The Secrets on Chicory Lane: A Novel(67)

“I remember that. Boy, do I. You took him to the station and questioned him all day.”

“That we did. And he said that Alpine was probably the one who had done it. When I asked him how he would know something like that, Eddie told me that he’d been in Alpine’s house the day after the Fourth and heard a baby crying in a back room. When I asked what he was doing over at Alpine’s house, he told me how Alpine always gave him presents and candy and stuff. Had been doing so for three years. Eddie’s father was in the room with us, and he went ballistic. He started yelling, ‘I told you never to go back over there,’ that sort of thing. I calmed down Mr. Newcott and questioned Eddie some more. After a while, Eddie lost it. He started crying and said Alpine had ‘touched’ him. That was enough for us to go to a judge. Mind you, we didn’t have any real evidence except the phone tip and what Eddie had said, but I went to the judge anyway. It was a tricky situation since his brother was the goddamned mayor. But since we were getting nowhere in the search for your little brother, and we’d had two accusations against Gordon Alpine, we got our search warrant.”

“But all you found was my brother’s rattle.”

“That’s right, but it was with the portrait Alpine had taken of your brother. Why would he remove the picture from the wall and stash it with the rattle in the drawer if they weren’t ‘souvenirs’ of the crime? And then we found all the child pornography.”

“And Eddie was a part of it.”

“I’m afraid so. That man Alpine had been abusing Eddie for three years.”

“I remember your testimony at the trial.”

“Another thing,” he tells me. “After Alpine had hung himself, we talked to Eddie and his family again, and the boy admitted that he was the one who had called in the tip.”

With those words, my heart freezes. Eddie was trying to tell me something yesterday. A letter I hadn’t gotten. Davy Jones’s Locker. He wanted to play our old game again.

“Jim, what happened to Eddie’s house?”

“It’s still there.”

“Does anyone live in it?”

“Lord, no. No one would touch it after the murders. A real estate company owns the property, and they’ve rented it out a few times in the last ten years, but nobody stays very long. It got repainted and all that.”

“Is the bomb shelter still in the backyard?”

“It is. Padlocked so no curiosity seekers will get inside.”

“Jim, do you own any bolt cutters?”

He pauses for a second. “Why do you want to know that?”

“I need to get inside the bomb shelter. Will you help me? Can you meet me over there?”

“Why do you want to do that?”

“I … I can’t explain right now. I just need to follow through on something Eddie said yesterday.”

He is quiet for a moment. Then he asks, “What time do you want to meet?”





28


The house is painted white, probably to contrast what had been there before. It appears to be an abandoned property, certainly unkempt, but it hasn’t been vandalized. Its condition isn’t as bad as I thought it might be. A rusty, years-old FOR SALE sign stands in the front yard.

I park in the driveway and wait for Baxter to arrive. In the meantime, I get out of the car and gaze at my old home across the street. A couple of teenagers are shooting hoops; a basketball hoop has been erected next to the drive since I’d last seen the place. Flowers decorate the beds in front, and the lawn is neatly manicured. It’s pretty. I don’t believe the house ever looked so nice when we’d lived there.

Since I’m a few minutes early, I stroll down the sidewalk until I come to a spot across from Gordon Alpine’s old abode. It, too, appears to be occupied by happy people. The lawn, flower beds, and windows display life and joy.

Perhaps the darkness that once permeated Chicory Lane in the sixties has finally been evicted.

I return to the Newcott house and go around to the side to examine the old gate in the fence. It’s still there. A sign warns, NO TRESPASSING. That doesn’t stop me from opening it—no locks on the gate—and scanning the backyard. The steel door to the bomb shelter is rusty and somehow sunken deeper amidst tall grass and weeds. At that point, I hear a vehicle in front of the house. A blue pickup truck has pulled up to the curb. Jim Baxter steps out and, with the help of a cane, walks slowly around the back end to greet me.

“Hello, Jim,” I say, shaking his hand. “You don’t look a day over seventy.”

“Liar. But I appreciate it. You, on the other hand, don’t look a day over forty, and that’s the truth.”

“Hardly, but thank you.”

“May I ask how old you are?”

“Sixty-one.”

He shakes his head. “No way.”

“Way. I appreciate you coming to meet me.”

He shrugs. “It’s a bit unorthodox, and it’s officially trespassing, but what the hell. The bolt cutters are in the back of the truck.” He grabs the tool out of the cargo bed and points. “Lead on.” Baxter follows me to the side of the house, through the open gate, and into the yard.

“I believe Eddie wanted me to look in Davy Jones’s Locker. At least I think he did.”