Stranger in the House (24 page)

Anna’s heart was hammering from fear, but suddenly the rage which she had held in check, hoping to reason with him, surged up from inside her, displacing every other feeling. “You loathsome, vile excuse for a man,” she said through clenched teeth. “You disgusting pig…”

“Don’t talk to me like that, Anna,” he said tonelessly.

“Wasn’t it enough that you left my son in the road to die?” she cried. “You weak coward. You scum…”

Edward wheeled around, his eyes blazing wildly. He took a step toward her and kicked her hard in the side. Anna gasped and cried out.

“Yell all you want,” he said. “No one will hear you.” Edward turned around and picked up the valise. Then he looked up into the loft at the boy imprisoned there. “Good-bye,” he said evenly. Paul spit at him, and the spittle landed on Edward’s sleeve. He wiped his sleeve off gingerly with a paper towel and tossed the roll down next to the hot plate. Without another word he left the windmill and closed the door behind him.

Anna lay on her side, staring across the floor at the hot plate. The burner was starting to glow now. The edge of the rag rested on the brightening burner. Anna saw a faint brown border begin to appear on the cloth.

Paul’s small voice drifted down from above. “Did he hurt you?” he asked softly.

Gathering her breath to reply caused a sharp pain in her chest. But her voice was steady when she spoke. “I’m all right,” she said.

Slowly, painfully, she began to inch her way across the floor toward the menacing burner. The edge of the rag was black now, and a tiny lick of flame began to flicker across at its rim.

“Don’t be afraid,” she called out to him. “Don’t be afraid.”

T
homas pulled his suitcase and his briefcase from the back seat of the cab and leaned over to pay the taxi driver his fare.

“Thanks, Mac,” said the driver. “Have a good night.”

Thomas nodded and watched as the driver backed slowly down the Langes’ driveway. He turned and looked up at the house. He had somehow expected that Anna would rush out to the porch to meet him; but all the lights in the house were dark, and there was no sign of her, except for her Volvo parked in the driveway. He checked the garage window and saw his car parked inside. He walked up the pathway and let himself into the house.

He stood for a moment in the silent foyer and looked around. It was not the homecoming he had hoped for, but, he thought, it was probably the one he deserved. “Anna,” he called out, but there was no reply.

He went into the living room and turned on a light. It was getting late in the day, that hour which is neither dark nor light. He set his bags down on a chair and walked through the house.

It was just lucky that he had decided to go back to his hotel room after lunch to pick up some papers. That was when he had gotten the message from Anna about Paul. With a few phone calls he had canceled all his meetings and prepared for the trip back.

He walked into the kitchen and went straight to the counter where she always left her notes for him. There was nothing, no indication of where she had gone.

Thomas sighed and punched a fist lightly into the counter top. “Tracy,” he called out, but he knew there would be no answer. For a moment he felt as if he were in every child’s nightmare, when you come home from school and find that your family has moved. He shook the feeling off. He remembered that Tracy had gone sailing with Mary Ellen. Walking over to the phone, he dialed Mary Ellen’s house and waited. The girl’s mother answered and told him that the boat was still out. He told her to have Tracy call the moment she got in and he would come to pick her up. Mary Ellen’s mother agreed, and Thomas hung up.

Anna was probably with the police, he decided. If Paul were missing, she would go straight to Buddy for help. She and Buddy must be out looking for him. Thomas could not help wondering, as he had on the shuttle back to New York, if the boy had decided to run away. And with that speculation came the guilty feeling that his own selfish behavior might be the cause. He gave a quick and silent prayer that his wife and son would walk in the door, but even as he prayed, he was dialing the phone number of the Stanwich police station.

The phone rang five times before anybody answered; it seemed to Thomas an unconscionably long time. When the receptionist finally answered, Thomas barked out his request to speak to Buddy Ferraro.

The woman on the other end explained that Buddy was not there.

“Well, this is Thomas Lange,” he said. “My son is missing, and I was wondering if my wife might be out looking for him with Detective Ferraro. I just got in from Boston.”

The woman at the other end was silent for a moment. “Oh, hello, Mr. Lange,” she said finally. “I’m sorry about your son.”

“Can you possibly tell me what is going on?” he said.

“I’m Officer Hammerfelt. I was here when your wife came in this morning. Your boy disappeared at the airport this morning.”

“I don’t understand. Does Buddy Ferraro know about this?”

“Detective Ferraro was out of town when it happened. He just came back himself on account of it. He called me from home a few minutes ago, and he’s on his way to the station. But your wife is not with him. We haven’t seen her since this morning.”

Thomas stared at the phone as if the instrument were deliberately confounding him.

“Detective Ferraro ought to be here in about twenty minutes,” said the woman. “You want me to have him call you when he gets in? Or shall I tell him just to go on up to your house?”

Thomas thought for a moment, trying to decide what to do. “No,” he said. “I may have to go pick up my daughter. I don’t want him to waste a trip if I’m not home. Just have him call me. That’ll be fine.”

Thomas hung up the phone. His clothes felt wrinkled and uncomfortable. He decided to go upstairs and change them while he waited. Going back through the living room, he picked up his bags and climbed the stairs. He pushed the door open to his and Anna’s room and looked inside. The room was orderly and welcoming as always, the wedding ring quilt spread neatly across the bed, a bedside vase filled with flowers.

It was unlike Anna not to leave him a message. Perhaps she thought that he wouldn’t come home, wouldn’t answer her call for help. It occurred to him again that he had done a lot of damage to their marriage, and along with the guilt he felt a powerful urge to make it up to her. He wanted to start right away, and the emptiness of the house filled him with a sense of impotence and frustration.

He put on his jeans, and pulled a sweatshirt over his head. As he was tying on his running shoes, he suddenly realized where she must be. She would not bother to leave a note if she were only going over to see Iris. It might mean that she would be back at any time. That was it. A feeling of relief flooded him. She had probably walked over there, needing someone to talk to. He leaned across the bed and picked up the bedside extension. The Stewarts’ number was taped across the front, along with the police and the fire station, to call in case of emergency. He dialed the number eagerly, impatient to hear Iris’s voice, so he could tell Anna that he was back. The phone began to ring and then continued ringing, as he realized, with a sinking heart, that there was nobody home. He slammed down the receiver and sat dejectedly on the edge of the bed.

He could not think of where else she might have gone. Maybe she had gone out somewhere with Iris, he thought. That was possible. Maybe they had gone out to search for the boy. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the phone. Or they might be out on the grounds somewhere. That could be. He thought of going over to check. They could be sitting out by the pool. Then he shook his head. Anna wouldn’t be out reclining by the pool with Paul lost to her. He considered taking a walk over. If Iris were there, she might know something. Then he thought of Edward. He did not much like the idea of running into him. Edward always made him feel as welcome as a case of hepatitis.

Thomas sat down on the bed. Tracy might call at any minute, and he had promised to pick her up. And then there was Buddy. He would be calling, too. There’s nothing to do but wait.

Using her bound feet and hands to make tiny, jerky pushes, Anna rolled her body across the cold stone floor toward the hot plate. The path was strewn with the flammable debris which Edward had collected. She forced herself to roll on it, crushing a half-finished hull into splinters that stabbed through her clothes, and tangling her limbs in the rags. Paper crinkled under her, and she bruised her side on the cold head of a hammer which lay on the floor. Her rotating feet caught the leg of a chair, which tipped over, and the cardboard box on top of it, which was filled with tiny silken sails, overturned. Triangles of bright fabric floated down and landed on the glowing ring of the hot plate. It flared up and flamed brightly for a few moments, casting a small but eerie glow in that corner before it turned to ash on the ring.

The edge of the rag left by Edward was flaming now, little licks of flame dancing on its blackened edges, eating in toward the center of the cloth. Anna hesitated, tempted to try to extinguish the rag, but she was nearer the cord of the hot plate. She looked up at the outlet where it was plugged. If she could lift her head up enough to grab the cord between her teeth, she thought, she could pull it from the wall. The thought of putting that cord in her teeth was daunting; but the rag was burning vigorously now, and she had to cut off the threatening burner.

“What are you doing?” Paul called out from above.

“Hang on, honey,” she said. “I’m going to stop this burner.”

“Be careful,” he cried.

Anna stared resolutely at the cord. Dragging herself up on one raw elbow, she caught the cord in her mouth, carefully covering the sheath of the cord with her tongue as well as she could. Cocking her head to one side, she wedged a loop of the cord between her chin and her shoulder blade. Here goes, she thought. Don’t bite down.

Anna squeezed her eyes shut and jerked her body away from the wall. The plug resisted and then came free from the wall. The violent motion pulled the hot plate off its perch on a low bench, and it overturned, a foot away against the treadle of the sewing machine.

Anna quickly dropped the cord from her mouth. “It worked,” she cried. “I unplugged it.”

“Good work, Mom,” he cried. Anna felt a moment’s giddy pleasure at the fact that he had called her Mom, but she was instantly sober again. “Now I’m going to put these ropes on my hands against the coils as they cool down and try to burn through them. First though, I have to put that rag out.”

“Be careful,” he said.

The tails of the rag were aflame, and Anna dreaded what she had to do next; but she felt there was no choice. It might take a while to free herself, and they would not be safe unless the rag was out. Once it was extinguished, she could concentrate on her bonds. The hot plate would not cool off that quickly. Now, however, she knew she had to smother the flames, and there was only one conceivable way to do it. She began to work her way toward the burning cloth, determined to crush it like a steamroller and flatten the flames before they could spread.

Anna tensed her body, prepared to roll. She hoped she could land squarely on it, so that it would be over in one try. She whispered a prayer and then drew back for momentum. The little flames working in toward the center of the rag suddenly reached a brown, stained patch. In that instant the rag exploded with a burst that shot licks of fire out across the room.

Anna checked her forward motion with a cry, her face seared by the intense and sudden heat. She shot backward as Paul let out a yelp. “What happened?”

“The rag,” she gasped. “It exploded.” Shards of the flaming rag landed in different spots in the small space. A few hissed on the cold floor and died. Others landed on hospitable boxes and other piles of rags and papers. One fell on a broom, propped up against the wall. The flames ate their way hungrily down the bristles as Anna watched helplessly. There were small fires all around her now as smoke began to rise in the windmill.

Edward’s fingers trembled as he knotted his tie, but otherwise he felt relatively calm. The ringing of the phone a while before had unnerved him, but he had ignored it. Whoever was calling would be able to testify that he had not even been at home when they tried to reach him. He pulled on his jacket and checked himself in the mirror to be sure he was properly dressed. He always enjoyed dining at the club without Iris. When she was with him, no matter how well he looked, she always looked just dowdy enough to embarrass him as they walked through the dining room. Tonight, though, it would be perfect. It was a spot where he would be highly visible. He would eat, drink, and socialize, and by the time he returned from the evening all his problems would have turned to ashes. The windmill would be an inferno or a smoking shell. Inside, the searchers would find the remains of mother and son, the victims of a tragic mishap, their bonds incinerated in the blaze.

It was a bold plan, staging the accident right here on his own property, but he had finally decided it was the right move. It had infuriated him that Anna had stumbled into the middle of his perfect setup, and he had considered trying to dispose of two corpses instead of one, as he had originally planned. But the more he thought about it, the better it seemed to have them killed right here. Aside from the fact that he had no motive that anyone knew of, he felt sure that no one would ever believe that he would start such a fire on his own property. Anyone who knew him at all knew how attached he was to that windmill. In fact, it was his one regret that he had to sacrifice it in order to get rid of the boy and his snooping mother.

The Langes, he further reassured himself, were just the kind of people to come trespassing on his property, letting themselves into the windmill. It was one of their lowbrow habits to turn up, uninvited. Iris could certainly attest to that. He would tell the police that he had urged the boy to make use of the windmill anytime he pleased. He would be as blameless as could be. A victim, in fact, of their carelessness.

But now, he thought, it was time to get on the road. Edward picked up the keys to the Cadillac on the dresser and then opened the dresser drawer. Inside were his gold money clip and a leather billfold full of cash. He stuffed some bills into the clip and slipped it into his pocket. Then he snapped off the lamp and started out the door and down the hall to the stairs. He was halfway down the staircase when he heard the knock at the front door.

Edward froze, staring down at the door. For one moment he considered not answering it, thinking that perhaps whoever it was would go away. But then he realized that the person might go around to the back of the house instead, and he could not take that chance. He doubted whether there would be any sign of the fire yet, but he couldn’t risk it. He would simply have to open the door and get rid of whoever was there. He reminded himself that he was a busy man on the way to his club.

Edward quickly took the remaining stairs. He peered out through one of the front windows but did not see a car in the drive. Tiptoeing to the front door, he pulled back one of the curtains surrounding the lead windows a fraction of an inch and looked out.

Thomas Lange stood on the doorstep. Edward’s heart constricted in his chest. What is he doing here? He was supposed to be in Boston. Be calm, he commanded himself. Anna must have summoned him home. Behave normally. He is looking for Anna, and you have not seen her since this afternoon. Edward straightened up and brushed a piece of lint off the front of his suit. Then he opened the door.

“Thomas,” he said pleasantly, “what can I do for you? I’m just on my way out.”