The Watcher: A Tony Hunter Novel

by H. Leslie Simmons

  “Hello Mr. Bacon.” He sat next to Bacon on the couch. He never thought much about how big the cop was before. He felt like a little baby sitting there looking up at him. He was, after all, twelve years old and not exactly small for his age, but the deputy was huge.

  The officer reached out his right hand for a shake.

  Tony hesitated. Bacon’s hand made two of his. He hoped he wouldn’t squeeze his hand. He didn’t. His grip was firm, but not strong. He took it easy on Tony. He hated to think of what would happen if Bacon decided to really clamp down on his hand. They’d probably have to take him to the hospital and put it in a cast.

  “Officer Bacon wants to ask you a few questions, Son,” Tony’s mother said.

  “Okay,” Tony said. He didn’t like that a bit. Bacon was going to ask him a bunch of stuff he didn’t want his mom and dad to know about. He just knew it.

  “We’ll wait in the kitchen while you talk,” Tony’s mother said. “Officer Bacon thinks that our being here may inhibit your answers. Is that okay with you? We don’t want you to feel uncomfortable about this.”

  “Sure,” Tony said. He knew then that Bacon had already repeated some of the things he told him earlier. It made him trust the deputy a little less. He thought it might be smart to be careful what he told the deputy, whether his mom and dad were there or not. Bacon was, after all, an adult. Tony didn’t think you could ever trust any of them all of the time.

  “Did you tell them what I told you yesterday?” He stood up so he could look at the officer front on. His head was almost as tall as Tony’s when Tony was standing and Bacon was sitting.

  “Only that you had seen Lisa Demarco day before yesterday. You asked me not to tell the rest, so I didn’t tell them where you saw her or what she was doing there, okay.”

  “Okay,” Tony said and sat down on the chair by the window about six feet from Bacon. That chair was higher and it made him feel more on a par with the big adult.

  “You didn’t tell me much the other day. How about if you tell me more now?”

  “I guess so.” Tony would wait for the questions. Maybe he’d tell Bacon more and maybe he wouldn’t.

  “First off, let me tell you that we have talked to the other boys who were there with you. They were not cooperative. Have any of them bothered you about it?”

  “Depends on what you mean by ‘bothered’”

  “I mean threatened you if you told us any more.”

  “What does that matter? What they say won’t get me to not try and help find Lisa.”

  “Then they have threatened you. If you want me to, I’ll have a word with them about that.”

  “You don’t need to do that. I can take care of myself.”

  “Those boys are older than you, and bigger.”

  “I have friends.”

  “If you need help with them, you let me know, okay?”

  “I will.” Tony didn’t think he needed help from the police to handle the likes of Craig Cook and his buddies, especially if the guys helped. But he could be wrong. Anyway, he appreciated the offer.

  “Tony, you didn’t tell me what Lisa and Joquan Brown were doing when you saw them.”

  “What did Craig tell you?”

  “Why does that matter? I want to know what you saw.”

  “They were just down on the rocks.”

  “Were they wearing their clothes?”

  Tony stood up and walked around the room. He didn’t want to answer that question. He didn’t want to embarrass Lisa.

  “It’s important for me to know the answer to my question, Tony.”

  “Why do you need to know what they were doing? What business is it of yours?”

  “I think you ought to know that I wanted to talk to Joquan Brown about this but we can’t find him. The other boys told what they saw. I need to know what you saw.”

  “Then you already know what they were doing.”

  “No, I don’t that’s just it. The other boys told me different stories from what you told me the other day. I need to know what you saw in more detail.”

  “They were making out.”

  “Could you elaborate?”

  “Elaborate?”

  “Give me more detail.”

  “We were a long way away.”

  “Were they engaged in a sexual act?”

  “It looked like it.”

  “Do you know the work copulate?”

  “No. What does it mean?”

  “Fooling around. What do the guys call it when there are no adults around?”

  “Friggin.”

  “Do you call it fucking?”

  “Yea. I guess that’s what we call it.”

  “Were they doing that?”

  “Do you really need to know that?”

  “Yes. I really need to know that. You see, it’s important, because Brown is eighteen, and she’s fifteen. If he engaged in a sexual act with her, he is guilty of a serious crime.”

  “She didn’t look like she was fighting him to me. She was smiling and laughing.”

  “That doesn’t matter. She’s under the age of consent. By law, she’s a minor. He’s not. That makes him guilty of a very serious crime. I need to have the absolute truth about this, Tony. Did you actually see them having sexual intercourse?”

  “Sexual intercourse?”

  “Fucking. Could you actually see them doing it?”

  In a way, Tony didn’t want to answer him. He didn’t want to damage Lisa’s reputation. At the same time, he was hoping they would put that bastard Brown in jail for a long time. He finally decided to come clean about it. “Yes, I could see it very clearly.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “He was so black and she was so white. Her hair down there was bright red. His thing was coal black, almost shiny. I could see it going in and out.”

  “You were a long way away.”

  “Not that far. There’s no question about what I saw. What do the other guys say about it?”

  “They saw the same thing you did. Did you throw stones at them?”

  “No I didn’t. The other guys did though.”

  “When they threw the rocks, what did Lisa and Brown do?”

  “They jumped up, grabbed their clothes, and ran to the far bank and into the woods. He shook his fist, but I swear it looked like she smiled at us.”

  “Can you describe their clothes?”

  “He had on jeans like the farmer’s wear. Bib jeans, I think they are called and a white undershirt. I couldn’t see his shoes too well. He had white boxer shorts like my dad wears.”

  “And what about Lisa? What was she wearing?”

  He hesitated. He didn’t want to tell him. It seemed too personal, especially in light of what he had seen her grab up and run off with.

  “It’s very important that we know what she was wearing, Tony.”

  “What did the others tell you?”

  “I don’t want to tell you until you tell me what you saw. In case you don’t remember in detail, I don’t want to influence your memory.”

  “She had on a blue skirt with red stripes and a blue blouse.”

  “Did you see her underclothes?”

  “Red. Her panties were red. I was surprised. I didn’t know that girls around here, especially good girls like Lisa, wear red panties.”

  “And her Bra?”

  “It was black. I can’t imagine her mother buying her a black bra and red panties.”

  “When they ran into the wood across the river had they managed to get into their clothes?”

  “No. They were both stark naked. Black and white, like chess men”

  “Did you go down to the river after they left?”

  “You mean to where they were?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, I didn’t I went straight home.”

  “Thank you, Tony, for being so candid with me. Is there anything else about the incident you can think of to tell me?”

  He couldn’t think of anythin
g else right then. He certainly had no intention of telling Bacon about the soldier. The man would think he was nuts and might not believe anything else he told him. “No.”

  “If you do, I want you to call me.” He handed Tony a card from his shirt pocket. “This has my work number and my home number on it. Call me any time, day or night, okay?”

  Tony took the card. “Okay,” he said, and he would, too. He started to ask Bacon if they had searched the river, but it seemed too gross. If they had found her that way, or somewhere in the woods, it would have been all over town in a minute and he wouldn’t be there asking Tony all those questions. It didn’t matter whether they had searched the woods or not. He and Ned would look in different places from them anyway.

  “Ask you mother and father to step back in here, please.”

  He went and called them to come back in the living room.

  Bacon spoke first. “Tony has been very cooperative. I want to thank him and you for permitting me to interview him alone. I may have to ask more questions in the future. I hope that will be alright with you folks.”

  “Will you tell me what you talked about?” Tony’s mother was standing in the doorway to the kitchen with her arms folded across her chest as if she expected a blow to come.

  “I think its best that we not do that just yet. I may want to ask Tony a few more questions down the road and I don’t want him to be inhibited in his answers. He may have seen some things he doesn’t want to discuss with you just yet. In time, I’m sure he will talk to you about this, but I implore you not to pressure him for answers right now. When Lisa is back home and all this is a thing of the past, it may not seem as important as it does right now. Please wait and I’ll tell you all we know, whenever we learn something positive.”

  “Are the children safe? I mean that we have had two girls disappear now in one week, and one of them already dead.”

  “I think they are safe. We have more than usual patrols about.”

  “Should they stay in the house after dark?”

  “No more than usual. Both girls disappeared in the daytime. Everybody, and that includes the kids, need to show some common sense until we find out what happened to them, but I see no need for extreme alarm. We believe the first girl’s death and Lisa’s disappearance are isolated incidents, and probably unrelated. If we learn different, you and all the other town’s people will be notified immediately.”

  “Thank you, Officer Bacon,” Tony’s mother said.

  When Bacon had left, Tony fully expected to get the third degree from his mom and dad like the cops give the bad guys in the Saturday afternoon shorts at the Century Theater, but they never said a word. He knew from her attitude that his mother had a million questions she wanted to ask him, but she didn’t.

  He went to sleep thinking about Sunday when he and Ned would go over the rocks to the other side of the river where he last saw Lisa’s red hair disappear into the woods.

  Chapter 5

  On Saturday, Tony and Ned went on their once a month trip to Petersburg on the bus to see a picture show at the Bluebird Theater in town. Sometimes Tony’s dad would take them in the car, but this time his dad had to work and Tony’s and Ned’s mothers agreed to allow them to ride the bus.

  The picture they went to see was The Karate Kid, Part II which was billed as an American martial arts drama film sequel to 1984's The Karate Kid, with the same actors. Before the movie started there was a flyer for another movie that showed Samurai warriors battling with each other with swords flashing. That impressed Tony more than the movie did. He could imagine getting your head chopped off by one of those big swords. The image in his mind was not helped by the police finding the young girl the week before with her head chopped off.

  Tony and Ned had seen the original film and liked this one better than the earlier one, but after the Samurai clip the movie was like an anticlimax. Karate fights were nowhere as disturbing as that sword fight and bore no relationship to what had just happened to that local girl.

  Tony and Ned left the movie house in a crowd of jabbering people, both older folks and kids, all talking about the picture. Tony and Ned talked about it on the way home on the bus, reliving each scene until a man in the row ahead of them turned and asked them to be quiet.

  They snickered but obeyed, letting out a loud holler as they exited the bus at the stop close to Ned’s home. The sun had set and it was getting dark as they walked toward their respective homes. Ned peeled off at his house and Tony continued in the near darkness. As he passed the stand of oak trees not far from his house, he saw movement among in the trees and quickened his step.

  When he did a man in dark flowing clothing charged from the woods holding a long sword high in the air and shouting something in a language Tony did not know, but it sounded oriental. Tony was frozen for a moment, unable to move, but as the man closed the gap between them he realized that the man was not just in his imagination. He looked for a way to run, but the man blocked the walkway. He thought that if he tried to run into the street he’d be caught. He could turn and run in the opposite direction, but he didn’t know how fast the man was. He might get caught; especially with the additional reach the sword gave the man. He decided to run into the woods. At least the sword would be more or less useless among the trees. He cut across the corner in the woods to the road to the cemetery. Eternal Lane would not have been his first choice if he could see anything else to do. He certainly didn’t want to go into the cemetery at night and there was no escape there either except to the river, where no one would be, and it was dark by then.

  The man came out of the woods twenty feet behind him. He moved quickly, but Tony was young and apparently faster. The man chased him half way to the cemetery before he apparently gave up and stopped chasing. Seeing that, Tony stopped also to catch his breath. The two stood in the middle of the road facing each other about fifty feet apart. The man looked like he was wearing some kind of period outfit, trying to look like a fierce Japanese samurai warrior. Tony had no idea why someone would do that. Maybe it was Craig trying to scare him. But where would Craig get the clothes or the sword for that matter. No, it couldn’t be Craig. If not, then who? Whoever it was might be crazy. It was not a good thing for Tony if he was. But how was Tony going to get passed the crazy man to get home? He slowly backed away until the man’s black clothes faded into the night and he could no longer make out the figure in the darkness. Even though he couldn’t see the man, he suspected that he was waiting back there somewhere. He could go through the woods. The man wouldn’t be able to see him in there in the dark. He had to be careful to not get turned around. It was possible even in woods you knew very well. He had had it happen once when he was younger. He had thought he knew exactly where he was but got lost anyway. He thought he was going toward the road but came out of the woods in a corn field. He had to be careful to not let that happen here. This time the man might be there waiting for him.

  He decided to keep going into the cemetery. As he went through the old rusted gate he heard the man following him. He continued through the cemetery looking about for the dead southern soldier. Behind him he could see the black figure silhouetted against white grave stones. The only thing he could do was keep going. He scrambled down the hill to the canal and crossed it and went down the river bank out onto the rocks. He could see very little. The stars were bright but there was no moon and no lights visible from down on the rocks. He heard the man scramble down the bank behind him. Then he saw the man’s silhouette against the white rocks. At first he saw only three choices. He could continue across the rocks to the far bank, he could go upstream on the rocks, or he could go downstream on the rocks. Neither choice was any good. In the dark, he would be more likely to fall and hurt himself, in which case the man would catch him. He could try to hide, but that probably wouldn’t work either. There were no big rocks to hide behind and he would be as visible against the white rocks as the man was to him now.

  He decided that he would go upstre
am and toward the far bank and try to entice the man to follow him. If it worked, he could cross the river upstream and get behind the man and on the cemetery side of the river. He tried it. The man followed but was smarter than Tony expected. He crossed diagonally and caught up to Tony before they reached the high bank up to the canal. Tony backed up to the rocks on the bank and looked for something to fight with. He threw a baseball sized rock at the man striking him squarely in the chest. The man staggered but didn’t leave his feet. He found and hurled a larger stone which also hit the man, this time on the left shoulder. It caused the man to lose his balance and slip off the rock into the water. Tony turned and scrambled up the embankment to the top of the canal wall. He glanced back to see where the man was and saw him struggling to get out of the water. He couldn’t seem to get a grip on the rocks and pull himself up.

  Tony was able to clamber up and over the canal before the man could climb the bank.

  He got to the front part of the cemetery before the man caught him. They rolled over on the ground and Tony managed to get out of the man’s grip and behind a large monument. They circled the monument, the man nearly caught him twice but couldn’t seem to get his hand around Tony and hold onto him. Then Tony made a mistake. He decided to try to escape by running while the man was on the other side of the monument. He broke toward the cemetery gate, but he didn’t move quickly enough and the man grabbed him from behind and spun him around until they were facing each other. The man’s face was six inches from his. He was clearly oriental but his body was larger than Tony had been lead to believe oriental men were. His breathe smelled of dead and rotting fish. He held Tony in a tight grip but it didn’t feel like hands. It was more like the feel of a garter snake as it wrapped itself around your arm but it was much stronger than a garter snake. A snake like the boa constrictor in the Tarzan picture might feel like that, but the only snake around that was small enough and not dangerous around these parts was a garter snake and that’s what the boys had experimented with to see just how strong a snake’s grip could be after they saw that picture show.