The True Detective (30 page)

The boy seems to breathe audibly and move in response to this, although he doesn’t make any other sounds.

Vernon reaches the sack to the floor behind the passenger seat but holds on to the newspaper. He had had no feeling to read the story when he first saw it, nor as he carried it through the store; here, all at once, he is anxious to see what it says. As if to glimpse life’s meaning.

Holding the paper for light from the fading sky, he reads:

Police say they have no clues in the disappearance of a 12-year-old Portsmouth youth who’s been missing since Saturday. The boy is Eric Wells, who is in the sixth grade at Little Harbor Elementary School.

“This is not looking like a routine missing case,” said Detective Lt. Gilbert Dulac of Portsmouth. “The boy had no money or wallet on him and this may be a giveaway.”

Mrs. Claire Wells, the boy’s mother, said he left the Legion Hall on Islington Street at about 6:45 p.m. Saturday. Mrs. Wells, a divorcée, works as a barmaid there on weekends.

Police said school officials describe Eric as an average student with a good attendance record.

He is 4 feet 10, weighs about 100 pounds, has medium-length dark blond hair and blue eyes.

Persons with any information that could help police locate Eric are asked to call Portsmouth Police Department at 421-3859.

Vernon sits still then and knows that he is again in shock of a kind. There is something in the paper that makes things more real than they seem to be here where he can actually touch them.

Moments later he is driving out of the small university town on a two-lane paved road. He has the car’s headlights on; carefully, he passes a jogger, then another jogger, then someone on a bicycle. He will be careful not to break any laws, he thinks. Only greater laws, he thinks. Darkness falling so rapidly, light leaving the sky, seems both the end of the world to him and a promise of cover.

Driving along, he says, “So your mother’s a barmaid?”

Expecting no response and receiving none, he says, “So is mine.”

M
ATT SITS IN THE KITCHEN IN THE LOWERING DARKNESS
. His mother is on her way to Portland with the lieutenant. Before
he turns on any lights, however dim the apartment has grown, Matt gets himself to telephone Vanessa.

Answering the phone herself, she says to him, “They talked to me, you know.”

“The police?”

“That’s right. Real neat.”

Matt doesn’t know what to say. At last he says, “What does that mean?”

“Humiliation city is what it means.”

“Are your parents there?”

“They’re not listening.”

Again Matt doesn’t know what to say. Then he says, “I’m sorry. I had to tell them.”

“Yeah, forget it,” she says.

Matt has no idea what to say.

“I have to go,” she says.

“Will I see you in school?” he says.

“Probably.”

I
T IS CLOSE TO NINE WHEN
D
ULAC HAS RETURNED FROM
Portland and from taking Claire Wells home. Her appeal and its taping were fine, he thinks. Something about her image on camera would command viewers’ attention, at the same time
that it would not be confrontational. So he believes, or hopes. “Eric,” she said to the camera, “we love you. I do. So does Matt. We miss you. Please come home. Or please call up. If you are with someone, we just want you to come home. We hope that person will let you go. Everyone misses you at school, too.”

Who knows what is confrontational? Dulac thinks. And what isn’t?

He butters a roll. Claire Wells’s words keep playing in his mind. Their tone, the implications, the effect on viewers, the effect on someone holding the woman’s twelve-year-old son? Anything could set such a person off, Dulac thinks. Who knows? There are cheesy noodles, broccoli, and pork chops on his plate, and he eats methodically, chews over one thing and another. Unless, of course, the boy is already dead, he thinks. Like the chief said. As others have said. As he doesn’t wish to believe.

“Thinking about your case?” Bea says, across the table. Unlike other times when he has come in late, when she usually continues watching television, she is sitting with him now.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Everyone at work is talking about it,” she says.

“Are they?” he says. Talk of this kind is off-limits, of course, according to their old pact. Still he adds, “Just from the radio?”

“And TV,” she says.

He nods. Then he says, “The fliers, too, I guess.”

“A couple people did mention those,” she says.

“That’s good,” he says. “Wait until tomorrow, with the papers out this evening. And of course, the mother’s appeal tonight on TV. But I think the papers get the biggest response.”

“You’re not still feeling upset?” she says.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Dulac says. He continues to eat, to sip from his glass of ice water. She brought it up, he is thinking.

“What’s she like?” Beatrice says.

Dulac pauses, as if to finish a mouthful. Then he says, “You sure you want to talk about this?”

“Well, everyone is asking me questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Well, what does Gil think has happened to him? That kind of thing. What they want to know, of course, is if I know anything, At the same time everyone’s a little afraid, you know. Certainly those who have children.”

Dulac hunches his shoulders, chews some more. Then he says, “I don’t want you to tell people what I think.”

“I won’t,” she says.

He sips more water. “If it’s what it seems to be,” he says, “then it’s probably sexually motivated.”

“You think so?”

“Odds would have it, too, that he’s no longer alive.”

“Oh.”

“I hope he is. Our assumption is that he is. That’s why we’re trying to be careful.”

“A twelve-year-old boy. It’s sad.”

“There’s a risk in what we’re doing. If he is alive and being held, we’re putting pressure on the person holding him.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, put yourself in the place of someone holding him. Here’s all this pressure, a lot of people despising you, looking for you. What would you do?”

“I’d take off, I guess.”

“After you did away with the evidence. Buried it. What would you do if no one seemed to be looking for you or seemed to be mad at you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I. But chances are it would be neither of the above. That’s the risk, you see. For me.”

Bea doesn’t say anything then, as he continues to eat. The reason they banned such dinnertime conversation has entered the air; his own food taste is affected. “Don’t mention that to anyone,” Dulac says.

“I bet you’re tired,” Bea says after a moment.

“I am. I know this is just getting started, too.”

“Do you have any good leads?” she says.

Dulac looks over at her, surprised again. “Not really,” he says, continuing with his chewing. “The problem now, the chief told me a couple hours ago—with the papers out—could be in keeping the pressure from ourselves.”

“From yourselves?”

“From the press and so on. The media. To answer that question you just asked. Do you have any leads? What’s going on? If the press takes it on, the chief says to watch out for the politicians—city, state, and so on—and of course he thinks the press will take it on.”

“Politicians?”

“That’s what he says. If it’s action, if it’s carried by the papers, they’re going to want a piece of it.”

“Does that make sense?”

“I don’t know. It’s what he says. He says we’ll spend half our time on the case and half justifying ourselves.”

“You’ve had big cases before,” she says.

“Not like this, though. It’s almost fashionable.”

She nods; once more he turns back to his food. “So how did things go with the mother on TV?” she says.

“Fine, I think. I think she did a fine job. We told her to keep it simple and direct. To imagine she was speaking only to her son. Directly. To just ask him to come home. You’ll see.”

“What’s she like?”

“The reason I think she was effective is that she just spoke clearly. And slowly, too. I mean she wasn’t slow, but the TV people, you know, their voices are so quick, and here was this woman who just says, ‘We love you Eric. We miss you. Please come home.’ It shot me through for a minute, you know. I think it did everyone who was there.”

“She works at Boothbay?”

“Yeah, she’s just an ordinary person who works. Lives in an apartment with her two boys. A single mother. The touch in the paper calling her ‘a divorcee who works as a barmaid’ was inaccurate. The newspaper people amaze me. I guess that kind of thing sells.”

“She’s a nice person?”

“She’s a fine person. She’s been working as a waitress on weekends, working two jobs just to keep her family together. Then this happens.”

He doesn’t say any more. Nor does he eat any more, although he has food left on his plate, and he never leaves food on his plate. “I’m going to have a drink,” he says. “You want a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

While he is up then, Bea says to him, “What should I say if people ask me things?”

“Say,” he says, “that you and your old man never discuss his work.”

“It’s so sad, isn’t it?” she says. “In a little town like this.”

V
ERNON SLIPS BACK TO HIS HIDING PLACE IN THE HOSPITAL
parking lot. He has driven here on another thought of laying the boy at the door of the emergency room. And going on his way. Going hack to the cottage, doing his school work, returning to his life. Taking his chances.

He sits in the dark car, though, looking over the tops of cars. It is quiet; visiting horns are over.

A car is entering then. Pulling into the lot, it parks in the crowd of cars close to the building. Vernon watches. He feels distant, even absent. Nothing happens to the car for a moment, until a man emerges, closes the door—no sound comes to Vernon, as if there is an overall drone of generators—and walks away, into the overlapping buildings. Vernon feels he has a vantage point, all at once, on existence itself, here in his hiding place.

A woman is coming from one of the buildings. She is on a sidewalk, where she pauses under a floodlight. She wears a dark coat and does not appear to have on white stockings or white shoes, like so many others. She slips into a car in the main concentration of cars, and in a moment, soundlessly, the car’s exhaust lifts into the darkness. Her headlights come on; as she pulls around to drive away, another car is entering.

“Wake up,” Vernon whispers to the boy, as he looks at him.

Then it comes to him that he doesn’t really want the boy to wake up. If the boy would join him, and make a game of
imagining why people are coming and going from the hospital, it would be wonderful. It would be all he ever wanted.

But he won’t, Vernon thinks. Not now or ever.

He settles back and looks up through the windshield as if it were a skylight. No stars are visible. Low clouds look pink in the darkness as they reflect light from below. A capability is in him, he sees, and he is merely waiting. He is merely waiting. It has come to this.

M
ATT IS STANDING
. H
E HAS NO FEELING TO SIT DOWN
. T
HE
news is almost there. He stands behind the couch where his mother is sitting. What if Vanessa sees his mother on television? he thinks. Would she ever speak to him again? Everyone will see his mother, he thinks.

“Mom,” he starts to say.

“Shh,” she says. “Don’t talk now. Let’s just watch this.”

“It’s only a commercial,” he says.

“I said be quiet! Why don’t you sit down?”

He was only going to ask how long she thought she’d be on. He stands there with his hands on the back of the couch, as a couple is shown at a desk. Anchorman and anchorwoman. The woman leads off, saying something about nuclear disarmament
talks breaking off or starting up. The man returns a headline about missing POWs, and then the woman says, “Meanwhile, in Portsmouth tonight a mother appeals for the return of her missing twelve-year-old son, whose whereabouts remain unknown.”

Matt stands there. He seems to think, okay, that wasn’t so bad. Other headlines are given, followed by commercials and then the man is talking about Southeast Asia. Matt doesn’t take in any of the words. Then—all at once it seems—the woman is talking about Eric Wells, who is twelve, who lives in Portsmouth, who was last seen Saturday evening . . . and the words are ringing, striking into Matt’s mind, going by too quickly.

There is his mother. He is shocked by her looks. She is pale, small, and old in comparison to people on television. She speaks so slowly. “Matt and I both love you,” her voice says into their living room. “We want you to come home.”

Matt feels lost. He feels as he did once when he saw a man and a woman fighting, physically, on the sidewalk. For moments afterward, he felt lost. So does he also miss the following, quickly spoken stories now; they fly past him.
Matt and I both love you,
he hears again. Is that all there is to life? he wonders.

“What did you think?” his mother says, turning to look at him at last.

“About what?”

“Well, what do you think?” she says.

“I don’t know.”

“Was it okay?”
she says.
“Did you think it was okay?”

“Sure.”

“My gosh, is that all you can say?”

“What do you expect me to say? I thought it was okay.”

She is looking to the screen again, and Matt wanders into the kitchen. He looks around there, feeling he doesn’t know
what to do. Does he love Eric? he is wondering. Does he? What is love? He had thought it was the amazing feeling he had had for Vanessa Dineen. Yet he thinks and sees—in this moment—that he feels something, too, for Eric. It’s like the ground or the air, he thinks. It’s not rainbows and flash floods. It’s the two of them talking in the dark at night in their bedroom when they were supposed to be going to sleep. Or walking somewhere, That’s what he misses all at once, what appears to be gone in this moment.