“They won’t release the victim’s identity until after the family has been notified,” he heard himself reply numbly. “That’s how it’s done.”
Susan came to him then, putting her arms around him tightly. She was trembling, Ben realized, and he hugged her back. He felt sick to his stomach, and his legs were wooden and uncertain beneath him. He was thankful at that moment for someone to hold on to.
His wife looked up at him, and for a moment it seemed as if she was uncertain how to proceed, as if she was struggling with a decision that only partially involved him. Then her eyes cleared and seemed to regain their focus. “Honey,” she said, her voice just above a whisper, “we’ve got to find Thomas. I’ll feel better once he’s home. They would’ve canceled the game, don’t you think? Or at least phoned the parents to let them know what was happening?”
Ben thought this was probably true. Whose number had they given the school as an emergency contact anyway? He separated himself enough from his wife to place his briefcase on the hood of the car, fumbling with the latch. “Where’s Joel?” he asked.
“Inside,” she replied. “I picked him up from Teresa’s on the way home.”
Ben swung the case open to reveal a haphazard array of documents and medical journals. He reached inside one of the interior pockets and retrieved the phone. The digital display indicated that he had two new messages. He flipped the cell open and punched the button to access voice mail. The first message turned out to be from Susan, asking if he had heard from Thomas, and imploring him to call her as soon as possible. The second message was from Phil Stanner, Thomas’s baseball coach.
“Ben, this is Coach Stanner,” the recorded voice announced, and Ben felt a wave of dread rising within him. He put the phone on speaker so that Susan could hear.
“Listen,” Phil’s voice floated up to them from the phone’s tiny speaker. “You’ve probably already heard, but someone was killed this afternoon in the woods close to the school. The police have the whole area cordoned off, which is making it difficult to get into and out of the school parking lot. All after-school activities have obviously been canceled. Thomas is fine, and I’ve got the entire team here with me in the gymnasium. We’re asking parents not to come up to the school to pick up their kids, but instead to wait at the designated bus stop where their child is usually dropped off after school. Buses will be bringing students home starting around six thirty P.M., but kids won’t be let off of the bus unless there’s an adult there to meet them. Thanks for your cooperation. If you have any questions, you can contact the school, but even with four people answering phones, the lines have been pretty tied up this afternoon, so don’t call unless you have to.”
The message ended and Ben closed the phone and placed it in his front pants pocket. Susan’s hand was covering her mouth, and she looked up at him with a mixture of relief and sadness. Her other arm had wrapped itself protectively around her waist. It was 5:52 P.M. Ben put an arm around his wife’s shoulders, pulling her body against him. He looked up at the large bay window that marked the front of their house. It offered a limited visual portal into their family room, and he could just make out the top of Joel’s head, his familiar brown cowlick arching upward like an apostrophe, as he sat on their couch watching television—hopefully not the news, Ben thought.
He kissed the top of Susan’s head, wondering if even at this very moment there was a Sheriff’s Department cruiser pulling into someone’s driveway. In his mind, he could see it clearly: the car rolling slowly to a stop, two uniformed officers stepping out and making that long, awful walk to the front door. He imagined them ringing the doorbell and listening to the sound of shuffling feet approaching from the foyer just beyond, a small voice calling through the closed door: “Who is it?”
“Sheriff’s Department, ma’am.”
A momentary pause, followed by the sound of the voice, already afraid, calling out to someone deeper inside of the dwelling: “They say it’s the Sheriff’s Department.”
A man’s voice, descending down the interior stairs: “Well, what do they want? Jesus, Martha, open the door!”
The sound of the dead bolt sliding back within its metallic housing. The door slowly swinging open to reveal a man and a woman, roughly the same age as Susan and himself, standing just inside the open threshold and looking out onto the cold, gray world and the unfortunate messengers standing in front of them. In this image he has conjured, the couple suddenly appear frail beyond their given years, as if this moment itself has weakened them. In a timorous glance, they take in the grave faces of the two unwelcome men standing before them, who have arrived with news the parents do not want to hear, and whose expressions carry within them all of the information that really matters: I’m terribly sorry. Your boy is gone. He was left dead in the woods, and he lies there still while we try to figure out who might have done this to him. He will never walk through this door again.
In that moment, standing in their own driveway with familiar gravel beneath their feet, Ben offered a silent prayer of gratitude—God forgive him—that he and his wife had not been selected at random to receive that horrible message. It was a prayer of relief and thankfulness for the safety of his family, and a prayer of compassion for the ones who waited even now for the messengers to come.
“Let’s go inside,” he whispered to Susan, and the two walked up the steps together.
3
An hour later, the three of them stood on the sidewalk, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the Indian Creek High School bus. A block to the east, the sound of passing vehicles could be heard as they traveled along Canton Road on their way north toward Route 22. Beside him, Susan fidgeted restlessly. Ben shared the sentiment. A recorded message from the high school baseball coach, after all, could only go so far in placing a parent’s mind at ease.
Ben glanced at his watch. It was seven o’clock. Shouldn’t the bus be here already? he wondered. Perhaps not, considering the traffic and events of the day. Rounding everyone up and making sure that all of the kids were accounted for would take longer than expected. Some of the parents would just now be arriving home from work, and there would be no one waiting to receive the kids at certain stops. It could be another hour, he realized.
Dusk was already beginning to settle upon the neighborhood. In another forty minutes they’d be standing here in the dark. Under the circumstances, he reflected, it was probably not the best plan the school could have come up with: a bunch of families standing around outside in the dark waiting for their kids to be dropped off while somewhere out here a psychopath roamed the streets. He thought about returning home for the car, even though they lived only two blocks away. He didn’t want to leave Susan and Joel standing here alone, however, and he was afraid that if they all went back together the bus would arrive during the time they were gone. Instead, they waited, watching their shadows grow long and lean as the sun continued its rapid descent toward the horizon.