The Wrong Number

  “I can’t give my real name,” he said. “I’m in enough trouble already. They’ll want to know what we were doing at the house. What would I say?”

  “But what about the man?” Deena protested. “Shouldn’t we report him?”

  “We didn’t see his face,” Chuck pointed out. “We can’t identify him—but he knows where we live. We’ll just have to hope the police catch him.”

  Deena felt funny about not doing more, but she decided Chuck was probably right. The night’s events had thoroughly exhausted her, and she yawned. Chuck had moved onto the couch beside Jade and was gently stroking her hair. Deena was surprised to see tears drying on Jade’s face.

  “This was the worst night of my whole life,” Jade said. “I hope I wake up soon and find out it was all a nightmare!”

  “It was real, all right,” said Chuck, “but it’s over now.”

  Deena saw Jade relax at Chuck’s soothing words. But she couldn’t help wondering if he was right.

  Was it really over?

  Later that night Deena awakened from a deep sleep, the sound of car tires squealing in her ears. Her heart began thudding, but then she relaxed. I must have been dreaming about what happened, she thought.

  She wondered if Chuck and Jade were having nightmares, too. She and Chuck had driven Jade home just before midnight. When they’d returned Deena’s parents still weren’t home. Deena had collapsed into her bed and immediately fallen asleep.

  But now—there it was again.

  A car was crunching the gravel in the driveway.

  A car door slammed, and then someone walked up the driveway toward the house.

  Oh, no, no, Deena pleaded silently. Don’t let it be the man in the mask—please. . . .

  The doorbell rang. A moment later someone began pounding on the front door.

  Deena lay in her bed, too scared to move. Then she heard her father’s sleepy voice: “Just a minute!” Then his footsteps started down the stairs. “Just a minute!”

  “Daddy, no! Don’t answer it!” Deena jumped out of bed and ran down the hall, but it was too late. Her father had slid the chain back and was already opening the door.

  Wildly, Deena searched around for a weapon. All she could find was a large green vase on a stand at the top of the stairs. Her hands trembling, she grabbed it, then began to creep down the stairs.

  As the door swung all the way open Deena expected to see the man in the mask standing on the porch. But instead there were two men dressed in suits. One was tall and skinny, the other short and pudgy. They looked like a comedy act.

  “Mr. Albert Martinson?” said the tall man.

  “That’s me,” said Deena’s father.

  “I’m Detective Frazier from the Shadyside Police Department,” the tall man said. “This is my partner, Detective Monroe. We’re sorry to disturb you at such a late hour, but this is very important. Do three teenagers live here—a boy and two girls?”

  “There are only two,” said Mr. Martinson. “A boy and a girl. What’s this all about?”

  “May we speak to them, please?” said the tall policeman.

  “Do you know what time it is?” said Mr. Martinson. “They’re sleeping. Now, why don’t you—”

  “We just want to ask them a few questions,” said Frazier. “Please, sir. We don’t want to have to insist.”

  “All right, all right,” Mr. Martinson mumbled.

  While Deena watched, he stepped back to let the two men in. At first she had been relieved to see the detectives instead of the masked stranger, but her relief was now replaced by a new kind of fear. She didn’t know exactly what was going on, but she had an idea it meant trouble.

  She set the vase back on the stand and went downstairs.

  “Daddy?” she said.

  Mr. Martinson put his arm around her protectively. “These gentlemen are detectives,” he said. “They want to ask you and Chuck some questions.”

  By now Mrs. Martinson had awakened and come downstairs. She was wearing a silver-colored bathrobe. With her thick golden hair frizzed around her face she looked like a movie star, Deena thought.

  “Albert, what’s going on?” she asked.

  “These detectives want to talk to Deena and Chuck,” he said.

  “At two in the morning?” Mrs. Martinson protested.

  “They say it’s important,” her husband answered.

  “Come on in the kitchen,” said Deena’s mother. “I’ll make coffee.”

  Deena’s father went to the door leading to the basement and called Chuck’s name. “There’s someone here to see you!” he said.

  After a few moments Chuck stumbled up the steps and into the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He had thrown on a pair of faded jeans and a green T-shirt. When he first saw the policemen his eyes filled with fear. But then, as Deena watched, the fear was replaced by a look of challenge—and arrogance.

  Deena’s mother had made the coffee. “Won’t you sit down?” she asked the policemen.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Monroe. “You go on ahead.” He and Frazier remained standing by the back door.

  Deena’s mother sat at the big kitchen table next to Deena. Both her parents looked worried, but the detectives had no expressions on their faces at all.

  What is going on? Deena wondered. Obviously it had something to do with what had happened on Fear Street that night. Maybe the police wanted her and Chuck as witnesses. But how had they found them?

  While Detective Frazier took notes his partner asked Chuck and Deena their names and ages and where they went to school. Then his expression became very serious. “Where were you this evening between nine-thirty and eleven P.M.?” he asked.

  Deena opened her mouth to answer, but Chuck spoke before she could say anything. “We were right here,” he said. “We barbecued some hamburgers, then just hung out and watched TV.”

  Deena shot Chuck a questioning look, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. And then she realized why he was lying. If her father found out what they’d been doing, Chuck would be in big trouble. Somehow she had an idea he was already in a lot of trouble!

  The detective turned to her. “Is that right, miss?” he asked. “You were here?”

  Deena swallowed hard. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “What’s that?” said Detective Monroe. “Speak up.”

  “Yes,” Deena repeated.

  “Was anyone with you?” Frazier asked.

  “No,” said Chuck.

  “Yes,” said Deena at the same moment.

  “Well?” said the detective. “Which is it? Yes or no?”

  “No,” Deena mumbled. “It was just us.”

  For a very long time neither policeman said anything. Then they exchanged looks. Finally Detective Frazier cleared his throat. “Does either of you know a Mr. or Mrs. Farberson of eight eighty-four Fear Street?” he asked.

  “No,” said Chuck. Deena looked at him desperately. She was starting to feel sick to her stomach. The lies were getting worse. The detective was leading up to something—but what?

  “Has either of you ever talked to either Mr. or Mrs. Farberson on the phone?” Detective Monroe asked.

  “No,” said Chuck.

  “Or visited them at their house on Fear Street?”

  “No!” Chuck exploded. “We’ve told you we don’t know any Farbersons! How many times do we have to tell you?” Deena looked at Chuck. He looked angry, but something about his expression wasn’t right. Suddenly she realized that he was scared—as scared as she was.

  Mr. Martinson got to his feet. “Officers, you’ve heard them,” he said, his voice very angry. “My kids aren’t liars. Now get to the point!”

  Once again the policemen glanced at each other. “We’ve got a witness who contradicts you,” Monroe said. “Are you sure you don’t want to change your story?”

  “We’ve told the truth,” said Chuck. He was staring straight ahead, and Deena could see a muscle in his cheek twitching. Her father was standing by th
e sink, his hands clenched in fists, while her mother sat unconsciously shredding a paper napkin with her fingers.

  Who is the witness? Deena wondered. Could it be Jade? But if it is, she’s in trouble, too. Maybe the neighbors had seen something. But we didn’t see any neighbors. We didn’t do anything wrong, she reminded herself. No matter what, we’re innocent.

  Detective Frazier sighed. “Our witness is Mr. Stanley Farberson,” he said. “According to him, you two and another teenage girl broke into his house and burglarized it. Then, when his wife came home unexpectedly, you murdered her.”

  Deena gasped in shock. “Huh?”

  “That’s crazy!” said Chuck. “In the first place, we weren’t anywhere near Fear Street. In the second place, we have no reason to steal anything or kill anyone.”

  “He claims he saw you,” said Detective Frazier. “He gave us a license number—and it checks with yours.”

  “But what about the burglar—” Deena blurted out.

  “Deena, be quiet!” Chuck’s voice cut her off.

  “Just a minute, Detective Frazier!” Deena’s father shouted. Even though he was wearing his ratty old bathrobe, Deena thought he looked fierce and dangerous. “Are my children being charged with a crime?”

  “Charged?” said Frazier. “Not yet. But we have—”

  “Hold it!” said Mr. Martinson, cutting him off. He looked at Deena. “Deena,” he said, “did you do the things you’re accused of?”

  “Of course not, Daddy,” she said. “What really happened was—”

  Her father cut her off with a shake of his head. He turned to Chuck. “Chuck,” he said, “did you do these things?”

  “No,” said Chuck, his face sullen. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  Deena flashed a worried look at Chuck. Her father moved closer to Detective Frazier. “I don’t know what happened tonight,” he said, “but I do know my kids. They wouldn’t do any such thing, and they wouldn’t lie to me. I understand you’re just doing your job, but they’re not going to say another word without a lawyer.”

  Detective Frazier nodded as if he wasn’t surprised. “I’m going to have to take them in,” he said.

  “For what?” exploded Mr. Martinson. “Because some crazy man thinks he saw them somewhere? You have no evidence—”

  “We have enough to hold them for further questioning,” said Frazier. “We’ve checked your car. The front bumper and tires are clotted with the green sandy clay that’s found only at the end of Fear Street, where the Farbersons live. It’s still damp. Your car was there recently.” The detective paused rather sadly. He looked directly at Deena, then at Chuck. “Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is,” he said. “Come downtown now, voluntarily. If you don’t, I’ll have to come back—with warrants for your arrest!”

  chapter

  10

  So far, so good.

  His plan had been accomplished even better than he had hoped. For once, luck was on his side. Things were definitely going his way.

  Now all he had to do was wait for another week.

  Wait and do nothing else—unless someone tried to get in his way. If that happened—well, one more murder wouldn’t be so hard. In fact, it would probably be easier than the first one.

  chapter

  11

  The Third Week in September

  Deena woke up Sunday afternoon at two. She lay in bed a moment, confused; then everything that had happened the night before came flooding back like a nightmare.

  The detectives had put her and Chuck in the back of their unmarked car and taken them to police headquarters. Mr. and Mrs. Martinson followed in the BMW. The detectives told Deena’s mother that her Honda would be impounded for evidence.

  Just before they drove off Chuck had whispered fiercely to Deena, “Don’t say anything, Deena. We’re innocent. Anything you say will make things worse.”

  At the station house everything looked just the way it did in the movies. There was a gruff-looking, gray-haired desk sergeant and battered gray metal desks covered with papers. Even though it was so late at night there was a uniformed officer filling out a report and talking on the phone.

  Deena had only a couple of minutes to check out the place, because soon after they arrived she and Chuck were separated, and she was taken to a small room with no windows. She sat at a battered table with a scarred linoleum top while the detectives began questioning her again. They kept asking her who the other teenager was who had been with them.

  Deena wanted to tell the truth, but remembered Chuck’s warning, and she didn’t want to get Jade in trouble. After a few minutes Sidney Roberts, her father’s lawyer, showed up.

  He talked some legal jargon with the detectives, and after a while they went out of the room. She was so tired by then that she didn’t care much what happened. She wondered if she was going to be put in a jail cell. At least there will be a place to lie down, she thought.

  The next thing she knew, her father was shaking her. She had fallen asleep bent over the table with her hands cradling her head. “Come on, honey,” her mother said. “We can go home now.”

  Deena stood up shakily, yawning. “What happened?” she asked.

  “We’re letting you go—for now,” said Detective Monroe from the doorway. “But we’ll want to talk to you again. Don’t leave town.”

  Deena almost laughed. Sure, she thought. As if I had anywhere to go. But how do you run away from a nightmare?

  She followed her parents through the halls of the building, then out into the chilly night air. To the east, the sky was getting lighter. She had never stayed up so late before. They walked out into the parking lot before she remembered. “Chuck!” she said. “Where’s Chuck?”

  “They’ve arrested him,” said her father, sounding grim.

  “What?” said Deena, suddenly wide awake with shock.

  “This isn’t the first time he’s been in trouble with the police,” her father went on, his voice weary and sad. “Last year in Center City Chuck and some other boys were caught joyriding in a stolen car.”

  “But,” Deena protested, “that doesn’t have anything to do with what happened tonight!”

  Her father suddenly looked very old, very weary. “The police checked his file in Center City,” he said. “There was a record of his fingerprints. And—it seems that they match the fingerprints on the knife that was used to murder Mrs. Farberson.”

  chapter

  12

  Deena stared out into the early-morning darkness as they rode home in silence. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep the horrifying scene in the house on Fear Street out of her mind. Again and again she saw the ransacked living room, the woman lying sprawled on the floor, the knife—the blood.

  She wanted to tell her parents everything. Maybe if she described it out loud, she would stop seeing it over and over in her mind. But how could she explain? Where should she start?

  Her father was the first to interrupt the silence. “I just don’t understand this at all,” he said in a voice she had seldom heard. “If you and Chuck don’t know anything about this, how could Chuck’s fingerprints be on the knife?”

  “I—well—” Deena could feel all of the horror welling inside her. She suddenly felt like a balloon about to burst.

  “Well what?” her father asked impatiently.

  Deena couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Of course his fingerprints are on the knife!” she screamed. “But he didn’t kill her! She was already dead! You’ve got to believe me! You’ve got to!”

  Then she started to cry and couldn’t stop.

  “Calm down, calm down,” her mother said softly. “We’ll talk about this when we get home.”

  Her father continued to drive, staring straight ahead through the windshield, his eyes hard and cold in the rearview mirror.

  Despite the hour, Jade came over as soon as Deena called her. “Maybe the two of us can explain it to my parents,” Deena said, opening the
door for Jade. “I don’t think I can do it by myself.”

  For once, Jade looked terrible. Her eyes were red. She was as pale as a ghost. The old sweater she had thrown on had a hole in it and a stain on one sleeve. “Is Chuck really in jail?” she whispered to Deena as they headed into the kitchen to face Deena’s parents.

  “Yes. He was eighteen on his last birthday. That means they can try him as an adult.”

  “But he’s innocent!” Jade cried. “What about bail? Can’t your father get him out?”

  “There’s no bail for murder suspects,” Deena replied. Murder. She couldn’t believe she was saying that word out loud.

  “You’ve got to help me,” Deena said, squeezing Jade’s hand. “You’ve got to help me convince my parents.”

  They walked into the brightly lit kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Martinson greeted Jade without smiling. Mrs. Martinson poured her a cup of coffee.

  “Okay. You’re both here,” Mr. Martinson said, grim-faced. “Begin at the beginning.”

  Fighting back tears and sipping coffee with trembling hands, Deena and Jade told her parents everything. They started with the phone calls. They ended with their visit to Fear Street and the terrifying car chase that followed.

  For a long while after they had finished Deena’s parents didn’t say anything. They contemplated the floor, shaking their heads.

  “Do you mean to say that this whole thing began with a prank phone call?” Mr. Martinson said at last.

  “And it ended in a murder,” Jade said sadly, her voice a whisper.

  “But the two aren’t connected!” said Deena, sighing miserably. It was hard to believe that those silly calls to Rob Morell and the others had started only two weeks earlier.

  It seemed more like two years.

  “We didn’t mean any harm, Mrs. Martinson,” Jade said. “It was just something to do—a fun way of putting on some of the boys at school.”

  “I just don’t understand. Then how did Chuck get involved in it?” asked Deena’s mother.