Behold the Child (9 page)

Summer.

The heat was oppressive. The seemingly endless sunshine boiled into steam on the glass and steel and slammed down into the black tar shingles like a huge, white fist. Kenzie took water and beef jerky everywhere he went. He eventually trained Laura to do the same. They slathered on the sunscreen lotion, joked about ordering SPF 2,000 and somehow endured. The anonymous telephone calls stopped, and somehow that only strengthened their marriage. June and July faded, as did August and most of September.

The scorching, mean season whimpered to a close. As the fall months crawled by, the ground began to crackle with frost and the winds whistling down through the low gullies blew colder. Kenzie eventually befriended the rest of the locals; farmer Hi Patterson, whose troubled teenaged son Jake was always raising hell, just like Timmy, but for no apparent reason; cattle rancher John Blake and his wife Katherine, two geriatrics he actually remembered from childhood; bitter widower Paul Wilson. The ineffective Mayor, who seldom came to town at all, was a likeable drunk named Del Howison. But people liked their privacy in Twin Forks, and generally kept their distance.

His closest friend continued to be Doc Preston. Kenzie and Doc took to playing chess, making one move each and every Friday evening. They had yet to finish their first game. The antique rattle seemed to move about of its own accord, and rambled from mantle to desk to window sill. Kenzie finally opted to leave it on his office bookshelf, near the telephone. He then forgot all about it.

Some light rain signaled the final change of the year. The faint of heart packed for lower ground and went south to Reno for a couple of months. Only the die-hard high desert denizens lasted through a long winter in Twin Forks.

And winter was coming on soon
.
Up in the high desert the weather can be severe. Kenzie made sure to stock enough wood and to check the insulation on all of the power lines. He was looking forward to the snow. Laura, on the other hand, had become increasingly more withdrawn, drawn deeper into herself. She claimed not to relate to folks in Twin Forks. She preferred reading her books, fooling with her computer or watching satellite television. She spent hours keeping track of the events on a number of silly daytime "soap operas," and cried at the ones involving pregnancy and childbirth. At those times, Kenzie pitied Laura and wished there were some magic words he could offer; some healing touch he could provide, that would take away her pain.

One afternoon, as they sat on the porch, Laura whispered: "You don't hang around the diner so much any more."

Kenzie blinked. Icy sweat flowed down his spine. "Excuse me, honey. Did you say something?"

She looked directly at him, and her eyes burned with emotion. "That's a good thing," she said. "Because I would have killed her."

His eyes brimmed over. He finally managed to speak. "Honey, it will never happen again."

"I know."

There was nothing else to say. They made love.

Kenzie knew that if it weren't for Laura's commitment to their marriage, she'd have left for the city months ago. He loved her for that quiet strength, and her enduring friendship. He also loved Twin Forks, and for a lot of the same reasons.

The sunsets were spectacular, night after night, and always followed by crisp and cool evenings. Wide, watercolor rainbows arched through the hot rocks after sudden bursts of rain. The daily heat pounded a man's shoulders and fried his skin, but it also warmed his bones in an irreplaceable way. The stillness comforted Kenzie; he hadn't realized how much he'd missed the simple gift of silence.

True to Captain Kramer's prediction, his job consisted primarily of napping, stopping the occasional drunk driver and handing out speeding tickets. For a burn out, it was a dream job.

Most evenings, the men in Twin Forks gathered on the porch of McCabe's General Store to drink a little, swap crude jokes and talk about the weather. Meanwhile, most of the aging women, except for Laura, gathered at the chapel to knit and talk about the men. Doc and Kenzie eyeballed their ongoing chess match, or smoked smelly Mexican cigars and argued about the composition of the twinkling constellations. For a while, things in Twin Forks were more than peaceful . . . For a while.

The frost was on the prickly succulents. Halloween was coming. Doc Preston and Kenzie were seated in the Sheriffs office, just finishing their nearly immortal chess game, as well as two fat cigars and a tall bottle of chilled red wine.

That's when the telephone calls started again.

It was nothing much at first, just what appeared to be a wrong number; or perhaps someone too embarrassed to go through with speaking to the Sheriff. Kenzie thought nothing of it until the calls began to come to his home. Laura got the first several, and one unnerved her completely. They always came right around dusk.

"At first it seems like there's no one on the line," she told him, after the third call. "But then I can hear some voices, way in the background, maybe children giggling."

"Well then, relax," Kenzie told her. "It's just some kids screwing around. I'll look into it tomorrow."

"No," Laura said. She shook her head vehemently. "Then I hear him breathing. It's really sick breathing, too, like some dirty old man."

"I'm sure it's nothing," Kenzie said, but the hair on his arms rippled. There were only a few children in the entire Valley. He counted them up: Timmy Reynolds and Paula Webster, the Barker kids, the Peterson twins. Only seven and there were none that lived within Twin Forks itself. So who were the youngsters that kept calling? Kenzie told himself it was kids from some other town, playing with a cell phone perhaps, trying to stir up trouble.

He told himself to forget about the calls, and for a while, he did.

Until they started up yet again.

Some came to his home, some to his office. As time went on, Laura stopped receiving them. They came to Kenzie, wherever he happened to be as the world went dark.

Then one night, while working late, a new thought occurred to him: His windows were generally uncovered, and someone could see in. At about sunset, Kenzie walked away from the telephone to the gun case, and started to open it. The telephone rang. He swallowed, then took his time and walked back to the phone. He picked it up and listened carefully. He heard a vague rattling sound, like a small maraca.

Then he distinctly heard the giggles of children and the harsh breathing of someone near the phone.
I was right; it is a bunch of kids. But where the hell are they from?

"Listen, children. You'd better knock this off before I decide to trace the calls and tell your parents."

Giggling
. One of them must be doing the 'dirty old man' breathing.
He faced the wall, but glanced out the window out of the corner of his eye, thinking: They knew when he'd walked away from the desk. Were they right outside at the pay phone?

Kenzie whirled around. He could see the pay phone because it sat directly beneath the street light. The telephone was off the hook with the instrument swaying gently in the evening breeze. Kenzie grabbed his jacket and club and raced outside. He jogged across the street, his boots loud on the icy pavement. When he got to the pay phone and looked down each of the connecting streets, he was disappointed. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. He started to replace the phone in its cradle; and then, purely on impulse, he listened instead. The odd, rattling sound came again.

And then a grown man's scratchy voice.

"Bora Bora," he said, or words to that effect. The connection was terrible. Kenzie clenched the receiver tight. "What? What did you say?" He thought he might know the voice and wanted to hear it again.

But the man had already disconnected.

"Talbot, is that you?"

A low, throaty chuckle. "All the way from Hollyweird. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you, man. I've been meaning to check up on your sorry ass for months, but you called me first. How's life in the wild west?"

Jesus,
Kenzie thought sadly,
he's drunk at eight o'clock in the morning
. Talbot likely hadn't even been to bed. Maybe he was back to working vice crimes. And that meant he'd probably gotten Kramer pissed or was about to be up on charges.

"Like you guys got nothing else to do, right? Thanks for calling me back."

"No problemo, cowboy. What do you need?"

"Before I get to that, why are you at Hollywood station? What happened, Jack, did they kick you downstairs?"

"Ah, Sam, you know how it goes. You're solid for a while then you're just some asshole off the street."

"Ain't that the truth."

"So what is it you wanted, Sam?"

"Hang on a second."

Laura had slept in. Kenzie was already dressed and wearing his official jacket. He switched to the portable phone, grabbed his coffee mug and strolled out onto the wooden porch. It had snowed heavily during the night and there was a rolling, glittering blanket of white on the frozen ground. The coffee steam puffed sideways after a moaning gust of wind. Kenzie shivered, although he wasn't sure if it was the weather or the bleak despair in his old friend's tone.

"Look, you remember those child killings that went down before I left?"

"Sure. The local papers still recycle that one every chance they get."

"Wasn't there something in that case file about some weird telephone calls to the neighbors? This was probably back when it all got started."

"Maybe. I'd have to look it up get back to you." Talbot sounded flat somehow, hollowed out.

"Would you do that? It might be important."

"Sure." Kenzie could hear him writing it down.

"Thanks. Now, what's wrong, Jack? What happened?"

"Sam, I really was meaning to call you anyway because I want to ask you something," Talbot said, ignoring the question. "Is it true they got no state tax in Nevada?"

Kenzie leaned on the railing. The wood was cold against his buttocks. He sipped some coffee before answering. "Yeah, that's true."

"That's a good thing, Sam. I like that. I'm thinking maybe I'll leave the job early and buy myself a bar. Could be I'll check out Nevada, you like it so much."

"Leave the job, Talbot? Why?"

Talbot cut him off. "Did you know you're still kind of famous in the department, Kenzie? Sam Kenzie the cowboy cop. Did a fucking amazing job, they say. Set an example for everybody and Parker Center shafted him."

"That's really how they see it?" Kenzie felt guilty but couldn't help himself. He really wanted to know.

"Damn straight, partner," Talbot mumbled. He was beginning to fade. "So what do you do all day out there in the boonies, pop rabbits?"

"Jack, listen to me, okay? Jack?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"I want you to do something for me, man. I want you to call a guy."

"Okay, Sam. Lemme get a pencil." A few seconds went by. "Shoot."

"His name is Greenberg. He has an office in Sherman Oaks. He's a shrink. I want you to make an appointment to see him."

Silence. "This is a joke, right?"

"Jack, you're drunk in the morning and while you're still on duty. Your career is in trouble, you're obviously depressed. And I don't want to read about my friend eating his gun in some hotel room, you read me?"

"I gotta go now," Talbot said. He seemed deeply offended. "I'll look into that obscene phone call stuff and get back to you when I have time."

"Jack, don't be pissed."

"Yeah. Right."

Kenzie went back into the house and returned the phone to its cradle. He stood in silence, feelings decidedly mixed, remembering the good old days. Then he returned the coffee mug to the kitchen and went out the door to work. He did not lock the door behind him. He saw no reason.

The State Police had faxed him a warrant for one Gilbert Henry Harrison of Newark, New Jersey. Gilbert (also known as Gills, Rhino and HH in certain circles) was a member of the Road Hogs, a nomadic biker gang believed to be traveling through northern Nevada on its way down from Utah. The gang was probably bound for the warmer climes of Nevada. It seemed Gilbert had broken the jaw of a garage mechanic who had scratched the paint on his Harley. He'd pled not guilty and then skipped out on a ten thousand dollar bail bond.

Kenzie wiped the windshield and sped away. He whistled as he drove, and listened to some country music; the tiny station was broadcasting live from Elko. The announcer said there was more snow on the way, and that the temperature was already falling.

The State Police didn't think it likely that Gilbert and the Road Hogs were still in the area, but they had faxed Kenzie on the basis of a telephone tip the gang might be holed up in a deserted trailer park that was located almost exactly between Twin Forks and Dry Wells, about thirty miles south down 91. Kenzie drove slowly and carefully, clinging tightly to the wheel. The round trip was bound to take a couple of hours. He knew he'd soon have to put chains on his vehicle, but didn't want to be bothered just yet.

When he got to the trailer park it seemed empty, with nothing out of the ordinary. Kenzie loosened the flap on his Glock 9 and drove slowly down the long, cracked stretch of pavement. A few trailers were standing empty; the windows were shattered and the metal doors kept flapping open in the moaning wind.

One trailer at the back of the property seemed buttoned up tight. Someone had decided to escape the bitter weather. Kenzie paused, thought:
Could the strange phone calls have come from here?

Kenzie parked the cruiser. He took a long, slow breath and tried to sense what was ahead. His instincts told him not to panic. After all, there was no sign of the biker gang, or any vehicles. Nonetheless, he kept the side arm handy as he stepped out of the car and approached the blue trailer.