Into the Dark (4 page)

“N
IGEL COULD USE
a walk,” Mom said on Saturday morning.

Ingrid, eating waffles—a brilliant invention, in her opinion, with those square depressions, kind of like rice paddies, so perfect for containing mini lakes of buttery maple syrup—glanced over at Nigel. He lay in his usual spot by the water bowl in the sunny corner of the kitchen nearest the stove, one eye fully closed, the other open maybe the tiniest crack, front paws stretched out comfortably. Was walking on his mind?

“What about Ty?” Ingrid said.

“He’s got Five Tools,” Mom said, stuffing real
estate listing sheets into her bag. “I’m dropping him on the way to work.” Five Tools was a baseball skills class run in the winter at the rec center by Mr. Porterhouse, who was also the varsity coach at Echo Falls High. The five tools were hit, field, throw, and two others Ingrid couldn’t remember at the moment, all of which Ty, or Ty and Dad, or maybe just Dad, were determined to improve before spring tryouts.

“He doesn’t want a walk,” Ingrid said.

“Ingrid.” Mom glared at her; that hardly ever happened, or never. Then her eyes got liquid. “I don’t have time to argue.” She grabbed her bag and left the room. What the hell?

“Okay, okay,” Ingrid said. “On your feet, Nigel.”

That one eye, maybe open a crack? Now it was squeezed shut, beyond any possible doubt, closed so tight it must have hurt.

“Where to?” said Ingrid.

Nigel, on his leash, stood at the end of the driveway at 99 Maple Lane, damp nose in the air, one forepaw raised alertly in that misleading way he had, as though he were a pointer or some other clever dog. In fact, he came from no particular breed, in some
way didn’t remind Ingrid of dogs at all, was more like Nigel Bruce, the tweedy, bumbling actor in old black-and-white movies who had played Dr. Watson to Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes; Ingrid had the complete collection. Nigel had strayed into their lives in the fall, almost immediately chewing up Mister Happy, the teddy bear Ingrid had slept with almost all her life.

“Come on,” she said. “Which way?”

But Nigel just stood there, frozen in position like some street performer. Left meant a long uphill walk that would take them to a park where Nigel liked to dig deep holes; right led past Mia’s house at the corner of Maple Lane and Avondale. Maybe Mia was home, could be persuaded to come along. Ingrid gave Nigel a little tug to the left. He immediately veered right. Reverse psychology: She knew Nigel.

He ambled in his unhurried way, not bothering to sniff the air or chew snow chips or do any other doggy things. Oops—not so fast. Outside 113 he suddenly lifted his leg, like it had been jerked up by a puppeteer, and peed on the
FOR SALE
sign—
RIVERBEND PROPERTIES, CALL CAROL LEVIN-HILL.
Mom hadn’t shown 113 in weeks despite two price cuts,
and Ingrid had overheard her telling Dad she was worried about losing the listing. “Not here,” Ingrid said, dragging Nigel away. He left a spotted yellow trail in the snow.

They came to Mia’s. It was a nice house, a lot like Ingrid’s—same builder, Mom said—but smaller and darker, under some overhanging trees. A big black car stood out front. Like Sherlock Holmes—if there’d been cars in his day, which she was pretty sure there weren’t, since everyone was always coming and going in hansom cabs or dogcarts—Ingrid noticed the license plate: New York. A man sat behind the wheel staring straight ahead. At that moment Nigel suddenly picked up speed, almost reaching his top gear, a kind of waddling sprint, and turned up the path to Mia’s front door, pulling Ingrid along. She remembered he’d been here a few weeks ago. Had Mia given him a treat? Oh, yeah, half a hot dog—Hebrew National, his favorite brand. So who was doing the reverse psychology?

Nigel started up the front steps, wheezing with excitement. The door opened, and Ingrid heard Mrs. McGreevy, very loud: “…and not one minute later.”

Mia came out; in the background stood Mrs. McGreevy, arms folded across her chest. They both looked startled to see Ingrid; both went pale at the same time.

“Hi,” said Ingrid. What was going on? No clue. She plowed on. “Want to come for a walk with Nigel?”

“I, uh,” said Mia. She pointed with her chin at the black car. “My dad’s taking me to lunch.”

Ingrid turned. “That’s your dad?” He was still staring straight ahead. Mrs. McGreevy was in the doorway now, an angry blush rising up her neck.

“Yeah,” Mia said. “He’s got a meeting in Hartford.”

“Um,” said Ingrid. A few moments passed, all awkward. “Call me later.”

“Yeah,” said Mia. She got in the front seat of the car. It drove away. Mia looked very small.

Ingrid felt a tug on the leash: Nigel, still in search of that Hebrew National. Ingrid tugged back. “C’mon, boy.” The door closed in his face, very close to a slam.

“Divorce,” Ingrid explained to Nigel, halfway through a very long walk, easily their longest ever,
a walk that took them out of Riverbend, onto Main Street, and all the way to the village green. But divorce meant nothing to Nigel, or to any other dog, even the smartest that ever lived. Did it have meaning for any animals at all? Ingrid scrolled through a few in her mind—bears, deer, crocodiles, geese. She just didn’t know enough about their habits to know. And even with those creatures that mated for life, none of which came to mind at the moment, did the offspring bother to stick around for more than a few weeks or months? Life was pretty short for most animals; on the other hand, they had no inkling. Only human beings had inklings about the end part. What was that quote? Ingrid remembered Mom saying it, one day when she’d dragged the whole family to some strange art thing at the Wadsworth Museum in Hartford:
Death casts a shadow backward.
Oh, boy. “Death casts a shadow backward,” she said to Nigel. His stubby tail drooped, but that might have been because he was getting tired. Ingrid was feeling a little droopy herself. She started to wheel Nigel around and head for home, and then noticed two men standing in front of the Civil War monument on the green.

Two old men. One she recognized: Mr. Samuels.
He had a camera in his hand and was motioning for the other man to move closer to the monument, a column with names carved into the stone and a bronze soldier above—turned green by time—his cap and shoulders topped with snow. The other old man, also completely bald but otherwise nothing like Mr. Samuels—much taller and wearing a black patch over one eye—backed up a step and said something in an annoyed way. Ingrid caught the words, “…got all day.”

Something about the scene grabbed Nigel’s interest. His tail rose back to full height (not very high) and started wagging a bit. He tugged Ingrid toward the monument.

“Nigel!” she said, in a loud whisper meant only for his floppy ears. But both men heard and turned to her.

“Why, Ingrid,” said Mr. Samuels, lowering the camera. “Is that you?”

“Hi, Mr. Samuels.”

“What luck,” he said. “Here’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Ingrid went over, Nigel trotting along, all at once obedient, even eager to please. For a moment it looked like he was about to greet Mr. Samuels or
the other man, but instead Nigel went right by them and lifted his leg at the base of the monument.

“Ingrid,” said Mr. Samuels, “this is Mr. Cyrus Ferrand.”

Ferrand? The Ferrands were the richest family in town. Ingrid had been friends with Chloe Ferrand when they were little, and Dad worked for her father at the Ferrand Group, but Ingrid had never heard of Cyrus Ferrand. He glanced down at her for the briefest moment, glanced with that one eye, dark at the center, with lots of red veins crisscrossing the white part.

“Major,” he said.

“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Samuels. “Major Ferrand. That’s the whole point of the exercise.”

Exercise? Ingrid wasn’t following.

“In fact, what an opportunity,” said Mr. Samuels, putting a hand on Ingrid’s shoulder and gently nudging her closer to Major Ferrand. “A picture of the two of you together might be just the ticket.”

“Ticket to what?” said Major Ferrand, edging away.

Mr. Samuels crouched in front of them, snapped a picture. “Very nice,” he said. Then Nigel, circling back from the base of the monument, looped the
leash around Major Ferrand’s legs. Major Ferrand kicked free, gave Nigel a one-eyed glare, a glare that turned to something else, inquisitive and probing.

“The point is, Ingrid,” said Mr. Samuels, “Major Ferrand is one of the Echo Falls Five.”

“The Echo Falls Five?” said Ingrid.

“The surviving World War Two vets,” said Mr. Samuels. “Major Ferrand spends most of his time on Anguilla now, in the Caribbean, but he’s Echo Falls born and bred, still has a cottage on the Ferrand estate. What makes Ingrid’s appearance here so serendipitous, Cyrus, is the fact that she’s the—”

Major Ferrand interrupted. “This dog has no tag,” he said.

“It’s on his other collar,” Ingrid said. The one with the broken clasp, no good with the leash; but how was it his business?

Nigel gazed up at Major Ferrand. Suddenly he cringed—Ingrid had never seen him cringe before—then made a little whiny noise and sidled over behind Ingrid.

Major Ferrand licked his lips; his tongue was pointy, the color of chalk. “My housekeeper’s dog—” he began.

“Enough dog talk, if you don’t mind,” said Mr.
Samuels. “What I’m trying to tell you, Cyrus, is that Ingrid is Aylmer Hill’s granddaughter.”

Major Ferrand’s one eye closed, and stayed closed for a long moment. Then it opened and gave her a careful look. “What a small town,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Mr. Samuels. “That’s the meaning of the whole piece, the strength of old bonds. A piece for which I’m very much in Ingrid’s debt, I might add.”

“How is that?” said Major Ferrand.

“Because Aylmer has agreed to be interviewed on his wartime exploits.”

“He has?” said Ingrid.

Mr. Samuels nodded happily. “Wouldn’t have happened without your help.”

Major Ferrand looked a little pale. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “His wartime exploits?” he said.

“Practically a scoop,” said Mr. Samuels. “In all these years he’s never given a single interview—there’s just no information at all. And he promised a bombshell—his very word. Now how about you two move the ittiest bit closer together and I’ll shoot a couple quickies? Page-one smiles, now—top of the fold.”

Ingrid posed with Major Ferrand, their arms touching. His trembled: She could feel it through her jacket. Living most of the time in the Caribbean now, he’d probably forgotten what winter was like.

“I
T’S SO DARK,”
Ingrid said. “How will we ever get out of these woods?” Maybe too whiny and helpless? No one liked a wuss, and Gretel wasn’t necessarily a wuss, just a little kid. Sitting at the kitchen table, alone after school on Thursday, Ingrid popped the top on a Fresca and tried again, making herself sound more composed. “It’s so dark. How will we ever get out of these woods?”

The door to the garage opened and Mom came in, a bag with
Ta Tung
on the side, written to look like Chinese letters. “What was that, Ingrid?”

“It’s so dark. How will we ever get out of these woods? Or: It’s so dark. How will we ever get out of these woods?”

Mom put the Chinese food on the table, kicked off her shoes, slipped into her sheepskin slippers, as she always did the moment she got in the door. Her eyes grew big and dark: Ingrid could tell she was replaying the
Hansel and Gretel
dialogue in her mind.

“The second one’s supposed to be more composed,” Ingrid said.

Mom nodded. “But it sounds like you’re asking directions.”

Ingrid laughed. “So something in between?”

“Try that.”

Ingrid tried something between helpless fear and asking for directions. Maybe it worked. There was just the slightest tremble in her voice; she sounded scared but brave at the same time, or at least trying to control her fear. Did real bravery start like that, just making a bit of an effort to control fear?

“Much better,” Mom said.

“Is that working inside out or outside in?” Ingrid said.

Mom didn’t answer. She just smiled, came closer, and kissed Ingrid on the forehead.

“What?” said Ingrid. Even Mom, of all people, was sometimes hard to understand.

“Where’s the Mongolian ribs?” Ty said, peering into the cardboard containers.

“They didn’t have them tonight,” Mom said. “I got the crispy duck instead.”

“What do you mean, they didn’t have them?” Or something like that—hard to tell with Ty’s mouth stuffed full of egg roll, those delicious Ta Tung egg rolls, blackened at the ends.

“Eat what you’re given,” said Dad.

After that there were just chewing sounds, Ty’s dominating. Was he having another growth spurt? He seemed bigger than he was just last week, or even yesterday.

“Try the crispy duck,” Mom said, passing it around the table. “It’s really good.”

Dad helped himself and said, “Any results, kids?”

Results meant grades on quizzes, tests, exams, or papers.

“Nope,” said Ty.

“Nope,” said Ingrid. Not strictly true, if you were counting today’s seventy-one on Ms. Groome’s math test, but a test wasn’t really a
result
, not if result meant “final result,” and weren’t final results what counted? Bottom line, walk the walk, just win, baby—wasn’t
that the American way? Therefore bringing up this little matter of the seventy-one, one of those neither-here-nor-there grades that could only lead to lots of bothersome speculation, was almost un-American. Algebra, week after week, month after month, this dogged quest for X, bound to be fruitless, like all those other quests: Loch Ness monster, Holy Grail, origin of the—Whoa. Dad was eyeing her in a way that suggested some follow-up question might be next. Ingrid blurted the first thing that came to mind: “Who’s Major Ferrand?”

“Tim’s great-uncle,” Dad said; Tim was Dad’s boss at the Ferrand Group. “Where’d you hear about him?”

“I met him.” Ingrid explained about walking Nigel, the Civil War monument, Mr. Samuels.

“Funny,” Dad said. “I don’t think he’s been here in years.”

“Maybe it’s because of the series,” Ingrid said.

“What series?” Dad said.

“On World War Two vets, in
The Echo
. Mr. Samuels is interviewing him. And Grampy.”

“Grampy agreed to an interview?” Dad said.

“That’s exciting,” Mom said. “I can’t wait to read it.”

“Did he kill anybody?” Ty said.

“What kind of a question is that?” Dad said.

Ty shrugged. “A war question.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass,” said Dad. He checked his watch, took a deep breath. “Have to go in to the office for a while.”

“Now?” said Mom.

“Won’t be long,” Dad said. He put on his jacket, went into the garage. “
Echo
’s still in the driveway,” he called. “One of you come get it.” Then came the throaty rumble of the TT’s engine; it faded away. Mom had her head cocked to one side, as though listening.

“Rock, paper, scissors,” said Ty.

He’d won the past three—paper every time, which was so unlike him, Ty being a rock or scissors type.

“On three,” said Ingrid.

“One, two—”

Ingrid: scissors. Ty: rock. Rock? Now he went back to rock? How did he know to do that? She walked outside to get
The Echo
. Hey! Maybe she was in it—that picture of her with Major Ferrand. Or was it too soon? She was bending down for the paper, wrapped in orange plastic, when a car went by, going pretty fast. Ingrid glanced up. A green
hatchback: the streetlight shone for a moment on the face of the driver, Mrs. McGreevy. She was hunched forward, holding the wheel tight in both hands.

Ingrid took
The Echo
inside, slipped off the wrapper. She wasn’t above or below the fold, at least not on the front page. Instead there was a picture of a prematurely gray man. Ingrid recognized him. The headline—a big one for
The Echo
—read:
CONSERVATION AGENT MISSING.
Underneath it:

“Hey, Mom, did you see this?”

But Mom was on the phone. “I’m afraid that’s under agreement,” she was saying, “but we have another nice listing in that area.” She made an impatient not-now gesture to Ingrid. With surprising quickness Nigel snatched the last egg roll off the table and ran from the room.

“Gum?” said Joey.

“Thanks,” said Ingrid, taking a stick. Lunch line, cafeteria, Ferrand Middle: The special of the day was labeled
TUNA CASSEROLE
. Ingrid and Joey were near the back of the line, but no one had ordered it yet.

“Guess what,” Joey said.

“What?”

“There’s an old Indian trail.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s on this old map.”

“What old map?”

“On the Internet. There’s this old map of Echo
Falls on the Internet. See what I’m saying?”

“No.”

“My dad showed me. He—”

“Wait a minute—is the farm on it?”

“Farm?”

“My grandfather’s.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. The Indian trail cuts right across his fields.”

“It does?”

“We could try it out,” Joey said.

“Next,” said the lunch lady.

Joey pointed to the tuna casserole.

“You’re having that?” Ingrid said.

Even the lunch lady looked surprised. Joey didn’t seem to notice. “Tomorrow, maybe,” he said. “Like, on our snowshoes.”

“Goes without saying,” said Ingrid.

“How about I drop you right here?” said Chief Gilbert L. Strade, slowing down and pulling over. He was a big man with a big jaw, strong nose, and prominent brow ridge, but his voice was soft, at least in Ingrid’s experience. They were on 392, not far from Uncle Lou’s Hot Dog Emporium at the town line, now boarded up for the winter.

Ingrid, following Chief Strade’s direction, sat up front. Joey, sitting in back, hunched over his map printout, said, “Are we near Old Post Road?”

The chief tapped the windshield. Joey looked up. A road sign a few yards ahead read
OLD POST RD.
“Oh,” he said.

A crackle came from the cruiser’s radio, and a voice said, “Bike path check complete, Chief. Negative.”

The chief spoke into his transmitter. “Okay, Sarge,” he said. “See you at the station.” He clicked off, turned to Ingrid. “Missing persons case.”

“Harris H. Thatcher?” said Ingrid. “I saw it in
The Echo
.”

“Left home on his bike,” said the chief. “Had special tires for snow—packed snow, at least—rode in all weather.”

“So you think he had an accident?” Ingrid said.

“Nothing else to go on,” said the chief. “Sometimes middle-aged guys just disappear, start a new life somewhere, but Thatcher doesn’t seem like the type.”

“What’s the type?” Ingrid said.

A little smile crossed the chief’s rough face, very brief. “Disappointed guys,” he said. “Guys in a jam.
Guys tired of responsibility. No sign Harry Thatcher fits any of that, plus he was all wrapped up in community issues.”

“Can we get going?” Joey said.

The chief glanced at Joey in the rearview mirror, looked like he was about to say something, did not. Ingrid and Joey climbed out of the cruiser, strapped on their snowshoes. The chief’s window slid down.

“See you back here in two hours,” he said.

“Okay,” said Joey.

“Wearing your watch?” the chief said.

“Course.”

“Let’s see.”

Joey pulled up the sleeve of his jacket. His wrist was bare; he looked surprised. But Ingrid was wearing hers—a red watch with the word
Rollexx
on the face, Christmas present from Stacy and one of her favorite possessions, especially since Stacy had forgotten to remove the $9.95 price sticker from the back. She wore it every day; Sherlock Holmes, who had a pocket watch, always said he needed data, and if time wasn’t data, what was?

The chief wheeled around and drove back toward town. Joey stuffed the map in his pocket and climbed up onto the snowbank that ran beside
Old Post Road, gazed across a snowy field. “We should see a—There it is.”

“What?”

“That old gate.”

A falling-down wooden gate stood in the middle of the field, looking kind of strange all by itself, unattached to a fence or anything. They walked through it, found the path well packed by skiers and snowmobilers, easy going.

“How do we know this is an Indian trail?” Ingrid said, taking off her mitten to check the compass ring.

“Says on the map,” said Joey. That expression she heard from time to time,
begging the question
? Ingrid understood it at last.

They went up a long slope, not steep, then back down, across a wide valley and up a round hill. At the top Ingrid looked down and saw a fence, then another rise, and in the distance a crooked storage shed, an orchard, a rusty-red barn, an old farmhouse. A view she’d never seen from this angle; it took her mind a few moments to spin it around. “Grampy’s farm.”

“Yup,” said Joey, like he was Kit Carson or some other famous guide. Ingrid punched him on the arm,
an affectionate sort of punch. “Ow,” said Joey. Their breath clouds rose and came together in the air.

They went down to the fence, saw that the trail swerved and ran parallel to it, avoiding Grampy’s land. Joey took out his map. “The real trail cuts right through to the river,” he said.

“Let’s take it,” said Ingrid. “Grampy won’t mind.”

Joey raised one of the strands of wire. They climbed through, started up the rise, now in unpacked snow, not easy. Joey pulled ahead, reached the storage shed ahead of her.

“Hey,” he called.

“What?”

“Your grandfather left his bike out.”

“He doesn’t have a bike.”

But when Ingrid got to the shed, she saw a green bike leaning against the side, its big fat tires sunk an inch or so into the snow.

“Maybe we should put it inside,” Joey said.

But the door was padlocked shut.

“I wonder—” Ingrid began.

Joey, looking past her, interrupted. “What’s that?”

Ingrid turned. Not far away lay a round depression,
the size of a small pond. All covered with snow now, but Ingrid realized this must be the sinkhole where last fall she’d helped Grampy rearrange the surface level a little bit, as he’d put it—a rearrangement that had involved four sticks of dynamite. At the near edge of the depression she could make out something red and black. A long twisted form, actually, that made her think,
Scarecrow, knocked down by the wind.

But she’d never seen a scarecrow on the farm. That was thought two. And then came a third. Red and black: Grampy often wore that red-and-black-checked lumber jacket. The next thing Ingrid knew she was running, running in her snowshoes, which should have been awkward and clumsy, but she didn’t even seem to be touching the ground. And almost every step brought a new horrible detail: a man; white hair; blue skin; very still.

“Grampy! Grampy!”

Dead, yes. A man, yes. A white-haired man, yes. But not Grampy. And also not a stranger: Ingrid had seen this man before, once in person and once on the front page of
The Echo
. It was Harris H. Thatcher, missing conservation agent.

She felt Joey’s hand on her shoulder. Her first
dead body, but Ingrid knew Harry Thatcher was dead, beyond a doubt. It wasn’t just the blueness of his frozen skin, or the emptiness in his staring eyes. Something else—some huge thing she couldn’t name—was gone. For a moment there wasn’t a sound. It was then that Ingrid noticed red drops in the snow, three of them, the size of quarters.

“Oh my God,” said Joey.

“Don’t go any closer,” Ingrid said. She checked the time on her red Rollexx.