The Family Across the Street by Nicole Trope
17
Logan
Logan
It’s the most innocuous-looking police station Logan has ever seen. It reminds him of the foyer of an office building, with its white melamine counter and some fake leather benches against a light blue wall, a vibrant potted plant in the corner. Everything about it tells whoever walks in that this is not a threatening place. There are no drunks asleep on the couches and no jittery junkies waiting for their ride home, just an empty space and one policewoman standing behind the counter, looking at a computer, engaged in what Logan thinks may actually be a game of Solitaire. It’s a suburban police station in a suburb where cats go missing and sometimes parties run past midnight and the neighbours can’t get to sleep on time. The only smell is of a pine-scented disinfectant mixed with a sweet fragrance from the flowers blooming in pots outside the door.
Logan wonders if the police who work here have ever seen anything scarier than a domestic disturbance over who parked over whose driveway. But then he thinks about the woman in the nice house in the nice street quite close to here. There is something scary going on over there. He knows that sometimes the nicest houses belonging to people with the widest smiles conceal the worst horrors. He met some people in prison who had all the manners of the private-school-educated, who were sharp and clever, and who were in prison for murder and rape.
He shivers a little as he walks inside, as much from the cranked-up air conditioning as from an old learned fear about the nature of police stations and their life-changing sinister magic. Six years ago, he walked into one a worried man with a bandaged hand and was driven away a charged criminal, and his life will never be the same. He loiters in the front for a minute without approaching the counter, fighting the urge to turn and just run. I didn’t leave any prints. No one knows.
The woman in the big house is not his problem, she really isn’t. His fear over having to deal with the police tells him to just leave it alone – but instinct will not let go. The woman in the big house is in trouble and he knows it. Why would the kid have mentioned a gun? What made him or her say ‘ow’ and who is the man who told him to go away? He feels like he’s playing one of those detective games, piecing together clues, but this is not a game. Even if he could dismiss the woman, he can’t dismiss the kids. Maybe if one of the neighbours in his suburb or one of his teachers had noticed something off about him – had spotted a bruise or two, had clicked that his loner behaviour was not normal and stepped in – he would have grown up an entirely different human being. Someone has to look out for the kids.
He keeps thinking about Maddy in her hospital bed. He asked Debbie to get her friend to send him a picture. ‘Why would you want to see that?’ Debbie asked over text. ‘I need to,’ was the best he could do.
The shock of her bandaged head and the tube coming out of her mouth had stolen the air from his lungs. There was no real way to tell it was his sister in the bed but he knew it was. In his van only minutes ago he had dropped his head and closed his eyes. Please let her survive this.
Now he pushes his shoulders back and strides up to the counter. He’s done his time and he’s trying to help. And no one saw his one last sad desperate act. No one saw it and no one knows about it and he’s not going to let that prevent him from getting someone help.
The policewoman is dressed in a uniform with a tactical vest and a gun at her side. Logan is sure that without the air conditioning she would be sweating buckets. It’s a lot of weight to have to carry, and the short, blonde-haired policewoman doesn’t look like she weighs much.
‘Can I help you?’ she asks, her face neutral as her eyes dart up and down assessing him, his size and the coloured edges of his tattoos peeking out of his sleeves at his wrists, the words on his hands, the words on his face.He watches her lips move slightly as she reads the tiny letters under one cheekbone that spell out: I refuse to sink.
He imagines she think he’s lost.
‘Um yeah… it’s kind of strange… I’m not really sure how to explain it.’
The policewoman’s hand goes to her side, rests on her gun. ‘Start at the beginning?’ she suggests.
‘Okay, so I’m a delivery driver with Pack and Go, as you can see,’ begins Logan, pointing to the logo on his shirt, where a smiling box is circled with a clock, hoping that it gives him a reasonable amount of legitimacy, ‘and I went to a house this morning at around seven thirty to drop off a computer but the woman wouldn’t open the door. She needed to sign for the package but she wouldn’t open the door…’
‘Don’t you have procedures for that sort of thing?’ the woman asks and Logan can see her stifle a yawn. Right now, he’s the most interesting thing she’s seen all day and she’s already bored with what he has to say. He’s not used to being dismissed so easily.
‘No,’ he attempts to keep his frustration in check, ‘I’m worried that there is something going on in her house, something that’s stopping her from opening the door. I think she’s in trouble. Her name is Katherine West.’ Logan feels his shoulders relax a little. He’s told someone who can actually do something about it now.
‘I went back to try and deliver the parcel again and a kid said something about a real gun through the door, and then the kid said, “Ow,” and some guy told me to go away.’ Logan feels his certainty wither as he speaks. He sounds like he’s a bit mad.
‘Is it usual for delivery drivers to return a second time to try and deliver a parcel? Don’t you just leave a note and drop it at the post office?’
‘Yeah, we do usually, but I feel like something is going on at that house.’
‘Sorry, what did you say your name was?’
‘I didn’t. What difference does it make?’ Logan’s stomach turns over just once – this is not good.
‘What is your name?’ the policewoman asks very slowly and clearly, making sure he understands the question, a small smile playing on her lips.
Logan considers lying but she could just call the company. She knows where he works now and Mack only has ten drivers. He also thinks about just telling her to forget it but he’s piqued her interest now. He’s done a very, very stupid thing by coming in here.
‘Logan Clarkson,’ he says softly, ‘but I have no idea why that matters. I can give you the address of the woman’s house and you can send a car to check it out. All I wanted to do was tell you that I’m concerned about her.’
‘And how long have you known Ms West?’ she asks, her fingers tapping on her keyboard.
Logan feels his hands form into fists. He knows exactly what’s going on here.
‘I don’t know the woman. I am a delivery driver. I tried to make a delivery and she wouldn’t open the door and I found that strange. I’m concerned for her welfare.’
‘Is Katherine related to you in any way?’ Her tone is flat, her voice devoid of interest or emotion. But he knows she’s asking the questions this way so that he will slip up and give her an answer he doesn’t mean to give her.
‘Look… no… no, I told you, I’m just doing my deliveries.’ He struggles to keep his frustration out of his voice. ‘I don’t know anything about her. She’s got nothing to do with me.’
The policewoman throws him a look and then reads her computer screen, her lips moving as she does so. She looks up at him. Her hand goes back to the gun at her side. There is a small twitch right next to her eye. He can tell she’s a little – just a little – unsure now and worried about what he may do. He’s big enough to leap over her nice white counter.
‘Well, we will certainly send a car, Mr Clarkson. Am I correct in saying that you have served three years in prison for break and enter and assault?’
Logan knows that she’s stopped listening to him about anything at all. She is more concerned about his record. His past is not going to let go.
‘Yes,’ he replies, polite and careful. He knows that even the smallest misstep could land him back in jail.
‘We’ve had a few break-ins in the houses around this area over the last few months. You may be right to be concerned.’ She gives him a half-smile and even though he is a lot bigger than she is, his skin pricks with fear. He is a mouse to her cat and one wrong word will allow her to catch a hold of him.
‘Okay, and the address of the house you tried to get into is…?’
Logan registers the words; registers the way she has phrased her question. ‘I didn’t try and get into it. I just wanted her to sign for a parcel.’
‘And the address was?’
‘It’s um…’ Logan swallows. The policewoman’s face is making him nervous. ‘It’s twenty-four Hogarth, no sorry Holborn, twenty-four or twenty-six…’ He shakes his head. He’s been to the house twice today. How could he possibly have forgotten the address?
‘It’s on my phone, but I…’ He searches in his pockets. He has left his phone in the van.
‘I understand,’ says the policewoman, a hard edge to her voice. ‘Perhaps you can wait here while I go and get a detective. You can explain it to him. And then we can go and get your phone together. Please don’t move, Mr Clarkson. I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Fine,’ says Logan.
The policewoman turns and walks to the back of reception, where there is a door. She opens it and looks around, perhaps hoping to catch someone’s attention. She looks back at him quickly and then she steps into the back area, leaving him alone at the front.
Logan feels himself starting to sweat in the frigid space. He’s going to get hauled back there and then things are only going to go one way after that. He won’t be able to control his temper, he knows he won’t. He was just trying to do the right thing. And they may know something.
He shouldn’t be here. He should be waiting at the airport, hoping to get on an earlier plane so he can be with his sister. This woman has nothing to do with him and he bears no responsibility for what is happening in that house. He bounces on the balls of his feet, desperate to run. He takes a deep breath, hoping to calm himself, but his heart rate speeds up and he can’t stop himself from turning around and bolting out of the police station, down the concrete stairs and across the road to where he has parked his van. His body moves without him forming a plan. He knows he needs to run.
‘Mr Clarkson,’ he hears as he climbs into his van. He starts the engine and drives off before he’s even put his seat belt on, panic making his hands shake.
Debbie was right. He should have just left it alone.
‘You’re such an idiot!’ he shouts as he slams his hand on the steering wheel. When he feels he’s put enough space between him and the police station, he pulls into a side road and, sitting in his seat, he rips open the long-sleeved shirt he is wearing, ignoring the buttons that go flying, hitting the floor and the window with light cracking sounds. He takes it off and throws it on the floor and pulls a T-shirt he keeps in the van over his head. His tattoos are clearly on display. It doesn’t matter anyway. It doesn’t matter how hard he’s trying to live a good life, how tightly he is clinging to the straight and narrow, or who he fundamentally is. He will always be a man with a criminal past first, last and every time.
He’s going to get on with the rest of his day, and when they come for him, he’ll lie like the criminal he is and say that he actually made a mistake and tried to deliver to the wrong house or some other rubbish. He hopes they send a car and knock on doors in the neighbourhood. It was Hogarth Street, he’s sure. They’ll probably go and check. They’ll find the house. He’s sure they will. They have her name as well. It will only take minutes to figure out the right address, although they may question why he gave them the wrong one.
‘Enough,’ he rebukes himself. ‘Enough, enough, enough.’
He is done being concerned about the woman. Debbie is right. It’s really not his problem.
He only has a few deliveries left and then he’s done – done with everything that has happened today.
She has his name now. That was stupid, but all his record will show is that he’s done his time. His fingerprints are on file too. Would they dust for fingerprints if nothing was taken? Moved but not taken. He caught himself just in time. But was it just in time, or has he now alerted the police so they will take the time to check?
He can’t go back to prison. There’s just no way. A ball bounces into the street in front of his van and he registers it but doesn’t think, and only when a small child races onto the road does he slam on the brakes, the tyres screeching to a stop and filling the air with a burning rubber smell that comes in despite the air conditioning being on high.
‘Get a grip, Logan!’ he shouts as a panicked mother darts into the street to retrieve the child and the ball, waving her apologies as she does. It could have gone another way. He’s not concentrating. Life changes in a split second. He doesn’t have the luxury of split seconds anymore.