Can You Keep a Secret? (26 page)

The (Alternative) Book of Benjamin

I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while.

I guess it’s because I haven’t known quite what to say.

Maybe you’ll remember that the last time I posted, I was seriously thinking about putting Benjamin up for re-adoption. He’d be happier, and Colby and I would be able to work on our marriage – but apparently I left it too late.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Colby’s gone.

He left us.

I know some of you will be saying good riddance to bad rubbish! And I guess I should have seen it coming, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not in shock.

For those of you who want the gory details, he basically came to me on Tuesday last week and said, ‘Caitlin, as tough as this is going to be for both of us, I just can’t do it anymore. I’ve given this relationship everything. I feel responsible for bringing you to the United States, and I know when we got married it was
supposed to be for better or worse, but I am exhausted. I can’t do it anymore.’

Of course I said, ‘But what about Benjamin?’ but Colby wouldn’t talk about Benjamin. All he would say was, ‘Benjamin! If there’s one name I never want to hear again, it’s Benjamin.’

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I said, ‘Like it or not, he’s our responsibility.’

Colby said, ‘I used to think that you – and Benjamin – were my responsibility, but it’s like I’ve said: I’m exhausted. I have tried to sort this mess out, but at some point, I have to admit that this problem is too big for me. If I’m being honest, I have to say, Benjamin is your responsibility. He is your problem, and therefore he is your responsibility. I have done my best, but I can’t live like this anymore. And you can’t either. The fact of the matter is, Benjamin has to go, Caitlin. You have to give him up. And until you do, I can’t be here. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.’

I was amazed.

I couldn’t believe that he could be so heartless, which was why I didn’t even try to stop him when he walked out the door. I suppose I could have begged, but I didn’t want to beg. I have more pride than that.

So, yes, he’s gone. I don’t exactly know where he’s gone – he wouldn’t tell me – but I can guess.

He’ll be with HER.

She’s probably comforting him as I type. I can’t tell you how much I wish I knew where she lived so I could just go to her apartment and knock on her door and confront her and say: how dare you? Home-wrecker. Husband-stealer.

What I really should do is go and stand on the street outside their building and wait for her to come down the elevator – with him probably – and give her a piece of my mind, but with Benjamin … well, that’s just impossible.

I’ve tried calling Colby at work a few times, but whenever I get through all he says is: ‘You know the conditions, Caitlin. I can’t talk to you – not until you’ve done something about Benjamin.’

I don’t know what he expects me to do. Push Benjamin out the front door and tell him never to come back? Drop him over a bridge? Set fire to his room? Leave him at the welfare office with a note around his neck?

‘I’ve had enough of him,’ Colby says. Well, maybe I feel that way, too. The difference is, I can’t just walk away. I have to find a solution. So, I guess that’s what I’m going to do.

Seven days after Caitlin made her last entry in The (Alternative) Book of Benjamin, the Colbert house on Larchmont Hill – the Nougat House – burnt to the ground.

Fire investigators would later say that the fire must have started quite early in the morning and that by the time they arrived, most of the interior was already gone. Structural beams had fallen, walls had collapsed and ceilings had come down. Still, the firemen who arrived to find Caitlin beating at the windows went charging through the burning house, trying desperately to find the boy whose name she was calling.

Over many tense minutes, they battled heat and smoke, pouring foam onto flames and water onto burning embers, but they came out shaking their heads and fighting back tears. No boy could be found.

Caitlin cried out, ‘Oh, no!’ and flung herself on the ground, sobbing, as Detective Inspector Bruce Cramer from the
Larchmont branch of the NYPD tried to calm her down. Two paramedics raced over and half-walked, half-carried her off the lawn and put her in the back of an ambulance where she sat with her bony knees under her chin, and her ropey arms wrapped around her shins.

Cramer went over to the ambulance with his colleague from Larchmont Fire Department, Chief Inspector Neil Bassingsthwaite. Together they did their best to try to keep Caitlin focused.

‘He’s gone, isn’t he?’ she said. She had a faraway look in her eyes and was speaking to no one in particular. ‘He’s gone.’

‘Look, we don’t know that,’ Bassingsthwaite said gently. ‘My team has been through and we haven’t found anyone yet, and that’s a good-news story. That means that your boy might have gotten out.’

‘But how could he get out?’ Caitlin wailed. ‘Where is he now?’

‘That’s what we’ve got to figure out,’ said Cramer. ‘Let’s concentrate. Tell me where your boy slept. Where was his bedroom? Let’s try to work this out.’

‘He had a bedroom upstairs,’ said Caitlin, rocking backward and forward. ‘He slept in the attic, above the living room. I can see for myself the attic is gone.’

‘Can you describe where it was exactly?’ Cramer persisted. ‘Sketch me a floor plan of the house. Show me where he may have come down the stairs.’

Caitlin did her best, sketching the plan for her once-magnificent house onto a page of Cramer’s notebook.

‘There was a staircase here,’ she said, ‘with a wrought-iron stair rail, curled at the end. The back door was here, and the front door here.’

Bassingsthwaite looked at Cramer’s notebook and nodded. ‘Alright. Let’s go and look.’

The two men walked from the ambulance back up the hill, feeling the eyes of exhausted firefighters and distraught neighbours upon them. They stepped through a darkened area where the front door had stood, and gingerly balanced their feet on the boards in the hallway, testing each of them to see if they might give way.

The handrail, with its fancy curled iron ends, wasn’t hard to find. It was lying on the ground in what had been the living room, covered in the remnants of dirty foam and ash.

Bassingsthwaite bent down to pick it up and turned to Cramer.

‘Let’s go slow,’ he said. ‘If this is here then everything from the attic should also be here.’

Together they went painstakingly over ground already disturbed by the boots of the firefighters who had been through before them, finding the remains of Benjamin’s mattress, with the burnt springs and the melted foam, but no trace of the boy himself.

‘He’s five years old,’ said Cramer, scratching his head, ‘and we’re standing directly under where his bedroom would have been. If he was in his bedroom and it’s collapsed, he’s got to be here somewhere.’

‘Yet there’s no sign of him. Do you think he could have gotten out?’ Bassingsthwaite asked.

‘I have no idea. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know what else
to
think.’ It was hot inside the remains of the house and Bassingsthwaite pushed his fire hat back from his forehead. ‘I don’t want to sound gruesome, but if that boy burnt up we’d find him here.’

Cramer understood: a human body won’t disintegrate in a house fire; it’s simply not hot enough.

They went through the remains of the house – all of it – again, even more slowly than before. Still nothing.

‘He
must
have gotten out,’ said Cramer.

‘But then where would he be?’

Cramer looked out through the blown-out windows, over towards woods behind the house. ‘Would he go that way? Into the trees?’

‘And not come out again?’

‘Well, if I got out that’s where I’d go. I mean, he’s probably terrified.’

Bassingsthwaite nodded. ‘Let’s go back out and talk to her again.’

They walked back to the ambulance. The rear doors were open and Caitlin was still sitting, small as a child, on one of two beds, holding a paper bag in her hands.

‘Puff into it,’ the paramedic was saying. ‘It’ll help control your breathing.’

Caitlin put the bag to her mouth. It inflated and collapsed, inflated and collapsed.

Cramer and Bassingsthwaite approached the doors and looked in.

Caitlin instantly turned to look at them. ‘Did you find him?’ Her eyes were red, her expression desperate.

Cramer shook his head. ‘We didn’t. But look, it’s like we were saying – that might actually be a good-news story. We had a real careful search and haven’t found him in the house.’ He turned to the paramedic. ‘Do you mind if we hop up?’

The paramedic nodded okay and Cramer and Bassingsthwaite hauled themselves inside the ambulance and sat on the bed opposite Caitlin.

‘I’m talking straight here. The thing is, there’s no trace of your son inside the house,’ Cramer said. ‘We think it means that he must have gotten out.’

Caitlin shook her head. ‘He couldn’t have got out,’ she said, with a vigour that surprised him.

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Bassingsthwaite. He was, by now, absolutely certain that Benjamin had not died in the fire; it simply made no sense that his body wasn’t there.

‘He’s only small,’ said Caitlin, ‘you must have missed him. He couldn’t have got out.’

Bassingsthwaite shook his head. ‘Forgive me for having to say this. Had Benjamin been in the house – let’s say in bed – he’d have been overcome by smoke and suffocated, which would mean that his body – or the remains of it – would have been found, curled up in bed, or on the floor below where the bed had once stood.’

‘But he wasn’t in bed. I went up to his room when the fire started. I was in my bed and I smelt the smoke. I went up there. I felt around in the dark. I found his mattress. He wasn’t on it.’

‘Okay,’ said Cramer. ‘I need you to slow down. I need you to tell me exactly what happened, so maybe we can figure out some other places to look. Maybe he climbed out a window? You had windows in the attic, I suppose?’

Caitlin was crying and shaking her head. ‘There were windows – attic windows with bench seats – but they were nailed shut. Look, we adopted Benjamin. He’s from an orphanage in Russia. He’s got some behavioural problems. There were windows in the attic, but I’d had them nailed shut. He used to get up and get out and end up at the neighbour’s house.’

Cramer and Bassingsthwaite exchanged quick glances. The child they were looking for was an orphan adopted from Russia who had been kept locked in his room at night? Neither of them liked the sound of that.

‘Well, what about the door?’ asked Cramer. ‘The bedroom door – did you keep that locked, too?’

‘There wasn’t really a bedroom door. I told you before, he slept up in the attic. There was a staircase that came up through the floor.’

‘Well, maybe he came down those stairs before you went up,’ said Cramer. ‘Is that possible? That he smelt the smoke and went out the front door?’

‘No, no,’ said Caitlin, shaking her head wildly, ‘he
couldn’t have got out the front door. I came out the front door. The front door was
locked.
’

‘You mean it was locked when you got to it?’ asked Cramer.

‘Yes!’ Caitlin sounded exasperated and out of breath. ‘I’m trying to explain …’

‘Breathe,’ said the paramedic, helping the brown paper bag back to her face. ‘Breathe.’

Caitlin breathed in and out. In and out.

‘Okay,’ said Cramer. ‘Look, I know this is difficult. Maybe if you can just tell us what happened from your point of view. You woke up and smelt the smoke? Then what happened?’

‘Something woke me.’ Caitlin nodded. ‘Something definitely woke me.’

‘Like a noise, or …?’

‘I don’t know about a noise. Maybe a sixth sense, something like that?’

‘A sixth sense.’ Cramer was doing his best to be patient. He needed to find this boy. ‘Right. And you were in bed, were you?’

‘Yes.’ Caitlin nodded again.

‘You didn’t hear a smoke alarm?’

‘I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t! Maybe they aren’t working? I didn’t hear an alarm go off. I smelt the smoke and then I was fighting my way up the stairs to Benjamin’s room, but it was filled with smoke! I was down on my hands and knees, trying to crawl to where his mattress is, on the floor.
That’s where Benjamin sleeps. He doesn’t have a bed; he just sleeps on a mattress. But his room was so dark. My eyes were watering so much. I was sweeping my hand from side to side, trying to feel for him. I didn’t know that I’d found his mattress until my hand bumped into it. I ran my hands over the covers, from one end to the other. Benjamin wasn’t there. I was just crying and screaming, feeling to see if he was curled up against the wall, in the corner, anywhere. But he wasn’t in there. He definitely wasn’t. And then I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out. I just had to go.’

Caitlin’s voice was breaking, and tears were streaming down her face. ‘I practically fell down the stairs. I was stumbling down the hall. I keep the house key on a hook near the front door. Too high for Benjamin. And the key was still there. And the door was still locked. So, I was really struggling to get out. And then when I got out and I could breathe again, the first thing I wanted to do was get back in, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. It was so hot, and I was just being forced back.’

‘Alright,’ said Cramer. He put a reassuring hand on Caitlin’s shoulder, trying to keep her calm. ‘And there was nobody else in the house with you, obviously? Nobody who could have helped get Benjamin out? You’re not married, or …?’

‘I am married!’ said Caitlin, angrily. ‘My husband’s name is Lachlan. He’s a banker. He works on Wall Street. But two weeks ago, he left me.’

‘Your husband left you?’ Cramer looked startled.

‘He left me for another woman!’ Caitlin’s eyes were now wild. ‘He’s been having an affair.’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Cramer, trying to calm her. He was an experienced officer and this sounded like a very bad situation to him. A luxury home in a well-to-do neighbourhood had burnt down. That alone was suspicious. A five-year-old boy was missing, and no body found. So, where was he? Now Cramer was hearing that there had been a marriage bust-up just two weeks ago? The whole thing reeked. He could tell from looking at Bassingsthwaite that he was having the same thoughts.

He turned back to Caitlin. ‘Mrs Colbert, your husband – where did he go when you separated? Where’s he living now?’

‘I don’t know where he went!’ Caitlin was still shaking and crying. ‘He wouldn’t tell me. I’ve tried to find him. I’ve been calling and calling him, but he hasn’t wanted to talk to me. He’s run off with some woman from his work. Maybe she had my calls stopped at the office.’

Cramer rubbed his forehead. So now he had a fire in an expensive home, a missing child, a marriage bust-up and an extra-marital affair?

‘So, you haven’t spoken to your husband?’ he said. ‘I take it you haven’t seen him either?’

‘Not since he left.’ Caitlin shook her head.

‘And what’s your feeling, Mrs Colbert – this fire? Could your husband have done something like this? Is it something your husband might have done? Is the situation here that you’re at war over the house? At war over your son? Has your
husband threatened you with getting custody of your boy, anything like that?’

Caitlin let out a sad cry. ‘My husband doesn’t want custody of Benjamin! He doesn’t want anything to do with him. He’s
never
wanted anything to do with him. He’s been trying to get
rid
of Benjamin. Just before he left, he told
me
to get rid of Benjamin. Benjamin is a troubled boy. He’s been a real handful. My husband can’t
stand
Benjamin.’

Cramer was shocked. ‘Your husband told you to get rid of your boy?’

‘Because he doesn’t even see Benjamin as his boy. He says it was my idea to adopt Benjamin and now we should give him back. As far as my husband is concerned, Benjamin might as well not exist.’

Cramer sucked in his breath.

‘Alright, Mrs Colbert,’ he said, ‘this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to find your boy. He is not in that house. Believe me when I say that. Where he is, I don’t know. But I will find him. We’ll get a team of people out talking to neighbours, getting people to check their pool houses, check their garden sheds. But I need your help, too. You say you don’t know where your husband went when he left. What kind of family has he got? Brothers, sisters, somebody that would take him in?’

‘There’s his mother – Pearl – she lives in the City.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘She’s got an apartment at the Ansonia. But Colby
wouldn’t go there. She was a terrible mother to him. She tore up his baby pictures when we got married!’

‘And she’s not close to her grandson?’ Cramer asked, trying to keep her on track.

‘To who?’

‘To your son? To Benjamin?’

‘Oh, no.’ Caitlin shook her head furiously. ‘No, she’s not close to Benjamin. She doesn’t approve of him. She doesn’t approve of adoption. She doesn’t think it’s family. They don’t have anything to do with each other.’

‘Alright, and what about the girlfriend? The mistress? The one your husband’s been seeing? You know her? You know where she’s at?’

‘Her name’s Summer.’ Caitlin spat the words out. ‘They work together. I don’t know where she lives.’

‘You’ve tried to find out, though?’

‘Of course I have!’