The True Detective

by Theodore Weesner

  “So?”

  “I got carried away, that’s all.”

  Dulac pauses. “You got anything so far?” he says to Mizener.

  “Let’s get to the witness,” he says.

  “Witness about what?” Matt says.

  “Matt, we know you lied to us. Your brother is missing, and we know you lied to us about the time he came up missing. We’ve talked to someone who—”

  “Cormac,” Matt says.

  “Right, Cormac,” Dulac says.

  “I told that one lie,” Matt says. “That’s all.”

  “Just one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which one? Explain which one.”

  “Just that I said I was with Cormac, yesterday, or last night, and I wasn’t.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I was with this girl. I said that’s where I was.”

  “Okay, Matt. What girl? Where?”

  “We were at the Mall; then we went to her house.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know. I guess from six thirty or so. We had a Coke, and then we went to her house.”

  “You had a Coke at the Mall; then you went to her house? Until when?”

  “Nine. She had to go in at nine.”

  “In? You said you were at her house.”

  “Well, we were outside her house.”

  “Outside where?”

  “We were in the garage.”

  “In the garage? Until nine o’clock? What were you doing in the garage?”

  “We were just messing around.”

  “Okay. What did you do then? At nine?”

  “Nothing. I just walked home. Then my mother called.”

  “What time did you get home?”

  “About nine thirty, I guess.”

  “Okay, we’ll get back to that in a second. You say you were with this girl from six thirty until nine. In the garage. What is this girl’s name and address? Did you see her parents?”

  “She won’t be questioned, will she?” Matt says.

  Dulac looks up at him, catches his eyes. “What do you think we’re doing here?” he says. “Do you think this is a joke? She’ll be questioned all right. Hell yes, she’ll be questioned! We’ve caught you lying to us, okay? We’ve caught you in that building, playing with yourself. We’re not here on a fucking Sunday afternoon because we don’t have anything better to do. You say you lied because you were with this girl. You lie because you’re with a girl! I think you’d better wake up. That’s not a reason to lie. You think you’re talking to the fucking parish priest? You think this is a chat with your fucking school counselor? Your brother is missing. Right now you are a suspect.”

  “Vanessa Dineen,” Matt says.

  “Where does she live?”

  “Woodlawn Circle. I don’t know the number.”

  “What did you do all this time?”

  “We just messed around. In her garage. Like I said.”

  “I see. Okay. What about from five or so until you met her? From the time you left the movie theater?”

  “I just walked around.”

  “Why did you leave the theater?”

  “I was ticked off at Cormac, that’s all.”

  “Why is that? What did he do?”

  “He’s just a jerk. We ran into this girl earlier, and she was with this friend of hers named Barbara, and I wanted to do something with them and he didn’t want to. That’s all.”

  “Did anyone see you, at this girl’s house?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You were in the garage for two hours?”

  “We were in the car there, her mother’s car.”

  “Her people were in the house?”

  “I guess so. There were lights on. We sort of sneaked in, then I sneaked away.”

  “Did you see your brother at any time throughout this time?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea where he is? Do you think he would have run away?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Matt says.

  “You don’t think he’d run away?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Well, where do you think he is?”

  “I don’t know. I was looking for him. I thought he might be hiding or something. Or like camping out, because he likes that kind of stuff.”

  “Why did you lie to us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Dulac says.

  “She’s black,” Matt says.

  Dulac pauses, looks at him. “She’s black?” he says. “This girl is black?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why you didn’t go in the house when you went to her house?”

  “Yes.”

  “They live on Woodlawn Circle?”

  “Her father’s in the Air Force, like a colonel or something,” Matt says.

  “Matt,” Dulac says. “Listen to me now. Do you know anything at all about your brother’s whereabouts?”

  “I don’t,” Matt says. “I wish I did.”

  Dulac leans back. “Neil,” he says, “why don’t you go ahead and check out the girl. Double-check with her family, too; be sure this checks out. I’m going to take this guy home, then I’m going to get on those fliers. You have anything to add?”

  “Not right now,” Mizener says, taking up his pad and pencil. “Maybe later.”

  Dulac remains sitting, as Mizener leaves the room. He sits looking at Matt. Then he says, “Where would you go? Suppose you ran away. You know kids used to run away to join the circus or the Merchant Marine. Things like that. Where would you go; what would you run away to? You know what I’m saying?”

  “I think so. But I just don’t know. He likes the Navy and all that, but he’s only twelve.”

  “Yeah. What about Florida, Disneyland, or something?”

  “I just don’t think so. He’s not like that.”

  “Not like what?”

  “I don’t know. He’s like—well, he doesn’t go for kiddy things like that, like Disneyland. I don’t think. He likes things like . . . the Marines.”

  “You like him, as your brother?”

  “Sure,” Matt says. On a gasp, then, he has to check himself against crying.

  Dulac watches. Then he says, “Matt, is there anything at all you haven’t told me?”

  “No,” Matt says.

  Dulac shrugs. “It’s okay to cry,” he says then.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Matt says.

  “Let’s hope so,” Dulac says, getting to his feet.

  Moments later, as the tape recorder is turned off and they are walking out to the car, Dulac says, “There’s a chance he’ll come walking in any minute. Especially if he’s resourceful like you say, if he’s the kind of kid who likes to camp out and so on.”

  Matt is nodding.

  “In the meantime, anything you can think of about where he would go, however off the wall, I’d like you to let me know.”

  “Okay,” Matt says.

  “Try not to worry.”

  Matt nods.

  “Don’t worry about what color your friend’s skin is, either,” he says. “That’s no big deal.”

  Matt nods, keeps walking next to the man.

  CHAPTER 16

  HERE WHERE THEY HAVE PULLED UP, IN HAMPTON BEACH, darkness looks to be falling quickly over both the horizon and the ocean. The line between the two is no longer distinguishable. Nor are there any other cars in this parking lot at water’s edge, but a couple times Vernon has seen people pass on the wide expanse of sand, has seen their colorless shapes as they walked by. He is so tired by now, he feels he could fall asleep in seconds if he allowed himself to do so. He doesn’t. He keeps stirring himself awake, and he says now to the boy, “You’re part way home. Do you realize that? That’s where you’re going to be, in no time, if things work out.”

  “I won’t tell,” the boy says.

  Surprised he has spoken, Vernon looks at
him through the dimness. He had been so quiet, he had thought he might have fallen asleep.

  “Do you know where we are?” Vernon says.

  “No. By the water,” the boy says.

  “You don’t know where we are?”

  “At some beach,” the boy says.

  Vernon is looking through the windshield. For a moment now he hasn’t seen anyone walking on the damp sand over which water and sky seem to be spreading a darkening haze. “I want to take you back,” he says, “because I have other things to do.”

  “I won’t tell,” the boy says again.

  This only makes Vernon disbelieve him, and he says, “How can I believe that?”

  “You can, because it’s true,” the boy says.

  “Would you meet me—if I asked you to meet me—on Friday night?” Vernon says.

  The boy takes a moment. “I don’t know,” he says.

  Vernon looks back to the gray dimness of sea and sky; a single chop of water looks unusually white. He likes the boy’s answer. “Let’s walk on the beach,” he says. “I’ll untie you—we’ll walk down the beach and back—and if you show that I can trust you, then I’ll take you home. I’ll even buy you something to eat before I take you home. Are you hungry?”

  “No,” the boy says. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You have to be,” Vernon says. “So don’t lie.”

  The boy doesn’t respond.

  “We’ll walk on the beach, as a test,” Vernon says. If he takes off, Vernon is thinking, he’ll just let him go. If he doesn’t, all the better; he’ll buy him something to eat and let him off in town. He’ll take his chances.

  Reaching, lifting away the sleeping bag, he unties the boy’s ankles. “We’re going to go walk on the beach,” he says. “It’s going to be a test to see if I can trust you. Just wait now, until I come around to your side of the car.” Reaching past the boy, he pulls out the lock.

  The boy sits there.

  Getting out of the car, extending his legs, standing within the mist and odor of the ocean, the sound, a hundred yards before them, Vernon goes around to the passenger side of the car. This is all a game, he thinks. It’s all a contest of wills, of deceptions, to see who will have his way.

  “Okay,” he says, opening the door, the dome light flashing on again. “Let’s go. Do exactly as I say.”

  The boy turns his legs and starts to get out, to shift his weight to his feet, but he winces in sudden pain and his hand reaches to the car door. Still he pulls himself to his feet, is standing, and as if he understands the implications of his being hurt, says nothing, makes no complaint.

  “Does it hurt?” Vernon says.

  “No,” the boy says.

  “Let’s walk then,” Vernon whispers, closing the door as the boy takes a step and is clear.

  Vernon moves a few steps along and watches, through the darkened, sound-filled air, to see the boy come with him. Trying, managing some steps, the boy cannot help grimacing, gasping almost silently in pain.

  “You can’t, can you?” Vernon says.

  “I can—yes,” the boy says.

  Vernon holds, watching the boy, who also holds in place. Something is sinking in Vernon, as he says, “Forget it; you’re just going to make it worse.”

  “I can do it,” the boy says, moving over to him.

  “You can’t,” Vernon says. “You can’t. Just get back in the car.”

  “I just need to try!” the boy says. “That’s all. I can do it.”

  “Just get back in the car,” Vernon says. “It’s okay. You’ll feel better in a while. Just get back in the car.”

  “Please,” the boy says. “Please let me go.”

  “Get back in the car!” Vernon says.

  CHAPTER 17

  DULAC IS ON ROUTE 1, FINISHING UP. He hits his directional signal still again, this time to turn into a Cumberland Farms grocery store–gas station. He has taken Route 1, while Mizener has covered busier coastal Route 1A, which passes near the beaches. Starting with businesses close to the boy’s home, they have stopped to leave fliers where they have guessed a twelve-year-old boy might show his face—gas stations, mom-and-pop stores, pizza, doughnut, and hamburger counters, and supermarkets, almost anything that is open on a Sunday night in February.

  This will be Dulac’s last stop. Earlier, while two uniformed officers and two cadets looked into and around garages, dumpsters, yards, and cellar holes, he and Mizener canvassed neighbors, in the house where the boy lived and in several houses in each direction. They came up with a total of nothing, and within the past hour Dulac has been taken with doubt himself over the amount of activity he has initiated, and over the mere reality of the case. Is someone really missing? Is something really wrong? Momentum of a kind has kept him making his rounds. Even at six forty-five p.m., when twenty-four hours had passed since the boy was last seen and everything became altogether official, he found it difficult to acknowledge that they had a missing child case on their hands. Here—in Portsmouth. Everything seemed the same. Life, so far as he could tell, simply moved along, paid no notice.

  Parking, turning off the motor and headlights, he takes a flier with him as he shifts out of the car. Ten minutes to eight. At eight o’clock another public announcement will be made, by radio. At that time, he thinks, as the news goes out and the case continues to become real it will have its impact. At eleven o’clock, if nothing comes in to change their plans in the meantime, an announcement will be made on channels 6 and 9, the two more or less local television networks. In tomorrow afternoon’s newspaper then, the announcement of a missing child will be front-page news. Again, if nothing happens in the meantime. If the boy isn’t in school in the morning, Dulac has thought, there won’t be any question. A missing child. In its way, it’s new here, and Dulac has no wish to explore the curious implications of newcomers and change. Theorizing makes for poor police work anyway, as he well knows.

  The man behind the counter is elderly and frail, visibly frightened as Dulac identifies himself and begins his explanation. As he has cautioned Mizener, they need to pinpoint the attention of the people they talk to and get them to pass on the same concern to those who relieve them. Dulac uses the word emergency. He also says, “It’s crucial that we have your help.”

  The man nods in the midst of his trembling.

  “The photograph here is a problem,” Dulac says. “You’ll have to look closely at any boys this age. It’s an enlargement from a class picture, was the best we could do in a short time. Will you look closely now?”

  “Oh, yes sir,” the man says.

  “Good. Now be sure anyone who replaces you is thoroughly informed.”

  “Oh, I’ll do that.”

  “Good. It’s not unreasonable at all that this boy, alone or with someone, might stop here. If you see him, or anyone who looks like him, you call that number.”

  “Yes sir, I will do that.”

  Dulac glances at the flier, Scotch-taped now to the very top of the counter. There is the blurred photograph of Eric Wells and the line above his image, which says, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? “You see anything at all suspicious,” he adds, “be sure and write down any license numbers.”

  “You bet. I will certainly do that.”

  “Thanks very much,” Dulac says.

  Returning to his car, shifting his elephantine legs into place, Dulac has the keys in the ignition and the motor running before he realizes that he has to decide what to do next. He is tired out, he knows that. And angry. Unsettled. That boy has been picked up by someone, he thinks. That’s what it is. Some sonofabitch has picked him up. Has sexually assaulted him. Perhaps killed him by now. That’s what they have to face up to, that something of the kind has come to town.

  Dulac turns off the car motor. Returning the key to ON, he turns on the radio. He will sit here and listen to the news, he thinks. He will just sit here and think for a moment. Then, no, he will not be able to go home. He will have to do some time at the station first, to see i
f any calls come in and to be sure that things are set up for the night.

  He sits staring through the windshield. Glancing to the side, he notices cars going by as usual. Things are going on as always. A blue Cherokee pulls in, parks next to the pumps; a woman in a brown vinyl jacket leaves the car to enter the store. The car is two-door, New Hampshire plates.

  On the radio, he listens to a Ford commercial. At last—there it is, as the lead story:

  Portsmouth police have no clues tonight concerning the whereabouts of a missing Portsmouth youth. Twelve-year-old Eric Wells of Cabot Avenue was last seen Saturday evening leaving Legion Hall on Islington Street where his mother works part-time as a cocktail waitress. He is four feet ten inches, weighs about one hundred pounds, and has brownish blond hair. When last seen, the sixth-grade student at Little Harbor Elementary School was wearing blue jeans and an orange-colored windbreaker-type jacket. Anyone with any information concerning the whereabouts of twelve-year-old Eric Wells is asked to call the Portsmouth Police Department at 421-3859.

  “Cocktail waitress,” Dulac thinks, sitting there. Newswriters seem to think in such clichés, but otherwise okay. Let’s see what happens now, he thinks. As he starts the car and backs up, though, he sees that the Cherokee is gone—he hadn’t seen it leave—and the blank space next to the pumps sends a feeling of futility through him.

  Backing around, pulling out, and heading downtown, he thinks how unsympathetic he could be to the person or persons who picked up the little boy, how cold-hearted. Because that’s what it has to be, he thinks. That’s what they have to face up to.

  CHAPTER 18

  FROM THE LIVING ROOM, CLAIRE HEARS MUSIC—ROCK AND roll—coming from the bedroom, where Matt has gone and closed the door. She thinks to ignore it, to force away again the suspicion that keeps coming up in her.

  In the kitchen, without turning on the light, she stands at the window to look out. She wishes time would stop passing, that the world would stop its turning. It seems to be the first time she has ever looked out over housetops and trees and known that the world and all its life just kept going and would not stop, could not be stopped no matter what, on Sunday or on any other day.

  Like the music down the hall behind the closed door, it went on. And on.