The True Detective

by Theodore Weesner

  He recalls the submarine story then and how Eric was always so taken with it. Its log showed, so it was said around town, that during World War II a German U-boat had slipped into Portsmouth Harbor and lay in overnight, near the Memorial Bridge, watching the Naval Shipyard. The Coast Guard operated a steel-mesh fence across the mouth of the harbor, and when it was opened the next morning to let fishing boats and lobstermen go out to sea, the submarine slipped out underneath them. Matt liked the story, too, although he always insisted to Eric that it wasn’t true. Eric wouldn’t have it. “Can’t you just see it?” he liked to say. “Its periscope on the shipyard all night—then this big, long, black thing goes along under the fishing boats. Think how you’d feel if you looked down and saw it! You could blast it with a hand grenade!”

  At last, near the tip of the island, Matt spots something dark red in gray rocks. Pushing closer in the breeze, though, he can see that it is only a rag, a cloth or a shirt, caught on the rocks. An image stays with him, though, as he pushes on through loose sand.

  Other things disturb his mind, too. One is a man’s upturned brown shoe, caught in a tangle of dried seaweed. Another is the carcass of a fish, lying in the suds. For the first time an image of a body comes into Matt’s mind. The body lies on its side.

  Matt tells the image to go away. He pushes on, as if it is his duty. His spirit leaves him, though, and doubt comes up in its place. Did he make a fool of himself, going to the police station? It seems he did. It did not seem that way then, but it does now. That woman, asking him all those things. They’d probably laugh, he thinks, when she tells the lieutenant of his wandering in and asking to see him. He’s the one who told him to do it, Matt thinks, all at once close to tears. He didn’t just come up with it on his own.

  CHAPTER 9

  “IT’S NOT A REAL IMPORTANT THING,” SHE SAYS, “BUT I BELIEVE the brother is developing a kind of fix on you.”

  “You believe what?” Dulac says.

  They are entering his cubicle, as he has just stepped away from the press conference—some reporters are literally jogging with their machine-copied composite sketches—and Shirley is coming to give him an update of calls and callers.

  “You had children, you’d see it in a second,” she says. “He’s turning to you. You’re the strong figure in this thing. He’s in need and there’s no father. He’s a kind of lonely kid anyway, it seems to me.”

  “What about his mother? What are you saying?”

  “I don’t think his mother is the one he wants to be around right now. And I’m not saying anything. All I’m saying is that it’s something for you to be aware of. He’s fifteen. That’s young. This is no small thing for him, even if he won’t know it until later. And he probably doesn’t know he’s gravitating toward you. With his mother he probably feels that he should be the responsible one. I just thought you should know, that’s all. There are other things to talk about.”

  “Did he say that?” Dulac says.

  “No, Gil, of course he didn’t say that.”

  “Should I do something? I have to leave here almost at once, to talk to this guy at the university. And I have to call the secret witness—told him I’d only contact him in an emergency—to see if he’ll go with me. And I’m going to ask him to take a polygraph, too, which is going to piss him off, I’m sure.”

  “You’re taking him where?”

  “To see the expert guy at the university. State Police delivered the sex film. Expert’s going to give us a critique, say if the film could suggest behavior. The secret witness I’d like along because he knows the suspect, and because he’s a very astute guy. Now you’re making me feel bad because I don’t have any time for the brother.”

  “Take him along. He’d be thrilled.”

  “I can’t do that—not to talk about a sex film that could have implications about his brother.”

  “Implications? Do you believe that?”

  “I don’t know what I believe. I know the guy saw the film. Then he went to a gay bar. From which he went home with this guy. Where, as they say, he hit on soft times. Then, if he’s the one, he picks up Eric Wells. There’s something of a sequence there.”

  “You’re going to polygraph the secret witness?”

  “Well, think about it. The guy is involved in sexual hankypanky, for one. He calls up, gets himself involved in the case, so we have everyone looking for a person he has described, driving a car he cannot identify. He’s a smart man. It’s one of those things. I’m not that quick, but I’d never be forgiven if I didn’t check him out. It’s the car, mainly. I don’t like that he can’t identify the car. I have to have him polygraphed.”

  “Which is going to piss him off?”

  “I think so. Especially if I ask him to offer an opinion of this film.”

  Shirley is nodding, starting to leave. “Concerning the brother,” she says. “I could get a hold of him, try to, and tell him you want to see him later today—something like that?”

  “Fine, that’s a good idea. I’ll be back, I don’t know, this afternoon. Bring him in here, let him hang out in my office if he wants to. Or in the squad room. They’re people around. I’ll be back then, and I’ll talk to him.”

  SITTING AT HIS desk, Dulac is trying to sort things out. As nothing seems quite willing to fall into place, he decides simply to do some things which need to be done, and he removes from his wallet the slip of paper on which the secret witness jotted down two telephone numbers. Stop trying to do too much at once, Dulac reminds himself, as he is thinking there is something he has to touch base with Shirley on before he leaves, and thinking, too, that he has something for Mizener, something which seems important—what is it?—which came to him exactly as he was standing with the chief and the others in the press conference and someone was talking. One problem, he thinks now, is that his concern with Mizener being too inflexible, not being really helpful in the investigation, keeps getting in the way of whatever it is he has on his mind to ask him to do. The car, he thinks. Isn’t it something about the car? Mizener’s sort of a handful, he thinks. A pain in the ass. He’s too bitter, really, to be a good cop.

  The number is dialed. At least some number is dialed, Dulac thinks as he realizes he is listening to a telephone ring and the slip of paper belonging to the secret witness is on his desk before him. Now he has the brother to worry about, too, he reminds himself. It’s too much.

  The man answers. It’s his voice.

  “Lieutenant Dulac here,” Dulac says softly. “I know I agreed to call only in an emergency. Are you free to talk? This is important.”

  “More or less,” the voice says. “Not altogether.”

  “I have a favor to ask. A couple of favors.”

  “Go on.”

  “What?”

  “I’m listening. Go on.”

  “I’m leaving here in ten minutes,” Dulac says. “To go over to the university, to see some of that sex film I told you about—Children in Bondage—and to talk to an expert there on child abuse. What I’d like is for you to come along. Share your knowledge. Your insights.”

  “Knowledge of what?” the man says.

  “Well, you’re an expert in a certain area. Okay. The general idea—I mean I don’t expect much—the general idea is to see if the film could give us some clue about anything. I have to do this myself. I’d be interested in your opinion. It takes time and all, I know, but it would be a help.”

  “Well, I’m not sure about that,” the man says.

  “As a citizen,” Dulac says.

  On a pause, the man says, “Fine. Okay, I’ll do that. I’m not getting anything done here anyway.”

  “You’ll do it?”

  “Yes. That’s what I said.”

  “Good. Oh, yes, there’s something else I have to ask you. It’s a little more awkward. But official.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “I have to ask if you’ll agree to a polygraph. As policy.”

  The pause t
his time is longer, before the man says, “I don’t think that’s fair.”

  “Let me try to explain,” Dulac says.

  “Please do,” the man says.

  “It isn’t what it sounds like,” Dulac says. “You see, I don’t believe you have any involvement in this. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time a person who was a perpetrator became involved in the investigation of his own crime. You see? It’s a Freudian number I know, but it is a way that people return to the scene of the crime. It is well documented as a pattern—a syndrome. So it’s rather like policy. At the same time, personally, if I thought you were involved, I sure as hell would not ask you to go talk to this professor guy with me. Okay?”

  “Okay what?” the man says.

  “Why don’t you just say you agree, and let me set it up. It’s all confidential. A State Police expert does it. I can have the guy here waiting for you when we come back, say at four. That way it won’t cut into another day.”

  “If I decline, you’ll think I’m involved.”

  “Let’s just say that if you do it, it’ll remove any doubt.”

  “How long would it take?”

  “Thirty to forty minutes.”

  “Okay. I have nothing to hide. The next time I’ll think twice about trying to help.”

  “Come on—try to understand.”

  “I said I’d do it.”

  “Fine. You want to drive over here, to the parking lot then? We’ll go over to the university in my car.”

  “You mean wait outside?”

  “It’s just your cover I’m concerned with. That way no one will see you. Come inside if you want to. It’s okay with me. Wear your hat.”

  “I’ll wait outside. And I’ll park where I wish to park.”

  Moments later, coat in hand, Dulac tears the top sheet from the notepad on his desk to take out to Shirley. He has just added the four p.m. appointment with the State Police polygraph specialist—and snuffed out a cigarette which was so long it may have been lit for no more than two or three seconds. He’s smoking too much, in addition to other failures he is committing in life, he tells himself. Well, it’s a special time, he thinks. One of these days he’ll have to quit. Cold turkey. Not today, though.

  Shirley has words of her own, which he allows into one ear as he tries to look attentive. Thirteen media people were at the press conference, she is telling him. Four were photographers or cameramen, the rest reporters. To her mind, given some calls that came in, they made two mistakes. Too many of their own people, clerks and cadets and patrolmen, came and stood around and took up copies of the dope sheet. You’d think they were programs at a theater. Then, too, there were too many bosses up front. The chief, the captain, Mizener—it looked like everybody was trying to get into the act. Bad impression. When the lady reporter from Portland asked if any one person was in charge of the investigation, she wasn’t asking a question, she was offering a criticism.

  “Where is Mizener?” Dulac says.

  “He’s out; he’s checking out some high-priority tip.”

  “What tip is that?”

  “I’m not sure just offhand. I didn’t see him go, and he doesn’t report to me.”

  “Don’t we have a prime suspect?” Dulac says.

  Shirley only shakes her head, makes an expression.

  Leaning in over his sheet then, Dulac checks off the items there, from informing the New Orleans police that Warren Wells is a fugitive, as he is in arrears in excess of twenty-six thousand dollars in child support payments, to checking with the Department of Motor Vehicles on the number of silver-gray cars in the four models named, to checking with the MPs at the air base to see if the suspect’s length of hair exceeds their standards, to making an appointment with the State Police now, to polygraph the secret witness at four p.m. “Something else,” Dulac says. “But I can’t remember what the hell it is.”

  Shirley says something then, while Dulac is trying to call up what he thinks he has forgotten, and he says to her, “What was that? I’m sorry.”

  “The squad room,” Shirley says. “We’ll be getting a lot of calls and I think that for tonight at least we should shift this operation to the squad room.”

  Dulac nods, agrees, as he is trying again, or still, to call something into focus.

  “Should we do it right away?” Shirley says.

  “Yes, sure, do it right away,” Dulac says. “It’s a good idea.”

  “And I’ll try to track down the brother,” she says.

  “Fine,” Dulac says. “That’s fine.”

  IT IS IN the squad car at last, with the secret witness, that Dulac sees what has been eluding him. It is the lies. The range of deception in such an encounter. “Tell me,” he says. “If this guy, as you are so certain, lied about his name—if Anthony is a lie—he’d lie about other things, too, wouldn’t he?”

  “Well, yes, he would; I’m sure he would. I did.”

  “You did?”

  “Oh yes. Small things.”

  “Such as?” Dulac says.

  “I said I was a lawyer. I’m not a lawyer.”

  “What did he say he was?”

  “He didn’t. But he did say what he wasn’t. I told him I thought he was a student. He said he wasn’t.”

  “Which means he might be, if he was lying?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, I thought he was a student, right off. That’s what I said to him. Maybe it’s why I approached him, because there was a clean-cut student look about him.”

  “What else did he say? Did he say that he wasn’t from this area, for example, which might mean that he is?”

  “I’m trying to remember,” the man says. “It is something you say, but I just can’t remember if that’s what he said. I don’t believe I asked him where he was from. In fact, I more or less told him it wasn’t the thing to do to pry.”

  “Great.”

  “Sorry.”

  “His name could be Anthony then? If he was so inexperienced?”

  “Could be, but I don’t think so.”

  “Was he gay? What’s your judgment on that?”

  “Is this the knowledge you wanted me to share?”

  “You told us everything he said and did. You didn’t say if you thought he was gay.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “Okay, I’m asking.”

  “I thought he was. Then I thought he wasn’t. People do mess around. Young people especially, They experiment a little. Finally, I’m not sure. I’d say yes and no.”

  They are approaching a stoplight, and seeing someone familiar, walking away to the left, Dulac realizes it is Eric’s brother, Matt Wells. At first he isn’t going to disclose this to the man beside him, but then he says, “That’s the older brother. Walking there. That’s the little boy’s older brother.”

  “What’s he doing walking there?” the man says.

  “I’m not sure,” Dulac says.

  “Are you going to stop?”

  “No,” Dulac says, going on with some uncertainty as the light changes. “I wish I could; I just don’t have time.”

  “What’s his problem?” the man says.

  “I was going to polygraph him, too, but I changed my mind,” Dulac says.

  “What happened to policy?” the man says.

  “It got changed, in that case,” Dulac says, driving on. “As for his problem. His brother’s been abducted. There’s no father. And generally speaking, no one quite has time for him, even though he has needs that he doesn’t understand himself.”

  CHAPTER 10

  UP THE PAINTED CINDER-BLOCK, STEEL-PIPE STAIRWELL, VERNON enters at the sixth floor and walks along the hallway. There are its familiar smells. In a small door-less room, two ironing boards with cast-iron footings stand unused. As always. Someone is suddenly passing; Vernon takes a look to be sure it isn’t Anthony.

  There is the door, heavily varnished; a feeling is in him that this is all wrong, ano
ther mistake. He takes a breath, hesitates. Get out of here, he tells himself. Go somewhere and die. He taps the door with his knuckles in the old way. He will be told to go away.

  Nothing happens. He hears nothing. It’s mid-afternoon, he thinks. Is he here? Was he here before at this time of day?

  Vernon taps again. He hears something this time—he is certain. A chair scraping, a bed squeaking. He waits, inches from the door.

  “Someone there?” a voice says.

  “It’s me,” Vernon says to the door.

  Gradually, the door is opened. On the other side of the chain is Anthony’s youthful face. “I was working,” he says. “What do you want?”

  “I need to talk,” Vernon whispers. “Please let me in.”

  Anthony only looks at him, before turning his face downward.

  “I need help,” Vernon says. “I’m in trouble.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Anthony says.

  “It’s serious,” Vernon says.

  “What is it?” Anthony says.

  “I can’t just say. Please let me in.”

  Anthony still makes no move to unchain the door. He looks at Vernon, looks away, looks at him again.

  “Are you alone?” Vernon says, as if this is the problem.

  “No, but you are.”

  Vernon only looks through the opening, without understanding.

  “That was supposed to be funny,” Anthony says.

  Vernon still only looks; he has a glimpse of what he often felt like before in Anthony’s presence, when he did not understand. “You’ve got to help me,” he says.

  Anthony makes an expression. “Vernon,” he says. “Listen to me. I’m going to tell you something for your own good. When we were together, it was okay for you to come to me with your problems. It’s not like that now. I know that may seem awfully cold, but the sooner you face it, the sooner you’re going to begin to feel better about yourself.”

  Vernon is looking at him. “I’m in serious trouble,” he says. “It’s life and death.”