs, and a figure is standing at the window. Squinting, Sam makes out bushy brown curls under a baseball hat. The window is open, and he’s waving at Sam. “You see me!” Sam yells, waving back, elated. “It’s me! Sam Statler!” He starts cackling, waiting for the kid to rush from the window and down the stairs, where he’ll spring into Sidney’s living room and find an adult to call 911. But the kid isn’t doing that. Instead, he keeps waving, and suddenly Sam realizes he’s got it wrong. The kid isn’t gesturing to him; he doesn’t even see him. He is clearing smoke from the joint in his hand and then he’s closing the window, turning off the light, and vanishing.