The Scarecrow

It was almost midnight and traffic on the freeway was light. We took the 101 across the bottom of the San Fernando Valley and then down through the Cahuenga Pass. Rachel exited on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and headed west.

My house was on Curson a block south of Sunset. It was a nice neighborhood full of mostly small houses built for middle-class families that had long since been priced out of the neighborhood. I had a two-bedroom Craftsman with a separate single-car garage in the back. The backyard was so small, even a Chihuahua would have felt cramped. I had bought the place twelve years earlier with money from the sale of my book on the Poet. I split every check I got from the deal with my brother’s widow to help her raise and educate their daughter. It had been a while since I had seen a royalty check and even longer since I had seen my niece, but I had the house and the kid’s education to show for that time in my life. When I had gotten divorced, my wife made no claim on the house, since I had already owned it, and now I had only three years of mortgage payments before it was mine free and clear.

Rachel pulled in and drove down the driveway to the rear of the property. She parked but left the car’s lights on. They shone brightly on the closed garage door. We got out and approached slowly, like bomb techs moving toward a man in a dynamite vest.

“I never lock it,” I said. “I never keep anything in it worth stealing except for the car itself.”

“Then, do you lock the car?”

“No. Most of the time I forget.”

“What about this time?”

“I think I forgot.”

It was a pull-up garage door. I reached down and raised it and we stepped in. An automatic light went on above and we stared at the trunk of my BMW. I already had the key ready. I pushed the button and we heard the fump of the trunk lock releasing.

Rachel stepped forward without hesitation and raised the trunk lid.

Except for a bag of clothes I’d been meaning to drop at the Salvation Army, the trunk was empty.

Rachel had been holding her breath. I heard her slowly releasing it.

“Yeah,” I said. “I thought for sure…”

She slammed the trunk closed angrily.

“What, you’re upset that she’s not in there?” I asked.

“No, Jack, I’m upset because I’m being manipulated. He had me thinking in a certain way and that was my mistake. It won’t happen again. Come on, let’s check the house to be sure.”

Rachel went back and turned her lights off and then we went through the back door and into the kitchen. The house smelled musty but it always did when it was closed up. It didn’t help that there were overly ripe bananas in the fruit bowl on the counter. I led the way through, turning lights on as we went. The place looked unchanged from the way I had left it. Reasonably neat but with too many stacks of newspapers on tables and the floor next to the living room couch.

“Nice place,” Rachel said.

We checked the guest room, which I used as an office, and found nothing unusual. While Rachel moved on to the master bedroom I swung behind the desk and booted up my desktop computer. I had Internet access but still couldn’t get into my Times e-mail account. My password was rejected. I angrily shut down the computer and left the office, catching up to Rachel in my bedroom. The bed had been left unmade because I wasn’t expecting visitors. It was stuffy and I went to open a window while Rachel checked the closet.

“Why don’t you have this on a wall somewhere, Jack?” she asked.

I turned. She had discovered the framed print of the full-page ad that had run for my book in the New York Times. It had been in the closet for two years.

“It used to be in the office, but after ten years with nothing else to follow, it sort of started mocking me. So I put it in there.”

She nodded and stepped into the bathroom. I held my breath, not knowing what kind of sanitary condition it was in. I heard the shower curtain being slid open, then Rachel stepped back out into the bedroom.

“You ought to clean your bathtub, Jack. Who are all the women?”

“What?”

She pointed to the bureau, where there was a row of framed photos on little easels. I pointed as I went down the line.

“Niece, sister-in-law, mother, ex-wife.”

Rachel raised her eyebrows.

“ Ex-wife? You were able to get over me, then.”

She smiled and I smiled back.

“It didn’t last long. She was a reporter. When I first came to the Times we shared the cop beat. One thing led to another and we got married. Then it sort of went away. It had been a mistake. She works in the Washington bureau now and we’re still friends.”

I wanted to say more but something made me resist. Rachel turned and headed back to the hallway. I followed her into the living room. We stood there, looking at each other.

“What now?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to think on it. I should probably let you get some sleep. Are you going to be all right here?”

“Sure, why not? Besides, I’ve got a gun.”

“You have a gun? Jack, what are you doing with a gun?”