Chapter 3
After a successful lunch break, Sam was settling quite happily into the afternoon's art lesson of still life drawing with pencils and pastels and was startled when Al suddenly appeared over his left shoulder.
"Sam, we need to talk. I've uncovered something and it's pretty big news. Can you get out of here for a bit?"
"Can't you talk to me here?" Sam whispered. "It's only been half an hour since lunch ended. Mrs Adams is going to think something's wrong with me if I say I need to use the bathroom already."
"I don't care what excuse you use. I could talk to you here, but when you hear what I have to say, you're going to want to talk back to me and then she really will think something's wrong with you."
Reluctantly Sam raised his hand and when Mrs Adams had finished talking with another child, she came over.
"How're you doing, Zach?" She looked down at his work. "That's coming along beautifully. Well done, Zach. I can see you've been making a real effort in class today."
"Thanks. Umm, could I please be excused?"
"Is there somewhere you need to be, Zach?"
"I just have to use the bathroom."
Miss Adams gave him a look of mock disapproval. "Go on then. Try to remember to go at lunchtime though, Zach."
"Yes, Ma'am." He got up and quickly followed Al from the room.
"What's the big news, Al?" Sam blurted out as soon as he had shut the classroom door. As he spoke, he noticed that there was a teacher and two children a little further up the corridor, who had all turned to see what the outburst was about. Without another word, Sam darted in the other direction towards the bathroom. As he got there, Al re-centred on him, but Sam didn't speak again until he had checked they were alone.
He leaned up against the sink unit. "What's going on, Al?"
"I did what you said. I looked up Zach's mother. The mother who walked out on him nearly two years ago. Sarah Jane Slater. She's now using her maiden name, Clement. Lives in Atlanta with her two daughters, Amy and Lucy, aged four and two. Just one problem. She isn't his mother."
"What?"
"She married Peter Slater in November 1982, when Zach was three years old."
"So, they got married after Zach was born."
"Right. A year after Mrs Emma Slater died. She was Zach's mother, Sam. She died when he was two. The second Mrs Slater left without Zach, because he wasn't her child to take."
"How did she die?"
"Electrocution. Accidental apparently. She died at the house."
"Does Zach know yet?"
"No. I guess he doesn't remember. I think he needs to know, though. Just haven't figured out what to say to him yet."
Sam thought for a moment. "I suppose that puts an end to my plan to get Zach out of here."
"Sorry, Sam. Maybe you have to accept that he's meant to stay, and we'll prepare him to cope with that. How are things going here?"
"School shouldn't be a problem. Everyone's been really receptive to the way I've been acting today. If you can teach Zach to be confident in himself, and a bit about how to take care of himself, I think people will be ready to accept him when he comes back."
"That's great, but it's not what I meant."
"The quarry? I've been thinking about that too, Al. Nothing's happened to suggest that anyone here was involved. I mean, assuming I haven't changed anything."
Al tapped at the handlink. "No, nothing's changed. Zach still dies in the quarry. So if it's not the school kids, that leaves accident, suicide, or Zach's father."
"Not suicide, Al."
"OK," Al conceded. "Having got to know Zach a bit, I'm inclined to agree with you. My money's on the father, especially now that we know about Zach's real mother."
"That really could have been an accident though. He hasn't been violent with me at all. Just unresponsive."
"But he has hit Zach before. We have a very delicate situation here, Sam. I think you need to find a way to confront Peter Slater about Zach's mother. Maybe you can help him to get past his demons, so that he can be a father to Zach again. Trouble is, talking to him about Zach's mother is the thing that could really set him off. Whether accident or murder, perhaps it's what got Zach killed."
"No," Sam quickly disagreed. "Zach didn't even know what I know about his mother."
Al raised his eyebrows. "Yet ..."
"You think he found out?"
"I don't know. You've been living at the house. Could he have stumbled across something?"
"Not unless he went digging for it. There's not even so much as a family photo on display." There was silence for a moment, then Sam sharply drew in a breath. "My homework!"
"What?"
"This morning, Mrs Adams set us homework. We have to find something at home that means something to us and write about it. On Monday we have to bring the special item in and read out what we've written. I was thinking of Zach's diary, or perhaps Scruff. But what if Zach went looking for something more important?" Sam paused. "Does Ziggy have anything to say about this?"
Al tapped at the handlink, frowned, shook it and thumped it. "It seems Ziggy's saying nothing."
"Ever helpful," Sam commented sarcastically.
"Looks like it's down to you, Sam. Listen, I want you to be really careful with this. You might end up doing exactly what Zach did that got him into danger. But if you don't do it now, Zach might still do it at a later date and then he might still die."
"I'll be careful. Don't forget, I'm bigger and stronger than, Zach. I can fight back. Maybe that's what it'll take to get through to his father. Speaking of back, I need to get back. I've been out of class for ages."
"OK, I'll catch up with you when you get back from school." Al watched Sam head out of the bathroom, then turned his attention back to the handlink. "Gooshie, center me on Peter Slater."
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Al found himself centred in a large, empty and undecorated room of a newly constructed house. The roar of a power tool reverberated through the house from another room, while in this room Peter Slater was crouched on the floor, concentrating intently on wiring up an electric socket in the wall.
"So you're an electrician. That's an interesting discovery," Al said aloud. "At least you don't seem to be drunk yet. How about you try staying that way for your son tonight?"
Al sat down on his chair and centred himself beside the man. He stayed for several minutes just watching him, and found himself surprised at how focused and diligent he seemed to be in his work. Peter Slater seemed to be just an ordinary, hard-working man. His face was more probably more haggard than it should be for a man of his age – Al surmised that years of alcohol and depression had contributed to that – but he couldn't see the face of a killer. Still, Al knew all too well how drunkenness could affect behavior.
Feeling that there was nothing more to be gained by watching the man at work, he opened the Imaging Chamber door and went back to check on Zach.
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Sam made his way home on the bus adopting the same air of confidence that he had used throughout the day. This time he had no trouble from the other kids, although none of his friends from class were on the bus and nobody else sat with him.
As he made his way up his street, Mrs Williams waved at him from her veranda and Sam walked up her path to chat with her.
"How're your knees today, Zach."
"A bit better, thanks."
"Do you need me to cover them for you again?"
"No, I think I'm just going to leave them open to the air."
"Well, that's probably the best thing. Can I offer you a drink?"
Sam gratefully accepted and sat chatting with Mrs Williams about his homework assignment. He wondered if she might let something slip about Zach's real mother, but all he learned was that Mrs Williams had only lived in the neighborhood for two years. After about twenty minutes he politely thanked her for the drink and quickly set off back home. He didn't want Peter to come home to find 'Zach' searching through his bedroom.
Arriving back at the house, he checked to make sure nobody was home, before making his way into Peter's bedroom. He turned on the light rather than opening the curtains and did a brief look round the room for anything obvious. Seeing how much junk and miscellaneous paperwork was stuffed under the bed, in the wardrobe, on the shelves and anywhere else where there was free space, he felt overwhelmed with what a big job this was going to be and for a moment, was unsure where to begin. Got to start somewhere, he told himself and he sat down on the floor beside the bed.
Over the next forty-five minutes, Sam pulled everything out from under the bed and then, finding nothing of particular interest, quickly stuffed it all away again. He moved on to the chest of drawers, which was mostly filled with clothes. It didn't take him long to find that there was no evidence to be gained there.
He was about to start on the wardrobe, but opening the door, he was again disheartened by the chaos that awaited him and instead slumped to the floor for a rest. An old guitar was tucked beside the wardrobe and he pulled it into his lap. One string was broken and he plucked at the others in turn, not surprised to find them out of tune.
Resting the guitar back against the side of the wardrobe, he stood up and blew out a deep breath as he surveyed the contents of the wardrobe. As he did so, Al suddenly appeared beside him with no warning. Sam was startled and jolted visibly.
"Hey, you're jumpy! It's only me."
"Where is he, Al? He's nowhere close is he?"
"No, I just checked on him. He's at a bar somewhere. It's Friday night. He probably won't be home for hours. So calm down."
"I just don't want him to catch me in here." The tension caused by snooping where he felt he wasn't meant to be was starting to get to Sam.
"You keep searching and let me worry about Peter Slater," Al reassured him.
"I'm not sure I can stand to keep searching without any guarantee that I will actually find anything. Look at this wardrobe. It's going to take forever to look through all this stuff."
"You might not have to. I've been talking with Zach."
"What did he say?"
"Well, firstly, there's an attic in this house."
"Yes, of course there is. I forgot about that. The access is in the ceiling between this room and Zach's." Sam crossed to the bedroom door and looked out into the hallway to confirm this to himself. "But do you think Zach could have got up there by himself?"
"I know he can. He's been telling me all about it."
Sam groaned. "Great. Another whole room to search. It's probably worse than this one."
"Hold on. I've got a target for you to aim for. I told him about the homework and asked him what special thing he would write about."
Al paused deliberately and watched amused as the impatience grew in Sam's face.
"Zach told me that after his grandma died, his dad had to clear out her house and he brought some of her stuff back here. Zach helped him put it in the attic. There was a little box of old toys that belonged to Zach's dad when he was a kid – little cars and farm animals and stuff – and Zach wanted to play with them, but his dad made him leave them up there. So since then, Zach's been going up to play with them on Friday nights. He knows his dad's always back late on Fridays. There's a step ladder leaning against the back wall of the house by the back door and it's just about tall enough for him to get up there. He told me that if he did that homework, he would write about the toys and he would sneak a couple of them out of the attic to take to school. He likes them because it makes him think about what his dad might have been like when he was a little boy."
"So maybe that's why he got into trouble with his dad – he was caught red-handed with the toys. It was probably nothing to do with finding out about his mom."
"Wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"I asked Ziggy."
"Oh, now she's talking?"
"Apparently. And she gives only a forty-two percent probability that it was the toys that got him into trouble. So I think he found something else up there."
Sam looked at Al. "Where did you say the ladder was?"
"Against the back wall, by the back door."
Sam opened the door and looked outside. "Here it is. It's pretty big for a little kid to carry though … oh, but not that heavy," he added as he lifted it. He carried the ladder inside and set it up directly beneath the access hatch.
"Al, could you just check on Peter again."
"OK. Gooshie, center me on Slater." Al vanished.
Sam climbed up the ladder and pushed the hatch cover aside. From the top of the ladder, he was able to step up into the attic quite easily. Al re-appeared within seconds.
"He's still at the bar, Sam. You're safe to keep looking for a while yet."
"Good." Sam was already looking inside what Al assumed was some of Zach's grandma's furniture.
Al began a visual search on the other side of the attic. "The box of toys is here, Sam," he called a few moments later. Then after another moment, he added, "Sam, what do you suppose Peter keeps in the guitar case, if the guitar's in his room?"
"What?"
"Over here." Al pointed at a solid, black guitar case that Zach appeared to have used as a table while playing with the toys.
Sam went over and stood beside Al. "Probably nothing." He crouched down on the floor by the case. "But it wouldn't hurt to check." He carefully cleared the toys from the top, unclipped the three fasteners and lifted the lid.
The two stared silently at the neatly arranged contents for a moment, and then Sam reached in and pulled a beautiful, framed photograph of a younger, happier Peter Slater, a pretty, dark haired, young woman and a dark haired toddler. He turned to Al, who smiled sadly back at him. Sam put the photograph down and turned back to the case, gently fingering his way through the remaining contents: another framed photograph of Zach as a baby, several films worth of unframed photographs, a small box of jewellery and a watch, a hairbrush that still contained long strands of dark hair, a favorite wool sweater, a small, white Bible bearing the names of Peter and Emma and the date of their marriage inside the cover, a sea shell, Emma's birth certificate, their marriage certificate and her death certificate.
"Memories from a short but happy marriage," Al commented.
"Hmmm." Sam shut the case without putting the framed family portrait back.
"You going to show that to him?" Al asked, pointing to the photograph.
"Yeah," Sam replied, looking thoughtfully at it.
"OK. Now that the search is over, how about you go and have something to eat?"
"Yeah, I probably should." Sam set the box of toys back on the case and stood up. "What's the time?"
"Just after six."
Al made for the hatch, but instead of following, Sam hovered by the guitar case, before crouching back down and picking his way through the toys in the box.
"Sam, what are you doing?
Sam didn't answer at first and Al came back to see for himself. After some thought, Sam selected a red car, a cowboy on a horse and three cows from the box. He looked up at Al. "For Zach's homework. Tell him for me."
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