Hocus (9 page)

“Diana was how much older than you?”

“Four years. Mom just let her have her way, even then. It was easier than fighting her. Diana was strong willed. By the time Cassie was born, Mom had an infant and a toddler to contend with, and that was more than enough. Everything fell on Mom’s shoulders — Dad wasn’t home much. He worked graveyard shift for a lot of years. Wouldn’t come home until after we were getting ready for school. He’d be asleep when we came back. Trying to make ends meet, he’d catch as much overtime as he could. Gradually he cut back, took on better shifts, but by then Diana was past taming.”

“You weren’t close to her?”

He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug.

“What happened to her?”

He tensed, took his hand away. But after a while he said, “One night, she wanted to go out with some friends. My dad tried to forbid her to leave the house. Like I said, she was only sixteen, but she had already been through a couple of drug treatment programs. Cost more than my folks could afford, really, but they were getting desperate by then. My mom had convinced my dad to change his shift, so that he’d be home to help deal with her. Didn’t really help. Diana would be okay for a little while, then… I don’t know.”

He stared at the picture as if he might find an answer there, some way to explain Diana. Just when I started to wonder if I should prompt him to continue, he started talking again.

“I can remember that night so clearly. It was summer. Our air conditioner was busted, and so we had all the windows and doors open. My mom and Cassie were at the store, and Dad was reading the newspaper, but keeping an eye on Diana. She was angry. She was pacing around in the living room, acting fidgety. I knew something was up, so I tried to distract her. I thought maybe I could keep her out of trouble. So I asked her to teach me to dance. She played along, but the whole time, she was watching for someone. I wasn’t much of a dancer. She laughed. I started dancing goofier on purpose, trying to make her laugh more.”

He looked up from the photo.

“Useless kid’s stuff. Diana’s friends drove up and honked for her. They were whooping and yelling, sounded like they were already high or drunk or both. She started to go out the door, my dad stood in her way. She yelled, ‘Fuck you, pig.’ Screamed it at him. You know, like he wasn’t her dad, like he was arresting her at a war protest or something. Her own dad. I couldn’t believe she would talk to him like that.”

He shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “My dad was furious. I could see it. Whenever you really made him angry, he’d get real quiet.”

Just like you do, I thought, but said nothing.

“My dad moved out of her way, and said, ‘You go out that door, Diana, don’t bother coming back.’ It was just something he said because he was hurt, the kind of thing parents say when they’re upset. He didn’t mean it. She looked over at me, and — I don’t know, I guess I’ve always wondered if she would have stayed if I hadn’t been there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, just that she had to prove something then, couldn’t let her kid brother see Dad face her down. She smiled at me and said, ‘Guess you’d better find a new dancing partner, Frankie,’ and left.” He paused, then said, “It got late and she wasn’t home. I was in my bedroom, I heard my mom and dad arguing. I guess my dad was putting on a jacket to go looking for her when the doorbell rang. I heard my dad open the door, and then… he made this sound… I hadn’t ever heard anyone make that sound before. I ran out of my room. My mom was wailing by then, but I was still more worried about him. They were holding on to each other. My dad was sobbing. I had never seen him shed a tear, and here he was, weeping.”

He stared off into space for a moment, caught up in his memories. When he spoke again his voice was soft and low, distracted. “A uniform — one of my dad’s friends was there. Probably his best friend on the force — his first partner. Gray-haired old guy by the name of Nat Cook. The other guys called him ‘Cookie.’ Cookie was crying, too, but quietly. He saw me, held out an arm, and I went to him. I was just bewildered. Cookie was too choked up to talk to me. I knew it was about Diana. I knew she had to be dead. If she had been hurt, they would have been rushing off to the hospital, but they were just standing there.

“I was the only one who wasn’t crying. I kept thinking that I needed to be strong for my dad. I knew that he was blaming himself, thinking that the last thing he said to her was that she shouldn’t come back.”

“How did it happen?”

“The car — they were all drunk. Driver, too. I guess they were crossing some tracks, tried to beat a train. Plowed through a lowered gate arm at the railroad crossing, didn’t make it across. Killed everybody in the car. Engineer said he didn’t even get a chance to try to brake. They all said it was quick, but I don’t know….”

This time he fell silent.

“Ever do your crying for her?” I asked softly.

He didn’t respond for a moment, then shook his head. “No, not really. I loved her. It wasn’t that. It was just that I was a kid and I thought about it the way a kid would, you know? I had to be strong. That was what I kept telling myself. After a while, I
couldn’t
cry for her. Not long after the funeral, the whole family was pretending she never existed. My mom gathered up all the photos of her and locked them up in the attic. Even photos of the family that had her in them. I stole this one out of the pile. Never let my folks know I had it. I just didn’t want to forget what she looked like.” He paused. “I sometimes wonder if Cassie really remembers Diana. Like I said, my mom asked us to promise not to talk about her. I have an aunt that has never forgiven my mother for that, but everyone else just went along with the program.”

I took his hand again, gave it a squeeze. He moved closer to me, took me in his arms, and held me. “I know it wasn’t right to keep this from you, Irene. But I just couldn’t say, ‘Hey, by the way, did I ever tell you that I was one of three children, not two?’ ”

“I think you might have figured out another way to bring it up, Frank. I understand the subject is painful, but I guess it’s hard for me to accept that we’ve known each other all these years without… well, you’ve explained it, but it’s still hard to accept.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

“When we were engaged, didn’t your mom—”

“She made me renew my promise.”

I sat up a little. “What?”

“Irene, if you asked me whether this was a healthy way to deal with things, I’d say no, it’s not. But I’d also say it’s too late. It’s the way she chose. Diana was her daughter. I’m her son. I had to respect her wishes. And by now… I don’t know if she could deal with it. It would just open old wounds. She was upset enough when I told her I was going to tell you tonight.”

I found myself unable to argue with him, at least at that moment. But I also felt — rightly or wrongly — pushed outside. That in-law feeling. For that evening, I decided, I could rise above my petty troubles, could comfort him, could see that his problems were greater than mine. Still, the notion that he was keeping secrets from me was not so easily set aside. Needlelike, it jabbed at my nobler intentions, became a small injury that would not heal.

Before we went to bed that evening, I picked up the picture of Diana and handed it to him. “You’d better put this back in its hiding place,” I said, avoiding his eyes when I said it.

Avoidance. What a great deal of effort it soon requires.

T
HAT’S THE FINEST DOG
I ever did see,” Gus Matthews said, squeezing the boy’s shoulders. “I tell you, Brian, this boy of yours knows dogs.”

Frank’s father made a noncommittal grunting sound, trying to get his partner to drop the subject. His boy, if encouraged, would bring home every stray within a ten-mile radius.

“I think she’s part Lab and part retriever,” Frank said.

“Is that so? Let me see her walk with you,” Gus said.

Frank pulled gently on the dog’s makeshift leash — a length of his mother’s clothesline, cut for the purpose. He’d thought to ask permission to use the clothesline after the fact, just before his younger sister finked on him. But his mother had seen his excitement over the dog and merely said, “If your father lets you keep this dog, the first walk will be to the shopping center. You’ll take your allowance and buy a real leash. And a new clothesline.”

The dog, who had followed him all the way home from the baseball field without a leash, needed no encouragement to do his bidding with one. Seeming to know that she was facing some sort of test, she walked perfectly beside him.

“Oh, sure,” Gus said. “You really do know dogs, Frank. That is definitely a Lab/retriever. Definitely. Have you named her yet?”

The boy turned red, then looked over to his father, a touch of defiance in his voice when he said, “Dad named her.”

“Well, Brian?” Gus asked.

“Trouble,” Harriman answered. “The dog’s name is Trouble.”

Gus’s effort to hold back his laughter was doomed. Brian watched his son stand there with the dog while the other man guffawed. The boy’s back and shoulders were straight; his eyes never left his father’s. One hand stroked the dog’s head.

The kid was lonely.

The thought struck Brian so suddenly, he almost said it aloud. The Harrimans had lost their older daughter a few months back. Brian had been miserable with it, and so had Bea, his wife. Cassie, the youngest child, had clung to Frank. Frank had been quiet. Frank was always quiet.

“It’s a gift, I tell you,” Gus was saying. “Frank, you ought to think about working the K-9 unit. Would that interest you?”

“I want to work homicide,” Frank answered.

Both men looked startled. “Twelve years old and you want to work homicide?” Gus asked.

He nodded. “I know I can’t start there. But I’m going to be a detective.”

“Get a load of that, Harriman. You’re raising a suit. Well, Frank, you know what? You’d make a hell of a detective. If they were all like you, we wouldn’t have any unsolved crimes in Bakersfield, would we?”

Frank shrugged.

“You can keep the dog,” Brian said, and paused as his very quiet son let out a loud whoop of elation. “C’mon, Gus. We’re taking Frank and his dog to the pet store. When he makes detective, I don’t want you tellin’ everybody at work that he used to drag strays around on a clothesline.”

T
HERE IS A PLACE ALONG
the stair steps leading to utter exhaustion that is something like being not quite drunk enough. On the night Frank was taken by Hocus, I had reached that point by the time I pulled into the driveway. I automatically left room for Frank’s car. Cassidy’s car pulled up instead, snapping me out of my musings about Hocus and Frank’s sister and back to the present. I had driven home on autopilot and at some point forgotten Cassidy was following me.

I was muzzy-headed, emotionally drained. My thoughts began to trip over one another. Cassidy. Thomas Cassidy. Right. And he was walking up to the car door, probably because I was just sitting there. Maybe I was putting off going back into the house. An empty driveway is one thing, an empty bed another.

He waited for me to step out, closed the car door for me. We walked in silence to the front door. When I opened it, I saw that Jack and Deke and Dunk were waiting for me in the hall.

“Rachel went home to Pete,” Jack said, then to Cassidy, “Your partner is asleep in the guest room.”

Cassidy went off to rouse Freeman. I rubbed the dogs’ ears, accepted their hovering attention. I told Jack what had happened at the paper.

“Anything I can do?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Rachel angry with me?”

He smiled a little. “No, I think she’s quite proud of you.”

“That’s a relief.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been great, Jack, but you’re probably almost as tired as I am. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

“You’ll call me if…” He hesitated, looking as though he’d decided against finishing the question.

“If anything changes. Yes, of course.” I thanked him again and watched him try to recover his let’s-be-brave face as he said good night to Cassidy and a tousled Henry Freeman.

I noticed that Freeman had set up a reel-to-reel tape recorder and headphones and other equipment on the kitchen counter near the phone.

Following my glance, Cassidy said, “Remember, it’s not unusual for the takers to wait a couple of days before making contact.” He repeated his instructions on what to do if Hocus called, most of which were ploys to keep them talking. As soon as possible I should try to hand the call off to Cassidy. Until then I was to stall and not give a definite yes or no answer to any demands.

“You guys don’t have those gizmos that instantly identify the caller?” I asked.

“No. At some point in the near future, we’ll be able to do that, but the phone company hasn’t installed that kind of equipment in this area yet. Our own computer system can identify the caller and location for calls, but there isn’t any way to make it available at a residence yet.”

Not wanting to think about what this delay in technology might cost Frank, I told them I was going to try to sleep — it wasn’t true, but I needed time to myself. Freeman was already half-asleep when I said good night.

Cody and the dogs followed me into the bedroom. I closed the door behind me. I stood there, leaning my back against it. I thought about calling Frank’s mother and sister. It was six in the morning. I’d wait another hour, I decided.

Tired as I was, I still could not make myself lie down in that empty bed. I took Frank’s pillow from the bed and moved to the one chair in our bedroom, a wooden rocker. Clutching his pillow to my chest, I breathed in his scent, stared at the bed. Cody, less sentimental, curled up on my pillow; the dogs vied for the position closest to my feet. Dunk won.

I thought of all the times I had watched Frank as he slept, listened to the sound of his snoring. I wondered if he was sleeping now or suffering in some unnameable way. Was he dead — or worse, wishing for death? I was in the wrong damn job. Like doctors, cops, and coroners, reporters know a little too much about the kinds of things people are capable of doing to one another.