“THE vacuum sucked up the edge,” Thomas said as I came into the house, leaving Dad’s laptop on the porch chair. He pointed. The power head appeared to have digested half of a carpet runner that ran between the front door and the kitchen. The machine turned itself off when it jammed.
“Thomas, just pull the carpet back out of it.”
“With my hand?”
“Yes.”
“What if it comes back on and sucks off my fingers?”
“It’s not going to—”
The phone rang.
“Goddamn,” I said. I picked up. “Yeah?”
“Is this Ray Kilbride?” A woman’s voice.
“Yes.”
“Ray, it’s Alice, at Harry Peyton’s office? We were wondering if you had a moment to pop in and sign a few papers related to the processing of your father’s estate.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said, trying to collect my thoughts. “Of course. When does Harry want me to come in?”
“Well, it’s actually pretty quiet here right now. This may not be a convenient time, but if you had a chance—”
“Fine. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I hung up. When I turned around, I nearly bumped into Thomas, who’d been standing only a foot away, awaiting instructions, the disabled vacuum behind him.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I have to go to the lawyer’s office and sign some papers.”
“I’m going to go back to work,” Thomas said, his eyes darting upward. “I’m way behind.”
“Fine. I’ll sort out the vacuum later. I’ll be back in a bit.”
DRIVING into town, I couldn’t stop thinking about why my father would be scouring the Internet for information on child prostitution. The first two search items I could get my head around. He’d been talking about getting a new phone, one that could connect to the Net and take pictures and do any number of other things. And, based on the snippets I had heard lately from Harry and Len, maybe Dad was depressed. He could well have been diagnosing himself.
But child prostitution?
All the places my mind took me were places I did not want to go.
I tried to think of some logical reasons why Dad would be doing such a search. There had to be some.
Think.
Okay. So maybe he’d seen something on television, some news program, about the sexual exploitation of children. He was so appalled by what he’d seen, he wanted to learn more. And the reason for that would be…? Maybe he wanted to make a donation to a charity that was working to free children around the world from this kind of servitude.
Did that sound like my father? Did he have a history of seeking out organizations to give his money to?
No.
He was a good man. There was no question about that. When people needed help, he was there. I could remember, when I was a child, our neighbors’ house—not the Hitchens, but the people on the other side—catching on fire. The fire department got there before the house was destroyed, but there was considerable damage to the kitchen. They had no insurance, couldn’t afford to hire someone to rebuild, and opted to do the work themselves. The only problem was, while they had the determination, they lacked the skills. And while Dad had never worked as a plumber or carpenter, he was a pretty good do-it-yourselfer, having learned those things from his own father. For a month, whenever he had time, Dad worked on that kitchen.
So Dad liked to help, but in a hands-on kind of way. He’d donate time and energy, but he wasn’t a guy who picked up the phone and divulged his credit card number for some humanitarian organization.
So that nixed that reason for researching child prostitution.
Maybe he’d heard that it was a problem in the upper New York State area, and wanted to make sure it wasn’t becoming a problem in Promise Falls. That seemed even more unlikely.
So what other reason?
The one I couldn’t bring myself to consider was that Dad was interested in the subject.
When I got back to the house, I’d check the history of Web sites Dad’s search had led him to. Maybe those sites, whatever they turned out to be, would shed light on my father’s motivations.
I’d heard stories over the years, people discovering things about their parents after they’d died. A mother who’d had a child she’d given up for adoption before she married. A father who’d been having an affair with his secretary. A mother who’d for years kept hidden her pill addiction. A father who’d led a dual life, with a separate, secret family in another part of the country.
Any one of those discoveries would be shocking, but they’d be nothing compared to learning your father was a pervert.
Which I did not know to be true. Which I simply could not believe.
There was one other possibility.
Dad never looked up child prostitution in the first place.
Someone else had been using Dad’s laptop.
“YOU okay, Ray?” Harry Peyton asked as I pulled my chair close to the edge of his desk to sign a few documents.
“Yeah, sure,” I said.