by Tom McNeal
Jacob. I pronounced it as it is pronounced: Yaw-kub.
But this was strange to the boy, so he had to repeat it. “Yawkub?”
Yes.
“Your accent is different. Where are you from?”
And do you know what I said? I come from long ago and far away.
“You do?” he said, and I could hear pleasure in his voice, and truly, for the first moment in all my time in the Zwischenraum, I felt something like lightness myself.
Well, that was how it was. As rapidly as that, I stepped into Jeremy’s tale. I will not deceive you. I hoped that by protecting him from the Finder of Occasions, I might somehow achieve the thing undone, and be released at last from the Zwischenraum. I contrived a plan. Jeremy was young and clever, and I believed that the best way to protect him was to move him from this town, and I saw no better way to do this than by his going away to university. So I became not only his protector but also his teacher. And all had gone well, until …
On this fateful night I stared out at the thinning darkness and heard the first cock crow, with more soon joining in from one farm and another.
And what was this? Human voices? At this early hour?
Yes. Mein Gott!—down on Main Street—Sheriff Pittswort and Deputy McRaven were walking door to door, trying a particular key again and again, looking for the particular lock that it would open … as if in some fairy tale.
I hastened down from my belfry to investigate.
A very few minutes later, my anguished fears bore unhappy fruit: When the sheriff tried the key at the Two-Book Bookstore, it slid easily into the lock. It was followed by a smooth click, and with a twist of the knob the door swung open.
“Bingo,” Sheriff Pittswort said, and poked his head into the bookstore. “Morning, folks!” he called. “Time to rise and shine! Sheriff’s here for a visit!”
No one answered, though I heard the faintest stirring in the attic.
“Sleepyheads,” the sheriff declared, casting a sly smile toward his deputy.
They were a peculiar pair. Sheriff Pittswort was so large that, in the old tales, he might have been called a giant. His deputy had a squashed aspect and resembled, if it is possible, a large dwarf, with short legs, broad shoulders, and an outsized head. His breath—I knew this even though I hovered some distance away—smelled sourly of coffee.
They stepped into the room. When the sheriff found large pieces of hardened mud near the window, and then a track of smaller pieces leading to the door at the rear of the shop, he said, “I think what we got here, Deputy, is a Person of Interest.”
Deputy McRaven’s laugh sent another wave of stale coffee-scented breath into the air.
“Hey, folks!” the sheriff yelled, louder this time. “Up and at ’em!”
No one answered.
Possibly Mr. Johnson could sleep through such clamor, but I had no doubt Jeremy was awake in the attic, lying still, wondering what to do next.
“Official business!” the sheriff yelled in a voice that boomed.
Jeremy poked his head over the top of the ladder, his hair stiff and uncombed. “You’ll wake up my dad,” he said quietly. “He has a hard time sleeping.”
A derisive smile cut across the sheriff’s face. “What I’ve noticed is that your dad has a hard time getting himself out of bed.”
Deputy McRaven laughed hard at this. I turned to avoid his breath.
Jeremy pulled on his clothes and descended the ladder.
“Guess you know why we’re here,” the sheriff said when Jeremy faced him.
Jeremy put a hand to his temple. He wanted me to advise him. I knew I should recommend only that he tell the truth, but I did not trust this Sheriff Pittswort and I did not want Jeremy at his mercy. So I advised him as I advised myself when Bonaparte’s brother assumed authority in Westphalia: Tell no lies, but volunteer no truths.
“I guess I don’t really know what you mean,” Jeremy said to the sheriff.
Sheriff Pittswort’s smile was mocking. He whispered something to his dwarfish deputy, who at once stumped out the door and disappeared. The sheriff drew a small notebook from his rear pocket and uncapped his pen. “Okay,” he said, “just for starters, where were you last night between nine and eleven p.m.?”
Jeremy stared down at his bare feet, then looked up, and was about to speak when a voice from the rear of the shop said, “He was here.”
Mr. Johnson stood in the doorway, his long hair and beard both a greasy tangle.
“Well, well,” Sheriff Pittswort said. “He has risen and it ain’t even Easter.”
Mr. Johnson raked his fingers through his beard with some difficulty.
The sheriff said, “So where were you last night, Harold?”
“Here,” Mr. Johnson said. “Right here.”
“Here in this room, Harold?”
“No. In the other room. Right there.” Mr. Johnson gestured toward the room behind him. “My room.”
“And your boy was in the room with you?”
Mr. Johnson’s gaze slid away. “Some of the time.” He touched his beard. “I was watching TV. He and I don’t always like the same shows.”
“So where exactly was your boy, Harold, when you were watching the shows he don’t like?”
“In here. In the bookstore. Or up in the attic. He likes to read there.”
“I was studying geometry,” Jeremy said. “I was trying to memorize—”
But the sheriff cut him off by saying to Mr. Johnson, “So the fact is, Harold, you wouldn’t have known if your boy’d gone out for an hour or two, would you? If, say, he’d had a sudden notion to break into somebody’s house?”
“Jeremy wouldn’t do that!” Mr. Johnson said with surprising vehemence. “Jeremy doesn’t do those kinds of things!”
“Maybe he don’t.” Sheriff Pittswort smiled. “Then again, maybe he do.”
Deputy McRaven came back into the room carrying a paper bag. The sheriff glanced into it, then turned to Jeremy. “Why don’t you go put your shoes and socks on, son.”
Jeremy looked at his father, who nodded begrudgingly, and after Jeremy had passed from the room, Mr. Johnson said, “Remember, Victor, I knew you before you were sheriff. Back then, you were just the town bully.”
Sheriff Pittswort laughed. “And you were the town pissing post, so I guess we both just kind of parlayed our natural-born talents into what we are today.”
Well, this is how men can speak when they are circling one another.
Jeremy appeared wearing an old pair of canvas-and-rubber shoes, which both the sheriff and deputy regarded closely.
“Them’s what you wore last night?” the sheriff said, nodding at the shoes and then up at Jeremy. “When you went out?”
“Did I say I went out?” Jeremy said.
The sheriff smiled. “Okay, let me put it to you, then: Did you go out last night?”
In an even voice Jeremy said, “Either last night or the night before I took a walk up Main and back again. I do that sometimes before I go to bed.”
The sheriff stared at him with a cold fixed eye. “See anybody on the street?”
“Not that I remember. But I was kind of lost in my own thoughts.”
“You didn’t see Jenny Applegarth?”
“Maybe. I do see her sometimes when I go out walking at night.”
The sheriff reached into the brown bag and pulled out the muddy black shoe abandoned the night before. “This yours?”
“Doesn’t look like mine,” Jeremy said.
“You never owned a shoe like this?”
“I used to, yeah. But I don’t now.”
“When did you used to?”
“A while ago.”
“A while ago,” Sheriff Pittswort repeated. “As in, last night?”
“He said a while ago!” Mr. Johnson said. “What more do you want from him?”
Sheriff Pittswort smiled. He was clearly enjoying himself. “Well, one more thing I want from him is to try this shoe on.” He g
rinned. “It’ll be just like Cinderella.”
“Don’t do it!” Jeremy’s father said.
“It’s kind of a dainty shoe,” the sheriff said, laying it next to Jeremy’s foot. “But then you have kind of a dainty foot.”
Jeremy’s face was burning red as everyone noted the similar size of the shoes.
The sheriff took the muddy shoe over to the window and compared the hardened mud on the shoe to the hardened mud on the floor. He looked up at his deputy and nodded toward the floor. “Let’s get a sample of that mud there, deputy.”
The sheriff turned to Jeremy. “You mind holding out your hands?”
“What for?” Mr. Johnson said before Jeremy could answer.
“Settle down, Harold,” the sheriff said mildly. “I just want to have a look at them.”
Jeremy held his hands out, palms down.
“Other side?” the sheriff said.
Jeremy complied. The inner surface of his hands had been heavily abraded and were now softly scabbed.
The sheriff nodded as if this was exactly what he expected. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come up to the station, son.”
“Why? Because he scraped his hands doing yard work or something?” Mr. Johnson said. “It’s not even six in the morning and you come barging in here?” He was actually sputtering. “This isn’t right! This is still America, isn’t it? He needs a lawyer!”
The sheriff said, “Christmas Hunt is the only lawyer in town, and I know from personal experience that he don’t rise early.”
“Then I’ll represent Jeremy!” Mr. Johnson said. “I’ll be his legal representative.”
Sheriff Pittswort looked past Mr. Johnson to Jeremy. “Let’s go, son.”
“Not without me!” Mr. Johnson said.
The sheriff stared down at Jeremy’s father. “Don’t bother coming if you ain’t dressed decent, Harold. We got a no-shirt, no-shoes, no-service rule.”
Again Mr. Johnson tugged his fingers through his beard. I doubted that he had proper clothes. In all my time there, I had never seen him in anything but a nightshirt.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Jeremy said. He was frightened, I could see it in his eyes, but he was trying to pretend he was not. “I’ll be all right.”
When Jeremy and the sheriff walked into the station, the baker was already there waiting. He stood in the vestibule staring at the posters of missing children. He had been called from work—he wore the white flour-dusted clothes he normally wore in the bakery and he carried the pleasant aroma of baked goods. As he spied Jeremy passing through the door, a look of surprise registered in his kindly blue eyes. While the deputy led Jeremy into the next room, the sheriff lingered behind.
“Morning, Sten,” he said, bending a little as he looked down at the baker.
“Hallå, Sheriff,” the baker said quietly.
The self-possession lost the night before had been restored—his white beard was once again combed, his cheeks again ruddy, his blue eyes again bright.
“Think you’ll be happy with our work on this one, Sten,” the sheriff said. “We got one of the kids nailed and mounted. After that, the rest will tumble.”
The baker did not seem especially relieved. His eyes returned to the posters on the wall, in particular to a poster of Possy Truax that showed a photograph of him as a five-year-old boy alongside a sketch of him as he was imagined to look now.
The baker glanced up at the sheriff. “You really think he might still be alive?”
“Probably not,” the sheriff said. “But who knows for sure except Possy himself … and maybe the person who took him.” His eyes lingered for a moment on the poster. “I’ll tell you what, though. I will never understand how anybody could’ve done that little boy a bit of harm.” He shook his head wearily, and I will say it: In that moment, he did not look like a bullying sheriff—he looked like a pitiable human being.
I had heard that Possy, who had no father, trusted the sheriff more than he trusted anyone, and used to ride around in the sheriff’s patrol car and sit with him at the café and wear a badge made especially for him while eating chocolate chip pancakes that the sheriff paid for and called Possy cakes because they weren’t on the official menu. I had also heard it said that no one searched longer or harder for Possy than the sheriff.
The baker’s gaze drifted over the other posters of missing youths. “So many children disappearing,” he said.
The sheriff sighed. “Kids run away from home, Sten. Always have and always will. What we’re seeing now is the same old deal, only more so.”
The deputy poked his massive head through the door to say he had everything ready, including a chair for Jeremy’s father, just in case he showed up.
In the inner room, the sheriff eased his bulk into his giant padded armchair and loomed over his desk. “Don’t need introductions, do we? You know Jeremy Johnson Johnson, don’t you, Sten?”
“Yes,” the baker said, letting his gaze fall on Jeremy. “I do.”
I thought I detected disappointment in the baker’s voice. Sadness, even.
“So, Jeremy,” the sheriff began conversationally, as if he were about to pose the most prosaic question, “why would you want to break into the baker’s house last night?”
“I didn’t say I did,” Jeremy said, but he looked at the floor.
“Well, let’s see,” said the sheriff. “We found your key on Sten’s property. And we found your shoe on Sten’s property. And the mud in your house matches with the mud on your shoe, which is the mud of Sten’s property. We found blood on his fence and blood on his table, and we found blood on your hands. So that kind of points to you being on Sten’s property. And breaking into Sten’s house. And then running like a banshee when Sten’s yard lights come on.” He smiled. “How’s that for a scenario?”
The room filled with tight silence—everyone stared at Jeremy.
But the sheriff then did something unexpected. He softened his voice. “You know,” he said, “what we have here ain’t real real serious. It’s a little bit bad, all right, but it ain’t murder or anything. More of a prank than anything else. And the truth is, Jeremy, we’d just like to get it all sorted out. We know you was there, and we know there was other fellas, too, and if you was to fill in the blanks, that’d help your own situation a little. More than a little, even.” The sheriff’s smile seemed the smile of a friendly uncle. “So, Jeremy,” he said, “who were your compadres?”
Jeremy did not say Ginger’s or Maddy’s or Marjory’s name, and I knew he never would. Nor did he touch his temple. There was no point. What could I do? The misery in Jeremy’s face gathered around his mouth—he was fighting away tears.
Across the room, the baker’s eyes were fixed on Jeremy, and as he studied him, I detected uncertainty in his face, or even confusion. But about what? The case that the sheriff had presented left no doubt.
The sheriff must have noticed this, too, for he said, “Something the matter, Sten?”
The baker kept staring at Jeremy, and as he did, I saw a sudden sureness come into his eyes, as if something had come clear to him. “It wasn’t him,” he said in a quiet voice.
The sheriff leaned forward in surprise. “What?”
“It wasn’t him,” Sten Blix repeated. He nodded toward Jeremy. “He’s much taller than any of the figures I saw.”
The sheriff’s face stiffened. “You just said boys when you described them to us, Sten. You didn’t say little boys or short boys.”
“That may be true,” the baker said. “But now when I think of the voices and their size, I think they must have been small boys.” The baker cast a kindly glance at Jeremy. “Immature boys, but probably good boys at heart. Boys who didn’t know the prank they were playing might be seen as something more serious than a prank.”
The sheriff smirked. “And the size-eight shoe, Sten? And the key that fits? And your real estate on the floor of his house?”
The baker shrugged. “I only know what I know, Sheriff. And I
know that this isn’t the boy who was in my yard last night.”
The sheriff’s face was as stone. “That your final word on the subject?”
The baker nodded yes.
The sheriff exhaled heavily, pushed back from his desk, and raised his great form. “Then I guess we’re done here,” he said, and he lumbered out of the office.
The deputy, however, did not move. He continued to stare at Jeremy. “The baker knows what the baker knows,” he said in a low, seething voice. “But I know what I know.”
Jeremy nodded but seemed barely to hear the words. A brief minute earlier he had been fighting tears, and now, to his utter surprise, he was free. As he passed by the baker, he whispered, “Thanks, Mr. Blix.”
The baker nodded and returned a gentle smile, a smile the deputy saw. The moment Jeremy was gone, Deputy McRaven said, “Backing out on your story don’t make our job any easier, Sten.”
“I understand,” the baker said, “but this episode started to seem a small thing beside …” His voice trailed off and he pointed to a photograph on the sheriff’s desk. In it, Possy Truax sat beside the sheriff at the counter of Elbow’s Café. Possy was smiling and the sheriff was smiling and no one could imagine a future in which Possy would disappear without a trace.
Deputy McRaven was not impressed. “Sure, that was worse, but you don’t turn a blind eye to housebreaking just because there’s bigger crimes in the world.”
“Yes, yes, I take your point,” the baker replied, smiling and nodding slowly. But he did not change his story.
When I caught up to Jeremy as he headed home, he seemed anxious to talk.
“What just happened?” he asked. “Why did the baker let me off?”
I do not know. He was studying you when something seemed suddenly to come clear to him. That is when he said that it was not you. And just now he told the deputy that the crime seemed small compared to the loss of that boy Possy and the others who are missing.
Jeremy kept walking. The waking village had begun to stretch and scratch. A man retrieved his newspaper, waved genially at Jeremy, and went back into his house. “And that’s it?” Jeremy whispered to me. “The baker just thought it was too small a crime to worry about? You think that’s the whole reason?”
