Unspeakable (19 page)

“Yes, I just talked with her. Gail and Fernando have history class together, and she said he wasn't there today. He left for school at seven-forty-five this morning, and apparently never got there. You missed school, too. Gail said something about you going for a drive to Central Washington. Please, I'm getting really worried here. If you boys played hooky together, and you're covering for Fernando—”

“I'm not, Mrs. Ryan. I'm telling you the truth. I haven't heard from him all day.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

He wondered if Mrs. Ryan knew how much Fernando traveled by thumb. Collin had always considered it a pretty risky way to get around. He didn't want to scare Mrs. Ryan or betray Fernando's confidence by saying anything. “Have you talked with the police yet?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she said, her voice quivering.

“Sometimes he likes to go to the Kitsap Mall in Silverdale. Maybe we should call there and have him paged.”

“I'll try that. Thanks. Listen, I've talked to Fernando about the hitchhiking. Do you know if he's still doing it?”

Collin hesitated. “I—I think so, once in a while.”

She let out a frail sigh on the other end. “All right, if I can't get him at the mall, I'm calling the police—and the hospitals, too.”

“Would you like me to come over?” he asked.

“No, it's okay. But will you get in touch with me if you hear from him?”

“Of course,” Collin said. “And—please, call me as soon as you find out anything. And really, let me know if there's anything I can do.”

“You can say a prayer that Fernando's all right.”

“I'm sure he's okay, Mrs. Ryan.”

As Collin hung up the phone, he felt a little sick and short of breath.

The last thing he'd said to Fernando's mother had been a lie. He didn't think his friend was okay.

In fact, he had a terrible feeling it was already too late for prayers.

“D
on't go near it!” someone screamed.

Behind him, several ferry passengers stood near the bottom of the stairwell. Collin stared at the only car in the cavernous parking area. The old sixties-style station wagon was on fire. Flames shot up from the vehicle and licked the ceiling. Smoke swelled up into a black cloud that hovered over the entire space. The gasoline smell was overpowering.

All the while, the ferry churned forward on choppy waters. Beyond the smoldering haze, Collin could see they were approaching the Seattle dock. He saw the skyline, the Space Needle, and the big Ferris wheel on the pier. He heard faint carnival-type music.

Collin moved closer to the fiery station wagon. He felt the heat on his face. He heard children screaming past the crackling flames. Their distressed shrieks were heartbreaking. Through all the smoke, he saw something move inside the car. A little hand vainly banged against the window.

Collin reached for the door handle, and a trail of flames shot up his arm.

He suddenly sat up in bed.

His heart was racing. In the darkness, he blindly fumbled for the nightstand lamp until he found the switch and turned it on. He rubbed his eyes, and then felt his chest. His T-shirt was soaked through with perspiration. He glanced at the clock on his nightstand. The last time he'd looked at it had been almost four hours ago: 2:50
AM
. He couldn't believe he'd actually fallen asleep. He'd been so worried about Fernando—along with everything else.

He threw off the sheets and staggered out of bed. Pulling the sweat-soaked T-shirt over his head, he dug another from his dresser and put it on.

It was too early to call the Ryans about Fernando.

Shuffling into the bathroom, Collin opened the hamper to toss in his soiled T-shirt. But he caught a strong waft of gasoline, and hesitated. He reached into the hamper and dug out the jeans he'd been wearing yesterday. It didn't make sense. He'd thrown the jeans over the back of his desk chair before going to bed. He'd planned to wear them again today.

Now they were in his hamper, and they smelled of gasoline.

“What's going on?” he muttered under his breath. Dumping the T-shirt and jeans in the bin, he hurried to his desk, where his red jacket was still draped over the chair. He sniffed it and smelled traces of gasoline. His shoes should have been by the desk chair, too. Bewildered, he checked his closet and saw his Converse All Stars on the floor. They were muddy. When had that happened? The shoes had been clean when he'd kicked them off earlier tonight.

Collin switched on the desk lamp and studied the carpet in his bedroom.

It was spotless, no footprints.

Then something occurred to him. Within the last hour or two while he'd slept, Wade Grinnell must have gone out. And he'd come back, stinking of gasoline and smoke. He must have taken off the muddy shoes before stepping back inside the house.

This time, Wade had left no footprints.

 

 

“You didn't by any chance go out looking for Fernando in the wee, small hours last night, did you?” his grandfather asked over his coffee cup, which had
World's Greatest Golfer
on it.

Collin sat across from him at the breakfast table with the Frosted Flakes box by his cereal bowl and orange juice. He didn't have much of an appetite this morning. Twice he'd tried to phone the Ryans' house for an update on Fernando. Both times, it had gone to voice mail, and he'd left messages. No one had called him back yet.

Collin guessed his grandfather had delayed his usual morning golf in respect for the Fernando crisis. Still, old Andy had dressed to tee off—in a green cardigan and plaid slacks.

Collin's grandmother, in her ivory-colored jacquard robe and slippers, leaned back against the kitchen counter. She never sat at the table. She always consumed her two pieces of toast with marmalade and three cups of black coffee while on her feet. And she was always tuned in to the
Today Show
. The volume was turned down on the flat-screen TV on the wall in their breakfast nook. Collin could barely hear Matt Lauer talking.

With ten minutes to go before he had to leave for school, Collin was still hoping for a call back from the Ryans—or maybe even Fernando himself. He was also wracking his brain to figure out where Wade had accumulated the mud on his Converse All Stars.

Collin had left the shoes in his closet and put on a pair of Skechers. He'd torn out a lift-and-sniff ad for Polo by Ralph Lauren from one of his grandmother's
Vanity Fair
magazines. Then he'd rubbed the cologne sample on his jacket to camouflage the gasoline smell. For some reason, he'd felt compelled to cover up whatever might have happened last night.

And now his grandfather was asking if he'd gone out in the “wee, small hours
.
”

With a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth, Collin stared at him on the other side of the breakfast table. “Um, no,” he said. “I just stayed put.”

“Well, something woke me up,” his grandfather said. “I thought I heard the garage door open and close, and the car running. It was around three-thirty this morning. I was a little concerned—especially after what you told us about your girlfriend's house getting broken into.”

He put his spoon down. “Actually, Gail's not my girlfriend, Grandpa.”

“I didn't see anything unusual outside,” his grandfather went on. “But then I checked in on you, and you weren't in your bed. So—I came down here, and there was no sign of you. I figured you must have gotten up in the middle of the night and gone looking for your friend. So I fixed myself a scotch and waited up for you in front of the TV. . . .”

“Warm milk would have been better for you,” Collin's grandmother interjected with a piece of toast in her hand. “You shouldn't drink so late at night.”

His grandfather shot her a look, and then turned to Collin again. “Anyway, I fell asleep in my chair, and woke up a little before five. I was about to call your cell, but decided to check your room, and there you were in bed, sawing logs. It made me think I must be going crazy.”

“That's what comes from drinking too much late at night,” Dee said.

Collin shrugged. “Maybe I was in the bathroom when you checked on me the first time.”

His grandfather nodded. “Probably,” he grunted.

“Collin, honey,” Dee said. “If you're picking up Gail this morning, you better skedaddle, or you'll both be late for school.”

Five minutes later, Collin was scooting behind the wheel of his Taurus. He noticed a slight gasoline smell in there, too. Or maybe he'd just been expecting it.

The smell seemed to disappear after he'd driven with the windows open for a few blocks. In fact, all he could smell now was the Polo sample he'd rubbed on his jacket. It was like he'd taken a bath in the stuff.

He might have been able to cover up the stink on his clothes, but he couldn't do anything to change what his grandfather had seen and heard last night. Collin wished he knew what had happened while he'd slept. Was his grandfather right? Had his mysterious trip in the
wee small hours
had something to do with Fernando?

Collin turned onto Gail's street, and immediately hit the brake. His stomach clenched tight when he saw what was happening down the block. “Oh, no,” he murmured.

In front of the Pelhams' house were an army of police cars and fire trucks with their lights swirling and flashing red. There were two ambulances as well. TV news vans were parked farther down the block, across the street. About fifty people stood in the middle of the road.

Collin inched farther down the street, then pulled over and parked. He stepped out of the car. His legs were a bit wobbly as he made his way toward the Pelhams' house. It was blustery out, and the wind carried the acrid smell of damp, burnt wood. He heard firemen and cops yelling at each other over the noisy crowd.

Wind gusts must have knocked over a few of the orange cones placed on the road. Yellow
DO NOT CROSS
police tape cordoned off the Pelhams' front yard. The police had used the bushes and trees at the yard's edge as posts for their flimsy, fluttering barricade.

He couldn't see the house yet. But he already knew. One look at the squad cars and fire trucks, and he knew. He should have known when he'd first smelled gasoline on his clothes this morning. Mrs. Pollack had smelled gasoline outside their hotel room that night fifty years ago.

Several of the bystanders were in their bathrobes. There were people with news cameras among the throng, too—and a reporter off to one side, talking into a handheld microphone. A teenage girl held her iPhone up over her head, photographing or recording what was going on at the house. Collin didn't see Gail, or Chris, or Mr. or Mrs. Pelham among the crowd. His heart sank. “No, please, God, no,” he whispered.

Moving closer, he saw the Pelhams' front porch. Until just a few moments ago, he'd expected to find Gail waiting there for him.

Instead, he saw cops and firemen lingering by the bashed-in front door. The porch looked filthy. Water dripped from the roof. The pretty gray-shingled house was still standing, but nearly all the windows in front were broken. The white trim around each one was charred, and black smoke stains covered the surrounding shingles.

Ripples of water skirted over the front walkway, and the lawn looked saturated. Collin noticed the puddles of mud and soot, along with the skeletons of burnt bushes outside the basement windows. He thought about his soiled sneakers and wondered if Wade had crawled inside one of those windows.

“Well, the husband smoked, I can tell you that much,” he overheard an older woman in a terrycloth robe tell her friend.

Collin turned to her. “Excuse me. Do you know if the family got out? Are they okay?”

Clutching the bathrobe lapels in front of her neck, she frowned at him and shook her head. “All four are dead. They've loaded three bodies into the ambulances so far. They haven't brought out the last one yet. Oh, such a tragedy. Did you know them?”

He started to tear up. “I'm a friend of Gail's,” he heard himself say. “When—when did it happen? Do you know?”

“Around four this morning,” she answered. “I'm the one who called the fire department. I woke up and heard the screaming across the street. Then I looked out and saw the light flickering in all the windows, and I knew something was wrong.” She clicked her tongue and sighed. “If only I'd woken up just a few minutes earlier, maybe the firemen could have gotten to them in time. What with the wind this morning, we're lucky the fire didn't spread down the block.” She turned toward the house, and nudged Collin. “Oh, look . . .”

Collin glanced at the Pelhams' house again and saw paramedics and firemen emerge from the front door carrying a stretcher. A gray plastic tarp covered the body. One of the firemen held the sheet down to keep it from blowing away. They carefully took the body down the porch stairs and up the walkway to the waiting ambulance. Suddenly, a gust of wind peeled back one end of the covering. A collective gasp sounded from the crowd.

All her hair had burned off, and her face was swollen, blistered, and red. But Collin still recognized Gail. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was stuck open in a horrified grimace.

The fireman quickly covered her up again—before the rest of her ravaged body was exposed.

Collin quickly turned away. He thought he was going to be sick.

He retreated toward his car. It was all he could do to keep from running away. He didn't want to draw attention to himself. He wiped the tears from his eyes and pulled out the keys. Approaching the car, he glanced in the side mirror. No one seemed to be following him. He opened the door and climbed behind the wheel. His hand shook as he started the ignition. Then he slowly pulled down the block.

At the end of the street, Collin turned and drove for five blocks. He took another turn—onto a side street. “I couldn't have done that,” he whispered. “Please, God, I couldn't have. . . .”

Pulling in front of a deserted lot, Collin parked the car. No one was around. No one could see him. He switched off the ignition, and for the next few minutes he just sat in the front seat and sobbed.

 

 

“I'm trying to make some sense out of all this,” his grandfather said. He took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. Suddenly he looked frail. He was sitting in front of the computer monitor in Collin's bedroom.

Collin guessed this was all too much for him—too much of a shock about the Pelhams, and too confusing about how the fire might have happened.

Collin had driven back home at around nine-thirty. Dee had already taken off for a hair appointment. He'd told his grandfather about the fire. Despite the presence of TV news vans at the Pelhams', there hadn't been anything on television about the fire yet. But Dee had phoned around ten o'clock, and apparently, it was all they were talking about at the beauty parlor.

“I'm so sorry, honey,” she'd told Collin over the phone. “What an awful shock for you, so horrible. I'm going to wrap things up here and hurry home.”

“You don't have to. There's really nothing for you to do. Seriously, take your time. I'm just going to lie down for a while. . . .”

After hanging up with his grandmother, Collin had decided to tell his grandfather the truth. He'd taken him up to his room and sat him down in front of his computer. He'd played for him the two videos Fernando had filmed—with Wade Grinnell emerging during the hypnosis sessions. On Google, he'd shown his grandfather the Century 21 Exposition timeline—with the paragraphs about the El Mar murders, the fire at the Hotel Aurora Vista, and the death of Wade Grinnell. He'd told him about going to Leavenworth yesterday, and described how Irene Pollack-Martin had seemed to
recognize
him from fifty years ago.