Saving Meghan(65)

All three floors had some lights on, but Levine’s home was lit up as though someone else were paying the electric bill. Zach strode up the front stairs. He rang the buzzer to Levine’s unit and waited. No answer. The houses here were nestled closely together. Zach could see into the window of the adjacent home. A family was sitting down to eat—mother, father, and two young children. There were smiles all around as the father scooped food from a baking dish onto waiting plates. Such a mundane, ordinary moment, one the family did not, could not fully appreciate. Meals like this one happened most every night for this family and others like them. But not for Zach, who felt a profound ache at seeing the ordinary in motion.

He could not recall the last good day he had had with his son. It had passed as uneventfully as every other day, but at some point, there was the drop-off, akin to going over a cliff, when the subtle changes he had failed to notice congealed into a more pronounced sickness from which Will would not return. The more vivid memories Zach retained were also the cruelest—the hospital bed, his boy’s moonlight pale skin, his tears and Zach’s mixing as they embraced, the arguments with Stacy, the longing for that one good day.

Zach rang the bell again, waited for a response, but none came. Moving to the other side of the porch, Zach leaned his body over the railing to get a good look in the first-floor window. Through the gauzy curtains, he saw the outline of a man seated on a sofa, but could not tell if it was Levine.

Perhaps the door buzzer was broken, Zach thought. Perhaps Levine had his phone powered off and he’d forgotten all about their dinner. Zach leaned his body out a bit farther and rapped on the window to get the occupant’s attention. There was no movement, so Zach knocked a bit harder. Still nothing. Sirens approaching from the direction of Main Street worried Zach. Someone may have called the police, thinking he was a burglar. Zach resumed knocking, louder this time. How can he not hear?

Concern pinged at Zach—something was not right. He returned to the buzzers, but this time went for the floor above, where there were plenty of lights on as well. There was no intercom system, but soon enough Zach heard heavy footsteps descending the stairs. Moments later, a large man in dungarees and a work shirt appeared in the foyer, looking quite perturbed. Perhaps he thought this stranger on his front porch was from Greenpeace or Jehovah’s Witnesses, come to disrupt his evening ritual. He opened the door partway, stuck his face in the crack, and growled, “No solicitors.”

“I’m a doctor,” Zach explained, and introduced himself. “I’m trying to reach Peter Levine, your downstairs neighbor. I think he’s in the living room, but he’s not answering his phone and won’t respond even when I knock on the window.”

The door opened fully, and the large man stepped onto the porch. He was the size of an NFL nose tackle. The porch floorboards creaked slightly under his weight. “Show me,” he said.

Zach leaned over the railing, knocked on the window, and made sure the big man could see that the figure seated inside did not budge.

“What’s your name?” Zach asked.

“Doug Griffin,” said the man.

“Doug, do you have a key to the unit?” Zach asked.

“No,” he said. “The landlord does. I can call him.”

Zach thought it over while a fresh stab of concern hit him. Something was terribly wrong. “How far away is the landlord?”

Doug ruminated on it. “I don’t know. Usually takes twenty minutes to get here when the damn sink starts backing up. I’d fix it myself, but it’s a matter of principle.”

Zach did the math in his head. Twenty minutes for the landlord to show with a key, ten for the police to let him in. If there was a medical emergency, it could be too late. Zach thought of another way. He descended the stairs and searched around until he found a good-size rock from the garden.

“Do you have a stepladder?” Zach asked.

“Yeah, there’s one in the shed.”

“Get it!”

Doug went to the shed while Zach launched his rock through the window adjacent to the one where the still figure sat. Glass splintered noisily, violently. Shards fell like plinking raindrops. The person inside did not move. Doug returned with the ladder and positioned it underneath the broken window.

Zach went up quickly. Using his elbow, he broke away more glass until he could get his hand inside to undo the latch. The window opened easily and Zach slipped inside, careful to avoid the broken glass littering the hardwood floor. He popped to his feet, heart hammering, gripped with nervous anticipation. He went to the sofa. There, with his back straight, eyes open and blank and hands resting on his lap, sat Peter Levine. There were no visible wounds on his face, neck, or hands.

“Peter!” Zach yelled, giving gentle slaps to try to rouse him. Levine’s skin felt cool to the touch. “Peter!” Zach shouted again.

From outside, Zach heard Doug cry out, “Is everything all right?”

“Call 911,” Zach said, sitting on the sofa next to Peter. There was an empty teacup on the coffee table before him. His body seemed perfectly intact. No blood. Levine was like a wax figure.

One look at Peter Levine’s pale skin, and Zach knew there’d be no radial pulse in either arm when he checked. He did not have a blood pressure cuff on him, but soon enough, the EMTs would show up. They’d try to get a read but would come up short.