Duck Boy (11 page)

“Take your time,” Aunt Shannon retorted.

“Going to have tea with another suspect, eh?” said the burly officer.

“It’s a concept I like to call work,” snapped Larry. “I’m not sure you’ve
heard of it.”

“Ooh, that hurt, Larry.”

Larry turned to Steve and Aunt Shannon. “See you two later.”

“See you,” Aunt Shannon replied. As soon as Larry left, Aunt Shannon whirled
around to face the desk and opened the thick file.

The detective who had insulted Larry grinned at Steve and his great aunt and
returned to his own desk.

The file held several pictures of the living room furniture where Mrs. Best
had been sitting the night she disappeared.

“These pictures were taken after the coffee mess was cleaned up, eh?” Aunt
Shannon asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Steve answered noncommittally.

Aunt Shannon shot him an exasperated look.

“What?” Steve felt defensive, although he knew what her look was asking of
him. He held out his hand for a picture, and she placed one into his hand. He
felt a dull ache, one that had taken a holiday for the past few hours, return
with a vengeance. He glanced at the picture quickly and returned it to her.

“Yup. I cleaned it up right away,” Steve replied.

“There was coffee all the way around the front of the chair, wasn’t there?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the book was lying face down in the middle of the coffee?”

“Yup.”

“Which way were the words facing?”

Steve hesitated briefly, expecting a trap. “What do you mean?”

“When the book was on the floor, if you sat in the chair and picked up the
book, would the words be right side up or upside down?”

“I don’t know…Um…Let’s see.” Steve thought back to that night. Everything
was clear as a photograph in his mind. “I guess if you were sitting in the
chair and you lifted her book out of the coffee, the words would have been
right side up.”

“Good.” Aunt Shannon, nodding absently. “Were there other coffee stains in
the house?”

“Nope. Just the puddle in front of Mom’s chair.”

“The mug was lying on the floor between the chair and the coffee table?”

“I guess so.”

“Don’t guess,” Aunt Shannon said sharply. “This is terribly important.”

“Um, yeah,” Steve mumbled.

“Perfect, just perfect,” Aunt Shannon purred to herself.

“What’s so perfect?”

“All the signs suggest that your mother was sitting in the chair when she
disappeared.”

“How do you know?”

“The mug was between the coffee table and the chair which means she was
holding it in her left hand. Right?” Steve nodded. “And that’s the hand she
always used to drink her coffee.”

“Yup.”

“If she was holding her cup in her left hand when she dropped it, she would
probably have been sitting in her chair. That’s the reasonable explanation.”
Aunt Shannon paused. “Even her book fell into the coffee as if she had been
sitting in her chair.”

“What are you talking about?”

Aunt Shannon lifted the case file off the desk and held it in her hands like
a book. “If I’m reading this and I drop it here, how would it land?”

“Either face up, with the words up, or face down with the words…” His brow
grew heavy with thought. “Right, I see what you’re saying. They way I found the
book means she was likely sitting in the chair when she dropped it.”

“Right,” Aunt Shannon exclaimed triumphantly.

“But so what!” Steve countered. “So she sat in the chair. That’s pretty
obvious.”

“When she dropped the coffee, she was sitting in the chair and the coffee
fell around the front of the chair in a wide puddle. She would have likely
stepped in the coffee and tracked it around the floor.”

“I see. So you’re saying she was sitting in the chair with her coffee and
her book, and she dropped her coffee, and she didn’t get up.” Steve looked at
the ceiling for a moment. “She was sitting in the chair and she vanished right
in the chair?” he asked.

“I think she was sitting in her chair, probably with her Benu stone, when
she did something that caused her to zap into another time or space—something
like that. She disappeared right out of her chair. She probably surprised
herself, dropped her coffee and poof! She was gone.”

“Hmm,” Steve mused.

“It’s just a good guess.”

“Let me tell you another guess.” He held up a report from the same file. “It
makes sense, for ‘normal’ people.” He tapped the report with a finger. “She
sets the scene up for a big disappearance and she takes off—she just leaves.
That’s what the police say happened. If you read the file you’d see that a few
people thought they saw her in Montreal. That’s a theory, too.”

“Yes, that’s a theory,” Aunt Shannon admitted. “She did always want to start
a singing career. But all the evidence seems to indicate that she was sitting
in her chair when she disappeared.” Steve didn’t look up from the floor.
“Steve, you’re an important witness to your mother’s character. You lived with
her for twelve years before she disappeared. So let me ask you something. Was
she the kind of person who would leave you the way you think she did?”

“Well…Um…” Silence.

“Steve?”

“Not really, no.”

“She isn’t that kind of woman, Steve. She’s not that sort of mother, is she?
She would never leave you. She wouldn’t have left your dad either. I know that
for certain. She loves you very much. She’s just had a wee accident, that’s
all.” Aunt Shannon closed the file on the desk. “I think we should drop by the
house and look for more clues.” Steve nodded without saying anything. “You do
remember where the house key is hidden?” Again, Steve nodded. “Well then, let’s
go.”

Aunt Shannon riffled through the entire file’s contents carefully and
reorganized it. When she was done, she left it exactly where Larry had
commanded and headed to the car. The afternoon sun had dropped below the
horizon, leaving a frozen twilight to grow into night.

The house looked dark and cold as Steve and his great aunt pulled up in
front. A light layer of new snow dusted the yard and roof of the house. A tight
lump grew in his throat as he gazed up the walk.

“Let’s go,” Aunt Shannon suggested. “There’s no use dawdling.” Steve found
the hidden key and opened the front door. The door swung open to a stifling
silence.

“In we go,” she said cheerfully. Aunt Shannon led the way inside to the
living room. She turned on a couple of lights.

“Do you remember how it was that night she disappeared?” Aunt Shannon asked.
She peered at Steve. “I want to set it up exactly the way it was.”

“Yeah, sure,” Steve responded. Steve shuffled into the kitchen and got a mug
out of a cupboard. He sauntered back to the living room and turned toward Aunt
Shannon as he set the cup down on the floor beside his mother’s chair. “This is
where the mug was, except it was broken.”

“Was your mom’s chair at this angle that night?”

Steve shrugged. “Sure.”

Aunt Shannon reached into her purse and pulled out a handful of snapshots
and studied them. She had taken the pictures from Larry’s file.

“That’s not exactly where it was, Steve,” Aunt Shannon corrected with a
gentle edge in her voice. “It should be at more of an angle and about a foot
closer to the window—like this.” She pushed the chair towards the window and
angled it. She glanced again at the pictures. “That’s better, see?” She turned
a picture towards him. Steve recognized the pictures immediately.

“We weren’t supposed to take anything from the file, Aunty,” Steve moaned.
“Detective Garner is going to notice what you took.”

“We need these photos for our experiments, Steve,” Aunt Shannon explained
with a smile. “Besides, I’ll tell him it was I who took the pictures. He won’t
blame you. Do you think he’s going to throw an old lady in the slammer? Come
on. Help me set this scene up.” Steve sighed and began to help.

Aunt Shannon seemed pleased. “Here are a couple of pictures. You set up the
coffee table and the bookshelf the way they were, and I’ll get settled into the
chair. Pretend I’m your mom, and arrange things exactly as you remember them.”
The two of them set up the room as close as they could to the pictures and what
Steve could remember. Steve flopped onto the couch and stretched out.

“I want to sit as she would have that night.” She settled into the chair.
“Now, how did she usually sit in this chair?”

“She usually sat with her legs crossed and her notebook in her lap.”

Aunt Shannon slowly, gingerly crossed her legs and set the notebook in her
lap. “How do I look?”

“That’s pretty close,” Steve confirmed.

“Could you get me Richard, Steve? He’s on the floor next to my purse.” Steve
retrieved the festively wrapped box of ashes and set it on the coffee table
beside her. “Thank you. I think I’m ready.” Aunt Shannon lifted her glasses and
slid them into place. “That’s better. Now let me see.” She flipped through
Susan’s notebook until she found the last coffee-stained scribbles. Steve
slouched and dropped into the couch behind him.

His aunt seemed to fall into a trance as she studied the book. “Oh, right,”
she said under her breath. “I forgot to look that word up before I came here.
`Extravasation.’ What word could that be?” she asked herself. “I haven’t seen
that one before.” She looked up at Steve from over top of her reading glasses.
“Steve, dear, could you get me a dictionary? I need to look up a word. And get
your backpack. You were going to get it, weren’t you? I’m just going to see if
I can understand where your mom was working and then we’ll go. I’ll probably be
just a few minutes.”

Steve sighed, rolled off the couch and walked to the bookshelf to pull the
big dictionary from its corner. But the dictionary wasn’t in its usual place.
He headed to his bedroom to get his own dictionary. Aunt Shannon was deep in thought,
but held out a hand when he returned to the living room.

“Thank you, Steve,” she said absently.

“Do you need anything else?” he asked.

“Not that I can think of, Deary,” Aunt Shannon replied absently as she paged
through the dictionary. “Now where is it…c…d…e … ex…ext. There we go.”

“All right. I’m going to get my backpack,” Steve declared.

“You go right ahead, Deary.”

Steve ducked into his room. His backpack was sitting on the bed, right where
he had left it. Turning his back to the bed, he flopped backward onto it and
stared at the ceiling. The room felt like a solid block of ice.

Aunt Shannon screamed, “Steeeeeeeeeve.” A bright bluish-white radiance
overwhelmed the room through the open door. A red glow and finally a bright
white. Steve jumped from his bed and sprinted into the living room.

Paper swirled frantically around the room, pushed by some kind of wind. Two
notebooks lay on the floor in front of his mother’s chair. One was Aunt
Shannon’s research notes. The other was his mom’s notebook, lying on the floor
in a crumpled heap, like it had so long ago. The room smelled like earthy soil
on a spring day. Paper wafted slowly to the floor. Aunt Shannon was gone.

Chapter 9

“Aunt Shannon!” Steve screeched. “That’s a pretty sick joke. Don’t play
around like this.” Silence. Steve searched frantically behind furniture.
Nothing. Then he broadened his search to include the rest of the house. He even
used the pull-down ladder to check the attic. Front door. Her car waited in the
dim darkness of the new night. He ran and reran his search pattern around the
house. Terror fed a growing frenzy. Finally, he caved into a frightened,
heaving heap on the couch and waited in silence. The cold slap of truth stunned
him: Aunt Shannon was gone.

He stared at the chair where Aunt Shannon had been sitting only moments
earlier. Jittery nerves on high alert, he half expected that she would jump out
from behind something and scare him into the next life. But she didn’t. As the
pool of terror subsided, he replayed the scene. “The light,” he said aloud,
just to put something besides breath into the air. The light reminded him of
the clock’s transformation into the lock. “Maybe this is possible,” he
whispered to himself.

“Ha, ha,” he said aloud, sitting straight up. “Yes. Of course.”

Maybe Mom never abandoned me. Maybe it was really an accident.

He slumped back down on the couch.

I have no way to bring either of them back. I can’t help
them.

“How am I going to get back to Aunt Shannon’s?” he asked himself. He jumped
up from the couch and grabbed the phone, dialing Aunt Shannon and Uncle
Edward’s number. The phone rang and rang and rang. Finally, the ringing was
interrupted by a sound of Uncle Edward fumbling with the phone.

After a clunky succession of whacks and popping sounds, he heard a voice.
“Hello?” It was Uncle Edward.

“Uncle Edward?”

“Steve?” Uncle Edward asked. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, Uncle Edward. It’s me.”