Tall Oaks: A gripping missing child thriller with a devastating twist

  TALL OAKS

  CHRIS WHITAKER

  Contents

  1. Send in the Clown

  2. Pinstripes and Termites

  3. The Tiger

  4. Rumors and Tumors

  5. Mayor of Despair

  6. The Trick

  7. Gradual Retreat

  8. The Act

  9. SomAli

  10. Equally Gray

  11. Every Last Drop

  12. The Formative Years

  13. Hitting the Hut

  14. Skanks and Skunks

  15. At Home in the Dark

  16. An Easy Target

  17. First Kiss

  18. The Suburban Coffin

  19. A Ruthless Summer

  20. The Burn

  21. Carnival

  22. A Good Wife

  23. No Rough Stuff

  24. The Wedding

  25. The Long Day Is Over

  26. Jaybird

  27. The Sting

  28. Prom

  29. The Beginning

  30. The End

  31. The Strong One

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For Victoria, who after ten years still hasn’t realised that she’s too good for me.

  1

  Send in the Clown

  Jim closed the blinds, unplugged the telephone, and put the tape in. He leaned back in his chair, took a breath, and pressed play.

  The tape crackled, the sound familiar though no less unsettling, for he knew what was to come.

  He skipped past the preliminaries, stopping when he heard Jess’s voice.

  “The baby monitor is one of the new models. There’s a small camera downstairs in Harry’s room, and a base unit next to my bed. I was nervous about Harry sleeping in his own room, especially with him being two floors below: the lower ground floor. It’s a long way down. The house wasn’t really designed for family living. Michael loved it though.”

  He turned up the volume and closed his eyes. He heard her take a sip of water. He flinched as the glass touched her teeth.

  “I liked lower ground floor over basement, like the realtor said. Basement sounds creepy, dark, and cold. Harry’s room is nice though—there’re animal stickers on the walls. We had the ceiling painted blue, like the sky.”

  She coughed lightly, shuffled in her seat.

  “It’d taken a few weeks before I managed to sleep more than an hour without checking the monitor; seeing what position he was sleeping in; making sure he hadn’t kicked his sheet off. The night-vision mode gives his room an eerie, green glow; makes his skin look so pale I felt sure he was freezing cold down there.”

  She laughed then, a fleeting, anxious laugh.

  “I wasn’t sure why I was sitting up in bed that night, why I was sweating, why my heart was pounding so hard. I remember reaching for the clock, seeing it was three-nineteen. Funny . . . the things you remember.”

  Another pause, another cough.

  “I glanced at the monitor and fought the urge to check him. I drove myself mad, always checking. He’s three after all, not a baby. I reached for my glass of water. My throat was dry and scratchy . . . I’m not sure . . . maybe I was getting sick . . . a cold or something.”

  She cleared her throat. “Is this too much detail?”

  He heard his own voice, calm, reassuring, practiced. “You’re doing well.”

  “I lay back and stared at the blank screen. He was fine. Harry was fine. It had been like this every night since Michael left. I was a wreck . . . I am a wreck: fucked. The person I used to be . . . gone . . . I’m not even sure I remember her. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again . . . that person I mean. Do I sound crazy?”

  He’d smiled gently, shaken his head.

  “My mother said it will just take time, that I’ll find my way again. But how much time? How much longer will I have to go on like this before it gets easier? She doesn’t know, she can’t tell me. I’m waiting for the day when I can stop thinking about him, flip a switch or something; dark to light. But at the same time I’m terrified of moving on, because I love him so much. Do you get that, Jim?”

  He’d met her eye, offered a slight nod.

  “I wonder when I’ll be able to eat a meal and not think about who he’s eating with, or worse, sleeping with. It’s like an illness, it consumes you. I breathe him in, but never out. Is that fucked-up, Jim? It’s unfair, you know. He just walked out. It’s easier for him to find someone else. I’m the single mother now, the one with the baggage, the one that needs a small miracle to find someone decent . . . someone that wants to be a father to another man’s child. And who does? I mean, really? I try to force these thoughts to the back of my mind. But lying there at night . . . that night . . .”

  She trailed to a heavy silence.

  They broke, this time for her to visit the ladies’ room.

  He thought about stopping the tape—he always did at this point. He traced his finger over the button, drawing it away when he heard her voice again.

  “A long hour passed before I started to relax. My eyes grew tired and I started to drift. And then I heard it.

  A whisper.

  ‘Jessica.’

  I opened my eyes wide, my breath caught in my throat. I stared at the monitor, the screen still dark, the green light still burning.

  I must have been imagining it. That’s what I thought, Jim: Get a grip, Jess. It was my mind playing tricks again, the way it did when Michael first left. It had been easier then because Harry had slept in my bed, as much for my sake as his. He didn’t want to though. Imagine that. A three year old wanting to sleep on his own. So grown-up.”

  She cleared her throat.

  “I sat up. My hand shook as I reached for my water.”

  He remembered her cheeks burning, her eyes darting up, around.

  “I heard it again.

  ‘Jessica.’

  Still a whisper, but louder this time.”

  Her words tumbled out.

  “I dropped the glass. I picked up the monitor and pressed the button. I calmed when I saw Harry, fast asleep on his back, with his hands above his head. He’d slept that way since he was a baby. I must have imagined it. Just a voice in my head. That’s what I kept telling myself, because that’s what you do . . . you rationalize. I watched him until the screen faded. I placed it back onto the nightstand and forced myself to lie down. I thought I was going mad, Jim. I thought I’d call my mother in the morning and tell her. Then maybe the men in the white coats would come and cart me off someplace.

  I couldn’t get back to sleep. I kept thinking, what if I hadn’t imagined it? What if there was someone in Harry’s room? The scan button. I had forgotten about the scan button. I reached for the monitor again. There’re four arrows on the side of it, so you can move the camera around. I pressed the right arrow. The camera swept along his bed and past his toy chest, his rocking horse, and his ride-on car. I hoped that it didn’t make a noise when it moved. He’s only just started to sleep through the night, a big deal for a boy who used to wake every few hours.”

  He could hear her fingers clawing at the table as the panic began to take hold.

  “The camera reached the far wall. I scanned back again. And then, just before it reached his bed, I saw something. The camera swept back to Harry’s face. He looked so calm, Jim, so peaceful.”

  She spoke quietly, almost in a whisper.

  “I pressed the arrow intermittently. It jerked slowly right.

/>   Again, I pressed it. Again, it jerked.

  Again and again . . .”

  She paused, struggling for breath.

  He’d wanted to break then, had moved to, then stopped himself.

  “And then it settled on the rocking chair in the far corner of the room.

  I saw a shape in the chair, but it was too far away to make out.

  I knew that it shouldn’t be there.

  Every night I sit Harry on my lap and read him a story in that chair. I strained my eyes trying to see what it was.

  I pressed the zoom button and watched as the shape slowly became something that I recognized.

  A man.

  A man in my son’s room.”

  Her voice shook savagely.

  “The man was wearing a clown mask.”

  He swallowed then, felt his own throat dry.

  “I screamed, dropped the monitor, and grabbed the phone.

  I put it to my ear. The line was dead . . . the storm outside. I walked across the bedroom and stopped when I felt something wet beneath my feet. I was about to scream again when I saw the glass on the floor. Water. I had spilled my water.”

  The clawing was louder now, faster.

  “I crept down the first flight of stairs, wiping the sweat from my eyes.

  I walked along the hallway and into the kitchen. I had left the blinds up, could see the rain falling outside. I saw the knife block. I reached for the largest, the carving knife. As I walked down the final flight of stairs I stopped and listened.

  My heart was pounding so fast, Jim, it was all I could hear.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Over and over.

  I took a breath and ran for the door, pulled the handle down, and burst into the room.

  I hit the light switch and screamed, gripping the knife so tightly that my fingers turned white. I looked at the rocking chair.

  No clown.

  And then I looked at my son’s bed.

  I dropped the knife and fell to my knees.

  My son wasn’t there.

  He was gone.

  Harry was gone.”

  Jim rubbed his eyes, his shoulders tight as he exhaled heavily.

  He sat in the dark for a long time, listening to her cry, willing himself to stop the tape.

  2

  Pinstripes and Termites

  It was hot out. Far too hot for the heavy woolen suit—a three-piece too. But seeing as it had been the only one with a pinstripe, Manny had insisted that his mother purchase it. The fact that it was half off had worked in his favor, so she had relented.

  As he stepped out of the Ford Escape, he felt the sweat plastering his father’s starched white cotton shirt to his back. He glanced down at his shoes—black wingtips, a shine so deep he could see the fedora wrapped tightly around his head reflecting back at him. The fucking hat was a medium though, and really starting to hurt. Mr. Phillips, in the gentleman’s clothing store on Main Street, had told him that he needed an extra-large, told him this as he’d wrapped a tape measure around his head and let out a long whistle. They might be able to order one in, but it could take weeks, a custom job for a head of this size.

  Manny turned back to the car, scowling as his mother pressed the horn and waved.

  He’d begged her to buy an old Cadillac, or a Lincoln. But then the muscled Ford dealer, with his three-day stubble, and squint blue eyes, had started to flirt with her and she’d gone to pieces. He probably could’ve sold her the gum from his shoe by the time he’d finished his patter. She’d been like this since his father walked out: a dog on heat, and an old dog at that. As they’d walked the forecourt Manny had become resigned to the fact that his first car, which he would share with his mother, would be a Ford Escape. He’d reasoned that at the very least it would have to be black, with the privacy glass, naturally. But then the muscled squinter had led them to a duck-egg blue model. As his mother circled it the squinter had told her he could do her a good deal on it, winking as he said it.

  “No shit. What other poor bastard would want the duck-egg?” Manny had offered, though his pleas had ultimately fallen on smitten ears.

  As she signed the paperwork, Manny had tried mightily not to cry. But then the squinter had looked him up and down and asked his mother why her son looked like a 1950s gangster, and he had felt much better. People were starting to take notice. And it wasn’t just the clothes; seventeen weeks of not shaving his upper lip had started to bear fruit. The mustache had finally arrived, though it was still the wrong shape. Genetics had dictated that Manny’s mustache take the shape of an arrow. An arrow whose head, save for a small gap, met exactly at the center of his nose. He had tried, with great desperation, to encourage it to change direction, but met with little success. One time the overzealous use of a beard trimmer had led to the arrowhead being shortened too much, which had resulted in his classmates referring to him as “Adolf.”

  Manny sighed as the Escape disappeared from sight, the sun bouncing off of its duck-egg body as it went. He turned and walked toward the school gates.

  “Looking sharp, Manny.”

  Manny turned to see his best friend, and future consigliere, Abel Goldenblatt. Not that he needed to turn to see who it was. Abe’s voice was deep, ludicrously so. And when that ludicrously deep voice was paired with his ludicrously tall, and ludicrously thin frame, the result was . . . well . . . ludicrous.

  “Shit, Abe. I told you to use my other name from now on.”

  “Sorry, I forgot it again.”

  Manny frowned, slowing his pace when he felt the sweat running down his forehead and onto the collar of his shirt, a shirt that was a full inch too tight around the neck.

  “I told you a thousand times, just call me ‘M.’ Like Tony Soprano is ‘T’ to the guys closest to him.”

  “Right, sorry, M. Do I have to call you it in class too?”

  “Of course. How else will it take? Have you thought about what you want to be called?”

  Abe shrugged, his lack of commitment evident.

  Manny glanced up at him and, not for the first time, lamented his friend’s given name. “What kind of sick, twisted parents call their only son Abel? Sure, you’re Jewish, but there are plenty of Jew names better than Abel.”

  “I think Abe is quite cool actually. Biblical names are enjoying a renaissance. My cousin just called his son Binyamin.”

  “You mean Benjamin.”

  Abe shook his head.

  “You can’t just take a perfectly good name and change a couple of letters.”

  “It’s a real name. Binyamin . . . like Netanyahu.”

  “You know, half the time I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  Abe laughed. “You sound just like my aunt Devorah.”

  Manny grinned. “You got me. Well played. Touché.”

  Abe frowned.

  Manny pulled at his shirt collar.

  “I can’t believe it, man, not long until graduation. Then we’re free,” Abe said, pushing his glasses up his nose with his index finger.

  “Did you ask your mom if we could paint the Volvo?”

  “Not yet.”

  “And don’t forget to ask about the windows too. I can get us twenty percent off the blackout sheets. You have to apply it carefully though, otherwise it’ll bubble.”

  Abe looked at him, nervously. “My mom’s not going to let us black out the glass. She won’t be able to see out. You know how her eyes are.”

  Manny’s mind ran to Mrs. Goldenblatt, who wore lenses thicker than her son’s, with a frame so heavy it had left a permanent indentation in her nose.

  “Fucking hell, Abe. How are we supposed to make collections if we don’t look the part? And that reminds me, you’re going to have to buy a new suit.”

  “What’s wrong with this one? It’s Brooks Brothers. I only got it last year for my nephew’s bar mitzvah, remember? I shouldn’t really even be wearing it in this weather. It’s going to be ninet
y degrees today. My mother said there’s a real danger of me overheating.”

  “It’s tan. Gangsters don’t wear tan.”

  “It’s not tan. The guy in the store said it’s Evening Barley. He said it flatters my figure far better than a darker number would . . . gives me width.”

  Manny looked him up and down and sighed.

  “Besides, who are we going to collect from? And when will we make these collections? My mother’s fixed me up with a job with Mr. Berlinsky this summer, so we’ll have to fit it in around that.”

  “Mr. Berlinsky? The Jewish butcher? He’s on my list of people that need to pay up. You can’t work there, Abe. No fucking way. People will laugh if they see me making collections with a butcher’s boy. You’ll probably reek of raw meat too. I feel nauseous just thinking about it.”

  “I still don’t get it. I know that we’re going to be gangsters, even though I’m Jewish. But why will these people pay us money?”

  Manny fought the urge to scream.

  “Firstly, it doesn’t matter that you’re a Jew. The Italians and Jews have worked together for generations. Just look at Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. They fucking ruled shit.”

  “But you’re not Italian, you’re Mexican.”

  Manny bit his fist.

  “My father’s great-uncle married an Italian. Rosa. That means my cousins are Italian, which makes part of my family Italian, which makes me part Italian. And secondly, they’ll have to pay up because if they don’t then shit will get crazy around here. You think Mrs. Parker wants to see her Tearoom run out of milk? Or Mr. Ahmed wants his dry cleaners to get the power shut off? No, they fucking don’t. So they’ll pay up. They’ve had it easy for too long. It’s time for someone to muscle them.”

  Abe put his skepticism to one side and pushed the classroom door open.

  When the other kids saw them they burst out laughing. As did the teacher.

  Roger felt his pulse quicken as he switched the computer on. The screen was large, the stand clear, and with no wires on show, seemed to float in the air.

  He didn’t have much use for an office, though the interior designer had insisted. His chair was leather, Herman Miller, and his desk a weighty oak. Bookshelves lined each wall, the books in neat rows, no gaps, an assortment ranging from classics to reference. All untouched.