December Park(48)

At the Juniper Theater, Darby Hedges, the ancient and grizzled proprietor, continued showing old public domain horror films well past Halloween; it was as though he suffered from some lingering obsession with men in rubber monster costumes and bad dialogue. Meanwhile, several dogs ran away from home.

Eleven-year-old Callie Druthers claimed a stranger driving an old Plymouth tried to coax her into his car. A few hours later, police apprehended thirty-eight-year-old Kevin Topor who had gotten lost in Harting Farms, so he had stopped at an intersection and asked the nearest pedestrian, who happened to be Callie Druthers, if she could give him directions to Route 50. He offered to drive her home because the girl had been attending to a fresh cut on her knee.

Topor was from out of town and had no knowledge of what had been going on in Harting Farms over the past several months. Had he known, he would have never asked the girl for directions or offered to give her a ride home. It was a stupid thing to do, and he was gravely sorry.

When Kevin Topor was released, there was an outcry from the citizenry, this time on a much larger scale than when word got out about Chester Vaughn’s interrogation and subsequent release. The people of Harting Farms wanted someone to pay for what had happened to Courtney Cole, and they wanted answers as to the whereabouts of the four other missing teens.

Chief of Police Harold Barber told the press that they had done a thorough investigation into Topor’s background and found nothing suspicious. His alibis all checked out. His Plymouth was searched for fibers and hair, but there was nothing. They had no reason to believe he had been involved in Courtney Cole’s murder or in the disappearances of the four other teens.

Rebecca Ransom appeared again on the news, pleading once more for the safe return of her son, Aaron. Hers was the ghoulish face of someone who is neither alive nor dead but some type of creature that exists between worlds, perpetually tormented.

. . . and the people aren’t so quick to forget.

Two days after Topor was released by police, Courtney’s mother suffered a nervous breakdown and was admitted to Sheppard Pratt for a full psychological evaluation.





Chapter Eight


The Secret





It was early evening, and I was out by the woodpile stacking firewood when I heard someone approaching. My first thought was, Nathan Keener.

I knew Keener and his gang were still prowling the streets for me, and I’d done an admirable job avoiding them since Halloween. Most recently I had seen Keener’s truck idling outside school when classes let out (I took a shortcut through the woods, avoiding the main roadway), and one time I even caught sight of his pickup at the end of our block, its darkened headlamps facing our house. I had cut through the yards on the parallel block and came in through the backyard, avoiding Worth Street altogether.

I turned around and was relieved to see Adrian Gardiner walking around the side of the house. His pale skin seemed to shimmer in the fading daylight. He wore a puffy ski parka with lightning bolts on the sleeves and had his hands stuffed into the pockets.

“Man, you scared the crap out of me,” I told him, catching my breath and stacking another log onto the woodpile.

“Your grandmother said you were around back.”

“Yeah, well, you should know better than to go creeping up on people,” I said. I hadn’t meant to sound so exasperated, but I was exhausted from a day doing chores around the house.

Adrian shuffled a few steps closer, and I noticed how the arms of his glasses bent his ears down and how his legs looked like those of a flamingo poking out from the oversized bulk of his ski parka.

Since that day at Drunkard’s Pond, Adrian had become a sort of de facto member of our little group. He came with us to the pond after school, pitched stones with us in the ravine behind the Generous Superstore, and had even spent two whole afternoons at Scott’s house watching all the Friday the 13th movies back-to-back. We introduced him to Nirvana, Metallica, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, and he let us borrow his superhero comic books, which turned out to be pretty cool.

For the most part, Adrian remained quiet, but he seemed comfortable with my friends and me, and we didn’t mind his company. We even began to like him, as much as anyone could like someone like Adrian Gardiner. In an effort to solidify our friendship, he had invited me over to read comic books, though I had politely declined, fabricating an excuse on the spot. (I had been in his house only once, and the thought of returning to that airless catacomb populated by his zombie-eyed mother still didn’t sit well with me.) Adrian was haunted. For one thing, he seemed constantly preoccupied with thoughts of Courtney Cole and the other missing teens. However, he brought it up only when he and I were alone together. He pushed me for details, though my details consisted exclusively of the broad strokes I’d gotten from Scott who had gotten his information from the various newspaper articles he’d read. Yet somehow Adrian’s preoccupation with Courtney Cole and the missing teens was more troubling than Scott’s. Scott approached it in a pragmatic, investigative way. Adrian, on the other hand, seemed obsessed. It wasn’t until he asked if I had a photograph of Courtney Cole did I start to think he might be a little off in the head.

“You busy with chores?”

“Just stacking up some firewood,” I said, stating the obvious. I tossed one final log onto the woodpile, then wiped the palms of my hands on my jeans.

“You going out tonight?” he asked.