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See us. Roll us. Dress us.
I didn’t dare turn around, but there was something I could do. If I dared. My phone was in the pocket of my shorts. I took it out, opened the camera app, and reversed the image so I was looking at my own terrified face, corpse-pale in the moonlight. I raised the phone over my shoulder so I could look behind me without actually turning my head. I tried to steady my hand. Hadn’t realized it was shaking until then.
Jacob and Joseph weren’t there and neither was the stroller… but their shadows were there. Two human shapes and the angular one of the double buggy their mother had pushed them around in. I can’t say those disembodied shadows were worse than actually seeing them would have been, but they were terrible enough. I pushed the button to take a photograph with my thumb, sure it wouldn’t work, but I heard the click.
See us. Roll us. Push us.
I closed the photo app and opened the voice memo.
See us, roll us, push us.
I thought those shadows were too long to be the shadows of four-year-old children and thought again of Donna at the end of her life: You’re all grown up! Look how tall you are!
SEE US ROLL US PUSH US!
I started walking again. The squeaking followed me, close at first, then gradually falling behind. By the time I reached Greg’s house it was gone, but the clamoring thoughts—not voices, thoughts—in my head were louder than ever. They were my thoughts, but I was being forced to think them.
The stroller was back in the courtyard. Of course it was, and casting the same angular shadow I’d seen on my phone. The shirts were still neatly draped over the seats; HECKLE on one and JEKYLL on the other. I knew how to quiet the storm in my head. I touched the backs of the seats. I touched the shirts. The clamoring, repetitive thoughts died. I pushed the stroller back into the garage, then stepped away from it, waiting. The thoughts didn’t return. But they would, of course. Next time they would be louder and more insistent. Next time they would want more than my touch.
Next time they’d want to go for a ride.
I locked the doors—as if that would do any good—and turned on every light in the house. Then I sat at the kitchen table and looked at my phone. I had a missed call from Nathan Rutherford, but I had more pressing business than Allie Bell’s lawyer. I looked at the picture I’d taken. It was a little blurred because my hand had never stopped shaking, but the shadows of the boys and the pram were there. Nothing was casting them. The road was empty. Next I opened the voice memo app and pushed play. For twenty seconds I heard the rhythmic squeaking of the pram’s bad wheel. Then it faded away.
I thought about getting in touch with Andy Pelley, because I was sure he’d registered the different position of the stroller when our talk was over. He’d given me his card. I could email him the photo and the voice memo, but he’d reject both. He’d say the shadows were of the palmettos. He might know better, but that’s what he would say. And the squeaky wheel? He’d think I did that myself, running the stroller back and forth in the garage while I recorded. He might not say so, but he would think so. He was a cop, not a ghost hunter.
But maybe that was okay. I had empiric proof for myself. I had already known what was happening was real, but the thought that it was all in my head had lingered in the background, even so.
I sat at the kitchen table with my palms pressed against my forehead, thinking. Just a few missed beats of the old ticker, Allie had said when I asked if she was okay, but suppose she had been a lot sicker than she claimed? And knew it? Suppose it wasn’t just arrhythmia but congestive heart failure? Even cancer, one of those like glioblastoma that’s a death warrant.
Suppose she was resigned to her own death but not to the deaths of her little boys? They had already died once, after all, but had come back. Or she had brought them back. And then…
“Suppose she met me,” I said.
Yes, suppose.
I called Nathan Rutherford, introduced myself, and immediately cut to the chase: I had no interest in Allie Bell’s estate.
I think his chuckle was more cynical than surprised. “Nevertheless, Mr. Trenton, you seem to have it.”
“Ridiculous. Find her relatives.”
“She claimed she had none. That after her husband died, and the little Js—that’s what she called them—she was the last sprig on the family tree. It’s the only reason that poor excuse for a will could ever stand up. Her estate is worth a good deal of money. Seven figures, perhaps even eight. She must have been taken with you, sir.”
No, I thought, I’m the one who was taken. But I don’t intend to stay taken.
“It’s put me in a lousy position, Mr. Rutherford. I found her, and pending the autopsy I look like a man with a motive for killing her. You see that, right?”
“Did you have any reason to believe you were in line to inherit? Perhaps you saw that scrap of a will before Mrs. Bell’s decease?”
“No, but Deputy Pelley told me the envelope it was in was unsealed. A county attorney who wanted to make a case could say I had access to it.”
“Time will take care of this,” Rutherford said. Which meant nothing. He had adopted a soothing voice he probably used on distraught clients. Those with money, at least, and it seemed that I now had a lot more than what was in my 401k. “If the will is unchallenged and goes through probate, you can do what you wish with the proceeds. Sell the house. Give the money away to worthy charities, should you decide to do so.”
He didn’t go on to say that charity begins at home, but his tone suggested it. I had had enough. He wanted to discuss the serpentine legal trail that lay ahead, but I had my own serpents to worry about. It was dark outside and I was scared. I thanked him and ended the call.
Had she made her will and then killed herself, with an overdose of Digoxin or sotalol?
No, I thought. The little Js wouldn’t like that. I could end up in the county jail, where see us roll us dress us would do no good. The verdict at the inquest will be accidental death, but in the meantime I’ll be here… and they’ll be here.
