The True Detective (47 page)

He keeps sinking. The feeling is taking in his family, too, his mother and brother and where they live. It’s the first time he’s quite thought of himself and his brother and his mother and where they live as anything, as any kind of home or family, but that is what he is thinking now. Maybe it’s a touch of pride he is feeling, for the first time ever in his life.

She is
black,
he thinks; who does she think she is?

Time passes. Geometry continues and he sits there. He does not belong to geometry; geometry does not belong to him. How they live is the reason Eric was taken. Kids who live in houses and have families, and have cars and money, aren’t taken. Geometry belongs to them. That’s how it is.

Writing a note to her, he knows, is another mistake. Everything he does with her seems to be wrong. He does it, though, writes
Vanessa
across a folded slip of paper. Leaning across the aisle, he starts the note on its way, whispering “Federal Express,” as he has heard other students whisper.

He doesn’t look. He sits looking to the front, as if understanding now what the teacher is explaining at the board. His message on the note is simple: “Lunch at Gumps?” it says. He has signed it
M
.

Eating at the same table in the cafeteria is one thing; club or class project might be the cover. Walking several blocks to Gumps—a mom-and-pop store which sells subs and packaged pies—is far more daring. He knows it is a mistake.

His elbow is tapped. There is the slip of paper, which he holds a moment and then unfolds on his desk between fingers of both hands. “Not today,” it says. That’s all. There is no initial.

He keeps himself from looking at her again. When the class ends, he makes his way from the room and along the hall. He seems to be telling himself that he can play hard to get, too. Or is it something else that is on his mind? His hurt is such that he doesn’t seem to know what it is that is wrong. Only everything, it seems.

D
ULAC DOESN
’
T STOP FOR BREAKFAST OR COFFEE
. M
AYBE HE
is too knotted—the term fits him exactly, he thinks—to have room for food to fit into his body. Maybe, in his stubbornness, he doesn’t want food to soften him or relax him as he knows it will. Maybe he wants to remain tightened like a fist.

The secret witness, Martin, is with him now. They are sitting in Dulac’s car in the small campus police parking lot, waiting for some records on cars and class schedules to be prepared and handed over at last. Dulac is smoking another cigarette. The two
passenger windows are down several inches and it seems clear to Dulac that the man beside him does not like the smoke. He doesn’t care what the man likes.

In the library, and taking the yearbook with them, Martin showed him a photo of a group of students, one of whom he believed could be the student, Vernon Fischer. Otherwise he has found no pictures. The photo has meant little to Dulac, except as it shows such a surprisingly young-looking person. Of course a twelve-year-old boy would be easily conned by such a person, he has thought. Of course. Especially if he came on in some sincere way. How strange, Dulac has thought, too, that the capacity to abduct a child might exist within an otherwise attractive person. For even in the eyes of a policeman, it seems to him, it didn’t used to be like that. Couldn’t you
tell
a child molester?

The witness is too uncertain for the yearbook photo to be used. It may well be, he has suggested himself, a look-alike student. In black and white, the photo shows a line of eight or ten students—a general caption mentions a Student Film Series—looking over their shoulders, apparently on command, most of them appearing surprised at the flash of a camera. The look-alike student, third closest, appears, even as he stands among others, to be alone.

“Does he look homosexual?” Dulac says.

“What?”
the man says.

“Forget it,” Dulac says. He thinks to add
fuck you,
but doesn’t.

“My God, Lieutenant, you ask offensive questions. You think people
look
homosexual?”

“It’s my job,” Dulac says.

“What is your job?”

“Asking offensive questions.”

“Really,” the man says.

“And it’s true,” Dulac says. “Some men, who are homosexual, look homosexual. Okay? Maybe some don’t but a hell of a lot do. It may not be politic to say that, but it’s reality. That’s where I work. Reality.”

They sit a time. Dulac, lighting another cigarette, feels the campus police may be moving slow in a last-gasp attempt to assert something. Assholes, he thinks. Petty assholes.

As another wave of students passes, Martin says, “It’s hard to believe that someone who is a student would abduct a little kid.”

“Why do you think that?” Dulac says, thinking how characteristic it is of gay men that their recovery time, upon being offended, is so brief.

“They seem so trouble-free. And so young, at an age when people are usually more generous of spirit than they are later. You know, Lieutenant, I wouldn’t be surprised if this Vernon person is still here, even attending his classes.”

“I have that feeling myself,” Dulac says, “but I’m not sure why. I don’t know what he’d do with the boy.”

“It’s obvious he’s a pedophile,” the man says. “That indicates a certain kind of motivation. So much, you know, is made of mothers disrupting the sexuality of their sons. I’ve wondered at times what the effect is, on boys, of their fathers withholding love from them, not being there, you know, when they’re needed.”

They sit there. In a moment, Dulac says, “What would you do?”

“Is this another offensive question?”

“Probably,” Dulac says. “If you knew, from your roommate, that you’d been made. Would you run? Would you harm the boy?”

“I don’t think so,” the man says. “I can’t imagine harming a little boy or anyone else. And like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this Vernon attend his classes, as if nothing had happened.”

“I don’t see how he could feel like nothing has happened,” Dulac says.

“Just denial,” the man says. “That’s all.”

In another moment then, when the campus police still have not signaled them, the man says, “You have children, Lieutenant?”

“No,” Dulac says.

“Did you want to?”

“We did.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. We weren’t lucky. That’s all. You didn’t really answer my question about running, trying to escape, if you were the suspect and knew you had been identified.”

“I thought I did answer it.”

“You’d go on with your life?”

“I think I might. I don’t know.”

“That seems amazingly childlike.”

“Well, your suspect may be like that—extremely immature. And he probably isn’t gay. About which you keep generalizing.”

“Okay,” Dulac says.

“Still, you do it,” the man says.

Dulac sits quietly a moment. “I guess I do,” he says then. “In any case, I’ve asked your opinion on things because I believed your ideas would be better informed than my own.”

“That’s offensive, too,” the man says.

“I’m sure it is,” Dulac says.

“And so smug.”

“I’m sure,” Dulac says.

“People are different, you know. Even gays. I don’t happen to be a child molester. I’m not sure I even understand the impulse. Okay?”

“I didn’t mean to say you were a child molester. Although that is a generalization on your part. This is a young boy, picked up by a young man.”

“There you go again,” the man says. “Putting me in a category. One where I don’t belong. I do not go for little boys.”

“Okay, let’s drop it.”

“I think you owe me an apology,” the man says.

“Let’s just drop it,” Dulac says.

“Some men—you know—who are gay are simply biologically so. It’s what they
are.”

“I think we should just drop it,” Dulac says. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

“They’re not necessarily deviant,” the man says.

“I don’t know about the biology,” Dulac says. “But from where I sit, you see—since you insist—from where I sit, a lot of people who identify themselves as gay weigh in with serious, deep-seated psychological problems. They cause grief. They’re aggressive. Selfish. They’re nothing but offensive in their demands on my time and attention. The law means nothing to them. I’m sorry, but that’s what comes through my door.”

“I’m not one of those,” the man says.

“Good,” Dulac says.

“I’ll tell you what rankles me, though,” the man says. “It’s the positions taken by so-called officials. Like yourself. Lawmakers, and so on. Categorizing
everything.”

“Why don’t you forget it,” Dulac says.

“I don’t want to forget it.”

“Okay. Let me tell you then what rankles me. It’s that. Politicking. Demanding. Constant fucking politicking. Blindly. What you’re asking for is special treatment. You and
your
concerns, your little weenies. What makes you think the world should stop all the time and indulge your fucking cares and concerns? That is selfishness. That is smug. Who has time for it? I don’t. You made your choice, live with it.”

“Now I am being insulted.”

“You asked for it. I’m not a politician, I’m a cop. I’ll tell you some more on the subject, because I’m not finished. And I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s been a difficult day so far. I am
them,
you know. I’ve always been
them.
I’ve always been strong, you see. Always. And I’ve always been responsible. If things go wrong, I assume it is my duty to help make them right. Okay? You paint a rosy picture of yourself, is what you do. Fine, if it makes life easier, go ahead and do it. But when things go wrong, you blame it on me. That is what is selfish. At the same time, if I didn’t think you were a decent person, you wouldn’t be here, believe me. But don’t give me any more poor-me bullshit about gays. Because, I’ll tell you, I’ve been working almost exactly in the asshole of human nature for twenty-five years, which is where a lot of the guys on your team hang out, and I know better. Reality happens to be one thing I know.”

Silence follows for a moment. At last the man says, “I did not mean to say that gays are superior or deserve special treatment. If I implied that, I apologize.”

“Fine, forget it,” Dulac says. “I’m afraid I’m not in a very good mood. We have this guy, and yet we don’t have him. It’s beginning to bother me. I apologize, too.”

H
IS MOTHER CAUGHT HIM ONCE
,
IN
C
ALIFORNIA
,
WITHOUT
catching him altogether. There was a carport with a partial cinder-block wall, painted an aqua color, and he was sitting on the other side of the wall with his newfound magazine. His mother’s voice was suddenly almost overhead, calling his name, and in a panic, he slid the magazine up under his T-shirt. Climbing to his feet, pushing his shirttail into his blue jeans, he paused before showing himself.

He stepped around part way, to speak to her. She was going somewhere; she’d be back in twenty minutes; a man, in uniform, might be stopping. She kept looking at him. She shielded her eyes from the sun and looked more closely. What was he doing? What was that in his shirt? Had he picked up his room? She didn’t have time to do it right now; would he go in and pick up the kitchen?

He always believed she saw the magazine cover through his shirt. In the house, before hiding the magazine, he stood before a mirror. The two boys looked visible to him. But then he knew what they were doing. And maybe the sun had reflected in a way that made it difficult to see through his shirt. Still, he always believed she had seen the two boys, and that she had chosen not to acknowledge what she had seen.

That was a long time ago, and he is walking in Portsmouth now, feeling caught and not caught. His car is parked in yet
another supermarket parking lot, just beyond the parking lot where he pulled in and removed the boy from the trunk and placed him on the ground. The move only took him ten or fifteen minutes altogether, going to the hospital to get into his car, picking out the place along the way, and deciding all at once to leave his car in the parking lot of a supermarket that was just a couple hundred yards down the road. All happened on impulse, it seems, and he still feels it was something generous to do. Now they can take care of him. Perhaps as he walked past one or another funeral home the thought had come to him that the little blond-haired boy had to be taken care of. Otherwise, well, otherwise it would be different. Now it would be done.

Maybe, too, he thinks, they will take care of the boy and not worry so much about him. The boy is what they wanted, isn’t it? Could they even associate the boy with him, now that he wasn’t with him? It’s something of a relief, anyway, not to have quite so much to worry about. To feel caught but not caught. To walk here, to feel this curious freedom.

T
HEY ARE SITTING YET IN THE CAR WHEN WORD COMES IN
from Shirley Moss on the radio. “Gil,” she says. “I’m afraid I have bad news. The body of a young boy has just been found. It
looks like it’s Eric. Near a parking lot—the Norton Office Supplies building on Islington Street.”

“It’s close to his house?” Dulac says at last.

“Yes,” she says. “It is.”

“The clothing matches?” he says. He is checking himself against a shifting of the world around him.

“I’m afraid it looks that way. Red jacket is all we know right now.”

“Red jacket.”

“That’s all we know so far,” she says.

“Who found him?” he says.

“A man pulling in there to park. It looks like it just happened, not long ago.”

“You took the call?”

“Two minutes ago.”

“Is Neil going over?”

“He’s just leaving. Several people are.”

Then Dulac says, “Okay. I’m on my way, The stuff here isn’t ready yet anyway. Get Neil, will you, tell him to be sure nothing is disturbed. Tell him to block off the site.”

“Anything else?”

“For the autopsy, the medical exam, call Dr. Miller again, from the university here; ask if he’ll attend. Has his mother been told?”