—
Even before I had the property line changed, I began making regular visits to the Whitten family plot. I used my new landscaping skills as well as the tools I’d bought. It took weeks of sporadic trips to clear the weeds and the underbrush, to sod and plant grass. I wanted to clear it before winter hardened the ground and hid the headstones.
I had to clean the headstones, too, even Sister’s. It bothered me at first, that she was buried here near Ben, but then I stopped caring. Sister didn’t matter anymore, if she ever had. She was inconsequential. I did the bare minimum to clear her grave, then ignored her. It was too much trouble, even, to dig her up and move her, preferably to a garbage dumpster or to hell. I had better things to do.
On my way back from one of these outings, I saw a black bird fly overhead. It landed on the roof of the Esmie house, which I was approaching, and seemed to settle in. It looked like a raven, maybe even the same one I’d seen before. It seemed to be alone. I wondered if it lived here or if it was just passing through.
A book at the library on my next visit said that ravens eat most things, but prefer meat, so the next time I saw the bird—on my way home from grave tending—I left some raw chicken out on the porch. An hour later, the bird was gone, and so was the chicken.
The next day, I heard voices on the street outside. When I looked out the window, three children rode by on bikes, calling to one another and laughing. They rode down the street and disappeared, but I thought I could still hear their voices.
—
It took me an embarrassingly long time, but eventually I remembered the roll of film I’d turned in when we found Ben’s footprints in the upstairs hall. I had completely forgotten about it. I dug the slip of paper from my wallet and drove to the FunTime Foto at the nearby strip mall to pick up my pictures. The old man behind the counter—he was eighty at least—took his sweet time and made sure to lecture me about how late I was, but eventually he handed me my photos.
I looked at them when I got home, when I was sitting in the half-finished living room with a mug of hot tea.
Ten of the photos were of the upstairs hall. There was water on the floor—it glistened under the camera flash and the light from the lamp Dodie had held over my shoulder as I took the shots. In my mind’s eye I saw the footprints, the impression of Ben’s toes, but it was blurrier on film. What showed there might be footprints, or it might not be. A skeptic would know that they could have easily been faked. An outside observer would have doubts. I had none. I put the photos aside in an envelope to keep.
The rest of the photos—the first part of the roll of film—had been taken just before I came to Fell, at Charles Zimmer’s house in Sacramento. I remembered standing in his cold white house, taking pictures of his bedroom, his skylight. Making notes in his file, which I still had in a cardboard box in my childhood bedroom.
None of those photos had turned out. They were white with overexposure, and a few of them were grayish-white, as if taken in fog. I frowned at them. There was nothing wrong with the camera or the film roll, since the photos of the hall were fine. Why hadn’t these ones turned out?
I tried to put the pictures away and forget about them, but I couldn’t. I went upstairs, pulled out my box of VUFOS files, andfound Charles Zimmer’s phone number. I dialed it from the phone in the kitchen.
There was no answer.
I gave up listening to it ring, hung up, and called Dave Teller, my contact in VUFOS’s California office. “Vail,” he said excitedly when I told him who it was. “Are you coming back to work for us? You know we’re begging for you to—”
“No,” I told him, as I’d told him before. “I’m done.”
He sighed. “What do you want, then?”
I told him about Charles Zimmer, how I’d left the file unfinished. “Someone should check on him,” I said. “When we talked, he was pretty distressed, and he didn’t answer when I called.”
“Probably just wasn’t home,” Dave said, “but let me make some inquiries and call you back. You’re right, someone should pick up that file.”
He called half an hour later, when I was hauling trash to the curb. I barely caught the phone before he hung up.
“Vail, you might get a call from the Sacramento police,” he said. “I gave them your number.”
I gripped the receiver harder. “What’s going on?”
“Turns out Charles Zimmer didn’t come to work one day three weeks ago. His family was worried about him, so the police did a check. His house is empty. He’s gone.”
I stared at the stripped kitchen wall. I was amazed, in a way, that I could still feel surprise.
“He’s a missing person now,” Dave continued. “Looks like he didn’t take anything with him. His bank accounts haven’t been touched. The cops don’t know if it’s foul play or, you know, suicide. Maybe he did it somewhere and no one has found him yet.”
Colorado,I thought.
“You said he was distressed.” Dave was still talking. “I told the police you said that. They might want to talk to you, is all.”
“All right,” I managed to say. “Thanks, Dave.”
“If you want to come back, call me. We need you.”
After I hung up, I stood with my hands at my sides as I clenched and unclenched my fists. There were many possible explanations, I reminded myself. There always were.
