One Kick

  Bishop turned slowly toward her. “The house had a basement?”

  “The houses always had a basement,” Kick said. She’d told him that, in Seattle. It was a given. She looked out the window. A five-year-old kid on a Razor scooter sped past on the sidewalk, followed by his father.

  “This is San Diego,” Bishop said.

  “So?” Judging by the For Sale signs up and down the street, no one wanted to live there.

  Bishop rubbed his temples like he was the one with the concussion. “Do you know why people build basements?”

  “Storage?” Kick guessed.

  “To stabilize their homes,” Bishop said. “Soil, when it’s saturated, expands, causing anything built on top of it to shift. That’s why building codes require foundations to go below the frost line.” He gestured with his chin out the windshield. “There’s no frost here. The frost line is, like, a foot underground. You don’t need a basement. They’re not required by code. No developer is going to sink a shitload of money building a basement unless the code says they have to.”

  Kick was starting to feel a little defensive. “The house had a basement,” she insisted. “A cellar, or whatever. Mr. Klugman had partially finished it.” She could see it as clear as anything, as clear as any part of the house. She could remember the stale air and how dust came off when she ran her finger along the concrete wall.

  She would always remember that basement.

  The kid on the skateboard fell. Kick didn’t see it happen. He was down the block, a small, distant figure. But the window was still open and she heard him start to wail. His father rushed to him and held him in his arms. Kick felt a stab of bitterness. She didn’t know why she had assumed the man was the boy’s father. He could be anyone at all.

  “We made the first movie down there,” she said. “Mr. Klugman filmed it. That’s why we were staying there. Mel used the money he made to buy his own equipment.”

  She glanced at Bishop, to see how he’d react. He was already getting out his phone, dialing a number. He held up a finger for her to be quiet. She saw his eyes on the For Sale sign across the street. The sign had a photograph of the Realtor, Stacy Smith, San Diego’s Prime Bungalow Specialist. She had a dark mane of hair, a bright smile, and a 1-800 number.

  “Hi, Stacy,” Bishop said smoothly into his phone. “This is Phil Marlowe.” He winked at Kick. “Barbara recommended I give you a call. My wife and I are looking to buy a house sometime next year, but we’re in town unexpectedly for the afternoon and wanted to take the opportunity to get to know the area so we can move quickly when the time comes. Well, my wife’s from back east and she’s set on having a basement. I know. I explained that, but she’s insisting. We want an area with some privacy, a little space between houses. A fenced-in yard. Maybe a pool. Also, we’ve got a third grader, so we’re looking for a property with an elementary school within walking distance. And I’ll be working up in Irvine, so I’m going to need access to the freeway. Can you give me a few ideas? Thanks. She’s checking. Yeah, I’m here. Excellent. Okay. Read that to me again. Okay. Got it. Well, we’ll take a look. Thanks so much. We’ll be in touch.”

  He turned to Kick. “She said she hasn’t sold a house with a basement in this town in nineteen years as a real estate agent. But there are two older neighborhoods we should take a look at. She says most of the houses have at least partial basements. They don’t come up on the market much. Most of them are rental properties. She was worried about our son walking to school in this one, because there aren’t any sidewalks.”

  29

  THE NEIGHBORHOOD THAT THE Realtor had sent them to was ten miles from the ocean and tucked next to a tangle of interstates. The houses were mostly one-story and ranged from Spanish-style adobe to bomb-shelter-style cinder-block. Many of the homes were run-down but they were on big lots and had fenced-in yards.

  Bishop followed the directions to the elementary school and started circling the neighborhood from there.

  Kick had the window down again, hoping that the din of the playground would spark some other memory, but it was Sunday and the school was closed.

  The street gently curved around a bend. She could hear the irregular pulse of interstate traffic in the distance, and birds. Her eyes studied the houses they passed. She didn’t really expect to recognize the house from the front. She didn’t know what she was expecting—maybe a psychic recognition, like she’d see an aura or something.

  But she knew the place the instant she saw it.

  It was entirely indistinct, a one-story rectangle with gray siding and white trim. Someone had added a covered patio in front, and two neatly painted aqua chairs sat side by side. The yard was sand. She remembered that now. Rocks were arranged here and there, along with a few scrawny palm trees, as if the house had been set down in the middle of the Mojave Desert. She had looked at it from the front window, a sandbox she could never play in. In the middle of this arid landscape an American flag fluttered on a pole planted in the sand. The flagpole was twice as tall as the house.

  “There,” she said.

  Bishop didn’t question her. He pulled the car over and they got out. Above the house, white clouds floated by in the blue afternoon sky. A fifteen-foot wall of bushes separated the property from a neighboring house to the west, and an empty lot, overgrown with foliage, sat to its east.

  Behind the house, Kick could see the school in the distance.

  They walked toward the front door. The path had been repaved and two names had been drawn into the concrete: Stella and Eliza. A third name followed a few steps later: Grandpa Bob.

  “I can pick the lock,” Kick said, already eyeing the door’s medium-priced dead bolt, a Schlage five-pin by the look of it.

  “Was the flag here?” Bishop asked.

  “I don’t remember it,” Kick said.

  Bishop buttoned his blazer and grinned at her. “Flagpole in the yard. Grandkids’ names in the front walk. Navy emblem on the mailbox. What does that tell you?”

  Kick didn’t see what he was getting at. “The people who live here are old and patriotic?”

  “Exactly,” Bishop said. “So why don’t we try knocking first?” He brushed some lint from his shoulder, stepped up to the door, and knocked.

  They hadn’t even worked out their cover story. They were totally unprepared. But Kick didn’t have time to protest. The door opened and a grandfatherly man appeared with a neighborly yet cautious smile. His baseball cap announced that he was a U.S. Navy veteran.

  “Hello, sir,” Bishop said smoothly. “We’re investigating an abducted child, and it’s possible a man who may have information about the case used to live here about fourteen years ago. Do you mind if we come in?”

  Kick gave Bishop a sideways look. She hadn’t expected him to tell the truth.

  The man in the doorway regarded them with sharp eyes. He was in his mid-seventies, Kick guessed, and still broad shouldered and strong. His T-shirt and cutoffs were layered with the paint of a hundred projects.

  He adjusted his cap. “I expect you’d better come in,” he said, opening the door.

  Kick tried to hide her amazement. The guy was just going to let them in out of some sort of civic duty. He hadn’t even asked for identification. Old and patriotic.

  “After you,” Bishop said, giving her a push.

  She stepped inside.

  “Name’s Collingsworth,” the man said to Bishop. “I’ll help in any way I can.”

  Kick moved past him toward the living room. Her stomach tightened with anticipation. Since they’d pulled up to the house, her memories had gotten clearer, more detailed. She could see the brass gas fireplace in the living room wall and the built-in bookshelves where Klugman had kept the paperbacks that she wasn’t supposed to read. She remembered the brown shag carpet and how it smelled like cats, even though Klugman didn’t have a cat.

  But when she turned the corner, everything was wrong.

  It wasn’t how it was supposed to be. There was no
gas fireplace, no brown carpet, no bookcases. The room wasn’t even the right shape.

  This was not the house she remembered.

  She turned back to Bishop. “This is wrong,” she said.

  “We’ve done a lot of work to the place,” Collingsworth said almost apologetically.

  Family photographs adorned the wall behind him. A picture of two little girls hung in a frame decorated with the words World’s Best Grandpa.

  “When did you buy it?” Bishop asked him.

  “Ten years ago this November,” Collingsworth said. “Bought it from the bank. A property management company owned it before then, but they went belly-up.”

  That fit the time frame.

  Kick continued into the kitchen, scrutinizing every molding. The counters were configured differently, and new shiny white appliances had been installed. She remembered an ancient refrigerator with a heavy door she needed help to open. She remembered wallpaper with pale pink and yellow flowers.

  She went to the kitchen window and looked out, but it was a different backyard. All she saw was an expanse of grass. “There’s no pool,” she called to Bishop.

  “First thing I did was fill that in,” Collingsworth said from behind her. “It was leaking. Would have cost five thousand dollars to repair. And Estelle worried about the grandkids. That was my wife, may she rest in peace.”

  “What about the basement?” Bishop asked.

  Kick spun around.

  Collingsworth gave a nod toward a closed door at the far corner of the kitchen.

  Kick’s heart was in her throat as they descended the basement stairs. Each step came back to her: the sound the wood made as it creaked under her feet, how the center of each step had a worn spot in the gray paint. The wood underneath the paint was polished from a thousand footfalls. It gleamed.

  “You know, it’s really unusual to find a basement in San Diego,” Collingsworth was saying to Bishop. “One of the reasons we bought the place. Estelle was from back east . . .”

  Kick cleared the stairs and stepped into the basement. She knew better than to let herself hope, but the stairs had seemed so familiar, she allowed herself a brief fantasy that this might be the place.

  But confronted with the new drywall, lighting, and carpet, she hesitated. Basement stairs were basement stairs. They all creaked. They all had worn paint. Now that she was in the basement, it was nothing like she remembered it. She had no reference point to get her bearings. She looked despairingly at Bishop.

  “Give it a minute,” Bishop said.

  Collingsworth’s white eyebrows drew together. “Say, you don’t think someone is buried down here?” he asked.

  Bishop didn’t answer. Something had caught his eye. He turned to Collingsworth. “You do a lot of this work yourself, Mr. Collingsworth?” he asked.

  Collingsworth glanced away sheepishly. “Yeah.”

  “So no permits, then,” Bishop said slowly.

  “I, uh . . .”

  “It’s okay,” Bishop said. He gave Collingsworth a reassuring smile. “We don’t work for the city.”

  Kick was looking around the basement, trying to figure out what Bishop was seeing.

  Then she spotted it. The other walls were drywall, but this one was paneled with knotty pine, like a rustic accent wall in some 1970s rec room. Kick moved toward it.

  “That’s not a load-bearing wall,” Bishop said to Collingsworth. “Was that here when you bought the place?”

  Kick knew the answer was no before Collingsworth even grumbled a response. The wall was out of place. The geometry didn’t fit.

  “You know what’s on the other side of it?” Bishop asked.

  “Dirt?” Collingsworth guessed. “It’s a half basement. Not uncommon around here. If you’re lucky enough to have a basement, you take what you can get.”

  Kick scanned the room again, trying to overlay her memories on top of the well-lit, well-scrubbed, finished space she was standing in. The concrete floor, the cobwebs, the old sheet Klugman had hung to act as a backdrop for filming. She had crossed that concrete floor to visit James. She had come down the stairs and walked straight across the basement. The pine wall was in the right place.

  “You have the house inspected before you bought it?” Bishop asked.

  “Bought it for a song,” Collingsworth said. “Didn’t need a loan.”

  Kick put her cheek to the wall and pressed her skin against the knotty pine until it felt like the wood grain was being imprinted on her flesh. Then she knocked—shave and a haircut—and listened for a mechanical click.

  “Exactly what do you two think is on the other side of that wall?” Collingsworth asked.

  “The cell the man who used to live here kept a child in,” Kick said.

  Collingsworth reddened and stepped back. Bishop sighed and shook his head.

  She didn’t care.

  She moved her face along the pine boards and then stopped and knocked again. She didn’t know if the room was still there, if the locking mechanism would even work after all these years, if she’d even hear the click through the knotty pine. But for the first time since they’d walked into that house, she was certain that this was the place. Her skin prickled. Her mouth felt hot. She moved her cheek and knocked again. She had to concentrate, to listen as hard as she could.

  Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned. Collingsworth stood behind her with a sledgehammer. Behind him, a utility room door was open.

  “Step aside,” he said. He lifted the sledgehammer. “I was a Seabee in the navy. I’ve got grandkids. If there’s some kind of cell back there, let’s find it.”

  Kick ducked out of the way and Collingsworth swung the sledgehammer at the center of the pine wall. Wood splintered and the hammer stuck in the wall for a minute before Collingsworth pulled it free. Muscles rippled underneath the loose skin of his arms. This time drywall dust filled the air and whole boards clattered to the carpet.

  Kick could taste the drywall dust grit in her mouth. She took a few steps back, covered her mouth with her hand, and closed her eyes.

  She heard Collingsworth whack the wall again, and there was another great thwack as more wood gave way, and Kick felt the dust in the air thicken.

  Collingsworth started coughing. Kick peeked an eye open. Collingsworth was covered with a fine white powder like he’d been rolled in flour. Splinters and chunks of drywall lay on the floor at his feet. He heaved the sledgehammer into the air again, but his lungs gave out before he could get it above his shoulder. He spit on the floor, set his mouth determinedly, tried again, and started wheezing. Kick was certain that he was going to have a heart attack. She wondered bleakly if they could be blamed for it.

  Bishop was already taking off his blazer. He laid it across the back of a recliner and approached Collingsworth with a polite smile. “May I?” he asked, indicating the sledgehammer. “I have always wanted to use one of these things.”

  Kick was breathing through her fingers. Dust was settling on Bishop’s gray shirt like snow.

  Collingsworth turned the sledgehammer over to him and stepped out of the cloud. Bishop swung it above his shoulder, held it like a batter staring down a pitch, grinned happily, and slammed it through the wall.

  A few minutes later Bishop, sweating and beaming like a kid, had smashed a four-foot-square hole into the wall. “That was fun,” he said. He lifted his T-shirt up and wiped some of the pulverized drywall off his face.

  Kick tried to peer through the opening, but it was too dark and the dust was too thick.

  “Is there a room?” she asked.

  “Oh, there’s a room,” Bishop said, and he picked up the hammer, held it forward with a straight arm, and extended it beyond the wall into the darkness, all the way to his armpit. Kick’s eyes stung from the grit in the air. More chunks of drywall and splinters of wood littered the carpet.

  “You need a flashlight?” Collingsworth asked Bishop.

  They both had white dust in their hair and on their ey
elashes.

  “That’s exactly what I need,” Bishop said.

  Collingsworth tromped off to the utility room, leaving a trail of white footprints, and came back with an assortment of industrial flashlights and lanterns. “Earthquake country,” he said, by way of explanation, and he handed an LED camp lantern to Bishop.

  Bishop turned the lantern on and stretched it into the darkness.

  “Oh my God,” Kick whispered, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Bishop leaned in, moving the light around, but Kick stood ramrod straight, trying to absorb what she saw.

  A rotting mattress lay on the concrete floor surrounded by stacks of yellowing paperbacks and moldy posters curling from the walls; a seatless toilet sat in the corner, and pop cans were scattered across the floor, coated with dust. Beyond the effects of age, the room had been preserved exactly as it had been when James was kept in it.

  “Is it what you remember?” Bishop asked her.

  “It’s exactly how I remember it,” Kick said slowly. She felt dazed, like she was entering a dream. “I don’t think anyone’s been in this room since James.”

  “Hold this,” Bishop said, handing Kick the lantern. He pivoted away, already dialing someone on his phone.

  Collingsworth stepped forward, gazed solemnly into the room, and took off his cap.

  “It’s me,” Bishop said into the phone. “I need you to run a check on a name and address for me. Rental records. Tax records. Anything you can find.” He paused. “Klugman. . . . I don’t know how it’s spelled. You find out for me. . . . I don’t know the first name. He was at this address fourteen years ago.” He rattled off the address.

  The posters were so moldy that Kick couldn’t make out what they were; she couldn’t remember.

  “I’m going to take a look around,” Bishop said. He was wearing latex gloves now and took the lantern back from her, then stepped through the broken wall.

  “I’ll come with you,” Kick said quickly.

  “It’s a crime scene,” Bishop said, looking back at her through the hole, his face lit by the lantern. “Think back: we’ve been over this.”