He had said it, finally. He had said it at forty-two in the kitchen on Quarry Lane two weeks after his mother's funeral, when he came over to talk about the house, about whether his father could stay there alone, about an apartment in the senior place in Somers that had a waiting list, and his father had listened to all of it standing at the counter with his back to him, and then he had turned around and said, "You want the house." And Conor had said, "I don't want the goddamn house," and his father had said, "You want it sold. So you get your half," and Conor had said what he said. He did not like to remember exactly what he had said. It had included the words who brings us home and it had included the word never and it had included his mother's name, used in a way that a son should not use his mother's name, two weeks after, and his father had listened to it with no expression at all on his face, and then he had picked up his car keys from the hook by the door and walked out of his own house and driven away and left Conor standing alone in the kitchen. And Conor had stood there for a while, and then he had gone home. And that was nine years ago this past June.
Then the stroke. Kathleen had called him from Tucson that time too. Right side, she said. He's alive. He's asking for you. And Conor had said: Is he? Did he say my name? And Kathleen had been quiet a long time, and then she had said, He said Con. I think. It was hard to tell, Con. His speech. And Conor had driven to the hospital and sat in the parking garage for forty-five minutes and then driven back out, and told himself he would go next week, when the old man could talk, and then it had been four years.
Four years of driving past at eight miles an hour.
So when the dispatcher's voice came over the radio at 12:33, crisp and bored, Mulcahy on the overnight with her Yonkers vowels, he was already rolling, already turning north onto Ridge Road out of the Getty lot with his headlights coming on, because he had heard the train and his body had moved before his mind did.
"Wickham two-one, Wickham."
He keyed the mic on his shoulder. "Two-one."
"Two-one, I've got a caller on Ridge Road, the eleven-hundred block, reports a suspicious person on foot northbound, adult, dark coat, carrying a box. Caller says she observed subject from her residence on her doorbell camera, subject was walking on the shoulder, did not stop, caller states quote no one walks on Ridge Road at this hour unquote. No further."
Eleven-hundred block. That was the Whitfords, the big glass house with the koi pond. Mrs. Whitford called in about twice a month: deer, teenagers, the propane delivery. Conor had come to think of her as a barometer permanently pointing at storm.
Still. Sunday night. Twelve-thirty. The late train in at twelve-twenty-one. Somebody on foot heading north up Ridge Road, which led to Old Church Road at its top, and to Saw Mill Pond Road, and to Twin Lakes. Carrying a box. Not young, Mrs. Lacombe had said. A woman's voice.
"Two-one, copy. En route from Ridge and Thirty-five. Is the caller giving a description beyond dark coat?"