Looking Over Your Shoulder

CHAPTER 11

  ABE GLANCED AT THE call display and saw that it was the elementary school calling. His heart skipped a beat, not sure whether it was a call about his consulting job, or because Crispin had had another seizure.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. VanRam? It’s Edith, the Principal.”

  “Yes. If everything okay?”

  “Well, we’ve had a little incident.”

  Abe’s heart sank. He sat down, feeling weak.

  “Did Crispin have a seizure?” he questioned.

  “No, it’s Meggie.”

  “Meggie?” this was completely unexpected, and his mind raced to fill in the blanks. What had happened to Meggie? She was the one they didn’t have to worry about medical problems with.

  “Meggie brought a gun to school.”

  Abe’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t seem to find his voice. He sat there, staring blankly at nothing. A gun?

  “It is a toy gun,” the principal went on, her voice heavy with disapproval with the irresponsible parents who would buy their child such a thing. “One that shoots soap bubbles.”

  “Oh,” Abe let out his breath in a puff. “Oh, I see.”

  He didn’t really understand what the problem was. Obviously such things were prohibited, but it wasn’t like Meggie had taken anything actually resembling a weapon to school. The bright pink child’s toy was simply that, a toy.

  “She will have to be suspended, I’m afraid,” the principal went on, “we have a zero tolerance policy.”

  “Suspended for a toy that blows bubbles?” Abe questioned with a half-chuckle.

  “This is very serious, Mr. VanRam. This demonstration of violence on Meggie’s part is very disappointing.”

  “She’s not violent,” Abe said. "She’s blowing bubbles. If it even had any bubble solution in it.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether the gun is loaded or not,” she said scathingly. “You can’t bring a gun of any sort to school.”

  Abe shook his head.

  “Fine. I’ll come over and pick her up,” he promised.

  Once at the school, Abe listened impatiently to the principal ranting about Meggie bringing the toy to school, and held out his hand for it.

  “I’ll take it now,” he said. “She won’t bring it back to school.”

  The principal shook her head in disbelief.

  “She can’t have it back. We have a Zero Tolerance policy.”

  “Yes… but it’s still her toy. You can’t confiscate it,” he pointed out.

  “I most certainly can. We don’t give contraband back.”

  “It’s a toy,” Abe repeated.

  “It’s not allowed.”

  “But it still belongs to Meggie. I’ll make sure she doesn’t bring it back.”

  The principal shook her head adamantly, and Abe stared at her in consternation.

  “It’s okay, Daddy,” Meggie said in a tiny voice. "I don’t want it back. It’s bad.”

  “Well…” Abe was at a loss for words. Finally he took Meggie by the hand. “Let’s go then, sugar,” he said, and he took her back out to the car without any further interference from the principal.

  Once he had her buckled in and was sitting in his own seat, Abe started the conversation, pulling away from the curb.

  “Did you know you weren’t allowed to bring it to school, Meggie?” he questioned.

  “Yes.”

  “You did? Then why did you take it?”

  Meggie didn’t answer right away. Abe glanced at her in the rear-view mirror. She wore a frown, her brow furrowed as she considered.

  “Megs? Why would you take the bubble gun if you knew you weren’t allowed to?”

  “Because I was afraid. Of the bad guys.”

  Abe caught his breath.

  “What bad guys?” he questioned, trying to keep his voice steady. Meggie gazed outside.

  “You said there’s bad guys trying to get you,” she said. "I don’t want them to come and get me at the school.”

  Abe looked in the rear-view mirror, looking for a tail. He’d been restraining himself up until now, forcing himself not to look for anyone following him. He kept reminding himself it was just the paranoia and it would go away once he’d been back on his meds for long enough. He made an unplanned turn, and watched behind him to see if any cars followed. There was a blue sedan three cars behind that made the same turn. Abe’s throat tightened.

  “Have you seen them, Meggie?” he questioned. "Did you see them at the school?”

  Meggie shrugged.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You see that car back there?” Meggie twisted in her child safety seat to look. “Have you seen that car before?”

  “I think so,” she said tentatively.

  “At the school?”

  “Yes.”

  Abe swore and hit the steering wheel. Meggie shifted nervously.

  “Are they bad guys, Daddy? Are they coming to get us?” there was a hint of tears in her voice.

  “I hope not, honey,” Abe said, trying to think of something to calm her, while his own brain was exploding with panic and despair. “It’s probably just a coincidence, right?”

  He remembered Banducci’s words. That if he didn’t back off, the conspirators were going to come after his family, and harm them. He had known. Banducci knew the criminal element at least that well. First they tried to discredit Abe, ruin his reputation, make him look crazy, and now they were after his family. Hanging around at the school, following the children home. They were so vulnerable.

  Abe drove recklessly, desperate to lose the tail. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t lead them home. He couldn’t put his children and wife at risk. Ursula. Were they following her too? He pulled out his phone and speed dialed her.

  “Urs, it’s me. They’re following me. And they’ve been at the school watching the kids. It’s not safe.”

  “Abe? Calm down, sweetie. No one is after you. As long as you keep taking the pills, you’ll start feeling better and these feelings will go away. They’re just feelings, honey. No one is going to hurt you or the kids.”

  “Meggie saw them at the school. Right Meggie? Tell Mommy.”

  He held the phone towards Meggie.

  “I saw them,” Meggie said, voice raised.

  “And she can see them following me right now, can’t you Meggie, tell Mommy.”

  “I don’t see them anymore,” said Meggie, turning in her seat once more. "But I saw them before. When they were chasing you.”

  Abe put the phone back to his ear.

  “You hear? It’s not just me. Meggie has seen them too.”

  “Abe, children are suggestible. If you tell her someone is bad or that you see something, she will see it too. It doesn’t mean you’re in any danger. Just because someone was behind you for a few blocks, that doesn’t mean that they’re following you. Honest. They were just going the same direction as you were.”

  “No, I know they’re following me. And I didn’t put this in Meggie’s head. She saw them at school, and was worried about it. That’s why she took the gun today.”

  “What?” Ursula questioned, baffled.

  “She took her toy bubble gun to school, because she was worried about them watching her. She was scared, and wanted to protect herself.”

  “How could she protect herself with a bubble gun? Even a child knows the difference between a real gun and one that blows bubbles. She knows she couldn’t hurt anyone with that. She just wanted to show it off to her friends or something.”

  “That’s what she said,” Abe protested.

  “She was just trying to think of something that would make you go easy on her and not get her in trouble.”

  “You don’t understand,” Abe said in frustration. "They’re threatening to hurt my family, and they’re showing up at the school now. They’re following me, and showing up the school. Meggie saw them.”

  “No one threatened your family,” Ursula said calmly. “Look, Abe, I’ve got
to go now. I have a couple arriving to view this house. Just go home, lock the doors, and find something to play with Meggie, alright? Everything will be all right. Just trust me.”

  Abe clicked off the call. He tried to focus on what Ursula said, to really believe it. She was the normal one. She knew that he was being paranoid. He tried to believe Ursula. She knew better what was real and what was imagined. If she told Abe he was being paranoid, he had to believe that. By sheer force of will, he pointed the nose of the car toward home, and tried to take the most direct route back.

  Juneau refused up and down to go to a restaurant, and Theo eventually have to give up on that tactic.

  “Why don’t we watch a movie?” he suggested finally, trying to keep his voice calm and even.

  Juneau hesitated.

  “I don’t know,” she said, wrinkling her nose and scratching her arm. “No food?”

  “No food. We’ll just watch the movie, okay? You can’t be scared of that.”

  “I’m scared of everything right now,” Juneau said. "Before this, I’ve never had so many reactions so close together. I don’t know what is safe to do and what isn’t. But you’ve always been with me when I’ve reacted lately…”

  “You think you might be allergic to me?” Theo said, a little disbelieving.

  “Maybe... It’s stupid, I guess. But maybe I am allergic to you… or you just bring me bad luck. I don’t know what to think. But I don’t want to end up in the hospital again. I just hate it.”

  “They take such good care of you,” Theo said, surprised. "How can you hate it?”

  “Because it isn’t home. I can’t do what I want. I can’t be with my family. I like to sleep in my own bed. I don’t like to be sick. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  Theo shrugged.

  “I guess it’s a holdover from when I would be sick and stay home from school,” he said reminiscently. “My mom would make me soup, fluff up my pillows, let me watch TV or play games all day… I like being taken care of. I don’t really like to be sick, but I like to be taken care of.”

  Juneau shook her head.

  “I wouldn’t care if everyone ignored me, if I could just be well all the time, and not have to worry about eating or touching something that was going to kill me.”

  He patted her on the back.

  “Well, let’s go the movies. Get your mind off of your troubles.”

  Juneau nodded, and they walked to the theater. They lingered, looking at the announcement board and posters for a few minutes, before deciding on a film and buying their tickets. Theo picked out their seats, and they sat down and got comfortable. Juneau was nauseated by the smell of the popcorn. She wished they could have watched a movie at home, and not had to worry about the food smells. She breathed deeply, through her mouth, trying to get past it.

  As the movie started, Theo leaned in to kiss him. Juneau withdrew.

  “It’s okay,” Theo said wryly. "I haven’t had anything to eat. It’s safe.”

  Juneau shook her head.

  “No. Not - not right now. Let’s watch the movie, okay? I’m too nervous of having a reaction.”

  “So we’re never going to kiss again?” he demanded.

  “No, I didn’t say that-”

  They were shushed by a number of the other moviegoers. Juneau looked at Theo.

  “Not now,” she repeated firmly.

  He shook his head, folded his arms across his chest, and stared at the screen morosely.

  Halloween was warm, as Abe had hoped that it would be. Crispin dressed up as a zombie, and Meggie was a princess, of course. Crispin thought he was too old to have to go trick-or-treating with a parent. But Abe wasn’t about to let them go by themselves door to door. In the dark. Where anyone could have grabbed them or harmed them. By common consent, Juneau handed out the Halloween treats, and Ursula made hot apple cider and caught up on paperwork while they were out.

  It was getting late when Abe finally convinced Crispin that to go home and take stock of his loot. Meggie had run out of steam an hour ago, and Abe tired of carrying her around, light though she was. Her and her ten pounds of candy.

  “Come on, Bud,” Abe invited, dumping Meggie’s candy on the counter. “Why don’t you put yours on the kitchen table and we’ll check through it before you eat anything.”

  “This is so lame,” Crispin complained and he spread his candy out. "It’s not like anyone really tries to poison kids at Halloween. It’s just an urban legend.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Abe said, examining each item carefully before putting it back into Meggie’s bag. He tossed out a couple of home-made goodies, even though he knew the ladies who had made them.

  “There’s no needle marks on anything,” Crispin said, rolling his eyes as he examined bags of chips and put them back in his bag. “Nothing is open. I don’t want the home-made treats anyway. Why do we have to do this?”

  “To be safe,” Abe repeated.

  “Did you ever find anything in anyone’s candy?” Crispin challenged.

  “We’ve found some suspicious looking stuff, yes. And we have to take out anything with peanuts in it.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Crispin agreed, grabbing a few chocolate bars with peanuts in them and throwing them in the garbage. “We don’t want to poison Juneau. Even though she’d never pick something like that up and eat it by accident.”

  “Mmmm-hmm,” Abe agreed, handing Meggie a candy that she was whining for, and continuing to work his way through her haul.

  “Dad, what’s this?” Crispin said suddenly, a frown on his face.

  Abe looked up. Crispin held a small red object. Abe walked over to take a look and see. He frowned, taking it from Crispin. It was a tiny balloon, with something tied up inside it. Abe sat with it in his hand, not believing what he was seeing.

  “Where did you get this?” he questioned.

  “I don’t know who was handing them out. It was just in my bag.”

  Abe pawed through the rest of Meggie’s candy and found a couple more of them. Ursula walked into the kitchen and glanced at the colorful objects Abe held.

  “What’s that? Did you guys get some cider? It’s in the crock pot.”

  An hour later, the children were in bed and a police officer tested one of the packets.

  “Blue is positive. It’s cocaine,” he announced.

  “But how did it get into the kids’ trick-or-treating bags?” Ursula demanded.

  The cop was young. His name tag said “Salinger”. He giggled as he packed up the remains of the first balloon, and the two unopened ones.

  “Somebody’s old lady is in trouble tonight,” he said. “When he comes home and finds out she threw his cocaine in kids’ bags.” He snorted, trying to contain his laughter. “Honey, where’s my coke? I left it right here,” he hammed.

  Ursula shook her head.

  “Unbelievable.”

  “You don’t know where you got it?” Salinger asked Abe, still chuckling.

  “No. I’m not sure. I can show you the route that we took, roughly,” Abe said.

  “That would be good. You’re not the only one who called in, so hopefully we can narrow down the house pretty quickly based on where everyone went.”

  After Salinger was gone, Abe turned immediately to Ursula.

  “I told you they were going to come after us,” he said. “They said they were going to go after my family, and now they have! Trying to poison the kids with cocaine in their treats!”

  Ursula laughed, a single disbelieving bark.

  “Nobody tried to poison the kids, Abe. Somebody made a mistake. Nobody would expect a kid to eat an unidentified powder wrapped in a balloon,” she pointed out.

  “They threatened my family!”

  “Who did?” Ursula persisted.

  “They…” Abe couldn’t remember the details clearly. “The jewel thieves did… they called on the phone.”

  Ursula shook her head.

  “You never mentioned that before,
Abe. I don’t think it really happened.”

  “I’m not just imagining it!”

  “You are. It didn’t happen, Abe.”

  Abe’s face twisted into a scowl, and he turned away from her to hide it.

  “I’m not going to let them hurt my family,” he insisted. “They can’t do this and get away with it.”

  Ursula shook her head.

  “This wasn’t targeted. You heard the policeman say that others had called in about it too. And anyone who knows anything about you wouldn’t bother trying to tamper with Halloween treats. You’re too careful for anything to get by.”

  “You just can’t see it,” Abe said in frustration. “It’s right in front of you, and you just won’t see it.”