The Summer Man

by S. D. Perry

  The younger man stayed put, made no move to meet Vincent as he neared.

  “Chief,” the stranger said, his tone as neutral as his expression. “Vincent, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” Vincent nodded. He stopped in front of the man, put on his best PR smile, reached out his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure…?”

  The man hesitated a beat, then stretched out his own and shook briefly. “David Mallon,” he said. “I’m here for the summer.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where are you staying?”

  “Rental,” Mallon said. “On Eleanor Street.”

  Eleanor was only a block and a half long, an extension of Devlin; the short street ran along the east side of Kehoe Park. For a half second, Vincent thought about mentioning the tragedy that had occurred in the park Sunday night, asking if Mallon had been bothered by the hoo-ha afterward, but quickly dismissed the thought. No point in reminding anyone of what had happened. Goddamn media had done enough of that. The last crew had split town just this morning, after a disgustingly exploitive “and now the little town bravely faces its future” piece.

  “Nice day for a walk,” Vincent said, still smiling, observing the summer man carefully. Vincent was privately quite proud of his readings on new people, on feeling like he knew something about them at first impression. If nothing else, people’s feelings about cops usually came out right away, on their faces or in their body language, the big smile and hearty handshake of the pro-police folks, the sneery petulance or bravado of youth, the tension of a guilty conscience—but he got nothing off Mallon. Zip.

  “It is,” Mallon agreed. He didn’t add anything, didn’t ramble nervously or talk to fill space. Just waited.

  “You know, there’s a big picnic over at the fairgrounds today,” Vincent said. “Kind of a welcoming party for our summer guests, food, music, some nice people. It goes on until late, if you feel like heading over.”

  Mallon nodded. “Perhaps I will. Thank you.”

  A man of few words, apparently. Vincent saw no reason to keep him, and he obviously didn’t want to make conversation.

  “Well—nice meeting you,” Vincent said. “Welcome to Port Isley. And you might want to think about sticking to the main trails. Some of the smaller ones aren’t cleared.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Mallon said, then smiled, ever so slightly. “I like the privacy.”

  Vincent was about to offer his hand once more, but Mallon apparently felt excused. He nodded politely at Vincent and then went on his way, moving along down the smaller trail.

  Vincent watched him walk for a few seconds, thinking that in spite of that old saw about how everyone had a story to tell, the only remarkable thing about some people was how entirely unremarkable they were, and then continued on his own walk. He’d have to head back soon; Ashley was planning to bring Lily to the picnic for an early supper, and he wanted to spend a little time with his family, counteract some of the bullshit he’d been shoveling all morning, would probably still be shoveling well after dark.

  He sighed, turned back toward the west exit, where his just-washed-for-summer PIPD patrol unit was parked, and started walking.

  The sun was bright and shining, like the faces of the children who ran and played among the smiling picnickers. Like their little shining souls. And bright voices. Or, their faces glowed from sun and shade and, and…

  The children glowed like tiny suns, their voices radiating like heat…their faces like…brightness in the shade…

  “Miranda?”

  Miranda blinked, her sun-struck vision slowly dimming back to the day. She squinted, shaded her eyes, and saw Patricia Carter standing there, smiling tentatively. Patricia was a promising painter who’d come the artisan’s retreat for the summer two years ago. She’d married the following spring and hadn’t been back, which had vexed Miranda somewhat; she and James had subsidized Patricia’s room and board, and the girl hadn’t even managed to respond to last year’s invitation…although she had sent a lovely, hand-painted seasonal card to the retreat around the holidays, Miranda recalled, which counted for good manners, at least. She’d taken a day job as a bookkeeper or some such…paralegal? Something white-collarish.

  “Patricia, how are you, dear? You look wonderful.” She stood, embraced the girl, then opened her arm to the other chairs. “Sit and tell me how you are.”

  “Oh, I can only stay a minute,” Patricia said, her face set in an apologetic smile. “Mark’s over fending for himself at the concessions, and—”

  “You don’t mind if I…?” Miranda sat down again as Patricia shook her head, mumbling her acquiescence. “I’ve been on my feet all day; you know how summers are. We’ve got seven new people in, just in the last week. We’re still getting settled.”

  Patricia folded her arms across her chest, nodding, smiling. “Are Brenda and Steve here this year?”

  Miranda felt her grin set slightly. Steve and Brenda DeLinn had been with the retreat every summer since…since she’d started the retreat, really. The second or third summer, anyway, and that meant ten years, at least. Miranda had considered them both her close friends. If they’d needed money, they could have come to her; they didn’t need to lie about being busy, they didn’t have to choose California over the retreat…

  They were shallow and ungrateful people, she and James were in complete agreement. And not nearly so talented as they believed themselves to be. Thought they were the second coming of the Natzlers, for heaven’s sake.

  “No,” Miranda said, as evenly as possible. “But what are you up to, dear? What’s lighting up your life right now, right this very moment?”

  Patricia smiled widely. “Well…Mark and I are trying to get pregnant.”

  “You are, how wonderful! I just love babies, love them. I have three nieces, you know, and all of them have children, and they’re just the sweetest things.”

  “We’re really excited,” Patricia said. “Mark just got a new job. And we can afford for me to be a full-time artist for a while, so the timing is right. We’re just ready, you know?”

  “That’s so lovely,” Miranda said. “You know who we do have this year—Darrin Everret, from Massachusetts. You know his work?”

  “Ah, no, I don’t think—”

  “He’s still quite young, but he’s going to make an impact, I can tell you. Drawings, mostly, pencil and charcoal. You—you and Mark, of course—you’ll have to come to the show at the end of the summer, to see his work. It’s extraordinary.” She hesitated, then added, “I don’t believe I saw you there last summer.”

  Patricia crossed her arms tighter. “We meant to come, but we had a minor emergency…”

  She trailed off. Miranda smiled, waited.

  “Mark’s mother spent some time in the hospital. She’s in Portland, so we had to be down there for a while,” Patricia said finally.

  Miranda pressed one hand to her chest. “Darling, I’m so sorry. How dreadful.”

  “Oh, it’s fine. She’s doing fine, now.”

  “Well, thank heavens,” Miranda said. “And the two of you with a baby on the way. Hopefully soon. We never had children, you know. How lovely. I hope you’re keeping up with your work?”

  Patricia nodded. “I am, actually. I’m not as prolific as I was when I was here, though.”

  “It’s the community spirit,” Miranda said firmly. She and James spoke of it often, the productivity that was possible when so many artistic minds were creating, together. It was why they’d begun the retreat in the first place.

  “Oh, I always meant to ask—did Monet ever come back?” Patricia asked.

  The cats. Miranda frowned, trying to recall if Patricia had always been so tactless. “No, he never did.”

  “Poor Manet,” Patricia said. “They were so cute together.”

  “Manet was gone a week into the fall,” Miranda said. “We’ve stopped keeping cats at the retreat.” Just saying it aloud made her feel grim and unhappy. Monet and Manet had been the fourth
and last pair of cats they’d had since opening their community. All of them had disappeared, some within a week or two of their arrival. The summer Patricia had been there, the mystery of the disappearing cats had been a frequently covered topic at mealtimes. The most often agreed upon explanation was that the cats had all been killed by the animals in the woods that bordered the retreat. The hills just outside town stretched into federally protected coastal oldgrowth habitat. There were owls and foxes and wolverines, even black bears a bit farther south. It was likely reasoning, but Miranda knew better.

  “It’s just as well,” she added, and didn’t try to smile. “No reason to give those, those crazies anyone new to kill.”

  “So you really think it was them?” Patricia asked.

  Miranda nodded, feeling a flush of anger. “I’m certain.”

  Crazies. Survivalists. They had their own compound less than a mile from the community, back in the woods. They had guns, and they ate dehydrated food and built bomb shelters and God only knew what else. When she and James had first opened their retreat, she’d made the terrible, horrid mistake of asking them to not shoot things on her property. Within a month, Francisco and Georgia were gone. She hadn’t known, of course…and even as late as the summer Patricia had been with the community, she’d only had suspicions. Last October, though, Miranda had run into the leader of the whackos and one of his sons at the market. She’d looked up from perusing the apples—James was off at Truman’s, fetching organic milk and cream cheese; the local store didn’t carry either—and there he’d been, Cole Jessup and one of his spawn. Both in dirty flannel and military boots caked with mud, both with the same faded blue eyes and leathery skin, though the son—Mitchell?—had better teeth than his father. The younger Jessup had been holding a handbasket filled with jars of peanut butter and had spotted her first from near one of the checkouts. He had nudged Cole—he had a cart stacked with cases of cheap beer, of course—and the two men had grinned through a mumbled exchange, staring at her.

  As she’d gone back to picking over the apples, Mitchell Jessup had clearly said, “Meow.”

  Terrible, terrible men. She’d complained to the police, of course, but they’d been unable to do anything beyond talk to Jessup, who’d flatly stated that if people didn’t want to lose their pets, they ought not let them roam…

  “Well. I’m sure they’ll get what’s coming to them. Anyway, I’ve got to—”

  “Karma,” Miranda nodded.

  “It’s wonderful to see you, but I’ve really got to go rescue my husband,” Patricia said. “And you can count on us for the show this summer.”

  “That’s wonderful, dear,” Miranda said, shading her eyes again as Patricia backed away. “We have our performance night coming up next month, mid-July—well, poetry, mostly, but I’m sure there will be some other—”

  “We’ll check the paper,” Patricia called back, and hurried away, disappearing into a crowd of sundresses and shorts. Miranda saw a few of her colonists walking toward the stage area together and was about to shout them over when her husband spoke.

  “Was that Patty?”

  Miranda turned and saw that James had finally managed to make his way back to their designated spot. He held two paper plates, loaded with those little Spanish appetizers that Elson’s had put out this year, a giant plastic cup cradled against his side.

  “Patricia, dear,” Miranda said. “And where have you been? I’m parched.”

  The kids approached Bob during the Baptist church choir’s enthusiastic rendition of “Nearer My God To Thee,” fervently conducted by the high school music teacher. Bob was glad for the break. Enthusiastic, the singers were; talented, not so much. Besides which, Bob liked a good story, and the two teens looked like they had one to tell. The four pints he’d had since the picnic’s kickoff certainly helped kindle his interest, and the cagey suggestion from the fey young man that they go “somewhere private” added a touch of the dramatic. Thinking of what he’d heard earlier in the day, about the girl’s alleged psychic revelation, Bob had gladly accepted their invitation, preparing himself for either a sincere story of harassment or a wonderfully tall tale.

  As he’d dared to hope, the story they started telling was a creatively exciting one. The young man introduced them both—they were Devon Shupe (pronounced “Shoo-pay”) and Amanda Young, respectively—and did most of the talking, explaining what had happened and what they believed was yet to happen. In short, the girl had foreseen Lisa Meyer’s death a week earlier and had experienced another vision since, of a rape that would occur that very night if nothing was done to stop it. An assault that would take place not far from where they were standing, sheltered from the crowd by the cinderblock restrooms. The girl seemed nervous. Understandably so, if she’d actually seen what she claimed.

  It was their obvious sincerity that had Bob paying closer attention than he might have otherwise. By the time Devon had touched on all the high points, Bob’s initial smirk had taken backseat to a genuine curiosity.

  “So,” Devon said, taking a deep breath. “We need help. We figure no way the cops’ll believe us, and it’s not like we’re going to, like—kidnap Brian Glover or something.”

  He fell silent, glancing at Amanda, who was lighting a cigarette. She half smiled back at him, exhaling smoke as she spoke.

  “That’s one we didn’t think of. Why don’t we just kill him? We could hide the body in Peter’s truck.”

  Devon chuckled at the obvious sarcasm, and though Bob didn’t know who Peter was, he smiled politely, distantly, his mind ticking through their assertions. Out on the main concourse, the Baptist choir had gone into a rather chilling interpretation of “Down by the River.”

  “Back up a minute,” he said, addressing Amanda directly. “You saw Billings bite her, is that right?”

  “Yeah,” Amanda said. “He started choking her, and then he just leaned forward and…and bit. Her face.” The corners of her mouth turned down, her expression one of extreme distaste. “Pulled off a piece and chewed on it.”

  Bob looked at Devon. “Did she say that? When she, ah, started shouting?”

  Devon hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. She said Mr. Billings was killing Lisa Meyer, is all. She told me later, though.”

  “That night?” Bob asked.

  Both nodded. Bob kept his polite smile on, thinking it over. It hadn’t gone out in the Press, of course, but Annie Thomas had told him about the facial mutilation—had told him only this morning, a few hours earlier, that the ME had identified it as a bite. This supposition was solidly backed up by what they’d found in Billings’s stomach. It would get around, of course, the details always did in Port Isley, but he was fairly certain that that particular nugget of unpleasantness was still unknown to the general public. Which begged the question, how did Amanda Young know about it at all, let alone prior to the attack?

  No way to check it, though. She told her friend, nobody else. She’d apparently told half the party that Billings killed the girl—and Lisa Meyer had actually been there at the time, alive and well, according to his sources—but had only told Devon about the bite to her face. Bob could check the story, talk to some of the partygoers that hadn’t already approached him…but that wasn’t proof of anything, even if he could count on a group of unknown teenagers at a beer-and-pot party to tell him the truth. Maybe Amanda knew about the affair between the teacher and student, knew that they were about to split up or something, and had decided to make the party a little more dramatic. Maybe Billings was sleeping with Amanda too and had told her his plans. Looking at the girl’s rather sweet young face, innocent in spite of the deliberately jaded air she assumed, he doubted it—but he’d been lied to before, and by people more innocent looking than her. Looks could be deceiving.

  The thing about the bite, though…

  “Assuming I were to believe you, what would you have me do about it?” Bob asked.

  Devon looked awkwardly at the girl, then back to Bob.
“You could tell the police,” he said. “They’d listen to you.”

  Bob had to smile. “What makes you think that?”

  “You’re—your opinion matters,” Devon said. “People would listen to someone with, um, credibility.”

  Spoken like a true idealist. “What would I say?” Bob asked.

  Again, the look exchange. “You could tell them the truth,” Devon said, and Bob could actually see a glimmer of that pitifully hopeful optimism fading, his young gaze going murky, confused. “You could check everything out, and then you’d have evidence, you could convince them to listen.”

  Bob looked at Amanda, saw that she already understood. It was in her face, in her tight shoulders and defensive stance.

  “No way he could do it by tonight, though,” she said. Took a quick drag off her cigarette. “And he can’t prove that we’re telling the truth.”

  “If he talks to some of the people who were there—”

  “That’s a bunch of kids talking,” she said, her tone flat. “Not evidence.”

  “It’s not going to be dark for like four hours,” Devon insisted. “That’s plenty of time.”

  Her voice was as heavily sarcastic as only a punk teenage girl’s could be. “Right. Plenty of time to convince fucking Stan Vincent, Mr. Supercop, that seeing into the future is a valid means of crime prevention.”

  Devon was starting to look angry. “So what, we drop it? You felt guilty about Lisa, and that’s before you knew this was real. How are you going to feel tomorrow morning?”

  Bob watched with dawning amazement. The exchange was genuine, not an act put on for his benefit. They were both frustrated—the girl bitterly, angrily resigned, the boy desperate—and Bob believed them. Not that they weren’t entirely wrong about the rape—he was willing to bet on that—but that they weren’t lying about it. They believed what they were telling him.

  He opened his mouth to suggest that they go over it again, ashamedly aware as he did so that he meant to look into the matter, to at least talk to a few people—and that was when the shouting started.