When he stood up gasping, and threw the spyglass away, the thing had already disappeared behind him. When he looked back anxiously he saw nothing but the receding tops of trees waving their leaves at him, going away–
“Jesus!”
Schneider opened his eyes. For a moment he was still in the dream, which he needed no interpretation for: he could smell the rushing high air from the gondola, and the faint hot breath of the balloon overhead; he moved his arms and for the briefest second thought they were ridged in feathers.
“Jesus,” he gasped, fully awake now, and jumped out of bed and began to dress quickly, strapping on his shoulder holster.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“That’s right: Carlton. C-A-R-L-T-O-N,” Grant said. The voice on the other end of the line said some words, and then Grant answered: “No, the panel truck was empty, but I still think he’s the guy who took the kids. Call it a gut feeling.” More words from the other end, and then Grant once more: “That’s right, he was gone when I went back into the tent.”
The phone receiver pressed tight to his ear, Grant tried to shake another cigarette out of the pack but found it was empty. Grunting in displeasure, he crumpled the pack with his free hand and fumbled in his raincoat for another. He coughed. His hand found the pint bottle but moved impatiently past it. Amongst loose change he located the new pack, and grunted again, this time in pleasure, as he drew it out and expertly opened it, tapping a butt out and lighting it.
While he waited on the phone he turned to regard deputy sheriff Charlie Fredricks, who he had grabbed from his post at the entrance to the music tent in Ranier Park and brought to the station with him. The kid was bright and willing, and hadn’t opened his mouth about this not being sheriff’s business. Charlie was young, but he had seen his own share of weird shit in Orangefield.
Grant said to him, “Anything on who rented that panel truck?”
A second receiver pressed to his own ear, Charlie made a face. “On hold.”
“Dammit. You tell them this is an emergency?”
Charlie looked hurt, then gave a sour grin. “Guess that’s why they didn’t just hang up.”
Grant scowled, then pressed his receiver tighter to his ear. “Yes? You sure?” There was a pause. “Well, thanks, Warden.”
He hung up the phone and traded puzzled looks with Charlie Fredericks, who was still on hold.
“Jerry Carlton is safe in his cell at Madison State Prison, reading an old copy of National Geographic as we speak,” Grant said.
“Maybe an accomplice?” Charlie asked, trying to be helpful. “Someone he worked with who didn’t get caught?”
“Carlton killed five boys, all on his own. He was a loner.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I’ve got to talk to Len Schneider, find out if there was someone else…”
Charlie nodded absently, giving sudden interest to his own phone. Grant suspended his own punch-dialing expectantly.
Charlie said, “Shit,” and looked at Grant. “They just changed the music, is all.”
Grant shook his head and jabbed in Schneider’s number.
It rang until the answering machine took it.
“Isn’t Schneider off tonight?” Grant said to no one in particular.
Charlie Fredericks shrugged, then said, “Yes?” into his receiver and began to nod. His pencil went to work on his notepad.
Behind Bill Grant the voice of Chip Prohman, the night sergeant, fat and laconic and nearly useless, chimed in. “You looking for Schneider? He called in a little while ago. I just sent two black and whites out after him. He sounded out of his head – claimed those two kidnapped kids were out in the woods after all.”
Grant was about to answer when Charlie Fredericks hung up and waved his notepad at him. Grant squinted forward to read what it said.
“Holy God.” Grant turned viciously on Prohman and spat: “Where the hell is Schneider?”
The sergeant answered, “Out in the woods–”
“Where?”
Prohman was almost yawning. “Same spot he dug all those holes. You ask me, he’s just plain off his –”
Grant was already half out the door, with Charlie Fredericks, perplexed, studying the name on his notepad as if it was an ancient rune telling him nothing, behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Grant could see the roof flashers of the cruisers ahead of him. He felt as if he was in a dream. Charlie Fredericks had talked all the tire-screaming way out, but Grant felt as if he was alone in the car.
It all came down to this.
To this: the most horrible thing of all – at least in this world.
For a tiny moment he almost wished it was the other business, weird shit that he was dealing with.
With a shiver, he let that thought go.
His only hope was that he wasn’t too late.
The car bumped in and out of two successive dirt ruts, and he slammed the brakes behind the first of the lined-up patrol cars.
There wasn’t a cop in sight – but flashlight beams danced in the woods off to the left.
His gun was already out of its holster as he pushed himself out of the car.
“Hey, Bill!” Charlie Fredericks shouted behind him, unheard.
Grant pushed through the brush as if it wasn’t there; dried vines and branches slapped at his arms and across his face.
Behind him, Charlie, his own flashlight on, made his way carefully along the path into the woods.
Grant heard voices now, one of them loud and irrational:
“Hold those lights on the front of it, dammit!”
Grant broke into the clearing – into a tableau from a nightmare.
Like a nightmare, there was a strangely ethereal beauty to it. Three uniformed police officers stood stock still, holding their flashlight beams on a single spot up in the trees. The gnarled mass of denuded branches there at first showed nothing to the eye, they were so tangled and uniform – and then the eye resolved a section of them pinpointed by the triple beams into a manmade opening, a brown door set neatly into the branches.
In the doorway, frozen in place and looking confused and lost, staring straight into the lights pinning him like a butterfly, was the orange-and-white motleyed clown Grant had seen in the tent at Ranier Park. His pom-pomed cap was gone, showing a thinning head of light-colored hair; there were rips in his orange and black motley costume and his makeup was smeared, pulling his smile into a high, grotesque grin on one side. The blacking around his eyes which had been used to line his lashes had run together.
On the ground in front of the three police officers, Len Schneider, looking disheveled himself, a pajama top peeking between his shirt and pants, stood in a two handed firing position, his eye sighting down the barrel of his .38 police special trained tightly on the figure in the doorway.
Grant, holding his own revolver at his side, but in a tight grip, said, in as reasonable a voice as he could, “Len, put your gun down. It’s all right. He’s Ted Marigold’s father, Lawrence Marigold.”
There were tears streaming down Schneider’s face, but his hands were rock steady on his revolver. “He’s Jerry Carlton!” he screamed. “And this time I got here in time!”
Grant kept his voice level, but slowly brought his handgun up. “Jerry Carlton is in Madison State Prison, Len. I talked to the warden there twenty minutes ago. The man you’re aiming at is Lawrence Marigold, the father of the last kid Carlton killed. Ted’s father. Remember him, Len? The genius robotics engineer? How he went insane after his son was murdered? He escaped from his institution. You couldn’t save Ted, but you can save Ted’s father. Just lower your gun.”
Schneider ignored Grant. “I told you!” he screeched at the figure in the doorway. “Send them down now!”
The clown turned away for a moment, and then a long rope ladder rolled out of the doorway like a red carpet, its end swinging to rest just inches from the ground. The clown stepped aside, and Jody Wendt appeared in the doorway and carefully descended the ladd
er.
“Jesus,” Charlie Fredericks, who had stopped beside Grant and was aiming his own flashlight at the opening, said.
“Now the other one!” Schneider screamed.
The clown moved aside and said something that sounded like a sob. “Ted.”
There was darkness in the doorway and then something else, not a boy but boy-sized, with impossibly thin, bright metal limbs and a head made of a pumpkin, climbed out and began to descend the ladder with practiced ease. Little puffs of steam issued from the cutout holes in its face as it came down, gazing mechanically back and forth.
Charlie gasped and said: “Je-sus!”
Grant’s own gun-hand began to tremble, but he steadied it with the realization that what he was looking at was something real, something that had been made by a man.
The Pumpkin Boy stood at the bottom of the tree, next to Jody Wendt. He continued to stare back and forth, with a look almost of fright on his cartoon face. His gaze finally settled on Jody. “I’m ssssssscared…” he said in a horribly distorted, faraway voice.
“Where’s the other boy! Where’s Scotty Daniels!” Len Schneider screamed, his attention still riveted on the doorway in the trees.
“I–” the clown said confusedly, his voice swallowed by the night.
Then he turned back into the doorway and disappeared.
Grant took the opportunity to say, “Len, please listen–”
“Shut up! Shut the hell up!” Schneider wheeled on him for a moment with the gun, his eyes wild. Grant could see the muscles standing out like taut cables in his neck. “If you shoot me in the leg, Grant, to try to stop me, I’ll blow the bastard’s head off!”
There was movement in the tree house doorway and with an almost animal growl Schneider swung his aim back that way.
“Here…” the clown said.
Charlie Fredericks gave a shout of horror: there in the doorway was the body of a young boy, trussed upside-down and suspended from some sort of wheeled rack. On his head was a silver cap with a thick arm of wires leading from it.
“Oh, God, what did he do to that poor kid…” Charlie Fredericks said, reaching for his own revolver.
Even Grant hesitated, starting to move the aim of his gun from Len Schneider to the doorway of the tree house. “Son of a–”
The boy moved. He twitched in his bonds, looking like Houdini trying to make an escape.
“Let him go, Carlton! Now!”
Lawrence Marigold made a confused motion, and then his shoulders sagged. He looked down at the pumpkin-headed robot at the bottom of the rope ladder, who turned his face up to regard him.
Marigold sobbed out, “Do you remember… what I used to say to you when you were a baby, Ted? When it was just you and me and mommy, and I stopped at the store after work and bought you the candy you loved? Do you remember what I always said after you squealed and held your hands out, laughing, when I gave you your candy? Do you remember what I used to say? Uncle Lollipop loves you!”
Still weeping, he disappeared into the opening, then reappeared, reached down and did something to the bundle of wires on the boy’s metal skullcap.
And then something happened which caused even Len Schneider to open his mouth in wonder–
The steam issuing from the Pumpkin Boy’s facial cutouts increased in intensity, until an orange fog engulfed its head. A thin trail of something that resembled fire and smelled like ozone curled out of the cloud, rose up the bole of the tree and snaked into the tree house opening.
Two flashes of tepid lightning lit up the doorway. Grant could see the edge of another poster inside the hut like the one the clown had mounted in the tent in Ranier Park.
The boy suspended from the rack began to writhe and cry out in pain.
On the ground, the Pumpkin Boy stood mute.
Len Schneider again had his .38 trained on the tree house doorway.
“Cut him down! Now!”
In another few moments the boy was loose and rubbing his hands and legs.
Lawrence Marigold, his face a nightmare of streaked makeup and tears, stood dumbly as Scotty Daniels climbed slowly down the ladder.
“Get the kids out of here, Charlie,” Grant said. “And if anything happens to me, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to follow up on any weird shit that happens this Halloween.”
“I don’t get you, Bill.”
“Anything weird at all. Sam sightings, anything out of the ordinary. You promise?”
“Sure, Bill. Even though–”
“Just do it. Now get those kids away.”
Fredericks nodded. When Scotty reached the ground he herded the two young boys, Jody Wendt limping slightly, away from the Pumpkin Boy and down the path to the cars.
Grant thought, At least they won’t see any of this.
Out loud he said: “Len, you’ve got to put the gun down right now. It’s all over. You did a great job.”
“I won’t make any mistakes this time, Carlton!” Schneider screamed, ignoring him.
“I just borrowed them!” Lawrence Marigold said, throwing his arms out in supplication. “I thought you would let me!”
Grant saw Schneider straighten his aim. “Not this time, Carlton!”
Oh, God, Grant thought, his own finger tightening on the trigger of his police special. In the next second split second he thought, Goddammit, Len, don’t make me do it–
Two shots that sounded like the echo of one rang out.
Two bodies crumpled.
Shit!
Grant saw that, by the length of the time he had allowed himself to think, he had been too late to save Lawrence Marigold.
Len Schneider was down, unmoving, and in the doorway of the tree hut Marigold collapsed with a huffing grunt. He sat tilted on the sill of the tree hut for a moment, then fell forward.
He hit the ground a moment later, groaned once and was silent.
Grant walked over and knelt down to study his face.
It had the same lost; mad look on it must have held for many months and years, since the night his boy had been taken.
“I’m so sorry,” Grant said.
“Ted…” the clown whispered, staring past Grant at nothing, and then was silent forever.
Grant stood up. Two of the uniforms were working on Len Schneider, but Grant knew it was a waste of time. He hadn’t missed.
He was good at his job.
Hands shaking, he lit a cigarette, coughed, and thought about the bottle he would have to open later.
And Jerry Carlton sat snug and warm, reading a magazine in his cell at Madison State Prison.
Idly, Grant wondered if the warden would let him visit with Carlton, for just those three minutes Len Schneider had so badly wanted.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I didn’t expect to be back here so soon,” Grant said.
“Neither did I.” District Attorney Morton kept his hands folded before him. There was no coroner this time, no beekeeper, only the D.A. and Grant facing each other across a flat marble topped table, which was cool to the touch.
Like my career, Grant thought.
“You know why you were suspended,” Morton said. Grant noticed that he was not making eye contact.
“Of course.”
“Thing is, Captain Farrow and I thought it would be best if you went away for a while. I understand your wife is in Killborne, and that you don’t have any children, so I… suppose you wouldn’t have much in the way of arrangements to make. We’d like you to leave today.”
Grant’s eyes widened and Morton must have caught it out of the corner of his eye, because he continued, almost in a rush. “The thing is, with this… friendly fire shooting coming so close on the heels of that Kerlan business–”
“It wasn’t a friendly fire shooting. Len Schneider was going to shoot Lawrence Marigold, and I shot Schneider to prevent that.”
“Which you didn’t.”
Grant looked down at the table, lips tight. “No.”
Morton
seemed to take strength from Grant’s momentary lack of strength. Now he was making eye contact, and his eyes were suddenly hard.
“We’re treating it as friendly fire, for the good of everyone involved,” he said. His voice became harder. “Including you. There’s a place in Phoenix, Arizona, which the Mayor and I frequent. Warm as toast this time of year. Golf course and pool, casino gambling. You can come back just before Thanksgiving, reinstated at full pay.”
“Do I have a choice?” Now Grant’s own voice was hard, and he was locking stares with the D.A.
“No,” Morton said. Then he looked away. “If you… don’t agree to this, the only other choice is immediate dismissal, an official inquiry and possible manslaughter charges. I can guarantee the first two. You realize your… drinking problem and your wife Rose’s… own problems will inevitably come up during any inquiry or trial.”
“I get it,” Grant said. He suddenly got up, still tight-lipped, and, to his surprise, Morton rose too.
“There’ll be someone from this office out there to keep you company.”
“A minder.”
Morton nodded. “If you try to come back, the deal’s off. And you’ll be arrested in Arizona, then extradited.” He took a long breath. “It’s best for everybody, Bill,” he said, putting out his fleshy hand.
Grant did not take the hand but kept his eyes on the D.A. “Especially you and the Mayor,” he said. His eyes suddenly narrowed. “Or is there someone else behind this?”
“Who else would there be?” Morton said, his expression showing puzzlement.
Grant held his gaze for a moment, then he shook his head and turned to leave. “See you in a month.”
Morton watched the empty doorway, and then sat down heavily in his chair. He drew his extended hand back, and now it began to shake. He snatched a large white handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed at his forehead with it.
You did fine, the voice in his ear said.
“Who are you?” Morton asked in a whisper.
Someone who keeps his promises. And I promise to leave you alone – for now.
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