The Safe Man (4 page)

Stephens nodded.

“What about your home?” Rowan said. “Can we look around inside?”

Brian flashed on the bag of stale dope in the bedroom dresser. Laura quit smoking when they decided to get pregnant. Out of fairness he had stopped as well and the bag had sat in the drawer with his socks for a year.

“If you’re just going to look around for the girl—closets and stuff—that’s fine. But I don’t want you going through drawers and stuff. Just make it quick. And don’t mess things up or my wife will know.”

“You know what I still don’t understand?” Rowan said. “You’re in there doing a job for Mr. Robinette and you go and ask his daughter how old she is. Why is that?”

“I don’t know. I told you. I wondered how old she was. What else do you ask? She was a cute girl and I wondered how old she was. I’m sort of hoping that we have a girl and so…that’s all.”

“You said
was,
” Stephens said.

“What?”

“You said she
was
a cute girl. Why’d you use the past tense? Is there something you want to tell us?”

Brian shook his head.

“Look, you’ve got this wrong and you’re wasting time. Don’t do this. You should be out there looking for—”

“Mr. Holloway,” Rowan said, “I think we are going to take you up on your kind offer to allow us to look around here and maybe bring you down to the station to set up a polygraph. Your offer is still good, right?”

They kept him in a small, windowless, and—it seemed to him—airless room. There was no clock on the wall and he lost track of time. He was thinking about the girl he had seen by the safe. Lucy. They came in from time to time to talk to him, to ask him the same questions over and over. But unsatisfied with his answers, they would leave again. He could tell it was dark outside. He could sense it. It had been at least that long.

Finally, the door came open again and Stephens looked in.

“You have ten minutes,” he said.

“What?”

Stephens backed away from the opening and then Laura appeared. Hesitantly, she stepped into the room and the door was closed behind her.

“Brian? What is going on? I came home and they were in our house. They had a search warrant. What did you do?”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t do anything. Robinette’s daughter is missing and they think I took her. All I did was talk to her.”

“You talked to her? When?”

“That day. I told you at dinner.”

“No, you told me she had the same name we picked. You didn’t say you talked to her.”

“She came in where I was working. I asked her what her name was and how old she was and that was it. I told her I had to get to work. She left and I never saw her again. That’s it.”

She slid into the seat across the table from him. She never took her eyes off him.

“Did you tell them this?”

“Yes, I told them a hundred times. They’re wasting their time with me when they should be out looking for her. If you ask me, they ought to be talking to Robinette instead of me.”

Laura put her hand on her abdomen, as if calming the baby inside. She started rocking in her chair.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe this,” she said.

“Neither can I,” Brian said.

He reached a hand across the table and she put her other hand on top of it.

“Have you asked for a lawyer?”

“No, I don’t need a lawyer. I didn’t do anything.”

“Brian, just tell me. Did you take that girl anywhere?”

He pulled his hand back from her. His mouth came open and it was a moment before he found his voice.

“Laura?”

“Where did you go when you got up last night? You’ve been acting weird all week. What is going on with you?”

“They sent you in here, didn’t they? They convinced you out there and sent you in here to—”

“No, Brian, you’re wrong. You’re being paranoid. I just want to know what is going—”

The door to the small room suddenly came open and Rowan stepped in.

“Mr. and Mrs. Holloway, you can go on home now.”

“What do you mean?” Laura asked.

Brian started to push back his chair.

“We found her,” the agent said in a matter-of-fact tone. “We want to thank you for your cooperation but you are no longer needed. Have a nice evening.”

Brian stood up, a weird mixture of relief and anger overtaking him.

“Is she all right?” he asked.

“She’s fine. Patrol just brought her into the station. Turns out she didn’t like moving into the new house.”

He forced a laugh.

“She thinks it’s haunted. So she split. She walked all the way back to her old neighborhood and hid in her best friend’s guesthouse.”

Rowan stepped back from the doorway so they could leave. Brian walked slowly. He was having a hard time understanding what Rowan had just told them. He was having a hard time dealing with what his wife had just asked him as well.

“That girl found her way back to her old house?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Rowan said. “Step this way and I’ll get you back your property. Then you’ll be out of here.”

Brian was led down the hallway and into a large squad room. There were several detectives working at desks and moving about. Across the room was another room separated by a glass wall. He could see a boardroom table in there. Sitting at the table were Detective Stephens and a girl. She was maybe thirteen years old. She looked like she was crying.

Rowan went to his desk and got a manila envelope out of a drawer. He handed it to Brian. It had his wallet and keys in it. His loose change. He didn’t bother tearing it open. He just held it as he stared at the girl in the glass room. Rowan noticed his gaze and looked across the room as well.

“She’s okay. She spent the night eating potato chips and drinking soda pop. I guess she had such a good time, she still doesn’t want to go back home.”

“Does Robinette have another daughter?”

“No, just the one. Just Teresa who doesn’t want to go home.”

Brian thought of the dream, of the dread he felt when he woke up from it. The feeling that he had let something loose.

“Teresa?”

Rowan looked at him.

“That’s right. I thought you said you asked—”

“Can I talk to her?”

“To the girl? No, I don’t think that would be proper, Mr. Holloway. Your involvement with this thing is over as far as I’m concerned.”

“I really need to speak to her.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen. Now it’s time for you and your wife to head on home.”

“What did she say about the house being haunted?”

“I’ll walk you out.”

He gripped Brian’s upper arm and ushered him toward the squad room’s exit. They went into another hallway and headed toward the door at the end. Rowan kept his hand on Brian’s arm. Laura trailed behind them.

“You know who owned that house before Robinette?” Brian asked.

Rowan didn’t answer.

“Arthur Blankenship.”

“So?”

“So maybe she’s got a point to why she’s scared. He built the plant. They say the runoff from the phosphate is responsible for all the fish kills. It’s like there’s a big cloud of black water in the bay. Hell, he built this city. He knew where all the bodies were buried. Maybe—”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s going home safe.”

Brian jerked his arm free and stopped. He pointed back down the hallway in the direction they had come from.

“She’s not the one I saw in the house. She isn’t the girl I spoke to.”

Rowan held up his palms in a hands-off manner. He smiled.

“Mr. Holloway, I’ve got a caseload like you wouldn’t believe. This is one of the cases that ends happy, that ends good. Let’s just let this go.”

“And what if I can’t?”

“Then you are on your own, sir. Let’s go.”

He grabbed Brian’s arm again and led him to the door.

They were quiet at first on the ride home. Laura drove. Brian thought about what he had seen in the Robinette house. They were almost home before Laura spoke for the first time.

“Brian, what’s going on? What were you talking about back there?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t really feel like talking to you right now.”

“Brian, I’m sorry. They told me you did something to her. They said they had evidence and that you had admitted asking her inappropriate questions. They said it had something to do with our baby. The pressure you are under and how we haven’t had sex. They said they had seen it before.”

Brian shook his head.

“You told them about our sex?”

“They asked a lot of questions. I felt I had to.”

“And you believed everything they said. That I admitted asking inappropriate questions. That I did something to her.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“I was talking to a six-year-old, not a thirteen-year-old. I didn’t ask anything wrong. I didn’t
do
anything wrong.”

“I know, baby. I’m sorry. But you were acting strange all week. And then when you went out last night…I just thought…I don’t know what I thought. All I can say is that I’m sorry.”

Brian looked over at his wife. In the darkness he could see that she was crying, doing nothing about the tears rolling down her cheeks. He didn’t do anything about it either.

In the workshop Brian had a message waiting for him on his computer the next morning. It was from a box man in Montreal named Robert Pepin. Rather than publicly post the message on the website, Pepin answered Brian’s posted inquiry with a direct and private e-mail. Though Pepin was obviously French and had some difficulties with English, his message was clear.

Take cautions. I have heard story of the Threshold safe. One box man saw his young brother who was killed. I have not seen for myself. Was it in the floor? This is past on stories. The box man he make mistake to open it.

Brian stared at the message a long time, trying to decipher its meanings. He felt a coldness begin in his center. He knew it was the beginning of fear and the confirmation of something he had felt deep inside.

The message had Pepin’s business number and address at the bottom. Brian picked up the workshop phone and punched in the long-distance number. After three rings it was answered by a machine. The outgoing message was in French and Brian didn’t understand a word of it. But then the speaker switched to English with a heavy French accent. He identified the line as belonging to Fochet Lock and Safe and asked the caller to leave a message. But then he gave another number in case of an emergency. Brian wrote it down, hung up, and then called the emergency number.

The second call was answered after four rings and Brian heard a drill wind down before a man spoke rapidly in French. It was obviously a cell phone and Brian had interrupted a job. He wondered how the phone had even been heard over the sound of the drill.

“I’m sorry,” Brian said. “Do you speak English? Is Robert Pepin there?”

“This is Robert. Who is this, please?”

Brian identified himself and told Pepin he had received his message. He needed to ask him questions. Pepin tried to beg off, saying that he was in the middle of drilling a safe and that people were waiting for him to complete the job. Brian insisted and promised to be quick. Pepin relented and lowered his voice to a whisper when he spoke further.

“What did you mean by a ‘threshold safe’ in your message?” Brian asked first.

“It is the safe you showed. Uh, it is Threshold, the name. Le Seuil.”

He pronounced it like
Le Soy.
Brian tried to say it that way.

“‘Le Seuil’ means
threshold
?”

“The Threshold, yes. Like the doorway you have.”

“I understand. And the story you heard—who told you?”

“Uh, the man who I bought from him my business. Fochet. He told me. He told me, ‘If I get the job,
NO,
do not open.’ And so I tell you.”

“He told you he opened one?”

“A very long time ago, yes. He said big mistake opening that one, yes.”

“Why?”

“Well, he is not saying everything. He is just warning against it, you know? He is saying bad things come out. Like a dream. I didn’t ask. He sound, you know, a little crazy.”

“Is he still around? Is he retired?”

Pepin chuckled.

“He is retired to the cemetery. Mr. Fochet was very old when I bought his business.”

Frustration was welling up in Brian. Everything was like the smoke in his dreams. It formed the whispery outlines of a picture, but there was not enough there to identify it.

“In your message you said the man who opened the safe saw his brother who was killed. What do you mean?”

“Fochet, he had a brother who was killed in the train. An accident, you see. But before that, Fochet open the Threshold safe. On a job. He is saying to me that he saw a man. It was his brother but…afterward. Like he was an old man now. He tell Fochet to watch out on the train. He give the warning. But Fochet don’t know this. He didn’t tell nobody about this. Then a year later his brother he got killed. On the train. You understand? It was a crazy story. I didn’t pay too much attention because I never heard of these safes, and Fochet, he was, you know, a little crazy. His wife make him sell me the business. But then I see you on the website and think, Aha, I better give a warning for this. Just in case, you know.”

Pepin’s English made it difficult for Brian to fully grasp the story.

“Do you remember anything else about the story?”

“No, that is what I know. I tell you what I know.”

“Did he say who made these safes? Anything about the manufacturer?”

“I did ask him this and he say he could not find out. He said it was a big mystery, yes. He tried to learn. The safe came on a boat from France—this is long time ago—and there are no records anymore. In the war the Germans came and destroyed these records. He found nothing, because he was like you, with questions.”

Pepin made a spitting noise in the phone as if to signal the finality and the fruitlessness of searching for the origin of the Le Seuil safe.

“I have my work now,” he said.