Night of Fear (12 page)

“Tough.”

“Old carousels like this are worth a lot of money.”

“They are?”

“Absolutely. Collectors pay thousands of dollars for just one old merry-go-round horse and there must be two dozen of them in here. This place is worth a fortune.”

Brody peered at the carved animals. “They look old and worn out to me.”

“The older they are, the more they’re worth. Look,” he said, pointing to his left, “there’s the calliope or organ or whatever it’s called that was in the center of the merry-go-round. It’s what played the music. I wonder if it still works.”

“How do you know so much about old merry-go-rounds?”

“My grandmother was interested in antiques. She used to take me to antique shows with her. When I was little and we saw carousel horses displayed, I always wanted to buy one but Grandma Ruth said they were too expensive.”

“How much do you think all this is worth?”

T.J. did a quick mental count. “There must be twenty carved animals, plus the organ and all the other parts. As a rough guess, I’d say at least one hundred thousand dollars.”

T.J. could tell that Brody was impressed. “We’d be fools to burn this shed,” T.J. continued, “without taking this stuff out of here first.”

“You mean, you want to steal it?”

“I doubt the owner would give permission for us to take it.”

“I don’t know. I never stole anything.”

“You could buy a lot of gasoline for one hundred thousand dollars. You wouldn’t ever have to do temporary work again.”

Brody scratched his head. “One hundred thousand smackeroos.” He slapped his hands together, as if he’d made a momentous decision. “We’ll load this stuff in the truck and take it to Seattle and sell it.”

“Good plan.” Excellent plan, in fact, T.J. thought. Any reputable antique dealer would ask questions about how Brody happened to own such treasures. They’d want to know the background of the carousel and where Brody got the animals. If the police hadn’t found T.J. in the meantime, Brody was almost certain to attract their attention when he tried to sell the old carousel animals.

“Turn that light off,” Brody said, and then did it himself.

The horses were heavy. Brody and T.J. each carried one to the truck. Partway there, T.J. had to put his down and rest.

“They aren’t all going to fit,” Brody said.

“No. After we sell the first load, we’ll need to make another trip.” The more the better, T.J. thought. Maybe someone will notice that some of the animals are missing. Maybe the cops will be waiting for us to come back for the rest.

“We need blankets or something, to protect them,” T.J. said, when he had his horse on the ground beside the truck.
“We can’t just pile them in the back of the truck. They’ll get scratched.”

“We can use the tarp.”

“That will do for one or two animals. We’ll need something else to protect the others.”

Brody lifted the tarp and stopped. He looked at the cans of gasoline. He slipped his hand in his pocket and removed the cigarette lighter. He stood beside the truck, turning the lighter over and over in his palm. With his other hand, he picked up the end gasoline can, the one he took with him to the pony shed, and lifted it out of the truck.

T.J. climbed into the back of the truck and reached for the tarp. He spread it on the bed of the truck. “We can lay two horses on this tarp and then wrap the tarp over the top of the horses, to protect them,” he said.

There was no answer.

T.J. turned to look at Brody. He was walking toward the storage sheds, carrying the can of gasoline.

“Wait!” T.J. yelled.

He jumped off the truck and ran after Brody. He grabbed Brody’s sleeve. “We have to get the carousel animals out first,” he said.

“No,” Brody said. “This is my chance for the perfect revenge.” His eyes had a glazed look. He pushed T.J.’s hand away and strode into the shed that held the carousel animals. He began pouring the gasoline around the inside of the shed.

“What about the money?” T.J. said. “We can’t sell the animals if you burn them. You might just as well set fire to a stack of one hundred dollar bills.”

Brody appeared not to hear or see T.J. Once he had the
can of gasoline in his hand, his mind seemed to block out everything else. Slowly and methodically, he trickled gasoline around the inside of the shed.

“You can’t do this,” T.J. said. “Not with the carousel animals still inside.”

But even as he said the words, he knew Brody would do it. If it didn’t bother him to set fire to a building that contained a live pony, it certainly wasn’t going to bother him to burn a collection of old wooden animals.

T.J. rushed into the shed and dragged the wooden pig out through the door. He pulled it across the ground until it was far enough from the shed that it should be safe. He started back to get another animal and then stopped just inside the door.

Brody was on the far side of the shed now, bent over. It was too dark for T.J. to see for sure what Brody was doing but undoubtedly he was trickling the gasoline along the base of the wall. At any rate, he wasn’t paying any attention to T.J.

T.J. hesitated for only an instant. He was tempted to keep dragging the animals out, trying to remove as many as he could. If he worked fast, he could probably remove most of them before the fire got too bad. He should try to save the unusual ones, anyway—the ostrich and the sea horse and the organ. Besides being valuable, they were beautiful.

Instead of reaching for another animal, he backed away from Brody, stepped away from the shed and ran.

Dane left the TV on when
Top Gun
ended. The news was on next and he wanted to know if the Seattle Seahawks had decided who would start as quarterback on Sunday. Since the sports news was usually last, Dane went out to the kitchen and got a bag of peanuts. When he came back, the announcers were finishing a story about a bank robbery and murder. Dane was glad to hear the murderer was already in custody.

He took a handful of peanuts and began to shell them. He had just popped the first peanut into his mouth when his attention was yanked back to the news broadcast.

“An elderly Pine Ridge woman and her grandson are missing tonight,” the announcer said, “and search parties are organizing to look for them. The woman has Alzheimer’s disease and is easily confused. If anyone has information or knows the whereabouts of Ruth Windham and her grandson, T.J. Stenson, please call the sheriff’s office immediately.”

Dane dropped the peanuts and bolted upstairs to where his parents were just getting into bed. “T.J.’s missing!” he cried. “He and his grandma are gone. They just announced it on television.”

“Missing?” Dane’s mother asked. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. Mr. Stenson called me just before you got home from the Open House, to see if I knew where T.J. was, and I said I thought he was home watching
Top Gun.
He wanted to know when I last talked to T.J. and what he had said. I told him, and then Mr. Stenson just said, ‘Thanks,’ and hung up. Now T.J.’s name was on the news and the police are organizing a search party and I have to go over there and help.”

Dane’s father reached for the telephone. “What’s T.J.’s number?” he asked. Dane gave it and his father dialed. Someone answered on the first ring.

Dane listened impatiently to his father’s end of the conversation.

His father hung up and said, “They’re both gone, with no clue as to what happened.” He began dressing as he talked. “Ted Stenson thinks maybe the grandmother wandered away and T.J. went out looking for her. I’ll go with you, Dane.”

Dane’s mother said, “Wait for me,” and grabbed some jeans and a sweatshirt from her closet. “I’ll wake up Susan and tell her where we’re going.”

When Dane’s older sister heard what was happening, she said she would help, too. Ten minutes later Dane’s whole family was in their car, headed toward the Stenson home.

“If that poor woman is lost,” Dane’s mother said, “she
must be terrified. Amelia Stenson told me her mother is like a young child most of the time.”

“T.J.’s grandmother wears an identification bracelet,” Dane said, “with her name, address, and phone number on it. T.J. told me they got it for her just in case she ever wandered away and got lost.”

“An ID bracelet only helps if someone finds her,” his father said.

T.J. sprinted past the truck. The sheds wouldn’t be out in the middle of nowhere. They used to be part of a chicken ranch, so there had to be a house nearby. Maybe he would get to act out the scene he had visualized, after all. Instead of doing it at a gas station, he would do it at a farmhouse.

The ground was uneven, as if no vehicle drove regularly across it. He hoped the house, if he found one, was occupied.

His foot hit a shallow hole and he fell to his knees, twisting his left ankle. He got up, rubbed at the ankle, and limped on.

As he ran, he rethought his plan. Maybe he shouldn’t pretend to be sick. He was sure it would work, but if someone in the house believed he was ill, they would call for an ambulance, and medics would not be equipped to put out the fire. Ambulance attendants would have been fine if he and Brody were at a gas station, where there was no fire involved. Here, there was the fire to consider. At least three of those sheds contained valuable merchandise; probably the others did, too.

T.J. hoped that a fire truck might arrive in time to save the carousel animals and the old car and the boat. He decided to tell the truth.

He saw the outline of a house ahead: a two-story farmhouse, with a wide porch across the front. The house was dark but he could tell there were curtains in the windows and a bicycle leaned against the porch rail.

He took the porch steps two at a time, and pounded on the door of the house. He tried to turn the knob, but the door was locked. A light went on in one of the upstairs windows. He pounded again.

The outside porch light came on. The door opened a crack. T.J. saw a chain lock and, behind it, a woman’s face.

“Call the fire department,” T.J. said. “Call the police! I need help.”

“Who are you?”

“There’s a man with me, an arsonist. He made me go with him. I need help. Please let me in. Please!”

“If you need help,” the woman said, “I will call the police for you. But I can’t let you in my house.”

“He’s setting fire to your storage sheds,” T.J. said. “He’s pouring gasoline around the one with all the carousel animals in it.”

The woman’s face disappeared from the other side of the door. He saw the curtains open on the side of the house toward the sheds. The woman looked out.

T.J. put his fingers through the crack in the door and tried to unhook the chain lock.

The woman screamed, “Fire!”

T.J. spun around and looked behind him. The shed had erupted in flames.

T.J. could hear the woman calling for help. Her voice was
frantic, giving directions, pleading with the fire fighters to hurry.

When she hung up, she ran back to the door, undid the chain and opened the door. As she rushed past T.J., she said, “There are some buckets on the back porch. Fill them with water! Hurry!” She turned on an outside faucet on the side of the house, filled a tin watering can, and ran toward the sheds with her pink bathrobe flapping around her knees.

The flames leaped and danced, lighting the sky. T.J. could smell the smoke already. He knew it would take far more than a watering can and a couple of buckets to put out such a blaze.

I should go with her, T.J. thought. Maybe I could still drag those beautiful old carved animals out of the shed before they’re destroyed.

He looked across the pasture toward the burning shed. He didn’t move. If he went back there, chances were good that Brody would try to grab him again. Even without a gun, T.J. knew Brody would not hesitate to use force, if necessary, to keep T.J. with him. Or Brody would lie again, convincing the woman that T.J. had set the fire or that T.J. was Brody’s son who had run away from home.

If he went to help the woman, he could find himself back in the truck long before help arrived, heading down the road for more revenge.

Much as he hated to think of the old merry-go-round animals going up in smoke, trying to save them wasn’t worth the risk. T.J. had been willing to jeopardize his own safety to save the frightened pony. The pony was a living creature. But the
carousel horses, valuable as they might be, were merely things. Compared to his safety, they were worth nothing.

The woman did not return for more water. The door to the house stood wide open. Feeling like a burglar, T.J. entered and closed the door behind him. He slipped the chain lock into place, making certain that Brody couldn’t follow him into the house.

A small mirror hung beside the door. When he saw his reflection, he could see why the woman had been afraid to let him in her house. His face was streaked with soot, there were bits of ash in his hair, and his sweatshirt was filthy. He looked like he had not had a bath in a month.

He heard no voices or any other sign that anyone was in the house with him. Surely, if someone else was here, they would have heard the woman calling for help.

T.J. turned and looked to his left; the large living room was empty. T.J. walked to his right, through the dining area and into the kitchen. He turned on the kitchen light and glanced quickly around, hoping to see a telephone.