December Park(42)

The officer was in the front seat, talking on a radio. In the back, Chester Vaughn gazed at us. His eyes were bleary red holes in the doughy whiteness of his face. The cop had removed his baseball hat, and his wiry hair stood up in uncombed whorls.

“It’s freezing out there,” my dad said, despite the beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. “Roll that window up.”

I rolled it up, then turned around in my seat. Through the rear window I watched the blue and red lights of the police cruiser alternating through the trees. Then the lights went dark.

“Shit.” The word dripped from my father’s mouth with undeniable defeat. He looked at me, and I thought I saw him trying to offer me another tired smile. But this time he couldn’t manage it. Instead, he dug a Kleenex from his coat pocket and handed it to me. “Wipe your nose.”

I blew my nose, then wiped my eyes, abruptly aware but not all that surprised that there were tears at their corners. The car’s heater was blasting hot air, but my entire body was shivering.

Ten minutes later, we were driving down Haven Street. The radio continued to squawk until my father switched it off. The clock on the dashboard read 1:32 a.m.

“Was it the Piper?” I said. “What happened to Aaron, I mean.”

My father didn’t answer.

“What’s gonna happen now?”

“I’m going to drop you off, then head down to the station to talk with Chester.”

“I want to stay with you.”

“Your grandparents are probably wondering what’s going on. I need you to stay home with them.”

“No,” I said. “I want to come with you.”

“I’m working now, Angie. This isn’t a game.”

I turned away and stared out the passenger window. The houses along this section of Haven Street were dark, with even the outdoor Christmas lights unplugged at this hour. Only the blue flicker of television lights could be seen in some of the upstairs windows. There were no more fireworks in the sky.

We turned onto Worth Street and glided up to our house. The porch lights and the kitchen light were on. As we idled at the curb, I saw the curtain whisk away from the window and a face peer out.

My dad looked at me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I’ve got to go.”

I nodded, opening the passenger door and stepping out into the street. My hands in my pockets and my head down, I walked around the front of the car and up the driveway. Before I was even halfway to the porch, my grandfather opened the front door. Once I was safely inside, my dad drove away.





They didn’t find Aaron Ransom. Chester Vaughn was questioned but ultimately released, his alibi having checked out. Apparently, a midnight walk around the beachfront was typical for Mr. Vaughn, particularly after knocking back a few drinks.

However, word got out that he had been questioned by the police, and rumors circulated. It was common knowledge that some of Chester Vaughn’s neighbors, emboldened after a night of drinking down at Shooter’s Galley, arrived on the Vaughns’ front porch, shouting for Chester to come out. Chester called the cops, who threatened to arrest them for trespassing and assault if they didn’t go home, which they all did, albeit reluctantly. Two days later, Chester and his wife thought it might be a good time to visit relatives in San Antonio.

The day after Aaron Ransom’s disappearance, I told my friends about it. Even though I did my best to relate to them all that had happened and how it had made me feel, I was powerless to really get it through to them. There were things I couldn’t tell them, like how I hadn’t realized I’d been crying until my father handed me a Kleenex and how my father had stood there holding his gun on someone. It wasn’t just him pulling the gun and patting the man down; it was the beads of sweat that had clung to his forehead when he’d climbed into the car and that awful smile he had summoned for me, no doubt in an effort to give me comfort. But it had been a horrible smile, devoid of any trace of humanity let alone comfort.

Aaron Ransom’s picture appeared in the newspapers, and his mother gave a tearful speech on television. I read in the Caller that the police had located the boy’s estranged father, Henry Carlson, who lived in Milwaukee. On several past occasions Carlson had allegedly threatened Ransom’s mother about snatching the kid and taking him to Canada. But after Carlson was apprehended by federal agents, he was cleared of any suspicion.

Some residents started up a neighborhood watch. My father joined, and sometimes he drove around the streets at night looking for anything—or anyone—unusual. I often asked to go with him, but he told me it wasn’t something I needed to worry myself with. It didn’t matter what he said; after seeing the Cole girl’s broken skull followed by that sickening night on Bessel Avenue, things worried me.

Another search was conducted in the woods off Counterpoint Lane and in the surrounding park. Peter and I rode our bikes to December Park and watched the cops, along with countless neighborhood volunteers, comb the area for Aaron Ransom’s corpse. Rebecca Ransom was there as well, propped up like a mannequin in the backseat of a police cruiser. We wanted to be there in the event they happened to find Aaron’s body. But, of course, they didn’t.





Chapter Seven


The Combination Lock