The Auctioneer

The Moores stopped at the outskirts of the crowd. Bob Gore, Ezra Stone, and Tom Pulver were moving in on the house with their pistols drawn. They crouched like cats, sheltering behind yew bushes and honeysuckle, and seeking out the denser darkness behind the trees.

Stand back, Gore shouted over his shoulder. “He may be armed.”

The people in front fell back a step or two.

“Who, Perly?” John asked.

“Ezra claims he’s in there,” said Sam Parry, turning to scowl at John.

Ian James came running across the green from the firehouse with a bullhorn on the end of a long cord. He looked up at the dazzling house for a moment, glanced back at the people, then lifted the bullhorn to his mouth. His amplified words seemed to be coming from all corners of the green at once. “All right, Dunsmore. Come on out with your hands on your head.”

The house with its lights seemed to twinkle in the stillness. The lynx on the weathervane turned from side to side, and a few last leaves fluttered down from the tops of the maples.

People waited, scanning the transparent windows.

“Let’s go get him,” yelled a stinging tenor voice from the edge of the crowd.

Turning, the people saw Jimmy Carroll, looking thin and hard in his old denim jacket. No one had seen him since he left Emmie in the nursing home and vanished with their remaining children.

“Jimmy!” cried Agnes.

He began to run. As he approached the front door of the house, he wheeled around and faced the people. “I’m goin’ to kill him,” he warned. “For Emmie.”

“Don’t!” shouted Bob Gore. “Hey!” He ran to the bottom steps of the porch and waved his arms to intercept Carroll. But Carroll leaped into the air with a grating yell and shouldered him out of the way.

Gore staggered and paused.

Carroll hit the latch, and the heavy front door fell open before him. He vanished inside, and moments later the hushed crowd heard the jangle of shattering glass.

“Let’s go!” cried Cogswell, shaking loose from Agnes, but hesitating, waiting for others.

The people began to jostle one another fitfully, but they held back.

Suddenly, they were stilled by a cry like the yelp of a wounded fox. Molly Tucker ran up onto the porch and turned to bang her hand on the railing. She was a small brown woman whose thin wrists and ankles protruded sticklike from a frayed blue coat. Her family had not let her come to town since her youngest son was drowned in a well. Now her whistling syllables shrilled out over the heads of the people, garbled by the commotion and her frenzy.

Mickey broke out of the crowd and galloped up the stairs, past Molly and into the house. Arthur Stinson and Frank Lovelace followed him, running. Ian James and Ezra Stone exchanged a look and moved deliberately up the porch steps together.

John pushed Ma’s hand away from his arm and headed for the house. By the time he reached the porch steps, he was in a crush of bodies trying to get inside. A few people at the edges broke away to try the other doors.

Bob Gore was shouting objections and shaking his gun at the people, his face contorted with frustration. But the noise on the green had risen to such a pitch that his effort to protect the house had no more effect than a dumb show.

Pushed from behind, John could do nothing as he moved past Gore’s gun except eye it warily. Finally, Gore turned away, shaking his head. Already, dozens of dark figures flowed back and forth across the lighted windows.

Once he was inside, the press of people dissolved, and John was free. He paused. Everything gleamed. The deep color of oriental rugs over polished oak floors had replaced Amelia’s linoleum, and a delicate crystal chandelier hung where her pink glass fixture had been. Everywhere there was light and the glow of well-oiled wood.

John started up the broad staircase three stairs at a time, his feet silenced by the deep blue carpet, his fingers touching the dark banister at the curves.

Upstairs, he ran until he was stopped by a door at the end of the hall. He pulled it open and found himself in a bedroom. A row of lights near the floor made the white walls glow. John turned slowly, examining the bed with its green velvet spread, the oak chiffonier, the small painted table and chair. Quietly, he moved to the closet door and jerked it open. Inside, a row of dark suits hung on hangers. John jabbed at them with a stiff arm, and they began to swing back and forth without a sound. Despite the fact that the three pairs of shoes on the floor were clearly empty, John kept staring, expecting Perly to materialize before him.

From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of something that made him whirl around—a dark green figure gliding smoothly by the door. He ran for the hall and shouted. But the man who turned, his face white with alarm, was Walter French.