Darkness peering Read Free

palm, where it rolled to a stop with a little tinkling sound.

    NALEN CROSSED THE D'AGOSTINOS' FRONT YARD, NOTING THE
    weed-choked foundation and rusty watering can, the cracked slate slabs
leading toward the sagging front porch. Out back, the lawn sloped
sharply toward the woods, where birch trees shot up from the ground
like jet contrails. He could hear the cries of the neighborhood
children; they sounded like gulls. The air was fragrant with azaleas
and sweet william, pregnant with the promise of rain.
    Picking up the morning paper, he rang the doorbell. "It's Nalen
Storrow," he said through the screen, and Frances D'Agostino let him
in. She was in her mid-forties, built solid, with weathered skin and a
heavy brass-colored braid slung over her shoulder. He handed her the
newspaper.
    "Hello, Frances."
    Hope flashed in her eyes. "Did you find her?"
    He shook his head and all hope died. "I mean ..." He fumbled for the
right words. "Well ... I need to talk to you and Marty, if he's
home."
    "Something's wrong, isn't it?" She had the dried-out stare of an old
woman.
    "May I come in?"
    Silently, resentfully, she stepped aside.
    He took a seat on the living room sofa, removed his hat and leaned
against an embroidered pillow that said "There's no place like home."
The house was neat as a pin. Just yesterday, he'd issued a bulletin
and placed Melissa D'Agostino's name in state police files. He'd taken
down a report--physical description, medical history, access to bank
accounts. He'd called the county

    hospital, just in case, and formed a search party. Now the search was
over. They could all go home. Except that, for the D'Agostinos, this
place would never really feel like home again.
    "Marty, Chief's here!" Frances hollered up the stairs, then moved
awkwardly into the living room, her wary eyes on him.
    The air smelled warm and moist, something meaty boiling away on the
stove. "Smells good," he said politely.
    "Pot roast." Frances rubbed an arthritic hand across her belly.
"Stomach's been cramping up on me. Hope I don't get cystitis again.
Hate those sulfa pills. Oh, here you are, honey."
    Marty D'Agostino strode into the living room and sat down opposite
Nalen in a plaid armchair. Marty had a resonant voice, an imposing
frame and a shock of spiky gray hair. He was an accountant for an
insurance firm in Manchester, New Hampshire, and commuted four hours
back and forth to work each day. When Melissa was a toddler, Marty had
refused the doctors' suggestion that he commit her to an institution;
instead, he'd insisted on main streaming her into the public schools,
an uncommon request in 1970. Heroism came in all shapes and sizes,
Nalen thought, as Frances sank onto the sofa beside him.
    Marty's lower lip trembled. "She's dead, isn't she?"
    In the second or so it took him to respond, Nalen wished he could've
made something up. A better ending. And silence sounds no worse than
cheers, after death has stopped the ears. He cleared his throat. "I'm
afraid so."
    He could hear the air going out of their lungs. The living room was
all patches of color embroidered with their stunned faces. Frances's
arthritic fingers clutched the sofa cushions.
    "Where'd you find her?" Marty asked.
    "Out on Black Hill Road."
    "Could you be more specific?"
    "Off the road a ways ... lying in a runoff pond."
    "What d'you mean?" Marty was glaring at Nalen now.
    Frances hoisted herself off the sofa, went over to a bookcase

    and reached for a photo album on the top shelf, lacy yellow slip
showing beneath her floral-patterned dress. She dropped the album in
Nalen's lap. "There's my baby," she said, pointing at a family
portrait.
    Marty fearlessly held Nalen's eye. "How did my daughter die? Did she
drown?"
    "We think there might've been foul play."
    Marty sat back.
    Frances leaned over and thumbed through the photo album's thick black
pages. "I don't understand," she said softly, "who'd want to hurt my
baby?" She tapped one