Night of Fear (13 page)

He heard sirens in the distance, wailing like wolves at the full moon. He returned to the dining room. From that window, he saw the red lights of the fire engine approach. The engine slowed and turned in the driveway. The sky glowed with the white moonlight and the yellow flames and the circling red lights.

T.J. leaned on the windowsill and watched. His bones ached and his head throbbed. He wondered how long he had been gone. It seemed like a month since he and Grandma Ruth had started across the pasture to feed the Crowleys’ animals. Remembering how cross he had been, how he had
tried to hurry her by saying David was dead, T.J. felt ashamed. She can’t help being the way she is.

He wondered how long Grandma Ruth had sat on the bale of hay in the Crowleys’ barn, singing hymns. She no longer had any sense of time. If nobody came to get her, she might sit there all night, singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Maybe she was
still
there.

T.J. heard shouting outside. He watched as the fire fighters jumped off the truck, unrolled long canvas hoses, and began battling the blaze.

Where was Brody? T.J. looked to the side of the barn, where the truck had been parked. He saw only the carousel pig that he had dragged away from the shed. The moon shone down on the empty road.

Cautiously, he went down the hall, looked into a bedroom, and saw that no one was in it. He heard more sirens. He went in the bedroom and crossed to the window on the side of the house toward the sheds. Another fire truck arrived and two police cars.

It would be safe to go out there now. With all those fire fighters and police on the scene, T.J. would finally get help. Even if Brody was still around, hiding and watching the fire, he wouldn’t dare try to grab T.J.

It’s over, T.J. thought. I got away from him.

He turned to leave the bedroom. As he did, he saw a small bedside table. On it stood a telephone.

He sat on the edge of the bed and dialed.

He got a recording. “You must first dial a one and the area code,” the recording said. He tried again, this time adding the one and the area code before he dialed his own number.

His father answered on the first ring. “Where are you?” he cried, when he heard T.J.’s voice. “Are you all right? What happened?”

Quickly, T.J. explained how he had stumbled upon a man hiding in the Crowleys’ barn and he thought it was the bank robber and the man made T.J. go with him. “You need to go over to Crowleys’ right away, Dad,” he said. “I left . . .”

“We’ve already been there. Where are you, T.J.? Where are you calling from?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He explained about the fires. “I’m going to talk to the police now. I’ll call you back when I find out where I am.”

“No! Don’t hang up. Look around. See if you can find something with an address on it.”

T.J. put the phone on the bed and walked to a small desk. Inside were greeting cards, a checkbook, and a stack of bills addressed to Mrs. Jane Langley.

He read the address to his dad, relieved that he wasn’t as far from home as he had feared.

“Sit tight,” his dad said. “We’ve already reported that you were missing. I’ll let the police know we’ve located you and then we’ll be there to pick you up.”

“Hurry.”

“We will. Can you give me a phone number where you are?”

T.J. read the number that was taped to the front of the telephone.

“Good. In case we have trouble finding the address, I’ll know how to reach you. Meanwhile, you go talk to the fire fighters or the sheriff or whatever officials are on the scene.
Tell them who you are and how you got there. Stay with them until we arrive.”

“I will.”

“And keep Grandma Ruth with you.”

“What?”

“Keep her close. We don’t want to take a chance that the arsonist would come back after you and somehow manage to take her hostage by herself. Or she could wander off and get lost in a strange area.”

“She isn’t here.”

“Where is she? You didn’t leave her alone with that lunatic, did you?”

“She never went in the truck with us. I left her in the Crowleys’ barn. I told her it was a church.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Did you hear me, Dad?”

“Hold on a minute, T.J.”

T.J. heard his dad telling someone else that Grandma Ruth was not with T.J. Then his dad said, “I won’t be able to come after you right away. The police need my help here. We’re going to start a search for her.”

“She’s in the Crowleys’ barn. I told Grandma Ruth that the barn was a church and she was in charge of the hymns and she should stay there until the preacher came. I thought you would have found her by now.”

“She isn’t there,” Mr. Stenson said.

“You’ve been to the barn?”

“That’s the first place we looked for you. We called Dane as soon as we realized you weren’t home. When he didn’t know where you were, we called Crowleys and when no one
answered we went over there. We couldn’t think where else you would go without leaving a note. No one came to the door and we saw the dogs were loose in the field so we put them back in their pen and then . . .”

“Did you see my message?”

“What message?”

“I scratched a message in the dirt next to the dog pen.”

“I didn’t see it. It was dark and just as I put the dogs in the pen, I heard your mother yelling for me. She’d gone in the barn and found Grandma Ruth’s hat on the floor.”

“Oh.”

“We thought Grandma Ruth was with you.”

“No.” There was such a lump in his throat that he could barely say the word. “No, she isn’t with me. I don’t know where she is.”

“What time did you leave her in the barn?”

“About seven-thirty. What time is it now?”

“Nearly eleven-thirty.”

Eleven-thirty. It was four hours since he’d left Grandma Ruth alone in the barn. Four long hours. If she had left the barn right away, she could be anywhere by now.

“I have to go,” Mr. Stenson said. “Your mother’s frantic and the police are asking dozens of questions. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

T.J. hung up. He looked out the window again and saw that the fire was out. He wondered if they had saved any of the carousel animals. He wondered if Brody got away or whether the police had him. Most of all, he wondered what had happened to Grandma Ruth.

T.J. still heard no noise from inside the house. Apparently, the woman lived here alone.

He opened the front door cautiously and looked out. In the distance, the red lights of the fire engines whirled around and around. There were flashing blue lights, too, belonging to the two police cars. The effect was circuslike, which T.J. thought was ironic since the fire had probably ruined the old carousel forever.

He did not see Brody’s truck. He left the house and sprinted toward the flashing lights, keeping a sharp eye out in case Brody was parked behind the house or somewhere else that T.J. didn’t see him. He didn’t want the blue truck to rush at him in the dark and have Brody swoop him away, like a hawk catching a sparrow.

Ahead, he saw the woman and a man in uniform, standing a ways off from the fire fighters. T.J. ran toward them.

As soon as the woman saw him, she pointed her finger at him and shouted, “That’s him! That’s the boy who started the fire!”

Immediately, two officers approached T.J.

“I didn’t start it,” T.J. said.

“He pounded on my door and woke me up and told me the sheds were burning. He probably robbed me while I was out here throwing water on the blaze. That’s how these people operate, you know. They trick you into unlocking your door and then when you do, they . . .”

“Please, Mrs. Langley,” one of the officers said. “We’ll handle this, if you don’t mind.”

“That beautiful merry-go-round is ruined,” the woman said. “All those wonderful animals.” She began to cry. “And the other units are damaged, too. I’ll lose all my renters.”

“What’s your name?” the officer asked T.J.

“T.J. Stenson. The arsonist is named Brody; he kidnapped me. I thought he had a gun and when he told me to go with him, I did. My parents have already reported that I’m missing.”

“Check it out,” the first officer said and the second officer went to the patrol car.

T.J. briefly told what had happened, starting with when he opened the Crowleys’ barn door and discovered Brody inside.

The second officer returned. “He’s telling the truth,” he said. “His parents called the King County sheriff an hour ago.”

At last, T.J. thought, someone believes me.

The police questioned him about Brody and T.J. tried to remember as many details as possible. When he described
Brody’s earring, one of the officers exclaimed, “I’ve seen him! He was at a fire a few days ago. I even talked to him when we suspected arson, but I decided he was just a spark.”

“A what?” T.J. asked.

“A spark. That’s what we call people who like to hang around and watch fires whenever they can. They’re usually harmless—just fans who like to see the action.”

“Fans?” T.J. said. “You mean, like basketball fans?”

“You got it. Some sparks even listen to the police radio in order to know when there’s a fire to chase. It’s a hobby with them.”

What a weird hobby, T.J. thought.

The officer shook his head. “Usually I can tell a genuine spark,” he said, “but that one had me fooled. He kept talking about his old man being proud of him; I thought his father used to be a fire fighter.”

The officers asked more questions. When T.J. told about Brody’s revenge, the police looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

“Great,” one of them said. “Just what we need, a pyromaniac who thinks more fires will make up for his own loss.”

“Part of the time, he seemed perfectly normal,” T.J. said. “He only got weird when he was talking about his fires.”

“Grief does strange things to people. So does anger. Or maybe he’s always only had one oar in the water.”

“I saw one other case,” another officer said, “where it turned out the guy had a chemical imbalance. Half the time he was as sane as I am and then, other times, it was like he stepped over some invisible line and became a whole different person.”

“Let’s get a bulletin out on him,” the other officer replied. “He can’t be too far away.”

The officers had CB radios and cellular phones in their patrol cars. After a brief telephone conversation, one of the officers, Sergeant Donnell, told T.J. that he would drive him home. “Your parents can’t come to get you because they’re helping the sheriff organize a search for your grandmother,” Sergeant Donnell said, “but I’ll have you home in less than half an hour.”

T.J.’s fatigue vanished. That was definitely the best news he’d heard all night.

During the ride home, T.J. told the sergeant every detail of his time with Brody. When he got to the part about the pony, Sergeant Donnell said, “You’re a brave kid.”

“Me?” T.J. said. “I’m not brave at all. I was scared silly but I couldn’t let the pony burn to death.”

“That’s what being brave is,” Sergeant Donnell replied. “It’s acting on your convictions. People always think police officers are brave; they think we aren’t afraid of anything. Well, the truth is, we get just as scared as the next guy but we’re willing to act on our convictions. I’ll take a risk in order to prevent a crime. You took a risk in order to save the pony.”

That’s true, T.J. thought. Maybe I
am
brave, when there is something worth taking a risk for. Maybe I’m not such a wimp as Craig Ackerley thinks I am.

Just then, the police radio announced, “This is Car Eighteen. We’ve spotted an old blue pickup heading west on I-90 near Issaquah. The driver appears to be alone.”

“That’s him,” T.J. said. “That’s Brody.”

The radio gave a location and a second voice broke in to
say that Car Twenty would be there in two minutes, for backup.

Less than five minutes later, T.J. heard the report: “Suspect is in custody. He appears mentally unstable. He admits setting the fire and keeps saying his old man would be proud of him. We’re taking him in for a psychiatric evaluation.”

“It seems Brody lost more than his store,” Sergeant Donnell said. “He also lost his mental competence. His twisted mind now justifies arson, the same crime that caused his troubles.”

The patrol car left the freeway. “Many people face terrible tragedies,” Sergeant Donnell continued, “but they emerge stronger and more determined to make something good of their lives. While Brody had a valid reason for being angry and sad, he allowed the fire and the loss of his father’s store to destroy the rest of his own life, too. What a waste.”

When they arrived at T.J.’s house, Sergeant Donnell had to park half a block away. There were two police cars in the Stensons’ driveway, and half a dozen other cars were parked along the street.

The yard lights blazed and every light in the house seemed to be on. Through the living room window, T.J. saw a group of about thirty people. The babble of voices carried across the lawn.

If Grandma Ruth did find her way home, T.J. thought, she would be too intimidated by all the people and noise to go inside. They couldn’t even take her to a shopping mall anymore. Crowds of chattering people made her fearful, probably because she didn’t understand who they were or what they were saying.

Sergeant Donnell followed T.J. to the door. When the people
inside saw T.J., everyone cheered. Flashbulbs popped; a reporter started asking questions.

Mrs. Stenson ran to him and hugged him. Her eyes were red and her makeup was streaked. “Thank goodness you’re safe,” she said. She turned to Sergeant Donnell. “Thank you for bringing him home,” she said.

“Have you found Grandma Ruth?” T.J. asked.

Mrs. Stenson shook her head. Tears spilled onto her cheeks and she wiped them with the back of one hand. “The searchers are getting ready to leave now. Dad and a sheriff’s deputy are already out looking for her.” She waved her hand at the crowd of people. “These folks have offered to search, too.”

T.J. looked quickly at the people in the room. He recognized four of his neighbors and a man who worked with his dad. Dane and his family were there and three other boys from his basketball team, standing near a tall officer who was giving instructions.