Long Lost (12 page)

“But I
do
have leads,” I insisted.

Payne leaned his ample body forward. “Tell me.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Give it a try.”

“Petey wanted to take my place.”

“And?” Payne looked baffled.

“Now I’m going to do it in the reverse. I’m going to take
Petey’s
place.”

“What?”

“I’m going to put myself in his mind. I’m going to think like him. I’m going to become him.”

“Jesus,” Payne whispered.

“After all, we’re brothers.”

“Mr. Denning …”

“Yes?”

“I’m as sorry for you as it’s possible to be. God help you.”

Part Three

1

Put myself in Petey’s mind? Think like him? It was desperation, yes, but what was the alternative? At least it would be motion. It would keep me from losing my
own
mind.

I went to the street where Petey had first approached me outside my office— or what had used to be my office. The time was shortly after 2:00 P.M., as it had been exactly a year earlier. Petey had shouted my name from behind me, which meant that he’d been waiting to the left of the building’s revolving door. I walked to a large concrete flower planter, where I guessed that he’d been resting his hips. I studied the front door, trying to put myself in his place. Why hadn’t he gone into my office? As I leaned against the planter, feeling invisible to the passing crowd, I understood why he’d done it the way he had. In my office, he’d have been under
my
control, whereas on the sidewalk, yelling my name from behind me,
he
was in charge.

I recalled our initial conversation, this time from
his
perspective as he told me things that only my brother could have known, seeing my amazement, winning me over. I went to the delicatessen across the street, where our conversation had continued. I sat where
he
had sat. I imagined myself from his perspective as he continued to persuade me that my long—lost brother had finally returned. I went home and pretended to be him coming into my house, looking around, seeing all my possessions, the things that he’d never been able to have. Was it at this point that his plan had formed?
I
deserve this, not
you,
he would have thought. Picking up this and that object, he would have worked hard to conceal his anger.
You ruined my life, and this is what you got for it, you bastard.

Kate would have been easy to look at: her long legs, her inviting waist. But what about Jason? What would Petey really have thought of him? A damned nuisance. Petey’s background didn’t leave room for paternal instinct. But Jason was part of what Petey would’ve had if I hadn’t destroyed his life by sending him home from the baseball game. Jason went with the package, with the attractive wife and the big house, so Petey wanted him. Petey wanted
everything
that I had.

I recalled the dinner that Petey had eaten with us and how polite he’d been, helping to clean the dishes. Later, he’d played catch with Jason. He must have hated every second of it, just as he’d hated pretending to enjoy reminiscing about our childhood before I ruined his life. But the worst moment of all, the most hateful for him, would have been when I’d brought him the baseball glove that he’d dropped when the man and woman had grabbed him. He must have wanted to shove the damned glove down my throat.

I went to Petey’s room. I lay on his bed. I stared up at the ceiling and discovered that I’d picked up the baseball glove and was slamming my fist into it again and again. He would have wanted a smoke, but he wouldn’t have ruined his plan by lighting up in the house and annoying Kate. So he’d crept downstairs, through the French doors off the kitchen, into the moonlit backyard, where he’d sat angrily on a lounge chair and lit a cigarette. I remembered looking from our bedroom window and seeing him down there. I imagined him pretending not to notice when my face appeared. I put myself in his mind. What are you doing up there? he’d have thought. Screwing the wife, are you, bro? Enjoy it while you can. It’ll soon be
my
turn.

2

The next morning, I went to the barbershop where I’d taken him. I sat in the chair, feeling the scissors against my head, imagining that he’d festered from the insult that I thought he looked like shit and I was going to make him presentable. Then I went to the Banana Republic where I’d bought him new clothes. Then the shoe store. Then the dentist, where I’d made him feel self—conscious about his chipped tooth, reinforcing his sense that I thought he looked like shit.

When I walked into the dentist’s office, the receptionist glanced up in surprise. “We weren’t expecting you today, Mr. Denning. We’re just about to close for lunch. Is this an emergency?”

“No.” Confused, I realized that I’d almost tricked myself into believing that I could truly repeat the pattern from a year ago. “I must have gotten my days mixed up. Sorry to have bothered you.”

As I reached unsteadily for the doorknob, I remembered waiting in the reception area while Petey had gone in to have his teeth cleaned and the chip in his tooth smoothed away. I tried to project myself into Petey, to imagine him sitting angrily in the dentist’s chair. Since he hadn’t been to a dentist in years, he would have been nervous, tensing a little as the dentist came at him with …

“Actually, there might be a way you can help.” My hand trembling, I released my grip on the doorknob and went over to the counter that separated the receptionist from the waiting area.

She looked at me expectantly.

“A year ago, I was in here with my brother.” My heart pounded from the shock of the idea I’d just had.

“Yes, I remember. I’m terribly sorry about what happened to your wife and son.”

“It’s been a difficult time.” I fought to keep my voice steady, to hold my emotions in check. “The thing is, I was wondering …” I held my breath. “Do you know if any X rays were taken of my brother’s teeth?”

3

“There!” I told Gader. “This’ll prove it!”

The somber man frowned at what I’d set on his desk. “Prove what?”

“That my brother and Lester Dant are the same man!”

“Are you still trying to—”

“My brother had dental X rays taken a couple of days before he kidnapped my wife and son. When I was a child, my parents made sure that Petey and I went to a dentist for regular checkups. Show these X rays to our family dentist back in Ohio. He can compare them to his records. He’ll prove that the teeth belong to the same person.”

“But a nine—year—old’s teeth wouldn’t be the same as those of a man in his thirties,” Gader objected.

“Because he wouldn’t have had all his permanent teeth by the time he disappeared? No. My dentist says that my brother would have had
a few
permanent teeth, and even if they changed over the years because of work done on them, the
roots
would have kept the same structure. What would it hurt you to look into it?”

Gader set down a thick file he’d been reading. “All right,” he said impatiently. “To settle this once and for all. In Ohio, what was the name of your family dentist?”

“I … don’t remember.”

He looked more impatient.

“But Woodford wasn’t a big town,” I said. “There weren’t many dentists. It shouldn’t be hard to track down the one we went to.”

“Assuming he’s still in business. Assuming he kept records this long.” Gader’s phone rang. As he reached for it, he told me, “I’ll get back to you.”

“When?”

“Next week.”

“But that isn’t soon enough.”

He didn’t hear me. He was already speaking into the phone.

4

Saturday morning, I rose from Petey’s bed, put camping gear in the Expedition, and packed sandwiches in a cooler. As much as possible, I did everything the same as a year earlier, and at nine, exactly when we’d set out the last time, I took Interstate 70 into the mountains. The peaks were still snowcapped, the same as they had been the previous June. Ignoring their beauty, as Petey would have, I worked to recall our conversation. I squirmed as I sensed a pattern: Almost every time Jason had said “Dad” and asked me something, Petey had answered first. He’d been practicing to take my place, getting used to being called “Dad.”

When I headed north into the Arapaho National Forest, I imagined him hiding his anticipation. I reached the lake and stopped where the three of us had stopped the previous year. I looked at where Petey, Jason, and I had pitched our tent. I hiked around the lake to the stream that fed it, climbing the wooded slope to the gorge from which the stream thundered. All the while, I thought of him looking around for a spot to get rid of me and make it seem like an accident.

I climbed loose stones to the ridge above the gorge. I felt Petey’s excitement when Jason went around the boulder to urinate. Now! Brad’s back was exposed.

“Dad!”

No, the kid was returning too soon!

Unable to stop, I hurtled my goddamned brother into the gorge, then spun toward the kid, whose face was frozen in terror.

My mental image of Jason’s fright shocked me into the present. Snapping from Petey’s mind—set, I was nauseated from the darkness of pretending to be him. Despite a chill breeze, sweat soaked me. Working down the loose stones to the trail at the bottom of the ridge, I couldn’t help wondering how Petey would have climbed down without falling, given that he had a frightened, struggling boy to contend with. Then I realized that there was only one way he could have done it. The answer made me sick as I imagined what it had been like to carry an unconscious boy through the trees and back to the Expedition.

Since the vehicle didn’t have a trunk, Petey would have had to tie and gag Jason, putting him on the back floor, covering him with the tent. As Petey, I drove carefully home through the mountain passes, never exceeding the speed limit, lest a state trooper stop me and wonder about the squirming sounds beneath the tent in the back.

Arriving home, I drove into the garage and pressed the remote control. With a rumble, the door came down. As I got out of the car, I envisioned Kate coming into the garage from the kitchen. She’d have just gotten back from the all—day seminar she’d been conducting. The trim gray business suit she’d been wearing when we’d left that morning made her long blond hair more bright.

“How come you’re back so soon?” She frowned. “Where are Brad and Jason?”

“We had an accident.”

“
An accident?
”

He’d overpowered her, bound and gagged her, gone into the house, found her car keys, then put her and Jason in the Volvo’s trunk. The car had a backseat that could be flipped down so the trunk could hold long objects, such as skis. He’d probably opened the seat partway to allow air to circulate into the trunk, using the numerous objects he’d looted from the house to keep the seat from opening completely and allowing Kate and Jason a way to escape. He’d hurriedly packed suitcases, making sure to take some of my clothes. After all, as long as he was replacing me, he might as well look like me.

Around 6:00 P.M., just as Petey had, I got in the Volvo, which the police had returned to me, and drove from the house. At 6:21, exactly when Petey had, keeping my head low from the camera as Petey had, I got money from the same ATM that he’d used. But as I headed north from Denver, following Interstate 25, I realized that, with all the objects Petey had stolen from me, the Volvo would have looked as if he were running an appliance store out of the car. Worried that a policeman might get suspicious, Petey would never have left Denver with all that stuff. He would have sold it as quickly as possible. But he was new in town. When would he have had time to find a fence? Rethinking the previous days, I suddenly remembered that, after the dentist, Petey had wanted some time alone in a park “to get my mind straight.” The son of a bitch had used the afternoon to arrange to sell what he’d planned to steal from me.

I drove to a rough section of town and imitated the transaction, filling the few minutes that it would have taken. Then I returned to the interstate, and this time, I felt invisible, one of countless vehicles on the road, nothing to make me conspicuous.

5

A road sign informed me that Casper, Wyoming, was 250 miles ahead. I set the Volvo’s cruise control to make sure I stayed under the speed limit. When sunset approached and I put on my headlights, I felt even more inconspicuous, blending with thousands of other lights. I passed Cheyenne, Wyoming, able to distinguish little, except that its buildings seemed low and sprawling. Then, four hours after having left Denver, I approached the glow of Casper. For most of the drive, I’d sensed only flat land in the uninhabited darkness around me. Now the shadow of a mountain hulked on my left, blocking stars.

A few miles north of town, I saw a sign for the rest area. Traffic was sparse, most of the vehicles having driven into Casper. An arrow pointed toward a barely visible exit ramp. Following it off the interstate, I approached two squat brick buildings whose floodlights silhouetted three pickup trucks and a minivan.

But Petey would have needed more seclusion, so I took a gravel road that veered to the right from the pavement that led to the rest area. The floodlights at the buildings reached far enough to show picnic tables and stunted trees in back. Satisfying myself that no one had emerged from the rest rooms and seen what might have seemed unusual behavior, I reduced my headlights to parking lights and got just enough illumination to see a redwood—fenced area, behind which the tip of a Dumpster showed.

I parked behind the Dumpster, shut off my parking lights, and walked in front of the fence, verifying that no one, a state trooper, for example, had seen what I’d done and was coming to investigate. Confident that I was hidden, I unlocked the trunk.

What I imagined pushed me back. Kate and Jason on their sides. Squirming. Terrified. Duct tape pressed tightly across their mouths. Hands tied behind their backs. Ankles bound. Eyes so wide with fright that their whites were huge. Moans that were half apprehension, half pleas. The stench of bodily excretions, of carbon dioxide, of sweat and fear.