Something Missing (22 page)

Still shouting out the name of his lost dog, Martin moved toward the metallic doors of the hatchway, feigning interest in a copse of shrubs growing alongside it. Even with the fence at the rear of the property, Martin noted, it was possible for someone in the backyard neighbor’s home to see him if he or she were on the second floor, looking out of one of the three windows that faced the Green property. Peering over his shoulder to ensure that those windows were vacant, Martin gave a pull on the hatchway doors and found them to be locked.

His only access would need to be through either the exposed front or side door.

With time of the essence, Martin left the property and ran back to the Subaru at an unaccustomedly fast pace. The Subaru was parked three blocks away at a Bally fitness center, where he had initially donned his jogging disguise and made his way into Laura Green’s neighborhood. If he decided to enter the house, he would need his pick gun, which meant that he would have to decide how he was going to reapproach the Green home. He could continue in his present disguise, or he could switch to another.

In addition to his jogging paraphernalia, Martin owned a Northeast Utilities uniform, a mixture of store-bought pants matching those worn by the utility workers, a blue cap, and an actual NU work jacket, left behind by workers at a job site about seven years ago. Martin had seen the jacket slung over a set of flashing barricades one evening on his way home, and had immediately recognized its value. Though he wore it infrequently, he currently had two clients (including the Pearls) whose homes were more exposed to their neighbors than most, and he made a point of donning this costume from time to time before approaching these locations.

After a moment of consideration, Martin decided to keep with his original uniform, concerned about the suspicion he might arouse if one of Laura Green’s neighbors had already seen him jogging in the neighborhood.

Better to remain consistent.

Less than ten minutes later, a breathless Martin was reap-proaching the Green home for the third time, now paying careful attention to the neighbors’ homes as he closed in. If he saw a face in a window or anyone outside one of their homes, he would abort the mission immediately.

There are moments in life when a person cannot believe what he or she is about to say or do, but for one as measured and methodical as Martin, this might have been the first time in his life that he’d had such an experience. As he jogged back down the hill toward Laura Green’s home, closing in on the moment of truth, he was momentarily stunned by the reality of his current situation. He was about to enter the unmapped home of an unknown woman in order to gather information that would help him execute a plan that was outlandish at best. He was risking his safety and his freedom for a woman he had never actually met. Despite all this, he knew with certainty that his actions were right and just. Justine Ashley needed his help, and there was no one else with the skill, knowledge, or ability to come to her aid. He was meant to be her savior. That single rose, a gift from Alan Clayton to his wife, had confirmed it. His success with the Claytons had signaled to Martin that there were times when his considerable skills could be used for good, and that the affection he had begun to feel for his clients was not as ridiculous or purposeless as it might have previously seemed.

Boldness was what Martin believed had saved him in the Clayton home, and so boldness was what he decided upon as a course of action today. Without slowing at all or assuming the pretense of a lost dog, Martin turned up the Green driveway once again, this time ascending the three concrete steps to the side door. Though the front door was slightly less exposed to the neighbors’ homes, Martin knew that the locks on side doors were consistently less complex and therefore easier to pick. Also, homeowners tended to lock, dead-bolt, and even chain their front doors but leave their side doors and other frequently used entrances relatively unprotected. In this case speed was critical, considering his exposed position. Martin did not want to run into a tricky dead bolt or multiple locks.

Pick gun already in hand (having pulled it from his waistband
like a gunslinger), Martin opened the screen door and began to work on the lock. Though the door was equipped with a dead bolt, it had not been engaged, and Martin successfully unlocked the door in less than twenty seconds. Taking one final peek at Mr. and Mrs. Matching Volkswagen’s home and seeing no sign of life, Martin entered the Green house, closing the door and relocking it.

Even before the attack, Martin knew that something was wrong.

The side door of the Green home opened up into a long, rectangular kitchen. As Martin scanned the room from one end to the other, he realized that his assessment of Laura Green had been completely wrong.

Had he been asked, Martin would have said that it was the refrigerator that gave it away, but in reality, he had detected a number of clues on an unconscious level that quickly led him to the same conclusion. The lack of dishes in the sink. The kitchen table pushed up along the far wall, leaving room for only one person to sit comfortably. The single place setting on the table. A raincoat and a sweater hanging alone on coat hooks mounted next to the door. The cleanliness of the linoleum.

But the refrigerator had been the dead giveaway. A stainless-steel model, devoid of fingerprints of any kind, the only magnets attached to its surface lined in a neat row along the top of the door. Half a dozen plastic vegetables, aligned in perfect symmetry, with not a single scrap of paper beneath them.

This was not a home in which small children lived.

Had Martin managed to avoid assuming otherwise, he might have remembered to ring the doorbell before picking the lock. He always rang the doorbell of a new client, finding it an effective determinant of dogs in the home.

Had the possibility that Laura Green might be single entered his mind, Martin would have most assuredly rung the bell,
knowing that women who live alone often kept pets, and if the woman was at all nervous about being alone, that pet was usually a large dog.

These thoughts and observations rushed into Martin’s mind in the seconds before he heard the first angry bark and saw the black Labrador retriever come bursting through the entranceway into the kitchen and toward him.

“The Attack,” as Martin would henceforth refer to it (referencing a chapter from one of his favorite novels,
Treasure Island)
, was not as violent or as painful as the previous attack he had suffered, as a child, the one that had led to his lifetime fear of dogs.

Martin had been pedaling his bike down a long, winding driveway to the home of David Durand, one of his few friends at the time. Martin was twelve years old and had been over to the Durands’ home many times, and he was very familiar with their Doberman pinscher, Valerie. Despite her ferocious appearance, Valerie had proven herself to be a gentle and fun-loving dog—until that fateful spring day.

David and his tall, balding father were standing at the end of the driveway, peering at the engine of one of the Durands’ many fixer-uppers, this one an ancient Ford Mustang, as Martin glided across the pavement atop his knobby-wheeled Huffy. As he closed to within fifty feet of his friend, Valerie burst out of the open garage, hurling herself toward Martin at a furious pace. Though he had spent many an occasion with the animal, Martin took one look at the dog and knew that something was wrong, in much the same way he knew that something was wrong from the moment he entered Laura Green’s kitchen.

As Valerie closed the gap between them, Martin turned his bike left to avoid the attack, but was too late. The dog leapt into the air, connecting with Martin’s right leg and biting down hard.
The collision caused the bike to topple over and threw Martin to the pavement with the dog still clamped onto his throbbing leg.

Upon striking the ground, Martin screamed, feeling the gruesome tear of skin off his right elbow as he struggled to free his leg from Valerie’s ironclad grip. David’s father ran over, his son trailing close behind, and the two of them bent down to examine the carnage. As Mr. Durand attempted to remove the dog’s jaws from Martin’s leg, Martin watched as David carefully examined Valerie, never giving his wounded friend a second glance. In fact, minutes later, when David finally looked up and made eye contact with his friend, Martin detected a hint of blame in those small, gray eyes. Blame and a lack of concern for anything but his dog. The two had taken a severe fall onto the pavement, but in Martin’s mind, if the dog was still holding on tight, she was doing better than he was.

It took Mr. Durand an agonizing five minutes to coax the jaws of his dog open, finally managing to do so by tickling the dog’s underbelly. Martin was immediately rushed to the hospital in the back of Mrs. Durand’s station wagon. The wounds were deep and fourteen stitches were required to sew up the holes, but Martin was released from the emergency room that same afternoon.

Though the animal control officer (and Martin) had wanted Valerie to be put down, Martin’s mother prevailed and the animal was allowed to live. Martin was initially angered by his mother’s defense of the dog, unable to understand her lack of concern for such a dangerous animal, but in time he understood and even came to respect her decision. In an age of overindulgent parents, she had gone against the grain and allowed a boy’s beloved dog to live. She placed the needs of a young boy and his dog ahead of the anger and fear of her son, and that could not have been easy. Besides, her decision made sense. Valerie had
never bitten anyone before. Ultimately, Mr. Durand chalked up the incident to “one of those things that can’t be explained.”

Though Martin eventually understood his mother’s decision, he had found himself unable to forget the lack of concern his friend had shown him that day, and their friendship slowly dwindled to an occasional hello in the middle-school hallways. Eventually even those moments disappeared entirely.

David had been Martin’s only real friend besides Jim, and the incident had led to Martin’s extreme fear of dogs.

As the Labrador bounded into Laura Green’s kitchen, Martin turned back toward the door, every muscle of his body bent on exiting the house as quickly as possible. Panic had once again seized him, but as he reached for the knob he saw the door to Mr. and Mrs. Matching Volkswagen’s house opening and a woman (older and therefore nosey, Martin thought, despite his haste and panic) emerging from within. Trapped between a dog and a possible witness, Martin did the only thing he could: He ran.

Turning right, Martin ran out of the kitchen and passed through a small dining room, taking in details such as the loose Oriental rug on the floor and a collection of snow globes filling a glass display cabinet as he ran by. Only four chairs around the table, Martin noticed. Laura Green was probably not a frequent entertainer of guests. Once out of the dining room, Martin found himself in a short hallway that ended with a darkened room directly ahead before turning left into what he presumed was a living room.

Martin was running on instinct now, thoughts firing in his brain as he moved as quickly as possible, a combination of adrenaline, experience, and training working together seamlessly. Martin had already mapped the Green home without conscious effort, identifying it almost immediately as a roundabout,
the type of home in which the rooms were positioned around a central staircase, allowing for continuous movement through the home without hitting a dead end. The staircase to the second floor was not on his left as he passed through the front hallway and by the front door, as he had expected, leaving him to assume (correctly) that it was on the inner wall of the living room. All of these thoughts flooded his mind instantaneously, his experience and preparation paying off in ways he’d never known it would.

Hearing a thump behind him (probably the dog slipping on the loose rug and running into one of the aforementioned dining room chairs), Martin decided that he might have time enough to enter the room directly ahead and slam the door shut after him. His only other choice was to continue around the house, through the theoretical living room, back into the kitchen, and out the side door for his escape. But there was no telling where Mrs. Matching Volkswagen might be, making this alternative too dangerous.

Besides, the dog might also be upon him before he ever reached the kitchen.

In a final burst of speed, Martin flung himself into the room at the end of the hall, simultaneously reaching for, missing, reaching, missing again, and then finally grasping and closing the door behind him. As the hallway disappeared from view behind the rapidly closing door, he saw the Labrador attempting to slow down before slamming its muzzle against the door’s wooden base.

Had it not clicked shut in time, Martin doubted whether he could have held the door closed against the weight and speed of the large animal.

Seconds later the barking came, a constant stream of yelps, complete with scratching and pawing, further terrifying an already shaking Martin. If the barking continued for too long, a
neighbor might become worried and call the police, especially if Cujo (the name he had already assigned the beast) was not in the habit of making this much noise during the day.

Unsure what to do, Martin turned to take in the room that had now become his prison. It appeared to be a sparsely furnished sitting room of sorts, with a sofa, an easy chair, a barren coffee table, and a small television. Two things immediately eased his mind: a pair of windows that might serve the need for a possible escape and a home-office area along the far wall, complete with desk, filing cabinets, and a computer. Had Martin not been attacked by Cujo, this was the room that he would have ultimately sought out.

This meant that his plan was still possible.

But first, Martin thought, something needed to be done about the barking. More than a minute had passed and Cujo showed no signs of letting up.

Martin’s only other experience similar to this had been with Alfredo, and in that case Martin had quieted the bird (and eventually befriended it) by giving it what it wanted: conversation. In this case, giving Cujo what he wanted might mean offering himself up as a human sacrifice, which would not do.