The Secrets on Chicory Lane: A Novel(18)

However, Mom was still worried. Early on, she asked me to go inside and check on my brother. I really didn’t want to miss any of the fireworks, but I dutifully obeyed. Michael was safely in his crib, fully awake. He wasn’t crying, but he was wiggling and being fussy, as if he was about to go into his screaming fit. I placed the rattle in his hand and he shook it furiously. Then I heard shouting outside in the front, on the street. I went to the front door and opened it. Some of the neighborhood boys were running toward the park, yelling at each other. I squinted to see if I could spot Eddie across the street in front of his house, but it was dark out and I wasn’t sure. I did, however, see the figure of Mr. Alpine. He was on the sidewalk, strolling toward the park.

He turned his head and saw me in the doorway. He waved. I waved back at him. I distinctly remember that image to this day.

The fireworks were still going on, so I closed the door—and, God help me, I know I didn’t lock it—and returned to the backyard.

We continued to watch the spectacular show in the sky, but Mom was still restless. Five to ten minutes later, she couldn’t take it anymore and went back inside to check on my brother. A blood-curdling scream shook the house. Dad and I looked at each other and ran in. My mother’s back was against the wall of the nursery, her hands over her mouth, and her eyes wide with terror. She pointed to the crib.

It was empty.





7


My memories of the days that followed that fateful July fourth are hazy at best. It was a horrible time for my family. Mostly, I remember the pain. My mother was inconsolable. She had to be drugged to keep from becoming hysterical. My father hated that he was powerless to help her. I felt completely lost, caught in a whirlwind of grieving grownups and suspicious police officers. My own guilt of leaving the front door unlocked is something that has never left me. I spent most of the 1980s in therapy for it.

Someone had entered the house and snatched my baby brother from his crib while we were in the backyard watching fireworks. Whoever it was had not only taken the baby, but also the blue blanket in which he’d been swaddled and the plastic blue-and-white barbell rattle. Nothing else was missing.

The fact that I was responsible for the unlocked front door caused a great deal of consternation on everyone’s parts. My mother blamed me, not the perpetrator. In her agony, she needed a scapegoat, and I’m afraid I was it. From then on, I’m sorry to say, something broke in the already rocky relationship between my mother and me. Maybe I’m the only one who felt it, but I doubt it. Mom was destroyed by the event. It started her downward spiral into the depression that eventually killed her.

The police interviewed everyone on our block. Nobody had seen anything, but of course anyone who was outside had been focused on the fireworks. It was either Greg or Dean who told the cops that he’d seen Mr. Alpine on the sidewalk near our house at some point after the fireworks had begun. I also reported that I’d seen him and that he’d waved to me. The officers talked to Mr. Alpine himself, but he, like everyone else, claimed to be walking toward the park to watch the fireworks. His own testimony, the cops informed my parents, was that he saw nothing unusual on the street. Alpine named several neighborhood kids he’d seen either on the street or in the park, including Greg, Dean, Joey, and Eddie. None of this was helpful, especially because it was dark at the time and the folks outside weren’t paying attention to other people. As far as the physical evidence went, there was none. The police didn’t have the types of sophisticated forensic procedures back then as they do now, and Limite was a small town. I believe all they looked for were fingerprints, but there was nothing conclusive. Looking back, there may have been some scrutiny placed on my mother for a day or two. When my father figured out that the cops suspected her, he yelled at them; the absurdity of that notion was almost too much for him to bear. Eventually, the cops dropped that idea when it was established that my mother never left the house except to watch the fireworks in the backyard with my father and me.

I believe it was July 6 when two detectives came over once again to question my mother, as my father and I sat alongside her in the living room. One of them was tall and friendly. He gave me a piece of gum. His partner was an older and heavier man who seemed to be in charge. He called all the shots rather gruffly and unpleasantly and didn’t seem very empathetic to what our family was going through.

During the questioning, I distinctly remember the moment when my mother abruptly bolted upright and said to one of the men, “Eddie. Did you talk to that boy across the street? Eddie Newcott?”

“Yes, Mrs. Truman, we did. He was in the park like everyone else,” answered the tall officer with the gum.

“Did anyone else see him? Did you get—what do you call it—collaboration?”

“You mean corroboration, but …”

“It wasn’t him!” I started to protest, but she cut me off and told the detective how we had caught Eddie in the nursery a few days ago, holding the baby and shaking him.

“He wasn’t shaking Michael,” I said. “He was trying to do the bounce to stop him from crying.”

“No!” Mom spat. She was growing more agitated and irrational by the second. “He was deliberately trying to harm Michael! He was molesting my baby! That boy is strange. There’s something wrong with him. There’s something wrong with that whole family over there. You need to arrest him!”