The True Detective

by Theodore Weesner

  “He left in a rush, Lieutenant. Left a full can of beer he had just opened. The reason he left—well, I guess he was being hassled about the beer, but the roommate who called, named Duncan McIntyre, says the reason he left is he was trying to confront him about his suspicion, from having read the paper, and that Vernon left in a rush and was extremely agitated.”

  “What does that mean about the boy? What do you think?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know, Lieutenant.”

  “One other thing. Call the campus police. Have them inform the university provost. Tell them we’ll want everything on this guy, right away. On the other roommates, too. We better check them out. Car registrations. Class schedules. Anything like that. Pictures, if they have them. Certainly of Vernon. We’ll want pictures of him as soon as possible. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Dulac hangs up then. His pulse, he realizes, is at work in his temples; his breathing, though, is calm.

  “Gil, is it good news?” Beatrice says from the bedroom.

  “Looks good,” he says, tying his shoes. “Looks good.”

  “You’re going in?” she says.

  “I’m on my way,” he says.

  “Gil, you be careful now,” she says.

  “I may be gone all night,” he says. “We have positive ID.”

  “Call if you can,” she says.

  “I’ll try,” he says, on his way to the stairs, fixing his holster on his hip and looking for his wool jacket as he reaches downstairs.

  FORTY MINUTES LATER, all is in place and they are ready to leave for the cottage in Lee. Dulac is at his desk, checking his list, trying to double-check all that needs to be put in motion or ordered up, while the five other officers who will be going along are either in the squad room checking their gear or close at hand.

  Shirley. He wants to call Shirley, to have her there, and knows it is inappropriate that he make the call himself. It is not for personal reasons that he wants her there. Nor is it because she has been in the midst of things all along and might be angry over missing the main event. He wants her judgment. Who knows what might happen? They have positive ID. They have an address. Two addresses. A twelve-year-old boy is being held. What if a standoff of some kind comes up? Who knows what kind of possible escapes the suspect might try to negotiate? Is he armed? What if he tries to take his own life? He wants Shirley there, that’s all there is to it. He just doesn’t know how to phrase it, or who to ask to do it, since those themselves are tasks he would turn to her to handle.

  He looks to his list again. Five minutes and they will roll. Don’t miss things, don’t go off half-cocked, he is saying to himself. It’s time to earn your pay. This is it, he tells himself. This is it. A partial stakeout by the state police is already in effect. Good, he thinks. He just hopes they use restraint, that none of them gets too military, as the state troopers have been known to do. The APB on the car is in effect, through the tri-state area. If he knows, would he try to take off? Would he drive, ditch his car? Switch cars? Does he know?

  A solution is in his mind all at once to another problem; stepping from his cubicle around the corner to the doorway to the squad room, he calls out, “Hey, somebody call Shirley Moss. Tell her she has to come in. You, Benedict, give her a call. Tell her things are popping and we need administrative help.”

  At his desk again, he is turning to the next item on his list, the stakeout at the residence in Laconia—we could get pictures there, he is thinking—when Detective DeMarcus steps through his open doorway. “We got a problem with the campus police,” DeMarcus says. “The guy’s on the line right now. It’s been forty minutes at least since I called them, Lieutenant, and they haven’t done a thing, except call in this guy. He says they can’t cooperate unless they have a court order.”

  “We don’t need a court order to investigate a suspect,” Dulac says.

  “He’s on 2842,” DeMarcus says.

  Dulac takes up his phone, presses a light. “Lieutenant Dulac,” he says.

  “We’re not invading anyone’s privacy or violating any laws. We just need to know the addresses, schedules, certainly the home addresses of these four students so we can check them out. We’d appreciate your cooperation. We’re not asking for private records or anything.”

  The man says, “How is it you believe these particular students are involved in something which apparently took place in Portsmouth?”

  “What we believe,” Dulac says, “what we know, is that one of them is holding a missing twelve-year-old boy.”

  “Why do you believe that, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Dulac takes a partial breath. “Listen,” he says, “I am not going to review our case with you at this time. Either provide the information we’re after, and do it now, or I will have the state police at the door of the university chancellor in ten minutes; if that isn’t enough, I’ll have the governor’s office in touch with the chancellor in fifteen. And believe me, they will have court orders.”

  “Listen to me for a minute now—,” the man begins.

  “I’m not listening to you for a minute,” Dulac says. “Or half a minute. Where in the hell are you coming from? We are busting ass here to save the life of this twelve-year-old boy!”

  As the man begins, “Lieutenant—,” once more, Dulac’s telephone starts to ring and he cuts the connection by switching to another line, saying, “Dulac here.”

  “Lieutenant Heon,” the person says. “Will we be needing dogs?”

  “I hadn’t thought of dogs,” Dulac says.

  “We have two bloodhounds that are really beauties,” the state police lieutenant says. “Unless you object, I’ll just have them available, along with their handler. You never know in a situation like this. If your boy is holed up somewhere, or if he has moved the little boy around. What you need to do is bring a piece of the boy’s clothing. In a paper bag. Not plastic. We’ve had problems with plastic.”

  “Okay, fine,” Dulac says.

  “We’ll just have them stand by, in the parking lot there of the State Liquor Store. We need them, we’ll call them in. Now, Lieutenant, you got your search warrant in order?”

  “We’re all set,” Dulac says. “A couple last-minute things and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Surveillance at the family home in Laconia is in place,” the state police lieutenant says. “What we have there at the present time is a darkened house. A small wooden frame house, two-story, a five- or six-room house, and the corporal there happens to know that the suspect’s mother, a woman named Teri Fischer, works as a waitress at a restaurant called Brando’s, that she is there at the present time, at work, that she lives alone and generally arrives home between eleven thirty p.m. and midnight.”

  “Lieutenant, I don’t want your guys to get too close now,” Dulac says.

  “Righto, Lieutenant, we understand.”

  “What we have now,” Dulac says, “is a college student, age twenty-two, a real loner apparently, harboring a twelve-year-old boy. It’s necessary that we proceed with great caution.”

  “Understood, Lieutenant, understood.”

  “I don’t want to get into a conflict of authority on this,” Dulac says. “It’s important, it’s crucial that nothing be done to aggravate the situation or push this guy over the line. What we want to do is bring the boy home.”

  “Righto, Lieutenant. We copy. That’s what we want to do—bring the boy home. My men are well instructed per your instructions; they spot this car, they are to follow, to call in help, to approach with extreme caution.”

  “A small thing,” Dulac says. “We just hit a snag with the campus police at the university. Can you have the attorney general get through to the university chancellor, inform him that the campus police are refusing to cooperate.”

  “The campus police are refusing to cooperate?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, my word. What’s the problem?”

  “Authority, I guess.”

  “
We’ll get ’em, Lieutenant. See you at the liquor store, Lee traffic circle, rendezvous 2330 hours.”

  Off the phone, Dulac returns to his list. Yes, of course, he thinks, the APB should be all New England, and they should put reminders out to the customs people at the border. He’ll have DeMarcus take care of that. The photograph, he thinks. Did he mention the need for a photo to the state police commander? He cannot remember if he did or not and reminds himself to mention it in the rendezvous in the liquor store parking lot, before they go ahead and move on the house.

  The last item on his list is the phrase and question mark: Status of boy?

  Was he being kept in the car? Dulac asks himself. Why would Vernon return to the cottage by himself? Was the boy in the car? Tied? Was he harbored elsewhere? How could this Vernon character leave him and be on the campus that morning? Did he have access to some other shelter? A barn? A garage? As he was buying him food at McDonald’s, did that not imply an intent to care for the boy? Certainly it does, Dulac says to himself. And given all the signs this suspect has left in his wake, does that not imply that he is not a calculating or hardened criminal? Certainly, Dulac thinks. No question there. Is he therefore less dangerous? What is his frame of mind? Does he really know they have a make on him?

  Standing, the questions left hanging, Dulac knows without looking at his watch that it is time to leave. Checking his hardware, double-checking the presence in his deep shirt pocket of the warrant and a USGS map on which the cottage has been marked in fluorescent yellow, he takes up not his regular jacket but a flak vest he has checked out, and adds over this a light and roomy, dark blue jacket with POLICE on the back in reflective white letters. And he remarks to himself, this is why you’re here, this is the time to do what you’re here to do, as he moves across the hall and into the squad room, where the others are waiting in their blue jackets, with tear gas canisters, shotguns, rifle with scope, waiting for his word.

  Here Dulac says, surprised at himself, “Listen up, everybody. This may be the moment we’ve waited for. There’s a little kid out there being held. We’re close now. Our job is to set him free. Let us be the men this little boy will never forget. Let’s do that.”

  “Right on, Lieutenant,” someone says, in relief it seems, as they move to file out.

  CHAPTER 24

  CLAIRE STAGGERS FROM THE LIVING ROOM TO THE KITCHEN. She continues half-asleep—on the couch, before the flickering TV, she had drifted at last into the bottom of the ocean—as the telephone rings again and calls to her as if in a dream. What is it? Who is she? Where are Matt and Eric? She fumbles the receiver from the hook, stops the ring. It seems that true sleep had eluded her for days, until an hour or so ago.

  “Hullo?” she says, getting the receiver into position with both hands.

  “This is a true crank call,” a male voice says.

  “What—who is this?” Claire says.

  “People say I am a crank, although I am an ordained minister,” the man says.

  “What do you want?” Claire says. “Who is this?”

  “You may have seen me on television, where I have preached the gospel many times.”

  “What is this? Do you know something about Eric?”

  “Eric? Eric, Eric,” the man says. “Of course I know about Eric. Why do you think I’ve called? Why else would I call? I know exactly about Eric. And exactly about you, too.”

  “What do you know? What are you saying?”

  “Oh, this is a crank call to be sure,” the man says. “Those who speak the truth are always labeled cranks. Did you know that? The truth can be most disturbing.”

  “Please—what do you want? Do you know something about Eric? Who are you?”

  “Of your son—I’ve told you who I am; I am an unacknowledged disciple; I am a crank, it is true. Of your son—as you yourself deserted Jesus, as you believed that you could live a life, on this earth, dedicated not to the teachings of Christ—did it never occur to you that your child might be taken from you? Did it never occur to you that in the child God created your opportunity for redemption, your opportunity to be saved, that hell on earth might occur in the violation of our children? You know, you know—hear me now—the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Has it not occurred to you, has there not been a voice speaking to you in your heart, as you strayed from Christ’s teachings, as you strayed from the needs and welfare of your husband and children, as you elected, elected your path in life to follow into the city’s bright and gaudy—”

  Claire hangs up. Shaken, she stands there; she doesn’t know what to do. Should she call the lieutenant? Forget about it? Wake up Matt? She fears the phone is going to ring right back at her, reach to throttle her with its curious righteousness, but it doesn’t. She is bothered then—she hadn’t been at first—by what the man said. It was like her parents, her father come alive, to let her know that the fault lay with her, However she might argue, it would not be heard. Nor, she knows, would she hear it herself, for down deep, and in spite of anything anyone might say, she has a feeling that the judgment upon her is true. Her life has been her fault. She made choices, she failed to do what might have been done . . .

  She dials the number she almost knows by heart now. The number is on a piece of paper slipped between the telephone and the wall. “I’d say that was a crank call,” an officer tells her. “If they call back—”

  She hardly hears the rest, as the previous male voice remains more compelling. Dear God Almighty, she says to herself when she has hung up. Is there hell on earth? Sweet Jesus, forgive me if I have offended Thee. Forgive me, please, if I have not been as good, if I have not done all that I could have done. Please let me have my little boy home again. I beg of You. He means everything to me. He is life, he is love; he is the future and the reason to live; I know that he is Your child, too, and that all that is beautiful resides in him; I know this and if You will let me, if You will give another chance, I will dedicate myself to You both . . .

  She wakes Matt. She doesn’t tell him of the call; rather she sits on the side of his bed in the dark when she has awakened him by speaking his name. She says to him, “Matt, I’m sorry to wake you. I want you to know . . . I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you. I did trust you, but then I didn’t; I’m so sorry for that.”

  Matt says nothing, as if he is too much asleep or doesn’t know what to say.

  “Are you scared?” Claire says then.

  “Scared?” Matt says.

  “About Eric,” she says.

  “Yah,” Matt says through the darkness.

  “I can’t believe he isn’t here,” she says.

  Matt doesn’t respond.

  “He’d come home, wouldn’t he, if he could?” she says.

  “What do you mean?” Matt says.

  “He wouldn’t stay away on his own, would he? Because he was mad at us?”

  “Mom, they know someone has him. They know that.”

  “But why?” she says then. “Why?”

  Matt doesn’t respond, as if he is too weary, as if there can be no answer to the question she is asking.

  CHAPTER 25

  AT LAST, AS ALL IS IN PLACE AND DULAC CHECKS HIS WATCH—to shift gears—he sees that it is 0220. Okay, he thinks. If they haven’t spooked him in the meantime, if he should dare to return here—in spite of the prevailing opinion that he is already long gone to Boston or New York or attempting to slip into Canada—they are ready for him. They will take him.

  The appearance of the outside of the cottage, barely disturbed as they took occupation, is normal. The cars driven by Dulac and Mizener remain a couple hundred yards away, out along the long gravel driveway and across two-lane Route 125, in the shadows next to a small closed diner. It is where they parked to make their initial approach to the cottage.

  A stakeout is in place. Four cars and ten men are being used. Two cars are positioned at the two entrances to the cottage; another is at the traffic circle half a mile away, through which intersection, the state poli
ce commander has suggested, most anyone coming or going, innocent or aware, is likely to pass, and another, already manned like the others, is backed in beside an unoccupied cottage fifty yards away, allowing a view of the target cottage should a car somehow slip unseen past one of the other positions, or should the suspect approach by foot. Inside the cottage itself, two detectives are prepared to take up positions in the dark, to wait out the balance of the night, or until relieved, and to serve as the command post for purposes of communication from without and to the other positions.

  Dulac is anxious to be gone from the cottage, to have the lights turned out, even though the roommates have assured him that it would not appear unusual for lights to be on at this hour. For the moment, with the suspect’s bedroom and all in the bathroom but the toilet taped off, in case they may wish to call in the state police lab people tomorrow, all present are in the dining room–kitchen area, sipping instant coffee, smoking, sitting and standing, and there exists something of a party atmosphere.

  Dulac’s position concerning the whereabouts of the suspect and in justification of the stakeout is that the suspect was there that evening, that he had been there on at least two other occasions during the time that Eric Wells had been missing, that something, presumably the boy, kept him from resuming his regular life at the cottage, at the same time that something else—who knew what exactly?—had him making these periodic return visits. Maybe he comes back to change clothes, Dulac has said. To shave, although the report from the roommate had it that as of that evening he had not shaved in two days or more. Maybe he will come back again, Dulac keeps thinking. In response to the argument put forth by the state police district commander—returned by now to Concord—and by Mizener and others, that the suspect, aware that he has been made, would be on the run, Dulac has argued that nothing the suspect had done so far was very rational, that all that they knew indicated an individual entirely new to what he is doing, one who is apparently rattled and confused and who is reported by an eyewitness to have been that very evening in an erratic emotional state. Besides, Dulac has added, alerts are out to block all those more rational and conventional avenues of escape.