Down the Rabbit Hole (12 page)

“That's very nice of you, Vincent,” Jill said. That settled that.

Ingrid called Mom, told her she had a ride.

“Thank God,” Mom said. She sounded exhausted.

Vincent drove a small car—Ingrid couldn't see what kind in the darkness of the parking lot. They got in. Vincent turned the key.

“Where to?” he said.

Bzzz.
At that moment, Ingrid was hit by the most amazing inspiration yet. Vincent was new in town, had no clue where she lived, would drop her anywhere. When would the chance come again?

“Three thirty-seven Packer Street,” she said. “It's in the Flats.” She had the key in her pocket.

“T
AKE THE NEXT LEFT
,” Ingrid said. “That'll be River.” Wow. The town was coming together, the neighborhoods and streets taking shape in her mind, clearer and clearer every day. You just had to keep your eyes open.

Vincent glanced at her. “You know your way around,” he said. She noticed he'd put on driving gloves, kind of like golf gloves with open fingers and little holes; she'd never seen anyone wear driving gloves before.

“It's a hobby of mine,” she said. “Learning the town. I got the idea from Sherlock Holmes—the way he knows London.”

It was dark now. The headlights of an approaching car shone on Vincent's face, sparkled on his liquid brown eyes. Ingrid was sure she could feel him thinking; she got the feeling he was pretty smart.

“You like Sherlock Holmes?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You don't find him a little cold?”

“I don't think he is cold, not underneath,” Ingrid said.

He turned to her with a smile. “That's quite a gift.”

“What is?”

“Being able to see what people are like underneath.”

“Oh,” said Ingrid, “that's not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“Only about Sherlock Holmes,” Ingrid said. “It's not just solving puzzles for him. He cares but doesn't let on. And Watson's not smart enough to get it.” Hey! She'd figured out most of that on the fly. She turned to Vincent. He was easy to talk to. She spoke the next thought that came to her mind. “What about you, Vincent? Do you have the gift?”

At that moment they came to Bridge Street. Left
or right? Left, Ingrid thought, but before she could say the word, he'd done it on his own.

“Only—” he began, and then paused.

“Only what?” said Ingrid.

They stopped at a flashing red light. Vincent glanced at her, the light reddening his face, then blanking it out. “Only when I'm performing,” he said, then looked both ways and drove carefully across the intersection.

Ingrid understood perfectly, or thought she did. To make sure, she said, “Meaning you find out what's inside when you're actually doing the character?”

“Something like that,” he said. “Left here?”

Ingrid had lost track. She peered at the street sign: Packer. “Yes,” she said, suddenly wondering whether he was saying he saw inside the character, which is what she'd meant, or saw inside himself. “I bet you've done a lot of acting,” she said. Down a side street, she glimpsed the green neon glow of the Benito's Pizzeria sign.

“Some,” said Vincent. “At one time.”

“Where was this?”

“Various places,” Vincent said. “Nothing to speak of.”

Ingrid knew modesty when she heard it. “What are some of the plays you've been in?”

“Oh,” said Vincent, “the usual.”

“Like?” said Ingrid.

A moment of silence, tiny reflections of green neon in his eyeballs. “You're the curious type,” he said.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Ingrid, kind of expecting a smile if not an outright laugh. But there was neither.

“Death of a Salesman,”
he said.
“The Three Sisters. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Di—”
He stopped himself, then went on. “And others of that ilk.”

Ingrid wasn't sure what ilk he meant, but they all sounded pretty heavy. “No comedies?” she said.

“No comedies.”

“Oh.” Comedy was the best ilk of all. “How about movies?” Ingrid said. “Jill was in
Tongue and Groove
with Will Smith and Eugene Levy.”

“Missed that one,” Vincent said. “I had a small role, long ago.”

“Yeah? In what?”

“Nothing worth mentioning.”

“Maybe it's at Blockbuster.”

“No,” said Vincent. “It's not.” He pulled over, stopped the car. “Three thirty-seven Packer Street,”
he said. “Your place.”

Ingrid looked out. The house, two doors down from Kate's, was dark, not one light shining inside. But all the streetlights had been fixed since the murder. They illuminated the
FOR SALE
sign on the scrubby patch of lawn—
RIVERBEND PROPERTIES
.

“Looks like no one's home,” Vincent said.

“They'll be back soon,” said Ingrid.

“Just the three of you?” Vincent said.

“And my brother Ty.”

“How old is he?”

“Fifteen.”

Vincent gazed at the house. “Have you got a key?”

“Yes.”

“I see it's for sale.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Your mother's a real-estate agent?”

“Yes.”

“So that must be her company,” said Vincent. “Riverbend.”

Uh-oh. Ingrid saw a possibly tricky situation lurking in the future, namely Vincent and Mom doing some bed-and-breakfast deal together. How about saying it wasn't Mom's company? Dumb, essence of. Was there ever an agent in the whole history of real
estate, going back to grass huts, who'd listed her own house with someone else? “She's with Riverbend all right,” Ingrid said. “But they don't do bed-and-breakfasts.”

“Really?” he said, slowing the word down the same way that in the audition he'd changed the meaning of the Mad Hatter's line about not having the slightest idea. “I wonder why not.”

“It's not a bed-and-breakfast kind of town.”

“Funny,” said Vincent, “with the falls and the jazz barge in the summer, I'd have thought…” He turned to her. “What does your father do?”

“He's a financial adviser for Mr. Ferrand.”

“Chloe's father?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Small world.”

Ingrid opened the door. “Thanks for the drive, Mr. Dunn.”

“Vincent, please. And you're entirely welcome. I'll just watch to make sure you get in safely.”

“That's all right,” said Ingrid. “I'm fine.”

“It's no problem,” Vincent said. “The street is rather dark.”

Not really, with the lights fixed, but Ingrid didn't argue. She got out of the car and walked to the front
door of 337. There were three brass keys on the ring, all pretty similar, Ingrid tried one in the lock. No dice. Then the second, which also didn't work. Fumbling now for the third, she felt Vincent's eyes on her back, read the obvious thought:
How come she's having so much trouble getting into her own house?

Key number three. Presto, like in a fairy tale, where everything came in threes. Ingrid let herself into 337 Packer Street, turned with a little wave, and closed the door. She heard the car drive off.

Other than that, nothing. The house was silent.

I'm home.
A little shudder went through Ingrid when that thought popped unbidden into her mind.

Light leaked in from the street through one of those fan-shaped windows above the door. Ingrid saw she was in a small dark-wood paneled entry, bare of decoration or furniture. Two doors faced her, both painted black, identical.
Eat me,
she thought,
drink me,
and randomly tried one of the keys in the right-hand door.

The key turned. Ingrid opened the door, saw a staircase leading down into darkness. Basement apartment. This was it. She went down, slow and silent.

At the bottom she stood and listened, heard nothing, nothing human, like breathing, sighing, snoring, nothing from the machine world, like a humming fridge, rumbling furnace, or TV talk. The apartment was cold and empty, its occupants in the hoosegow. There was nothing to fear. She found a light switch and flicked it.

A single light went on, shining from a naked bulb in a bracket on the far wall. The main room of the basement apartment had nothing in it but a small unplugged fridge and a strange mobile suspended from the ceiling, made of balled-up and twisted audiotape and resembling a full-size hanged man. Who had made it? Why?

Off the main room was a tiny bathroom, completely empty except for a bad smell, and a narrow bedroom containing two iron bedsteads with nothing on their springs but green plastic garbage bags, one on each.

Ingrid opened them up, both packed with clothes. She dumped them out on the floor and searched through, one at a time. Albert Morales—she knew which bag was his because the first thing she saw was a Midas Muffler work shirt with
ALBERT
stitched on the pocket—had left behind three pairs
of shoes: stinking green flip-flops, scuffed and cracked black tie shoes with worn heels, and dark yellow loafers with pointy toes and tarnished buckles. Lon Stingley had only a pair of felt slippers, very wide, probably because of his club foot. No Adidas with green paint spatters, no sneakers of any kind. Ingrid checked everywhere—under the beds, in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, behind the toilet. There was nowhere else. The apartment didn't even have closets. No Adidas sneakers, absolutely for sure. Albert Morales and Lon Stingley were innocent—innocent of the break-in, and if Chief Strade was right about the connection between the break-in and the murder, innocent of that too.

Ingrid knew she couldn't let them stay in jail. But how to get them out? It was all so convoluted now, all so twisted around. Would anyone even believe her? Would she just end up looking like a crackpot, already a convicted math cheat, totally without credibility? And it was way worse than that. Chief Strade knew there'd been tampering and believed that the tamperer could have set up Morales and Stingley or even done the murder. The truth hit her, the very dangerous truth: She had set herself up. Maybe the chief was a hard-ass after all, an unjust
one like Ms. Groome. Anything could happen in a trial. Innocent people were in jail right now. And she wasn't even innocent: Tampering with evidence was a crime, crossing police lines was a crime, breaking and entering was a crime; and there were probably more. What would a jury think? A jury. A trial. Oh my God.

Who could she tell? Mom? Could Mom take it? She might actually have a heart attack. Dad? How embarrassed Dad would be in front of Mr. Ferrand, the contrast between the two daughters set in stone for all time. Ty? Forget it. Grampy? She already knew what he would say—mouth shut, head down, deny everything. Stacy? What was the point of that? Stacy was a kid, just like her, with no power in the big world. She stared at the audiotape man, hanging perfectly still. That last line of poetry Mom had recited came back to her. “I say that we are wound with mercy, round and round.” Ingrid wanted to buy that idea, that she could blurt it all out and then sink into the merciful arms of others, but she just didn't believe it. It was practically babyish.

There was only one solution. She would have to—

A noise came from upstairs: a loud metal clang
that shook the house. Ingrid froze and, in the heart-stopping moment that followed, made a vow to herself:
I'm never breaking in anywhere again, key or no key. My nerves just can't take it.
Then came a series of clangs, getting softer and softer and finally dying out. It was only an air bubble in the heating system, or some other technical thing like that. She started breathing again.

Ingrid repacked the plastic bags, shut off the light, went upstairs, and let herself out of 337 Packer Street. There was no one around, just a few cars parked by the curb and a raccoon scuttling through the gutter. Ingrid walked around the house, crossed the alley, and entered the woods. This time it really was just like day except for the darkness, her path clear and unambiguous all the way home. She zoomed. Griddie, the night stalker.

The garage door was open, only the TT inside. Ingrid went into the kitchen. No one there except Nigel, who saw her and thumped his tail on the floor but otherwise made no movement. She went into the mudroom, hung up her jacket. The door to the basement was open and she heard Dad: “Come on, one more, push, push, push, come on now—PUSH.”

Ty let out a furious grunt.

Ingrid went downstairs. She realized she loved 99 Maple Lane, everything about it.

“Hi,” she said. “What's happening?”

They both looked at her: Ty on his back on the bench press with a surprising amount of weight on the bar, Dad at the head of the bench where the safety stood.

“Bobby Moran broke his arm in practice,” Dad said. “Ty's starting next game.”

“Even after that flea-flicker fiasco?” Ingrid said.

They both gave her a mean look, the identical mean look, a gene Grampy probably had too, and other Hill men all the way back to some knuckle-dragging patriarch. It was kind of funny. Ingrid went upstairs, heated Ta Tung leftovers, opened an ice-cold Fresca, sat at the table.

The outside lights were off, making her reflection in the window very clear. Because of the window's angle in the nook, this wasn't her usual mirrored self but something a little different, maybe the way others saw her. She looked older, for a moment even imagined she was seeing the adult Ingrid, her face harder and determined, a formidable person. Yeah, right.

But something about her reflection prompted Ingrid to finish the thought that had been interrupted by the air bubble clang at 337 Packer Street. A big thought, probably the biggest of her life: She was going to have to solve this case—the murder of Cracked-Up Katie—herself. There was no other way.

Mom came in, the two vertical lines on her forehead very deep.

“Oh, good,” she said. “You're home. Sorry I got tied up.”

“No problem.”

“Is Dad here?”

“Downstairs with Ty.” Mom's forehead lines got shallower, almost completely smoothing over. “He's starting,” Ingrid added.

“He is?”

“The coach has Alzheimer's.”

“Ingrid!” Mom said, but she was smiling at the same time. She threw her coat on the chair next to Ingrid, kicked off her shoes, slid her feet into the sheepskin slippers, wriggled her toes.

“Who drove you home?”