The True Detective (44 page)

Standing, the questions left hanging, Dulac knows without looking at his watch that it is time to leave. Checking his hardware, double-checking the presence in his deep shirt pocket of the warrant and a USGS map on which the cottage has been marked in fluorescent yellow, he takes up not his regular jacket but a flak vest he has checked out, and adds over this a light and roomy, dark blue jacket with
POLICE
on the back in reflective white letters. And he remarks to himself, this is why you’re here, this is the time to do what you’re here to do, as he moves across the hall and into the squad room, where the others are waiting in their blue jackets, with tear gas canisters, shotguns, rifle with scope, waiting for his word.

Here Dulac says, surprised at himself, “Listen up, everybody. This may be the moment we’ve waited for. There’s a little kid out there being held. We’re close now. Our job is to set him free. Let us be the men this little boy will never forget. Let’s do that.”

“Right on, Lieutenant,” someone says, in relief it seems, as they move to file out.

C
LAIRE STAGGERS FROM THE LIVING ROOM TO THE KITCHEN
. She continues half-asleep—on the couch, before the flickering
TV, she had drifted at last into the bottom of the ocean—as the telephone rings again and calls to her as if in a dream. What is it? Who is she? Where are Matt and Eric? She fumbles the receiver from the hook, stops the ring. It seems that true sleep had eluded her for days, until an hour or so ago.

“Hullo?” she says, getting the receiver into position with both hands.

“This is a true crank call,” a male voice says.

“What—who is this?” Claire says.

“People say I am a crank, although I am an ordained minister,” the man says.

“What do you want?” Claire says. “Who is this?”

“You may have seen me on television, where I have preached the gospel many times.”

“What is this? Do you know something about Eric?”

“Eric? Eric, Eric,” the man says. “Of course I know about Eric. Why do you think I’ve called? Why else would I call? I know exactly about Eric. And exactly about you, too.”

“What do you know? What are you saying?”

“Oh, this is a crank call to be sure,” the man says. “Those who speak the truth are always labeled cranks. Did you know that? The truth can be most disturbing.”

“Please—what do you want? Do you know something about Eric? Who are you?”

“Of your son—I’ve told you who I am; I am an unacknowledged disciple; I am a
crank,
it is true. Of your son—as you yourself deserted Jesus, as you believed that you could live a life, on this earth, dedicated
not
to the teachings of Christ—did it never occur to you that your child might be taken from you? Did it never occur to you that in the child God created your opportunity for redemption, your opportunity to be saved, that hell on earth might occur in the violation of our children? You
know, you know—hear me now—the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Has it not occurred to you, has there not been a voice speaking to you in your heart, as you strayed from Christ’s teachings, as you strayed from the needs and welfare of your husband and children, as you elected, elected your path in life to follow into the city’s bright and gaudy—”

Claire hangs up. Shaken, she stands there; she doesn’t know what to do. Should she call the lieutenant? Forget about it? Wake up Matt? She fears the phone is going to ring right back at her, reach to throttle her with its curious righteousness, but it doesn’t. She is bothered then—she hadn’t been at first—by what the man said. It was like her parents, her father come alive, to let her know that the fault lay with her, However she might argue, it would not be heard. Nor, she knows, would she hear it herself, for down deep, and in spite of anything anyone might say, she has a feeling that the judgment upon her is true. Her life has been her fault. She made choices, she failed to do what might have been done . . .

She dials the number she almost knows by heart now. The number is on a piece of paper slipped between the telephone and the wall. “I’d say that was a crank call,” an officer tells her. “If they call back—”

She hardly hears the rest, as the previous male voice remains more compelling. Dear God Almighty, she says to herself when she has hung up. Is there hell on earth? Sweet Jesus, forgive me if I have offended Thee. Forgive me, please, if I have not been as good, if I have not done all that I could have done. Please let me have my little boy home again. I beg of You. He means everything to me. He is life, he is love; he is the future and the reason to live; I know that he is Your child, too, and that all that is beautiful resides in him; I know this and if You will let me, if You will give another chance, I will dedicate myself to You both . . .

She wakes Matt. She doesn’t tell him of the call; rather she sits on the side of his bed in the dark when she has awakened him by speaking his name. She says to him, “Matt, I’m sorry to wake you. I want you to know . . . I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you. I did trust you, but then I didn’t; I’m so sorry for that.”

Matt says nothing, as if he is too much asleep or doesn’t know what to say.

“Are you scared?” Claire says then.

“Scared?” Matt says.

“About Eric,” she says.

“Yah,” Matt says through the darkness.

“I can’t believe he isn’t here,” she says.

Matt doesn’t respond.

“He’d come home, wouldn’t he, if he could?” she says.

“What do you mean?” Matt says.

“He wouldn’t stay away on his own, would he? Because he was mad at us?”

“Mom, they know someone has him. They know that.”

“But why?” she says then.
“Why?”

Matt doesn’t respond, as if he is too weary, as if there can be no answer to the question she is asking.

A
T LAST
,
AS ALL IS IN PLACE AND
D
ULAC CHECKS HIS WATCH
—to shift gears—he sees that it is 0220. Okay, he thinks. If they
haven’t spooked him in the meantime, if he should dare to return here—in spite of the prevailing opinion that he is already long gone to Boston or New York or attempting to slip into Canada—they are ready for him. They will take him.

The appearance of the outside of the cottage, barely disturbed as they took occupation, is normal. The cars driven by Dulac and Mizener remain a couple hundred yards away, out along the long gravel driveway and across two-lane Route 125, in the shadows next to a small closed diner. It is where they parked to make their initial approach to the cottage.

A stakeout is in place. Four cars and ten men are being used. Two cars are positioned at the two entrances to the cottage; another is at the traffic circle half a mile away, through which intersection, the state police commander has suggested, most anyone coming or going, innocent or aware, is likely to pass, and another, already manned like the others, is backed in beside an unoccupied cottage fifty yards away, allowing a view of the target cottage should a car somehow slip unseen past one of the other positions, or should the suspect approach by foot. Inside the cottage itself, two detectives are prepared to take up positions in the dark, to wait out the balance of the night, or until relieved, and to serve as the command post for purposes of communication from without and to the other positions.

Dulac is anxious to be gone from the cottage, to have the lights turned out, even though the roommates have assured him that it would not appear unusual for lights to be on at this hour. For the moment, with the suspect’s bedroom and all in the bathroom but the toilet taped off, in case they may wish to call in the state police lab people tomorrow, all present are in the dining room–kitchen area, sipping instant coffee, smoking, sitting and standing, and there exists something of a party atmosphere.

Dulac’s position concerning the whereabouts of the suspect and in justification of the stakeout is that the suspect was there that evening, that he had been there on at least two other occasions during the time that Eric Wells had been missing, that something, presumably the boy, kept him from resuming his regular life at the cottage, at the same time that something else—who knew what exactly?—had him making these periodic return visits. Maybe he comes back to change clothes, Dulac has said. To shave, although the report from the roommate had it that as of that evening he had not shaved in two days or more. Maybe he will come back again, Dulac keeps thinking. In response to the argument put forth by the state police district commander—returned by now to Concord—and by Mizener and others, that the suspect, aware that he has been made, would be on the run, Dulac has argued that nothing the suspect had done so far was very rational, that all that they knew indicated an individual entirely new to what he is doing, one who is apparently rattled and confused and who is reported by an eyewitness to have been that very evening in an erratic emotional state. Besides, Dulac has added, alerts are out to block all those more rational and conventional avenues of escape.

They have yet to locate a photograph. In the suspect’s bedroom, using the blunt end of a ballpoint, Dulac has picked briefly through his possessions, has discovered a hard-core porn magazine depicting prepubescent boys but nothing which appears otherwise revealing or incriminating, and no photograph.

At last, they are ready to leave. Mizener will be transporting the three roommates to places in town, where they have agreed to stay with friends, leaving their cars in place as part of the decoy and Dulac will be returning to the station in Portsmouth, to check in, to send Shirley home if she is still there, and
to be sure that the task force night shift is on top of all that is happening.

“Just a couple more questions,” Dulac says then, as the roommates have laundry bags and books and are ready to leave, drawing an expression from Mizener.

“Where do you
think
he is?” Dulac says. “What’s your gut feeling? Your immediate reaction?”

“Gone,” the larger boy, Leon, says at once. “Boston. The Combat Zone. There’s where I see him.”

“I have a feeling he’s on his way to Miami, Florida,” the boy named Wayne says as Dulac turns to him. “That’s what I think,” the boy adds, as if to apologize.

“I don’t know,” Duncan says in his turn. “I just don’t know. He’s an idealistic person, in spite of this. I see him huddled up somewhere. I could see him in the woods, both of them, in a cave, making shelter, something like that.”

“Weaving baskets?” Mizener says.

“No, no, let them talk,” Dulac snaps at him.

Turning to the three, Dulac says, “Okay, tell me this. Do you think he would
hurt
the boy?”

“No way,” Duncan says. “No way. He may be messed up sexually and so on, but I don’t see him doing something violent.”

“And so on,” Dulac says. “What do you mean by that? Did he make advances to you, any of you, or disclosures?”

“No,” Duncan says. “He didn’t—”

“Come on, Dunc, you can tell us,” the bigger student says, drawing a brief snicker from a couple of those present.

“Nothing like that,” Duncan says. “Not to me anyway.”

To the other two then, Dulac says, “Do you think he would hurt the boy?”

Only the larger one answers. “I have no idea,” he says.

“You don’t know anyone named Tony?” Dulac says, drawing nothing but stares from the three, for it is a question he has already put to them, separately and jointly, half a dozen times.

“Okay, let’s go,” he says then, giving a nod.

An hour later, when it is close to four a.m. and Shirley is still there, in the squad room with the night shift crew of three, Dulac is on the telephone in his cubicle speaking to the state police lieutenant in Concord. The suspect’s mother did not return home until one ten, the man has told him, as she remained at the restaurant after going off duty and imbibed two mixed drinks. She was up then for twenty-two minutes before turning off the lights. In turn, Dulac has reported the stakeout to be in place at the cottage and has said that he probably
will
be asking for the state police lab people to check over the cottage tomorrow afternoon, to see if there are any hairs or fibers which might tie things even more positively to the boy.

“I’ll tell you what my guess is,” the state police lieutenant says. “My guess is this Vernon Fischer is trying to slip into Canada right now, if he’s half as smart as his roommates seem to think he is. Or he’s up in Montreal already, speaking French for all he’s worth.”

“You think he’d get in?” Dulac says. “With all the alerts we have out?”

“Not in, but around. If he’s desperate,”

“What about the boy?” Dulac says.

“I’d say a shallow grave,” the state police lieutenant says. “Close by. Which may or may not be easy to find. Listen, these things are happening from one end of the country to the other. It used to be drugs. Now it’s children. Don’t ask me why.”

“It’s a new pathology,” Dulac says.

“Is it?” the man says.

“So I’m told,” Dulac says. “Everyone said it was okay and it turns out it isn’t.”

The state police lieutenant’s response is silence; it is a response.

Dulac wishes he had not opened the door he just opened. “We are going to need a photograph,” he says.

“Right,” the other man says.

“If nothing breaks in the meantime, could your people enter the house there in Laconia? In the early morning, say, at daybreak.”

“Of course,” the man says.

“Use an unmarked car, say whatever has to be said.”

“Of course,” the state police lieutenant says.

Moments later, pausing over the replaced receiver to gather his thoughts, and walking out into the squad room, Dulac sees Shirley working at the nearest table with what appear to be tip sheets, and he says to her, “Shirley, what are you doing? You don’t have to be here.”

“Just checking these tip sheets, to see if anything else might have been a true sighting.”

“You don’t trust the computer?”

“It’s fed by people.”

“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” he says.