The True Detective (23 page)

“Tell me exactly what was said,” Dulac tells him.

“Well, this guy said, ‘Are you people aware that a Men Who Love Boys chapter is forming in the Seacoast area?’ I said, ‘Sir, could you give me your name, please.’ He said, ‘No, I won’t do that. I just think you should be aware that one of these groups is starting up here, and that they do work to recruit young boys.’ Then he hung up.”

“He said ‘work’?” Dulac says.

“Yes sir, that’s what he said.”

Moments later, when Sergeant Mizener comes in, Dulac tells him to check out the group. “Check with Boston, but also Portland and Concord,” Dulac says. “See what they can tell us. Explain our situation, that we have a twelve-year-old missing. Mainly, see if they think there’s any connection. Make up a little report for me. Make sure you get the names of people you talk to, because we’ll probably be following up on known sex offenders. What do you think? Does this make sense to you?”

“None of this shit has ever made sense to me,” Mizener says. “It sure as hell is out there, though. I don’t know why it wouldn’t come here. Everything else is.”

Well, Mizener isn’t going to be much help, Dulac is thinking, even as he hears himself say, knows it is coming from his exhaustion, his lack of sleep, “Neil, goddamit you sound like some old reactionary cop. It looks clear now that this boy has been picked up. If we’re going to get him back, or if we’re going to avoid having some other kid picked up, we’re going to have to play a little smarter game than that.”

Mizener, reprimanded, appears stunned. “Why does it look clear?” he says. “I thought everyone expected him to show up this morning at school.” Mizener is staring at him.

Dulac is surprised himself at his little outburst, which seemed to run away on its own. “Listen, I apologize for barking,” he says. “I’m tired. But do you really think the little boy is going to show up in school this morning? You really think that?”

“You obviously don’t. That’s the word that came down, that’s all I know.”

Dulac pauses, checks himself from barking again. Then he says, “Shirley Moss will be here any minute; she can help with the calls coming in.”

“She’s going to screen the calls?” Mizener says.

“Right. You do the phone stuff, and we’ll work together on other things. Right now, today—this afternoon and evening, too, when the paper comes out—is going to be our best time. Our most important time, if this little boy has been picked up. Somebody
has
to have seen something. Pass that on to everyone. Someone
has
to have seen something. The calls are important.”

“Lieutenant, I think you are tired—if you don’t mind my saying so. Maybe someone else should take on this case.”

“What?”
Dulac says.

“It’s another case, Lieutenant, is all it is.”

Dulac stares at him. “I know exactly what it is,” he says.

Mizener makes an expression, dismisses the question.

“I’ll be at Little Harbor School,” Dulac says. “Anything comes in that looks halfway promising, I want to be called. Even if it’s questionable, I want to be called.”

Dulac starts to turn away and turns back. “I mean what I say about this being the best time. I don’t want any screw-ups on that. I want people listening—carefully.”

Going on then, he says to himself, Jesus, you are in a state of mind. At his desk, though, fixing his cuffs to his belt, slamming shut a drawer, still in debate with Mizener, he imagines saying to him,
Someone better take charge of you, because you sure as hell won’t ever take charge of anything, because you’re a fucking loser is what you are, a fucking reactionary cop.

A moment later he is looking for Shirley Moss on his way back through the building—he’d like to have any kind of exchange with her, as a person he likes—but she seems not to be in yet. He goes on, strides along the driveway to his car at the rear of the building. Easy now, he says to himself.

C
LAIRE IS IN THE KITCHEN SIPPING COFFEE
. T
HE TELEPHONE
is there on the wall. The cord is straight, the receiver down; nothing might interfere with its ringing. The telephone itself has become so alive for her it could be a squirrel clinging to the wall.

She is passing time, waiting for Matt to come around. She has no feeling to call him or to nag at him in any way this morning. She thinks he may have been awake as much during the night as she was herself. Let him sleep, she thinks. At least one of them may be rested and quick. She needs him too much now to have things deteriorate like they did last night. Still, he did
act funny and if he’d only—just stop it, she tells herself suddenly. Just stop it.

She’ll have Matt stay home from school, she thinks. It made no more sense for him to be in school than it did for her to be at work, and there was no way in the world she was going to spend her time packing boxes while Eric was missing.

The telephone rings and so startles her she can hardly speak or hardly hold the receiver as she moves it to her ear. It is her friend, Betty, who says, “Claire, what in the world—we heard this about Eric on the radio—what in the world is going on?”

Claire tries to explain what has happened and when, explains that the police believe he might show up in school this morning, that she did not call yesterday because she didn’t want to tie up the phone, that the police told her not to tie up her phone. She promises she will, she will, as Betty tells her to feel free to call on them for anything, anything in the world. “Don’t you hesitate a second,” Betty tells her. “I mean that.”

Claire is relieved to be off the phone, to clear the line, and at once wishes she could have continued talking to her friend. She will call her later, she thinks. She can hear herself explaining to Betty how happy she was that Eric was back in school where he belonged, so relieved there was no way in the world she could bring herself to be angry with him.

She and Matt can call in together, she thinks. When he comes out—any minute now—and when people are in their offices, around eight, they’ll both call in. Well, she’ll make the calls, she thinks, even as the thought raises her old childhood fear of having communication with people who stamp grades and give orders.

Well, Matt, she thinks. Come on now. You can’t just stay in bed like this. I have to rely on you. You have to help me.

Stepping over, she looks down from the kitchen window, as if—again—to see something on the sidewalk. Cars are parked along the curb down there as usual. The sky is overcast this morning. It looks more like February, she thinks, but she turns away from a thought of the temperature dropping.

She calls in. At seven fifty, as she knows her shift is under way, she calls to tell the time clerk she will not be in this morning and maybe not all day. “My son is missing,” she says, feeling she is taking advantage of something to get out of work.

“You’re not calling in sick?” the man says.

“Well, no,” she says.

“Will you be in tomorrow?” the man says.

For a moment, envisioning the pencil-thin clerk, Claire doesn’t understand. “What?” she says.

“Will you be in tomorrow?”

She tells him she’ll let him know, and a moment later, glancing from the kitchen window again, she realizes he did not take in or did not care what she had said about Eric.

Does anyone care? she wonders. Why should they?

Eight o’clock. Eight oh five and eight ten. She wishes Matt would come out, but he doesn’t.

Calling the high school then turns out to be easier than expected. A woman with a Southern accent repeats her message. “Matthew Wells will not be in school today?”

Time passes. She is building, she knows, to another telephone call—the call to Eric’s school—even as she wishes they would call her first. Why should they? Was Eric so important? If he went to school, and went to his homeroom like he should, why would anyone call to tell her so? She will wait. When homeroom is under way, after eight forty, she will call and ask if someone will check Mrs. Dubois’s room, to see if Eric Wells is there this morning.

Eight twenty-five. Almost.

“Matt,” she says, at last, after standing a moment in his bedroom door. “Maybe you better get up now. I didn’t want to wake you, but I thought I should—even if you don’t go to school. Which I don’t think you should do.”

“What?” he says.

“Matt, just please get up,” she says. “I need you to talk to.”

Claire realizes in a glance that only one of the two small beds has been used. Matt, turning to extend his feet to the floor, is as subdued as she is, and she feels stricken in this moment over being suspicious of him yesterday. She can see, she knows very well, that he is only a boy. He’s older than Eric, but he’s only a boy himself, his hair pressed sideways with boyish sleep.

In a moment, in the kitchen, hearing faucets running in the bathroom—full blast, as Matt always runs them—she wishes she had left him alone. She had only wanted his company, and now she isn’t so sure she does.

Eight thirty-five. Really, eight thirty-six. Okay, she thinks. She can find out now. Here in a simple phone call, she can find out what she has been waiting to find out. Maybe the news will be good, like the one policeman suggested. She can have a smile for Matt when he comes into the kitchen. Eric’s in school. And get Matt off to school, too. Get herself off to work.

Her call to Eric’s elementary school surprises her. A woman who answers says to her at once, “Oh, Mrs. Wells, the message is just going out on the PA system. We are so concerned. Can you hear that?”

The sound of panic in the woman’s voice kindles Claire’s panic. Over the phone she hears, “. . .
to the principal’s office immediately. This includes anyone who may know or have heard
anything at all of Eric Wells’s whereabouts. Report to the principal’s office immediately.
”

Claire holds the phone, chilled. She hears movement and talk over the receiver, but they seem to have forgotten her. Should she hang up? Her question has been answered; should she just hang up?

She waits. At last, as the receiver is picked up, another woman says to her that she is Mrs. Berry, the assistant principal. “Mrs. Wells, we’ll do everything we can,” the woman says. “We all know how you must feel, and we’ll do anything and everything we can. Lieutenant Dulac is here right now and is going to talk to Eric’s class. He believes someone might know something and feels the children could know more than they think they know. Mrs. Wells, we just pray that Eric is all right. We just pray that he’ll be back in school tomorrow, or this afternoon even, and that everything will be all right.”

Waiting for Matt to appear, Claire sips more coffee. She doesn’t want to tell him. The new fear at school has frightened her so oddly she feels afraid that in telling Matt the news she may break apart, like glass.

A curious thought comes to mind. Of all the children in his class who would help find someone, it was Eric who would do the best job. Eric would know what to do. Where to look. How can it be that he isn’t there? His love for her is too strong, too natural, she thinks, for him to leave her feeling hurt like this.

As Matt walks into the kitchen, she says, “I called Eric’s school. He’s not there.”

Matt nods. He continues to the cupboard.

“The police are there right now,” Claire says. “Matt, it scares me so much, my heart is just stopping.”

“I’m going out and look some more,” Matt says.

“I think you better stay in, since you’re not in school.”

“No,” Matt says. “I’m going out. I am. I don’t care what anybody says.”

Claire doesn’t say anything. He has never spoken to her in such a way.

“I’m the one who knows where he could be,” Matt says.

He has removed the gallon of milk from the refrigerator, a box of Wheat Chex from the cupboard.

“Where are you going to look?” Claire says.

“I don’t know. Everywhere. I’m just going to look.”

“Well, let me fix you some toast, so you’ll have something warm,” Claire says.

Matt eats standing up and in hardly a moment, it seems, he is gone and Claire, cleaning up the table, rinsing his dishes, is missing him. His sudden manliness has called up some strength in her, though. Thank God for Matt, she says to herself. Forgive me for doubting him. Be strong, Matt, she says to herself. Bring Eric home.

She stands at the window again to look outside. But nothing is happening out there. There is only gray stillness. It seems the world is not moving, but she knows it is.

The telephone rings behind her.

She turns, stepping to it, realizing at once that something is wrong. It is the timing; there is no second ring.

Silence.

The telephone doesn’t give its second ring.

It holds to the wall, refusing in its smugness to ring again, to set her free.

V
ERNON IS STANDING IN HIS BEDROOM
,
WHEN SOMEONE TAPS
on the door. “What is it?” he says.

Duncan opens the door, leans in. “You’re here!” he says.

“I’m here,” Vernon says.

“Your car’s not here. What’s going on with you? Did you just come in?”

“I parked down the road a ways.”

“Why’d you do that—if you don’t mind my asking?”

“The morning sun will warm up the car.”

“Even when it’s overcast. And where were you all night—if I might ask that?” Duncan is grinning as if in anticipation of a punch line.

Vernon tries, on a near smile, to accommodate. “Am I being cross-examined?” he says.

“You
do
have something going, don’t you?”

“Who knows?” Vernon says, managing the faintest of grins.

“I knew it!” Duncan says. “I knew it! You weren’t in bed here, you had to be in bed somewhere.”

Vernon only looks, as if slyly, as Duncan says, “Well, that’s good, more power to you,” and closes the door on a laugh, adding, “See you later.”

Vernon resumes waiting. The deception allows him relief, but only for a moment before the anxiety he has been feeling so endlessly is in him again, Well, it’s safe to go out and use the bathroom now, he thinks, while they are preparing to leave; still
he remains reluctant. He has no wish to face Leon and risk the questions which might be thrown in his face.