“I could take you to the door of the emergency room and drop you off,” he utters to the boy. “I could do that, but I’m not going to because I’d get caught then and I don’t want to be caught. Do you understand how angry I am with you? Do you?”
Where a high span of horizon is visible between buildings and trees, he discerns the faintest washing into the sky of day-light. A watercolor sweep along a straight line. Day is breaking. Vernon has a feeling that something from the heavens has spoken to him, in the moments before daybreak, has spoken of life and death and of the revolutions of planets through the universe.
No one counts, he thinks. Or ever has. Even as some names linger longer than others, all simply disappear into nothing, carry less weight than particles of sand washing up on beaches down through the ages, through eons. Life is a passing moment. A momentary gift. A brief pleasure in seeing something and thinking something, afflicted entirely with a need for love. A cruel paradox.
A car entering brings him back. The car’s headlights pass before him; he watches the car pull into a parking space. Its lights go off. In a moment, doors on both sides open and close and two women appear, walking in the direction of the hospital buildings. Going on duty, Vernon thinks. He decides in this moment to move out of here, to attempt to do something. It seems a moment of clarity, a span in his own anxious horizon, although he doesn’t know what to do or where to go. To go on duty. He has to get out of trouble, he thinks. He has to get away from this trouble. He has to do what has to be done. He has no choice anymore.
Another car enters, then another. The headlights follow in, one directly behind the other.
Maybe, he thinks then, the boy will come around like he did yesterday. Maybe if he gives him something warm again to drink, he will regain consciousness and be okay. Reaching, as if he hasn’t already done so, he holds his fingers over the boy’s opened lips, feels the warmth of his breath. Why don’t you wake up? he thinks to beg of him. Can’t you understand anything?
Sitting up behind the steering wheel, Vernon turns the keys to start the motor and is startled by the sudden sound. Yet no one is running at him.
Not waiting, he pulls out, without knowing where he is going or what he is going to do. Another car with headlights on is entering the parking lot as he approaches the exit, and he pulls his car’s light switch, not to be different.
Pulling up at the exit, he watches the light, early-morning traffic passing in the street. He pauses. At least he doesn’t have to decide immediately which way to go. No one is pulling up to press him from behind. Before him, cars keep going by and it is clear that the small city on the ocean is starting a new day. Going to work, he thinks. People are going to work, taking all things for granted.
What day is it? Is it Tuesday? Was it only Saturday that all of this started? This grief and fear. It seems it has been with him all his life, all his mornings and nights, that it may never go away.
An added moment slips by as Vernon watches the thin parade of morning cars. It is only when the headlights of a car suddenly turn into view behind him, that his anxiety jumps back into place.
He presses, manipulates the car’s pedals to escape, rolls, accelerates, brakes, rolls again as he looks to his mirror to see the aggressive headlights still coming on. Unsure which way to go, he accelerates again, into a long space between cars and is surprised that the other car does not roar after him. Driving on, following the traffic, he is surprised at the new uncertainty he feels, to be on the loose once more, to have to do things, to have to decide what he cannot decide.
He drives to the police station. Following traffic, it happens that he sees a milky white sign with blue letters and an arrow, POLICE→, and he turns nervously, as if instructed to do so. There is an old stone building which looks like a town library, police cars with insignias and dome lights nosed up quietly along its side, and a sign on the front door: ←USE SIDE ENTRANCE.
Passing, he pulls over, looking to park, and does so, paying no mind to parking signs. He doesn’t know what he is doing or going to do. There is a thought in his mind to walk into the police station and say he is the person they are looking for—he sees in this moment why such surrenders often happen—and as he turns off motor and lights and sits there, he tries to consider going that way.
He gets out of his car. That a policeman might be watching him frightens him less than it seems an odd attraction, a dark magnetic pull. The sky appears altogether gray and overcast. As he steps around to the sidewalk, though, a curious thing happens. There is a strong smell in the air of bread baking. Bread, pastries, cookies—something of the kind. Dimly lighted windows just along the sidewalk, he sees, belong to a bakery. The smell is warm. Stepping along to look in the windows, he sees that the main lights are to the rear—in the foreground are several small tables and chairs—above a long work surface where several women, five or six, are working with pans and dough, mixing pots, spatulas. Behind them is a complex of black ovens, with many doors and handles.
Vernon stands there watching. The women wear head scarves and long-sleeved shirts; all appear to be working industriously, looking to their work and not to each other. The setting looks like a stage set, the women like actors in a play. There are so many women and no men, and Vernon is increasingly affected by the warm baking smells and by what he sees. They are all hurt and wounded, he thinks, working together for salvation, baking, of all things, expressing vows of some kind; as he notices two glass-bulb coffeepots on a heater, on a glass-top counter, next to a cash register facing the customer side, one full, the other half full, cups, cream and sugar there, too, for self-service, it seems another remarkable step in a sequence. His anger feels tempered.
The heavy door opens under his hand. He is inside and however slightly, life is appearing possible again. As he steps to the counter, though, none of the women look up or seem to have noticed him. They continue to work, and he tries to contain the excited adoration he feels, as if they will save him as they are saving themselves.
What can he say? How can he ask for help? He wants to cry out to them that it is a miracle to him that they are open, that he has happened to stop here.
He will be a customer, he decides, on a rush of feeling. To think, he thinks, that being a customer might be so meaningful. Clay mugs are upside down on a tray, next to Styrofoam cups and plastic lids; fresh-baked loaves, one of them cut, are along the old glass counter. He turns upright one of the clay mugs and as if he has been adrift at sea feels he might weep with joy at the sustenance being offered. He pours steaming coffee into the mug and still no one comes to him. “I need help,” he says then, and adds, less certainly, “I need help.”
A woman who is taller than the others speaks softly over the worktable and a younger woman puts down her work and walks over. The young woman’s face is round; her eyes resemble horse chestnuts under her lightly flowered head scarf. “The coffee is self-serve,” she says. “I will cut the brioche if you like. This is walnut. This is blueberry. This is pecan. Excuse me one moment.”
The young woman seems to recite, as if just learning to speak; standing there, Vernon watches her step back to confer, in whispers, with the tall woman. Returning, her skirt so long it nearly reaches the floor, the young woman, eyes wide and glassy, says, “Each slice costs ninety cents.”
“I need help,” Vernon says. “That’s what I need.”
The girl looks at him as if perplexed; with hands raised she presents the first brioche, which has been cut. With her eyebrows she inquires if it is his choice.
“Okay, yes,” he says.
As he watches, she cuts a great five-inch thickness weighing perhaps a pound, from which syrupy walnuts ooze, which she turns over onto a small plate. As he offers to pay, she makes an expression like a mute, steps away once more to whisper to the tall woman, and returning, says, “You may pay now or after.”
He hands her two dollars. He steps to one of the small tables, places his coffee and brioche there, and steps back to the
cash register, where the young woman has shifted. As he holds out his hand to receive his change, she places a fistful of coins on the counter next to it, uncounted, and returns to her place in the rear.
At the table, Vernon devours the warm bread-pastry in a moment and sits looking through the window at his side. More cars pass; others turn in at the police station. He sips the coffee and thinks of how little the boy out in the car has had to eat and drink. The thought surprises him, as if remembering something he had entirely forgotten. He looks back to the women in head scarves and sees how they resemble unopened flowers, looking down all the time, saying so little. Work may set them free, he thinks. Work and companionship. But not really, he thinks then. Not really.
He is startled all at once, hearing someone enter, to see a uniformed policeman at the counter saying, “Let me have a piece of that bread.” The young policeman has no stripes on his dark blue uniform, nor is he wearing a hat, and he is hardly older than Vernon.
As Vernon looks, the policeman turns, looks at him, and says, “That your car outside?”
Vernon says nothing, gives no sign, freezes.
“If it is, you better move it before the traffic starts up,” the young policeman says. “That’s a no parking zone.”
In a moment, as Vernon glances through the window, the young policeman is striding back across the street, and he is wondering if the older detective, the large man whose picture was in the paper, would miss him so easily. He wonders, too, if the young policeman was lenient because he felt some kind of kinship or sympathy with the women and their bakery.
Vernon is back at the counter, next to the cash register, when he feels he is going to break down and cry out for his mother. “Could you help me, please?” he says.
The taller woman looks and comes over; it is clear she has read the appeal in his voice. “What is it?” she says. “What do you want?”
“Can you give me a job?” Vernon says. “I’ll clean up, wash everything, I’ll sleep on the floor, I’ll do whatever has to be done. I’ll never go away. Never.”
The woman is looking at him. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We have no such position.”
“I’m in real need,” Vernon says.
“I can tell that,” she says. “I’m very sorry.”
“I’m in trouble,” he says.
She continues to look at him. “Don’t you have a family?” she says.
“No, not really,” he says.
“No, not really?” she says, making an expression of having heard this before. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We’re just a bakery.”
“I’m desperate,” he says.
“Sir, I’m sorry,” she says. “We’re just a bakery.”
Vernon looks down, as if reprimanded by his mother. As always at such times, his mind stops turning and he doesn’t know what to say.
CHAPTER 2
MATT IS UP EARLY. THERE IS PLENTY OF TIME TO GET READY for school, but he doesn’t know if he will go. Unlike most other mornings, most of his life, he has an urge today to go to school. He wants to be there. He wants things to be as usual. If he could go back and start over, he thinks, he would do it right this time. He would be good in school, and happy, and Eric would not be missing but would be here this morning, also getting ready for school.
The bathroom is quiet. Matt has walked in and walked over to stand at the window without turning on the light. Barefoot, he stands on the cool floor, beyond the new blue rug. His mother is in her room, asleep he imagines. There is no pushing or jockeying for toothpaste or for the sink or toilet this morning, even if it is early. It’s so quiet. It’s hard to believe that he would prefer the pushing and grabbing and their quick tempers to this stillness and aloneness.
The lower half of the window is bubbled. He stands where he can look through the upper half, beside the old manila-colored window shade. He sees chilled air, first light coming into the gray sky.
He looks back to the sink, thinking to see Eric’s toothbrush gone. Eric’s toothbrush is not gone, though. It’s there next to his own, in Eric’s chosen color of blue. It means that Eric is gone against his wishes, and that he is hurt and cold out there somewhere. Matt stands next to the window and realizes that he just doesn’t know what to do. He is never up early like this. He has no idea what to do. None. In the only such appeal of his life, he thinks, says to himself, God, if you exist please let Eric come home. He feels no hope as he stands there, though. He feels little more than guilt, and this new desperation which will not leave him alone.
CHAPTER 3
ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE BAKERY, IN THE POLICE STATION, Dulac is in the squad room, drawing his first cup of coffee. The shift change is under way, but the activity is at the other end of the room. Dulac is early—it is just after seven—and feels somewhat groggy for lack of sleep at the same time that he is possessed of an eagerness, on the new lead, to get things under way. He especially likes being here early, for a feeling of confidence it gives him, a feeling of being ahead of the other side; carrying his coffee to his cubicle, he winks, as if to say, I’m going to get that sonofabitch.
He wishes Shirley Moss were here. It is to her especially that he wants to say, It looks like we have a real suspect. Or perhaps he will say, We have a suspect—did you hear?
Sitting at his desk, he explores possibilities. That the suspect is young, he thinks, could explain an apparent ease with which the boy went with him. Where he wouldn’t go with the greaseball from the Naval Shipyard, he might trust a much younger man. Also, the time and place details, and the possible motivation, could explain the absence of anything like a pattern in the boy’s movement, the role of chance. How else was a twelve-year-old boy picked up? A child might have a pattern on school days, but not on weekends. An encounter, an accidental crossing of paths takes place; an abduction occurs on impulse. An opportunity presents itself; action is taken. Thus an anonymous abductor.
Sex, he thinks. If the suspect was sexually frustrated—therefore, conceivably, sexually alert or on—would this or whatever he might say be stimulating to the boy? Was a twelve-year-old boy subject to such stimulation? Certainly, Dulac thinks, he would be subject to sexual stimulation, but would he respond to a young man in circumstances of the kind?
Would depend on the young man and depend on the boy, Dulac thinks. And on what the young man might do or say or present. Dirty pictures? Might the boy be sexually aroused, persuaded to go somewhere by being shown dirty pictures? Words? Could such a young man come up with just the right words that would work on such a boy?
Whatever or however, Dulac tells himself, he likes the looks of the lead. What he likes especially is the way it falls together so neatly, without inconsistencies—so far as they know, he tells himself yet again. Yet again, too, he wishes the chief would get here, so the secret witness program could be set up, and wishes Shirley Moss would arrive, too, so he could convey to her this charge he is feeling, the anticipation over this possible real break in the case. Nor is it only because he has a long-term, low-key crush on Shirley Moss that he is eager to see her; he desires her judgment, wants to see if her gut feeling on the new suspect is the same as his own. A kind of entrenched secretary, she has usually understood the implications of things more quickly and more accurately than have most others to whom he has turned. Of course, it is one of the reasons he likes her.
Or does he turn to her so often because—? he wonders.
She knows. She knows that he knows that she knows. He knows, too, that her feelings are more or less the same. They have a thing. At the same time nothing has ever been articulated or consummated or acknowledged. Both seem to know—he has imagined—that the attraction may be sustained, may remain endlessly stimulating, so long as it is not admitted. They do not go to lunch together, nor does she enter his cubicle and close the door; they never discuss anything but business, and on various social occasions, each may chat with the other’s spouse in the most genuinely affectionate way.
The sweetness o
f fantasy, he says to himself now. An endless caramel available to his tired heart, an aid in bed, also, with Beatrice.
By seven thirty, though, Shirley has yet to arrive and he goes looking for the chief, to see if he has come in early. He has, as Dulac learns at the special desk, where he pauses to take a call himself and fill out a tip sheet. Standing next to the uniformed officer, who is on another phone, Dulac hears a fifteen-yearold high school girl, her mother in the background offering too much advice on what to say, tell of having seen a boy “forced into a car” on Saturday evening. Taking down her name, address, and telephone number, he asks if she knows Eric Wells; she does not, although his brother, Matt, although not a friend, is in her grade, she tells him. He asks her to describe what she saw.
What happened was, the girl tells him, this car pulls up, down on Congress Street, and it stopped beside this little boy who was walking on the sidewalk. This man got out on the driver’s side and went around to the sidewalk, where he sort of talked to and sort of forced this boy into the back seat of the car behind this woman who opened her door on that side.
“How did he force him?” Dulac asks.
He sort of pushed him and held his arm, the girl tells him, the mother in the background saying, you said he pushed him hard.
“What did the woman do?” Dulac says. “Was it a two-door or a four-door car? Did she have to lean forward, out of the way, for the boy to get into the back seat?”
Yes, yes, the girl tells him. It was just like that, and the boy looked like the picture of Eric Wells in the paper.
Dulac asks if she was alone, and looking up sees Shirley Moss entering through the main door, waves at her, winks a little, hears the girl say no, she was with her girlfriend, and hears the mother say, tell him her name.
The True Detective Page 25
