But the only change was that Harle had found himself a new victim: Gwen.
The boy had fallen into his obsessive vigil: staring into Gwen's classrooms at school and kneeling beside the juniper bush, keeping his eyes glued to the girl's bedroom.
Ron had tried to get a restraining order but, without any illegal conduct on Harle's part, the magistrate couldn't issue one.
Finally, after Harle had stationed himself beside the juniper bush for six nights straight, Ron stormed into the state mental health department and demanded that something be done. The department had implored the boy's parents to send him to a private-care hospital for six months. The county would pay ninety percent of the fee. The Ebbers agreed and, under an involuntary commitment order, the boy was taken off to Garden City.
But now he was back, kneeling like a soldier beside the infamous juniper bush, only one week after the ambulance had carted him off.
Finally Sheriff Hanlon came on the line.
"Ron, I was going to call you."
"You knew about him?" Ron shouted. "Why the hell didn't you tell us? He's out there right now."
"I just found out about it myself. The boy talked to a shrink at the hospital. Apparently he gave the right answers and they decided to release him. Keeping him any longer on a dicey order like that, there was a risk of liability for the county."
"What about liability for my daughter?" Ron spat out.
"There'll be a hearing in a few weeks but they can't keep him in the hospital till then. Probably not after the hearing either, the way it's shaking out."
Tonight as mist settled on the town of Locust Grove, this beautiful spring night, crickets chirped like greaseless gears, and Harle Ebbers was frozen in his familiar pose, dark eyes searching for a delicate young girl whose father happened to be deciding at that moment that this couldn't go on any longer.
"Look, Ron," the sheriff said sympathetically, "I know it's tough. But —"
Ron slammed the phone into the cradle, nearly tearing it from the wall.
"Honey," Doris began. He ignored her and as he started for the door she took his arm. She was a strong woman. But Ron was stronger and he pulled away brusquely. Pushed open the screen door and started across the dewy lawn to the park.
To his surprise, and pleasure, Harle didn't flee. He stood up out of his crouching position and crossed his arms, waiting for Ron to approach.
Ron was athletic. He played tennis and golf and he swam like a dolphin. One hundred laps a day when the country club pool was open. He was slightly shorter than Harle but, as he gazed at the boy's prominent eyebrows and disturbingly deep-set eyes, he knew in his heart that he could kill the young man. With his bare hands if he had to. All he needed was the slightest provocation.
"Daddy, no!" Gwen screamed from the porch, her voice like a high violin note, resonating through the mist. "Don't get hurt. It's not worth it!"
Ron turned back, hissed to his girl, "Get back inside!"
Harle was waving toward the house, "Gwennie, Gweenie, Gwennie…"a frightening grin on his face.
Neighbors' lights came on, faces appeared in windows and doorways.
Perfect, Ron thought. He makes the least gesture toward me and I'll kill him. A dozen witnesses'll back me up. He stopped two feet from Harle, on whose face the grin had fallen away.
"I got sprung. They couldn't make it stick, could they? Make it stick, make it stick, couldn't make it stick. So I. Got. Sprung."
"You listen to me," Ron muttered, fists balling at his side. "You're real close. You know what I mean? I don't care if they arrest me, I don't care if they execute me. You don't leave her alone, I'm going to kill you. Understand?"
"I love my Gwennie, I love her, love her, loveher, loveher, lover, loverloverlover. She loves me, I love her she loves me I love she loves I love she loves she loves sheloves shelovessheloves-shelovessssss…"
"Come on. Take a swing at me. Come on. Coward! Haven't got the guts to mix it up like a grown-up, right? You make me sick."
Harle uncrossed his arms.
Okay, here it comes…
Ron's heart flexed and an ocean crashed in his ears. He could feel the chill adrenaline race through his body like an electric current.
The boy turned and ran.
Son of a bitch…
"Come back here!"
He was racing down the street on his lanky legs, disappearing into the misty dusk, Ron close behind him.
For a few blocks.
Athletic, yes, but a forty-three-year-old's body doesn't have the stamina of someone's half that age and after a quarter mile the boy pulled ahead and disappeared.
Winded, his side cramping fiercely from the run, Ron trotted back to the house, climbed into his Lexus. Gasping, he shouted, "Doris! You and Gwen stay here, lock the doors. I'm going to find him."
She protested but he ignored her and sped out of the drive.
A half hour later, having cruised through the entire neighborhood and finding no sign of the boy, he returned home.
To find his daughter in tears.
Doris and Gwen sat in the living room, the shades down and curtains drawn. Doris held a long kitchen knife in her strong fingers.
"What?" Ron demanded. "What's going on?"
Doris said, "Tell your father."
"Oh, Daddy, I'm sorry. I thought it was best."
"What?" Ron strode forward, dropping onto the couch, gripping his daughter by her shoulders. "Tell me!" he cried.
"He came back," Gwen said. "He was by the bush. And I went out to talk to him."
"You did what? Are you crazy?" Ron shouted, shaking with rage and fear at what might have happened.
Doris said, "I couldn't stop her. I tried, but —"
"I was afraid for you. I was afraid he'd hurt you. I thought maybe I could be nice to him and ask him please just to go away."
Despite his horror, a burst of pride at her courage popped inside of Ron Ashberry.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Oh, Daddy, it was terrible."
The feeling of pride faded and he sat back, staring at his daughter's white face. Ron whispered, "Did he touch you?"
"No… not yet."
"What do you mean, 'yet?" Ron barked.
"He said…" Her tearful face looked from her father's furious eyes to her mother's determined ones. "He said that when it's the next full moon, that's when women get a certain way because of their, you know, monthly thing. The next full moon, he's going to find me wherever I am…" Her face grew red in shame. She swallowed. "I can't say it, Daddy. I can't tell you what he said he'd do."
"My God."
"I got so scared, I ran back to the house."
Doris, her strong-jawed face turned toward the window, added, "And he just stood there, staring at us, kind of singing in this sick voice. We locked the doors right away." She nodded at the knife, setting it on the table. "I got that from the kitchen just in case."
She loves me, I love her she loves me I love she loves I love she loves she loves…
His wife continued. "Then you came back and when he saw the car lights he ran off. It looked like he was headed toward his folks' house."
Ron grabbed the phone, hit the speed dial.
"This is Ron Ashberry," he said to the police dispatcher.
"Yessir, is it the boy again?" she asked.
"Hanlon. Now."
A pause. "Hold, please."
The sheriff came on the line. "Ron, what the hell's going on tonight? I've had four calls from your neighbors about this thing, shouting, people running around."
Ron explained about the threats.
"It's still just words, Ron."
"Goddamn it, I don't care about the law! He said the night of the full moon he's going to rape my little girl. What the hell do you people want?"
"When's the full moon?"
"I don't know, how would I know?"
"Hold on a second. I've got an almanac… Here we go. It's next week. We'll have somebody at your ho
use all day. If he makes a move, we'll get him."
"For what? Trespass? And he'll be out in, what, a week?"
"I'm sorry, Ron. It's the law."
"You know what you and your law can do? You can go straight to hell."
"Ron, I've told you before, if you take things into your own hands, you're going to be in serious trouble. Now good night to you."
Ron jammed the phone into the cradle hard again and this time it flew from the wall fixture.
He shouted to Doris, "Stay here. Keep the doors locked."
"Ron, what are you going to do?"
"Daddy, no…"
The door slammed so hard a pane cracked and the fissure lines made a perfect spiderweb.
* * *
Ron parked on the lawn, narrowly missing a rusting Camaro and a station wagon, lime green except for the front fender, which was the matte color of dried-blood-brown primer.
Pounding on the scabby door, he shouted, "I want to see him. Open up!"
Finally the door swung open and Ron stepped inside. The bungalow was small and it was a mess. Food, dirty plastic plates, beer cans, piles of clothes, magazines, newspapers. A strong animal pee smell too.
He pushed past the diminutive, chubby couple, both wearing jeans and T-shirts. In their late thirties.
"Mr. Ashberry," the man said uneasily, looking at his wife.
"Is your son here?"
"We don't know. Listen, sir, we had nothing to do with him getting out of that hospital. We was all for keeping him there, as I think you know."
"What do you mean you don't know where he is?"
"He comes and goes," his wife said. "Through his bedroom window. Sometimes we don't see him for days."
"Ever try discipline? Ever try a belt? What is it, you think children should walk all over you?"
The father gave a mournful laugh.
His wife said, "Has he done something else?"
As if what the boy had done wasn't enough. "Oh, he's just threatening to rape her, that's all."
"Oh, no, no." She clutched her hands together, fingers dirty and bedecked with cheap rings. "But it's just talk," the woman blurted. "It's always just talk, with him."
Ron whirled to face her. Her short black hair was badly in need of a wash and she smelled of sour onions. He muttered, "It's gone past the talk stage and I'm not going to put up with it. I want to see him."
They glanced at each other and the father led him down a dark corridor toward one of two bedrooms. Something — old food, it seemed — crunched under Ron's feet. The man looked over his shoulder, saw his wife standing in the living room and said, "I'm so sorry for all this, sir. I truly am. I wish I had it in my heart to, you know, make him go away."
"We tried that," Ron said cynically.
"I don't mean a hospital or jail." His voice fell to a whisper. "To go away forever. You know what I mean. I've thought about it some. She has too but she doesn't say it. Being his mother and all. One night I almost done it. When he was asleep." He paused and caressed a crater in the Sheetrock, made by a fist, it seemed. "I wasn't strong enough. I wished I was. But I couldn't do it."
His wife joined them and he fell silent. The father knocked timidly on the door and when there was no response he shrugged. "Ain't much we can do. He keeps it locked and won't give us a key."
"Oh, for God's sake." Ron stepped back and slammed his foot into the door.
"No!" the mother cried. "He'll be mad. Don't —"
The door crashed open and Ron stepped inside, flicking on the light. He stopped, astonished.
In contrast to the rest of the house, Harle's room was immaculate.
The bed was made and the blankets were taut as a buck private's. The desktop ordered and polished. The rug vacuumed. Bookshelves neat, and all the books were alphabetized.
"He does it himself," Harle's mother said with a splinter of pride. "Cleans up. See, he's not really so bad —"
"Not really so bad? Are you out of your mind? Look at that! Just look!"
On the walls were posters from World War Two movies, Nazi paraphernalia, swastikas, bones. A bayonet dangled from one wall. A miniature samurai sword sat on a footlocker. One poster was a comic book scene of a man with knives for feet, ripping apart an opponent he was fighting. Blood sprayed in the air.
Three pairs of spit-polished combat boots sat by the bedside. A tape, The Faces of Death, sat on the VCR, attached to a spotless television.
Ron reached for the door to the closet.
"No," his mother said firmly. "Not there. He don't let us go in there. We're never supposed to do that!"
The double door too was locked but with one yank Ron ripped the panels open, nearly wrenching them off the hinges.
Gruesome toys, monsters and vampires, characters from horror films, fell out. Rubber mock-ups of severed limbs, taxidermied animals, a snake's skeleton, Freddy Krueger posters.
And in the center of the closet floor was the main attraction: an altar dedicated to Gwen Ashberry.
Ron cried out in horror as he dropped to his knees, staring at the frightening tableau. Several photographs of Gwen were pinned to the wall. Harle must have taken them on the days when she walked home from school by herself. In two of the snapshots she was strolling obliviously along the sidewalk. In the third she was turning and smiling off into the distance. And in the fourth — the one that struck him like a fist — she was bending down to tie her shoe, her short skirt hiked high on her trim legs. This was the photo in the center of the shrine.
She loves me, I love her she loves me I love she loves I love she loves she loves she loves shelovesshelovesshelovessssss…
On the floor, between two candles, what looked like a white flower, sprouting from a dime store coffee mug, printed with the name Gwen on it. Ron touched the flower. It was cloth… but what exactly? When he pulled the girl's underpants from the mug all he could do was give a deep moan and clutch the frail garment to his chest. He remembered Doris commenting several months ago that she'd found the outer door to the laundry room open. So, he'd been in the house!
In his fury Ron ripped down the picture of Gwen bending over. Then the others. Shredded them beneath his strong fingers.
"Please, don't do that! No, no!" his mother cried.
"Really, mister!"
"Harle'll be mad. I can't stand it when he gets mad at us."
Ron rose to his feet, flung the cup into a Nazi flag, where it shattered. He pushed past the cowering couple, flung open the front door and strode out into the street.
"Where are you?" he cried. "Where? You son of a bitch!"
The peaceful dusk in Locust Grove had tipped into peaceful night. Ron saw nothing but faint houselights, he heard nothing but his own voice, dulled by the mist, returning to him from a dozen distant places.
Ron leapt into his car and left long black worms of skid marks as he knocked over garbage cans, streaking into the street.
* * *
Three hours later, he returned home.
The bright security lights were on, one of them trained directly at the juniper bush.
"Where've you been?" Doris demanded. "I've called everybody I could think of, trying to find you."
"Driving around, looking for him. Is everything okay?" he asked.
"I thought I heard somebody in the work shed about an hour ago, rummaging around."
"And?"
"I called the police and they came by. Didn't find anything. Might've been a raccoon. The window was open. But the door was locked."
"Gwen?"
"She's upstairs asleep. Did you find him?"
"No, no trace. At least I hope I put the fear of God into him so we'll have a few days' peace." He looked around the house. "Let's make sure everything's locked up."
Ron walked to the front door and opened it, stepping back in shock at the sight of the huge dark form filling the doorway. Gasping, he instinctively drew back his fist.
"Whoa, there, buddy, take it easy." Sheriff Hanlon stepped forward into
the hallway light.
Ron closed his eyes in relief. "You scared me."
"I'll ditto that. Mind if I come in?"
"Yeah, yeah, sure," Ron snapped. The sheriff entered, nodding to Doris, who ushered him into the living room. He declined coffee.
Husband and wife looked at the sheriff, a big man in a tan uniform. He sat on the couch and said simply, "Harle Ebbers was found dead about a half hour ago. He was hit by a train on the LIRR tracks."
Doris gasped. The sheriff nodded grimly. Ron didn't even try to keep the smile off his face. "Praise Him from whom all blessings flow."
The sheriff kept his face emotionless. He looked back to his notebook. "Where've you been for the past three hours, Ron? Since you left the Ebbers' house?"
"You went there?" Doris asked.
Ron knitted his fingers together then decided it made him look guilty and he unlinked them. "Driving around," he answered. "Looking for Harle. Somebody had to. You weren't."
"And you found him," the sheriff said.
"No, I didn't find him."
"Yessir. Well, somebody sure did. Ron, we've got reports of you threatening that boy tonight. The Clarkes and the Phillips heard screaming and looked out. They heard you saying that you didn't care if you got caught, or even executed, you wanted to kill him. And then you took off chasing him down Maple."
"Well, I —"
"And then we got reports that you caused a disturbance at the Ebbers' place and fled." He read from his notebook. "'In a very agitated frame of mind.'"
"'Agitated frame of mind.' Of course I was agitated. He had a pair of my daughter's underwear in this goddamn altar in his closet."
Doris's hand rose to her mouth.
"And I found some pictures of her he'd taken on the way home from school."
"And then?"
"I drove around looking for him. I didn't find him. I came home. Look, Sheriff, I said I'd kill him. Sure. I'll admit it. And if he was running from me and got hit when he was crossing the tracks, I'm sorry. If that's, I don't know, negligent homicide or something, then arrest me for it."
The sheriff's broad face cracked a faint smile. "'Negligent homicide.' Let me ask you, you read about that somewhere? Hear it on Court TV?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just that it sounded a little rehearsed. Like maybe you'd thought it up before. You threw it at me pretty quick just then."
Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver Page 33
