The True Detective

by Theodore Weesner

  “What?” the man says.

  “Forget it,” Dulac says. He thinks to add fuck you, but doesn’t.

  “My God, Lieutenant, you ask offensive questions. You think people look homosexual?”

  “It’s my job,” Dulac says.

  “What is your job?”

  “Asking offensive questions.”

  “Really,” the man says.

  “And it’s true,” Dulac says. “Some men, who are homosexual, look homosexual. Okay? Maybe some don’t but a hell of a lot do. It may not be politic to say that, but it’s reality. That’s where I work. Reality.”

  They sit a time. Dulac, lighting another cigarette, feels the campus police may be moving slow in a last-gasp attempt to assert something. Assholes, he thinks. Petty assholes.

  As another wave of students passes, Martin says, “It’s hard to believe that someone who is a student would abduct a little kid.”

  “Why do you think that?” Dulac says, thinking how characteristic it is of gay men that their recovery time, upon being offended, is so brief.

  “They seem so trouble-free. And so young, at an age when people are usually more generous of spirit than they are later. You know, Lieutenant, I wouldn’t be surprised if this Vernon person is still here, even attending his classes.”

  “I have that feeling myself,” Dulac says, “but I’m not sure why. I don’t know what he’d do with the boy.”

  “It’s obvious he’s a pedophile,” the man says. “That indicates a certain kind of motivation. So much, you know, is made of mothers disrupting the sexuality of their sons. I’ve wondered at times what the effect is, on boys, of their fathers withholding love from them, not being there, you know, when they’re needed.”

  They sit there. In a moment, Dulac says, “What would you do?”

  “Is this another offensive question?”

  “Probably,” Dulac says. “If you knew, from your roommate, that you’d been made. Would you run? Would you harm the boy?”

  “I don’t think so,” the man says. “I can’t imagine harming a little boy or anyone else. And like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this Vernon attend his classes, as if nothing had happened.”

  “I don’t see how he could feel like nothing has happened,” Dulac says.

  “Just denial,” the man says. “That’s all.”

  In another moment then, when the campus police still have not signaled them, the man says, “You have children, Lieutenant?”

  “No,” Dulac says.

  “Did you want to?”

  “We did.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. We weren’t lucky. That’s all. You didn’t really answer my question about running, trying to escape, if you were the suspect and knew you had been identified.”

  “I thought I did answer it.”

  “You’d go on with your life?”

  “I think I might. I don’t know.”

  “That seems amazingly childlike.”

  “Well, your suspect may be like that—extremely immature. And he probably isn’t gay. About which you keep generalizing.”

  “Okay,” Dulac says.

  “Still, you do it,” the man says.

  Dulac sits quietly a moment. “I guess I do,” he says then. “In any case, I’ve asked your opinion on things because I believed your ideas would be better informed than my own.”

  “That’s offensive, too,” the man says.

  “I’m sure it is,” Dulac says.

  “And so smug.”

  “I’m sure,” Dulac says.

  “People are different, you know. Even gays. I don’t happen to be a child molester. I’m not sure I even understand the impulse. Okay?”

  “I didn’t mean to say you were a child molester. Although that is a generalization on your part. This is a young boy, picked up by a young man.”

  “There you go again,” the man says. “Putting me in a category. One where I don’t belong. I do not go for little boys.”

  “Okay, let’s drop it.”

  “I think you owe me an apology,” the man says.

  “Let’s just drop it,” Dulac says.

  “Some men—you know—who are gay are simply biologically so. It’s what they are.”

  “I think we should just drop it,” Dulac says. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “They’re not necessarily deviant,” the man says.

  “I don’t know about the biology,” Dulac says. “But from where I sit, you see—since you insist—from where I sit, a lot of people who identify themselves as gay weigh in with serious, deep-seated psychological problems. They cause grief. They’re aggressive. Selfish. They’re nothing but offensive in their demands on my time and attention. The law means nothing to them. I’m sorry, but that’s what comes through my door.”

  “I’m not one of those,” the man says.

  “Good,” Dulac says.

  “I’ll tell you what rankles me, though,” the man says. “It’s the positions taken by so-called officials. Like yourself. Lawmakers, and so on. Categorizing everything.”

  “Why don’t you forget it,” Dulac says.

  “I don’t want to forget it.”

  “Okay. Let me tell you then what rankles me. It’s that. Politicking. Demanding. Constant fucking politicking. Blindly. What you’re asking for is special treatment. You and your concerns, your little weenies. What makes you think the world should stop all the time and indulge your fucking cares and concerns? That is selfishness. That is smug. Who has time for it? I don’t. You made your choice, live with it.”

  “Now I am being insulted.”

  “You asked for it. I’m not a politician, I’m a cop. I’ll tell you some more on the subject, because I’m not finished. And I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s been a difficult day so far. I am them, you know. I’ve always been them. I’ve always been strong, you see. Always. And I’ve always been responsible. If things go wrong, I assume it is my duty to help make them right. Okay? You paint a rosy picture of yourself, is what you do. Fine, if it makes life easier, go ahead and do it. But when things go wrong, you blame it on me. That is what is selfish. At the same time, if I didn’t think you were a decent person, you wouldn’t be here, believe me. But don’t give me any more poor-me bullshit about gays. Because, I’ll tell you, I’ve been working almost exactly in the asshole of human nature for twenty-five years, which is where a lot of the guys on your team hang out, and I know better. Reality happens to be one thing I know.”

  Silence follows for a moment. At last the man says, “I did not mean to say that gays are superior or deserve special treatment. If I implied that, I apologize.”

  “Fine, forget it,” Dulac says. “I’m afraid I’m not in a very good mood. We have this guy, and yet we don’t have him. It’s beginning to bother me. I apologize, too.”

  CHAPTER 7

  HIS MOTHER CAUGHT HIM ONCE, IN CALIFORNIA, WITHOUT catching him altogether. There was a carport with a partial cinder-block wall, painted an aqua color, and he was sitting on the other side of the wall with his newfound magazine. His mother’s voice was suddenly almost overhead, calling his name, and in a panic, he slid the magazine up under his T-shirt. Climbing to his feet, pushing his shirttail into his blue jeans, he paused before showing himself.

  He stepped around part way, to speak to her. She was going somewhere; she’d be back in twenty minutes; a man, in uniform, might be stopping. She kept looking at him. She shielded her eyes from the sun and looked more closely. What was he doing? What was that in his shirt? Had he picked up his room? She didn’t have time to do it right now; would he go in and pick up the kitchen?

  He always believed she saw the magazine cover through his shirt. In the house, before hiding the magazine, he stood before a mirror. The two boys looked visible to him. But then he knew what they were doing. And maybe the sun had reflected in a way that made it difficult to see through his shirt. Still, he always believed she had seen the two boys, and t
hat she had chosen not to acknowledge what she had seen.

  That was a long time ago, and he is walking in Portsmouth now, feeling caught and not caught. His car is parked in yet another supermarket parking lot, just beyond the parking lot where he pulled in and removed the boy from the trunk and placed him on the ground. The move only took him ten or fifteen minutes altogether, going to the hospital to get into his car, picking out the place along the way, and deciding all at once to leave his car in the parking lot of a supermarket that was just a couple hundred yards down the road. All happened on impulse, it seems, and he still feels it was something generous to do. Now they can take care of him. Perhaps as he walked past one or another funeral home the thought had come to him that the little blond-haired boy had to be taken care of. Otherwise, well, otherwise it would be different. Now it would be done.

  Maybe, too, he thinks, they will take care of the boy and not worry so much about him. The boy is what they wanted, isn’t it? Could they even associate the boy with him, now that he wasn’t with him? It’s something of a relief, anyway, not to have quite so much to worry about. To feel caught but not caught. To walk here, to feel this curious freedom.

  CHAPTER 8

  THEY ARE SITTING YET IN THE CAR WHEN WORD COMES IN from Shirley Moss on the radio. “Gil,” she says. “I’m afraid I have bad news. The body of a young boy has just been found. It looks like it’s Eric. Near a parking lot—the Norton Office Supplies building on Islington Street.”

  “It’s close to his house?” Dulac says at last.

  “Yes,” she says. “It is.”

  “The clothing matches?” he says. He is checking himself against a shifting of the world around him.

  “I’m afraid it looks that way. Red jacket is all we know right now.”

  “Red jacket.”

  “That’s all we know so far,” she says.

  “Who found him?” he says.

  “A man pulling in there to park. It looks like it just happened, not long ago.”

  “You took the call?”

  “Two minutes ago.”

  “Is Neil going over?”

  “He’s just leaving. Several people are.”

  Then Dulac says, “Okay. I’m on my way, The stuff here isn’t ready yet anyway. Get Neil, will you, tell him to be sure nothing is disturbed. Tell him to block off the site.”

  “Anything else?”

  “For the autopsy, the medical exam, call Dr. Miller again, from the university here; ask if he’ll attend. Has his mother been told?”

  “Not yet. She is in the building right now, but she doesn’t know anything. There’s no actual identification yet.”

  “Can you keep her there? Tell the chief, too, so he’ll know what’s going on. I don’t want to ask her to do the identification.”

  “There’s the brother.”

  “He’s too young. I’ll get back to you. Call Neil. He should know better, and he’ll be offended, but call him anyway. Tell him I said to rope off the entire area. Call Concord, too. Tell them we’ll need their lab people there right away, probably for several hours.”

  Pulling out, entering the street, Dulac reaches to flip a switch to activate the car’s siren—it seems to come up as always like a cyclone from within—and accelerates to slip past one car and then another edging to the side to grant him room.

  At the intersection with Main Street, as the siren howls, he interrupts the traffic; he nurses, pumps, nurses the accelerator as he passes more cars shying away to give him room.

  Nor is it easy to talk within the howling sound, and this gives Dulac a chance to let something settle within himself.

  The man has said nothing, has acknowledged what is happening, it seems, by remaining silent. On the highway, pressing on, Dulac calls out, “I’ll let you off in town. If you don’t mind.”

  “No problem,” the man calls back.

  Keeping both hands on the steering wheel, Dulac presses on. He has nothing more to say. The news keeps moving through him, and it is new every time, and it is his job to press on and not to give in. He presses on.

  CHAPTER 9

  HE WONDERS IF THEY’VE FOUND THE BOY YET. IT SHOULDN’T take long. Walking along, approaching a corner where he might turn back in the direction of where he left the boy, he experiences an urge to do so. He could walk by on the other side of the street, he thinks. He could walk by and take a glance to see if anything was happening. The pull to return is appealing and he can’t quite resist it. At the corner, he makes the turn as if casually and walks along. It is the best he has felt all morning, or in several mornings, although he doesn’t know why. Does he feel safe now? he wonders. Is that what it is? Is it freedom he feels? Or is it because he has finally done the right thing?

  Seeing a police car pass up ahead with its blue light flashing, he fears that nothing has changed. A thought comes up in him, too, to turn back. He doesn’t. He keeps walking. He wants to see. He isn’t sure what it is, but he wants to see, wants to feel something.

  CHAPTER 10

  WITHIN THE BARRICADES, IN THE MIDST OF CONFUSED activity and on his way to the heart of things, Dulac feels late, wrinkled with exhaustion, responsible for everything. His car might still be rocking, it seems, its siren still sighing in its illegally parked position back on the street, half over the curb. He stops. All these uniforms. Chaos. Cars. It’s his case and he won’t have this, he decides. He won’t have this.

  People are lined up, and lining up, to watch. Citizens. Gawkers. Jokers. Ahead is a concentration of state troopers in leather boots, city policemen, plainclothesmen, Mizener, DeMarcus, sheriff’s deputies. He turns back to the entrance. Out in the street an officer is trying to keep traffic moving as people are slowing down in their cars to rubberneck. To the uniformed officer within the barricades, Dulac says, “Step over here,” to draw him some steps away from the dozens of people on the other side of the tape.

  “Has anyone come or gone other than all these cops?” Dulac asks him.

  “One guy went out, sir.”

  “Who was that?”

  “He worked here or something. Was parked here. Said it was important business, so I let him go.”

  “You got his name?”

  “Yes sir, and his license plate.”

  “Okay, good. You get a chance, call it in, have them run it. Don’t let anyone else leave. No one. But get the names of anyone belonging to these cars. Have them wait right here. Tell them we’ll have to talk to them. And keep those people back.”

  Dulac glances over the gathering crowd. The person he is drawn to, Eric Wells, is back along the parking lot somewhere. He walks that way. There is the need to establish some control here. And there are all those faces back on the other side of the rope, even across the street; a number of them, many of them, are young men. Checking them out seems nearly impossible, at the same time that he doesn’t believe anyway, in his gut, that the suspect would show up here now. Still, driving hard in his car, he had been barking at himself, he’s here, he’s been here all along, he’s here and all those who were so certain he was on the run were wrong, everyone has been wrong.

  He is moving now, at last, in the direction of the center of attention toward the rear of the parking lot. The boy. All the others are here, standing in groups of three and four, talking, smoking, gesturing; he cannot, does not believe quite yet that in their midst, somewhere, is the body of twelve-year-old Eric Wells. He notices yellow tape then, to the left, reaching around the backs of four cars, containing an area including the cars and the space before the cars, where no one is trespassing. To his surprise, he feels an urge to have them all gone from here, to have their voices silenced, so he might look alone upon the child whose life had been taken, so he might see whatever there was to see, so he might know at last. Where but in his own heart, Your Honor, can a true detective look for evidence?

  Mizener is in a near group, and Dulac says to him, to say something, “The lab people aren’t here?”

  He doesn’t note
or listen for an answer; perhaps none was given. His attention has already shifted to the area in front of the taped-in cars, although nothing is visible from where he is standing. Somehow, he doesn’t want to appear too anxious. Perhaps he fears his own reaction, that he might break something or wail like an elephant gone loco.

  To Detective DeMarcus then, turning to duty, he says, “Listen. Line up three more people. Besides yourself. Go in pairs. Cover all directions from here. See if anybody saw anything. I can’t understand this car thing. Maybe he’s stolen a car. Knock on every door, get into every office, for a block or so. Somebody had to see this.”

  Once more then, Dulac looks over the taped-in cars, which nose up to a curb. Going on, looking between two cars, he sees the boy’s blue-jeaned legs lying on an old crust of winter-dampened weeds, sees that which has occupied most of his thoughts these past several days. Eric Wells. There he is at last. He’s here.

  The drivers of the two cars before which the body lies have to have seen the body, he thinks. He thinks this as he stands looking. The drivers could not have pulled in and parked and left their cars and not seen the body lying there. So the body wasn’t there. It wasn’t there until after they were there. That’s simple. It means he was dropped this morning, that’s what it means. Still, it doesn’t say anything about when the boy died. Only the medical examiner will be able to tell them that. Thinking this, Dulac sees, too, again, that the killer, the college boy killer, Vernon Fischer, could be out there in the crowd of bystanders. Now that he had dropped off the secret witness, Dulac thinks, the one person who knew him on sight. Dropped him off, really, because he wanted to be alone, if only for a couple minutes. Stepping back toward Mizener, he says, “Neil, we need the owners of these two cars. Soon as possible. There’s no way they could have parked here and not seen the body.”

  “Someone’s inside looking for them,” Mizener says.

  “Where’s the car of the person who discovered the body? Is it here?”

  Mizener points to the rear of the lot. “It’s that white Olds,” he says.