Second Nature (24 page)

“What’s wrong?” Stuart said. His face looked healthy from racing along the ice. “Are my knees creaking? Am I too old for this?”

Kay came close to him and hid her face in his parka. As soon as Stuart looked past her he saw that something had been wrong with the ice all along and they hadn’t even noticed. Blood had seeped through the water beneath the ice and turned it deep red. The beams of light he and Kay had seen in the woods weren’t moonlight reflecting off the ice but flashlights and lanterns. He helped Kay back to shore, then shouted as loud as he could until at last people in the search party heard him, although once they approached, the dogs refused to set foot on the red ice, and they pulled at their leashes, then fell silent all at once. Because Stuart was a doctor, George Tenney called him over as he and Woody Preston knelt beneath the bridge. Stuart calmly examined the girl, but afterward he realized he’d been crying the whole time, and that night he went home with Kay and they held each other tight, while outside the wind grew so fierce it tore the new shingles off the roof of the fisherman’s shack down on the icy beach.

It might have been Woody Preston who began the talk of an animal, one who knew exactly how to slash a throat in the most efficient manner, a predator so quiet it could come up behind its victim before she had the chance to run.

“I wouldn’t write about any animals in your report,” Roy advised him. “Unless you want to be fitted for a straitjacket.”

All the same, the rumor grew, so that by midnight most people had locked themselves in their houses. Jeff Carson went down to his basement and got out the rifle he hadn’t used for twelve years, not since he’d gone hunting with his cousins in upstate New York and shot two swans he’d believed to be wood ducks. The Feldmans set out broken bottles on their front stoop; any creature that took a step toward their door would have its feet cut to bloody ribbons.

It fell to George Tenney and Woody Preston to speak to the family, and George told Woody in no uncertain terms to keep his mouth shut, especially about his animal theory. Michelle Altero said nothing at all; she had cried so many tears that she seemed completely drained. The girl’s father, Paul, was so slow to answer even the most simple questions—who her friends were, whether he’d known she had been to Fred’s Diner the night she disappeared—that George felt like a heel just for being in their house.

Lydia stood in the doorway of the living room, her arms and legs crisscrossed with jitters; she could hardly stand up straight. She was in her nightgown, with her hair loose, and she’d already thrown up five times. The strange thing was, she was the one who felt like a ghost, so weightless it seemed possible that any minute she would rise up through the living room ceiling.

“You haven’t noticed anything unusual in the last few days?” George Tenney was asking in his deep, sad voice. “Any strangers?”

Lydia closed her eyes. Her skin felt much too cold. She had a curious sensation up and down her spine, as if she were growing completely numb.

“Anything suspicious at all?” George Tenney asked.

That was when Lydia told them about the Wolf Man. The secret she had kept all these months, a silly secret she’d thought, which no one would much care about, now seemed crucial. Lydia saw everything clearly at that moment. This was all her fault.

“I told you it was an animal!” Woody Preston said. “I swear there were claw marks,” he managed to add before George told him to just keep his mouth shut.

“I felt sorry for him,” Lydia said. The numbness was spreading, all over her body. “Connor said he’d be locked up if anyone found out who he was.”

Paul Altero put his head in his hands and wept, but Michelle stood and went to Lydia. When she reached her daughter, Michelle had to lean up against the wall or she would have fallen to the floor in a heap.

Lydia didn’t need her mother to tell her that the wrong daughter had been taken from her; Lydia already knew that. She knew it all night, as she heard her parents weeping. She knew it in the morning, when she heard someone knocking at the front door. Lydia found herself hoping that whoever had done this to Jenny had now come for her as well. She went downstairs in her nightgown, her feet bare, and opened the door to find Connor, his shirt unbuttoned, his hair wild from sleep. Roy had told him about Jenny as soon as he’d woken, and he’d run all the way to Mansfield Terrace.

“Lydia,” he said. His voice broke as he spoke her beloved name. “I’m sorry.”

He held her to him, but she was like a piece of ice.

“They’ll find the person who did it,” Connor said. He wished he could wrap his arms around Lydia and carry her far from this dangerous earth, someplace where it was just the two of them, where terrible things never happened and nothing ever changed.

“They already have,” Lydia said. “I told them about the Wolf Man.”

When Connor let go of her and stepped back, Lydia didn’t move at all. The wind came in the front door and blew at the hem of her nightgown.

“You told them about Stephen?” Connor couldn’t believe she would do this. “It was a secret.”

“Is that all you care about?” Lydia said. “My sister’s dead and all you can think about is your secret.”

“He didn’t do it,” Connor said. “I mean, I know him. He would never do anything like that, and now they’re going to think he did. All because of you.”

Michelle came down the stairs just as Lydia slapped Connor. She hit him hard, and the imprint of her hand would remain on his face for hours. Even after it did disappear he’d be able to feel it, as if he’d been marked for life.

“You piece of shit,” Lydia said. She was so cold she could barely move her mouth; her toes and the tips of her fingers had begun to turn blue. “You pathetic creature.”

Connor blinked; she couldn’t possibly be saying what he thought he was hearing. Lydia gave him a push, and he lurched back over the threshold.

“Lydia,” he said. “Please.”

Lydia looked him right in the eye; she had no idea that she was shaking, or that her mother had come up behind her. Who had she thought she was to find happiness, to even think she might have a right to it?

“What a mistake you were,” Lydia said. “A mistake from the very beginning.”

She slammed the door, and she didn’t care if he stayed out there pounding on it all day and all night. She turned and found herself in her mother’s arms, the only place she wanted to be.

“Baby,” Michelle whispered to her, as she stroked Lydia’s tangled hair, just as if she’d been the daughter who deserved to be here on this winter morning all along.

 
 
When they came for him, Stephen was reading one of Old Dick’s books, a collection of stories so lovely and strange he knew he’d have to read them again. He had learned to like coffee and had made himself a pot, fixing the French-roast beans with the hand grinder Ginny had always used. He was nearly halfway through “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” when he heard the tires on the gravel driveway. In spite of the cold, he had the windows open and his shirt off, since the temperature inside houses always seemed much too warm.

They allowed him to put on his black coat and his boots before they drove him down to the station. It was Woody Preston who tried to put him in handcuffs, and Stephen panicked just at the sight of them. He would have struck Woody, he might have gone to the open window and jumped, if George Tenney hadn’t intervened. They were only taking him in for questioning, after all, it was routine after the Altero girl’s murder. But when they got to Main Street, Stephen saw that a crowd had already gathered on the green; men in parkas and heavy leather gloves waited to get a look at him as he was led from the car, as if they’d be able to tell, just by the sight of him, whether he was guilty or not.

The room they took him to had glass on two sides, but the windows were barred, and Stephen didn’t like that one bit. After he’d sat down, he tried not to look directly at any of the officers, since they were six and he was one. He knew when to back down and when to fight and when it was best to act as though you were already defeated. Just a few friendly questions, that’s what they told him. There was nothing that officially attached him to a crime, not even a legal reason to search him.

Roy was in the back of the room. He wasn’t one of the ones who was asking Stephen questions; instead, he leaned up against the wall and drank coffee. It was impossible to tell whether he was enjoying this, although Stephen believed he must have been. Here were his buddies, his friends, demanding to know where Stephen had been the previous night between ten and two, and Stephen was at their mercy. When he said he’d been reading, some of them exchanged a look, although Roy didn’t blink. After that they wanted to know strange things: how many times he’d spoken to Jenny Altero, whether he’d been to Fred’s Diner, whether, when he’d lived in the woods, he’d killed deer with his bare hands or maybe used a knife to slit their throats. He accepted a cup of bitter coffee and answered as best he could, but he stopped talking to them when Woody Preston asked if he’d ever tasted human flesh. They’d already decided something for themselves, with or without his answers.

George Tenney went to get himself some coffee, then stood next to Roy.

“The stuff those kids found over at Poorman’s Point,” George said. He had his back to the rest of the guys to make certain that they wouldn’t overhear. “Those animals. Their throats were all slit. Maybe that was him, too.”

Roy narrowed his eyes and nodded. His stomach was a mess and his head was pounding.

“Nobody will think anything if you want to get out of here,” George said. “Considering him and Robin and all.”

Roy was about to say something, but now he looked at George.

“He asked me to call her,” George said. “At the moment, we can’t keep him, not yet, and that means she’ll probably come get him. Go on,” George advised. Roy’s skin was ashy and there were dark circles under his eyes. “Take a break.”

By the time Robin came down to the station, Roy was sitting on a stool at the bar at Harper’s and the group of men out on the green had grown to more than two dozen. Robin went right up to the desk where Woody Preston was filling out his report.

“What’s going on out there?” she asked him.

“I guess they think we’ve got a killer in here,” Woody said. “And now you’re going to take him home with you, after what happened to Jenny Altero?”

Twice Robin had gone over to see Michelle, and both times Michelle had refused to see her.

“Don’t ever come here again,” Lydia had finally told her.

When George phoned he’d informed Robin that Stephen had been brought in for questioning; now she understood why. She understood why Lydia had slammed the door while Robin was still standing out on the porch, just about to ask if she could bring dinner over for them in a wicker basket.

“Do you have some proof?” she asked Woody now. “Or are you just going on your own stupidity?”

She waited on the bench in the hallway until George brought Stephen out.

“I’ll take you home,” Robin said.

Stephen nodded but he didn’t look at her, not even when she took George aside.

“You know it wasn’t Stephen,” Robin said.

“Are you sure?” George said.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Robin said. “Was this Roy’s idea? Is that it?”

“Look, we know all about him. I had a long talk with the director at Kelvin, so we know his history. He lived like an animal, Robin. Face it.”

Robin tilted her chin up; her lips were tight and dry. “Am I supposed to give you bail or something?”

“He was just here for questioning,” George said. “But it’s not the end of it.”

“Can I go, or am I being charged with something, too?”

“Robin,” George said sadly. “You know you can go.”

Robin headed for the exit. “We can leave,” she told Stephen. He followed her, then put a hand on her arm to stop her. He nodded toward the green, where the men were still gathered.

“Fuck them,” Robin said as she pushed open the door.

No one said a word as they walked to the truck; there were no shouts or catcalls, although one rock was thrown as Robin made the turn onto Cemetery Road. She drove as though there were no ice, and when the tires skidded, nearly off the road, she didn’t seem to notice. She’d decided it would be better to take Stephen to her house, because of that crowd on the green, and as soon as they were in the kitchen, she double-locked the back door.

“Did you have dinner?” she asked Stephen.

Stephen came up behind her and put his arms around her.

“Hamburgers?” she said, and then she started to cry. “It’s nothing,” she insisted, but she let him kiss her, softly, the way he did when she was upset, before she moved away. “Let me have that awful coat,” she told him, and at that they were both able to smile.

Stephen took off the coat and handed it to her.

“They didn’t even give you time to put on a shirt?” Robin said.

“I didn’t think of it,” Stephen said.

“Those bastards,” Robin said.

She went to the closet in the living room, and as she reached for a hanger the black coat fell from her hands. When she bent to retrieve it, she felt something sharp in the pocket. She reached in and found the carpenter’s knife. Stephen was making coffee in the kitchen; his back was toward her as she approached him.

“What is this?” Robin said.

Stephen turned to her and blinked. “I found it up in the attic,” he said. “A long time ago.”

“Have you used it?” Robin asked.

Her voice sounded very sharp and strange. Stephen knew that when people sounded like that it was best not to speak to them directly. He shook his head. No.

“Not once?” Robin said. “Not ever?”

She had come up close to him. He could almost feel her.

“Tell me the truth,” she said. Her face was white and drawn; it didn’t even look like her. “Not ever?”