The Night Parade(117)

But he knew. How he hadn’t pieced it together sooner, he had no idea. He’d seen this van parked here every morning when he departed for the hospital to be with Kathy . . . and he’d seen its counterparts parked in the CDC parking lot in Greenbelt among those dark, pantherlike sedans with the government plates.

His gaze flicked over toward Ellie, who had fallen asleep in the backseat.

Is this really happening? Or am I caught in the middle of some terrible dream?

He reversed, spinning the steering wheel, then pulled back out onto the main road. He headed north toward the highway, but in truth, he had no real destination in mind. As it turned out, he drove around for a good thirty-five minutes with no game plan whatsoever while continuing to check his mirrors to see if the white van—or maybe a whole cadre of those sleek black sedans—followed him. It wasn’t until he passed the RV rental place off the highway that he thought of Burt Langstrom, and of Burt’s empty house and abandoned car. It was an Oldsmobile, if he remembered correctly.

*

The Langstrom house was dark, all lights off. In fact, the entire street was dark, with all the streetlights blown out and very few lights on in the neighboring windows. The Olds wasn’t in the driveway, and for a second, David felt a sinking in his gut. But unlike his own house, the Langstroms’ place had a garage, so he might still be in luck.

He shut the Bronco’s headlights but kept the engine running. Turning around in his seat, he watched Ellie sleep for a few seconds while he contemplated waking her. In the end, he thought it best to leave her be and hope she didn’t wake up to find him gone, their truck parked in front of some stranger’s house. He would just have to be quick.

He got out, careful not to make any noise closing the door, and hurried around the side of the house. He didn’t bother with the front door, opting instead to try the back door. There was a sliding-glass door off the back deck, if he remembered correctly. He didn’t think Burt would have left it unlocked, even if he never planned to return to this place, but it was worth a shot. And if it was locked, well, he’d just have to be real quiet breaking in.

The door was unlocked.

He tugged it open, the rollers squealing, and hurried inside.

There was a panel of light switches on the opposite wall, but the room extended into another that faced the front of the house, and he did not want to turn on any lights that could be seen from the street. Instead, he crept through the darkened hallway in the approximate direction of the garage. He opened one door to find it was a closet chock-full of fall jackets and winter coats. The next door opened up on a black cave, the air rich with the smell of motor oil. When David turned on the light switch, he saw the Oldsmobile right there, shiny beneath the light of the mechanized garage door opener.

Keys.

He scoured the front hall, a credenza, the hall closet, every single drawer in the kitchen, but he couldn’t find the car keys.

Maybe Burt took them with him.

Yet he’d left the back door unlocked . . .

Maybe there’s a spare somewhere.

He went back out into the hall and glanced up the flight of stairs to the second floor. It was like looking up at the bridge of a ghost ship sliding off in misty waters.

The steps creaked as he ascended. The handrail felt cold. He’d never been upstairs in the Langstroms’ house before, but he surmised that the master bedroom was at the far end of the hall, so he went there. The only other place he thought he might find the car keys was in the bedroom, perhaps in the drawer of a nightstand or maybe atop a dresser or bureau.

The bedroom door was closed. He eased it open, then felt around the wall for the light switch. This side of the house faced the backyard, which was mostly concealed from the neighbors by large Douglas firs along three quarters of the perimeter.

The lights came on.

David froze in the doorway.

In that instant, he knew exactly what he was seeing, yet it took his brain a few seconds to catch up.

They were all laid out on the large king-size bed—father, mother, both daughters. Three of them had been configured to suggest peacefulness, with their hands folded neatly atop their abdomens—a grotesque juxtaposition to the bullet holes in the center of their foreheads. The final figure—Burt himself—was the only one caught in the candid act of his suicide, with his head jerked unnaturally to the left (as though even in death he meant to kiss the side of his dead wife’s pale, waxen face), his chin jutting toward the ceiling. His bulging Adam’s apple looked tremendous and severe, almost like an elbow thrusting up from the center of his neck. There was an opening at Burt’s right temple—a congealed, muddy porthole ringed with dried blood and cluttered with brain matter and startling white bits of skull—and a backsplash of dried blood and snotty globs of brain along the headboard. Burt’s left hand clutched his wife’s forearm; his right arm dangled over the side of the bed. On the floor was a pistol.

How long David stood there staring at this scene, he would never be able to say; it could have been seconds, it could have been a quarter of an hour. It was as if someone else had slipped inside his body and was using his eyes, reporting all the information back to him in a string of Morse code.

Were you even sick, Burt? You or anyone in your family? Or did you just lose it and freak out? Jesus Christ, Burt, how were you able to line them all up like that and shoot them in the head? How the f*ck could you have done it?