The People in Rossford

The continuation of the story begun in the houses in rossford. If you haven't read the houses in rossford, then you should start there.

These are the people in Rossford, indiana

• Fenn Houghton
• Layla Lawden
• Todd Meraden
• Dena Reardon
• Adele Lawden
• Nell Reardon
• Brendan Miller
• William Klasko
• Tara Veems
• Thomas Mesda
• Paul Anderson
• Noah Riley
• Lee Philips
• Milo Affren
• Brian Babcock
• Claire Anderson
• Julian Lawden
• Danasia Burns

Shoot out

Todd Meradan remembered where Brian had lived years ago. The other night he saw where he lived now. He parked in front of the apartment building and sat there a moment, not sure in the daylight if it was the same. Yes, it was. He remembered the car he parked in front of, and he remembered the number of the brick building: 348.

In the lobby he looked over the brass mailboxes, searching until he found B. Babcock.

“I am in the right building,” Todd murmured. And then he went to the door and jiggled it. But he already knew it was locked. He’d have to wait, or maybe go around the back. That seemed like a wasted trip. Surely it would be locked too. He went to the end of the hall, pressed his face to the glass and wondered if a tenant would come.

Todd was sure it had only been about five minutes, but five minutes feels like forever when you’re not sure waiting will come to anything, or when it will come to something. As he was about to sigh again, and shift his weight to his other hip, he heard the door behind him open and he shouted, turning around.

“Hold that door!”

At the terrified look on the man’s face, Todd added: “Please.”

“There you go,” he said, smiling nervously. “You get locked out?”

“Key’s inside my apartment,” Todd lied, shrugging.

“Well, good luck getting inside.”

So Todd lied further. “My place is still open, thank God.”

He gave a friendly smile and went up the stairs to the third floor. He hadn’t seen an elevator here. Brian had always been a fit person. Todd thought living on the third floor was something like living in hell. Then there was, Todd remembered, the whole problem of getting inside, and the whole problem of, if you got inside, then what would lead him to Brian? Would Brian write a note saying, “In case anyone wants to look for me, I am at…. X.”?

So, there was C-7, Brian’s apartment. Now to get in. He’d seen on TV that people could use credit cards to break into apartments, or hairpins. But Todd figured that if it were that easy locks would be useless. He wondered, could there be a key under the mat?

“That’s stupid,” Fenn would have said. “Why the hell would you put a key under your mat where any crook would look for it?”

“The flower pot?”

“That’s the next place they’d look.”

And Fenn would have added, “Besides, there’s no flower pot here anyway.”

“Then what about—?”

“No,” Fenn would say, “Just… leave the windows unlocked. Always make the house a little break-in-able.”

Todd looked around the hallway. He leaned into the door, and then he shrugged and picked up the mat.

“I’ll be damned,” he murmured.

“Fool,” he heard Fenn say beside him.

There was the key.

He clicked it and pushed the door open. The house was as clean as Todd expected. But it smelled funny, like old breath, like someone who hadn’t used air freshener for a day or so.

Todd closed the door behind him, and looking around the living room, murmured, “Where to look…? Where to look?”

He went to the bedroom, which was mildly trashed, and then went over the bureau, flipping through loose change and papers.

“I wonder if he has a landline.”

There was a phone, which surprised Todd. He knew Brian had a cell phone. He wondered, “Why am I doing this? This is nuts. Why am I…?”

No one else will, and you won’t be right unless you do. And also, he knew Fenn expected it of him.

He didn’t know Brian’s number, so he decided to call Tom.

No… call Tara.

“Hello?.” He heard her voice a moment later.

“Veems. It me. What’s Brian’s number?”

“What the fuck for? Never mind. Hold on. Let me see if I have this bitch… Oh, shit. I do. Here it is.”

She read it and Todd thanked her, clicked off, and called.

The phone rang a long time, and then he heard a cheesy voice, Brian’s smarmy voice, say:

“Hi, I can’t come to the phone right now, but please leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

Todd didn’t know what to do with that. So he rang again. When he got the voice message he rang one last time and then there was nothing again.

No luck, what to do? What would a private-I do? He decided to look around the house some more, which was always fun. He looked through Brian’s underwear drawer. Of course he wore briefs; that was a Brian thing to do. All different colors, no white ones, a lot of red. Brian looked nice in a pair of red briefs Todd was sure. The phone rang and startled him from his reverie.

Todd almost didn’t answer it. Then he assumed that maybe Brian, seeing his number ring him up three times, had called back. So he went to the phone, but just then the answering machine came on. Not as impressive, a little grainier than the first message, after the squealing beep he heard:

“Hello, you’ve got me. I’m not here right now, but please leave a message, your name and your number and I’ll get back to you just as soon as possible. Good bye now.”

Then came the beep, and then, yes, Brian’s real voice.

“If there’s anyone there trying to reach me, please pick up. I’ve got this number on my cell phone. Please pick up.”

And if Todd said, “It’s Todd, where are you?” Brian would… tell him? No, that wasn’t likely. So Todd took a chance, deepened his voice, and lifted the phone saying:

“This is your building manager.”

“Oh… Mr. Vallero?”

Todd weighed his ability to feign a Spanish accent. He wondered if Vallero even had one. He didn’t know, so he lied again.

“Vallero’s out, but I’m Jackson. I manage finances. A message came from your credit card company saying they were going to decline last night’s payment unless there was verification you were actually there. If you travel for a certain distance they need confirmation that the bill really does come from you.”

Todd remembered this from a trip he and Fenn had made a couple of years ago. Every night they had to call to confirm where they were. It was nice, secure, but a little annoying.

“Oh, all right,” Brian said obligingly, and Todd put down the phone and sighed. Then he tried to stop laughing.

“I was actually in Armison.”

“That’s what out records say.”

“At the Days Inn.”

“Yes,” Todd said. “Good.” Then, “And do you have an idea of where you’ll be tonight? If you’re crossing the state line it may be important.”

“I’m shooting for Pittsburgh.”

“Oh, good,” said Todd. “Well, have a good trip. Family I suppose.”

“Not really. No, just a little trip by myself,” Brian said in a civil tone it was interesting to hear. So this was how he dealt with people he didn’t know.

“Have a good day,” Todd said.

“You too,” Brian said merrily. God, he was never that happy! He couldn’t have been that happy now.

Todd hung up the phone.

Or could he? And was Todd just being foolish and sentimental?

He sat on the bed.

“I know he’s… going to Pittsburgh.”

“Well, at least I’ve got it narrowed down. All I have to do is check every hotel in the greater Pittsburgh area.”

As they were turning into Versailles Street, Barb Affren’s purse buzzed.

“It’s my cellphone.”

“You have a cellphone?” said Fenn.

“Everyone does. It’s the twenty-first century. Answer that.”

Fenn shrugged and reached into Barb’s purse. He took out the phone and flipped it open as they approached the house.

“Fenn!”

“Lee?”

“Yeah. Are you at home?”

“Yes, We just got here.”

“Don’t go in that house.”

“What? Stop the car,” Fenn said. Lee was never wrong.

“What?” she mouthed, her eyes wide behind her sun shades.

“What?” Fenn said.

“Okay, Lemonade told me about that Callan character.”

“Joe Callan.”

“Yes. He’s on his way to Rossford.”

“Yeah, you said something about that.”

“He was looking for… do you know a Noah Riley?”

“Yeah. Yes. What about Noah?”

“What’s going on?” Barb mouthed, frantically.

“Well, he said something about going after him, or waiting for him where he was, and I thought he might be at your house.”

“Well…” Fenn said, slowly, “yes. He is.”

“Fenn, either don’t go in the house, or be real careful going to the house… Or something.”

“Lee—”

“I’ll be right over. Tom’ll bring me. Bye.”

The phone shut off and Fenn said, “Lee told me a man might be in that house who might be waiting to kill someone staying with me. Or, better yet, might have killed him already.”

“Oh, shit,” Barb said. “Blood’s hard to get out of the carpet.

“Well,” she reached into her purse, fumbling around in a side pocket, “I guess we’re just going to have to use this.”

“Fuck!”

“Watch your language,” Barb said, negligently, loading the little gun.

“Shit,” Fenn muttered.

“That’s better,” said Barb. “Now, follow me. Don’t make any crazy moves, Fenn.”

Barb climbed out of the car, and Fenn followed her down the block.

“I need you to sneak around the back and peer through the window,” she said. “I’m just gonna shimmy around and look through a front window.”

“You’re going to shimmy?”

“Don’t be sassy. Just go.” The old woman shooed him away as she slipped off with the gun.

Now that they were doing this, Fenn suddenly believed it. He was just a little bit terrified, and only slightly surprised when he looked through the back window and saw Noah Riley standing before the front door, very still, mildly terrified, and then, the figure of a man walking back and forth past him, a small gun in his hand.

Fenn ducked away and loped around the house, nearly on all fours. Barb turned around and saw him.

“I saw,” she whispered, wide eyed. “Now here’s the game plan.”

“Game plan?”

She nodded.

“First thing, we get the hell from under this window.”

They moved clumsily, asses waving in the grass to the next lot, and just then they saw Tom’s car. And then, before it had completely stopped, Lee jumping out of it, toward them.

“Someone’s got Noah at gun point,” they were telling him as Tom approached.

“We need to call the police,” said Tom.

“Don’t be crazy,” Lee said. “We need a game plan.”

“Exactly,” said Barb.

“It’s only one of him—”

“With Noah for possible hostage,” Tom reminded him.

“Yeah, I guess,” Lee waved this off. “—And one, two, three, four of us. And two guns,” Lee added, taking his out.

“Good God,” Tom said.

“You knew what you were getting into when you got with me,” Lee said. “Now, if Barb takes the back and I take the front door, I think it’s all good.”

“We can’t do this,” Tom said.

Lee said, “We can’t not do this.”

“Fenn?” Tom looked to him for some wisdom.

“What?” said Fenn. “I only wish I knew how to shoot.”

Fenn went in beside Barb, and because Tom couldn’t stand himself if he did otherwise, he went in beside Lee, at the front. So, when they had divided, and Fenn slipped the key into the door, Joe Callan shoutet, “Who the fuck is that?”

Walking into the kitchen with a raised gun, he said, “Get against the fuckin—” and then stopped at the sight of Barb Affren.

“Watch your mouth, young man, she said, the gun right on him.

She added: “And while we’re at it, put that fucking gun down.”

The front door opened, Noah shouted, Joe Callan turned around, but Barb said. “No. No, stay still.”

Into the kitchen came Lee, with the gun to Joe’s neck followed by Tom, much whiter than usual.

“Put the gun down,” Barb said, gently.

“You can’t shoot me you silly old bitch,” Joe said negligently, and moved forward to take the gun from Barb, but just as she clicked the gun, there was a firing, and Joe Callen howled and then fell down, doubled over on the kitchen floor.

“You son of a—” he started at Lee, clicked the gun, and Lee shot one more time.

There was stillness, and then Lee said, “It was either me who would shoot him or Barb. I thought I might be able to handle it better. I tried to just get him in the foot, but that second time he wanted me.”

Noah, greenish, said, “You… killed him.”

“Yeah,” Lee said, clinically, watching the red pool of blood under Joe Callan’s head widen on the linoleum floor. “I guess I did.”

“Whaddo we do?” Tom’s voice was dead.

Barb said, simply, “Quicklime. Lots of quicklime.”