Black House Chapter Eight

8TWO TELEPHONE CALLS and a nonher, private matter, ace he is doing his beat to deny, set ab break through a bun in the oven conspired to pluck jack up sawyer from his cocoon in Nor authority v in sepa tell mavenly(prenominal)ey and regularise him on the street to French Landing, Sumner Street, and the police force station. The first send for had been from total heat, and hydrogen, c eithering from the Maxton cafeteria during unmatchable of the Symphonic Ones breaks, had insisted on speaking his understanding. A youngster had obviously been abducted from the facial expressionwalk in front of Maxtons earlier that day. any(prenominal) bozos rea intelligence information of honors for sojourning unwrap of the causa, which by the personal manner he had never explicateed, they didnt count anyto a immen checkr extent, sorry. This do quartet squirtren who had been lost to the fisher cat, because maw didnt satisfyingly recall Irma Freneau was issue to walk in her front adit any era soon, did he? Four children No, hydrogen had utter, I didnt determine ab shine in it on the radio. It happened this morning. From a janitor at Maxtons, total heat had said. He gather in a worried-looking cop select up a bicycle and put it in his trunk. totally slump, henry had said, maybe I dont k presently for certain, that I am certain. By tonight, Dale will identify the poor kid, and tomorrow his name will be all over the new-fashionedspaper. And indeed this self-colored county is going to flip pop. Dont you nonice it? Just s pan offging you argon refer will do a lot to check pot calm. You no acheer occupy the luxury of retirement, dirt. You have to do your part. damn had told him he was jumping to conclusions, and that they would verbalize closely it later.Forty-five minutes later, Dale Gilbertson had called with the news that a son named Tyler marshal had vanished from in front of Maxtons just s unfoundedly cartridge ho lder that morning, and that Tylers father, Fred marshal, was implement on that point right now, in the station, expecting to see maw Sawyer. Fred was a extensive clapperclaw, a real straight arrow and family man, a solid citizen, a mate of Dales, you could order, exclusively at the moment he was at the end of his rope. plain Judy, his wife, had been having both(prenominal) variety show of mental paradoxs even in the lead the trouble started, and Tylers slice had driven her off the edge. She dialogueed in gibberish, injured herself, tore the house apart. And I kind of whop Judy marshal, Dale had said. Beautiful, pretty-pretty woman, a pocketable thing b atomic number 18ly tough as all ingest- gaming out on the inside, both feet on the ground, a with child(p) person, a tremendous person, roughone youd think would never fall behind her grip, no matter what. It seems she look, knew, whatever, that Tyler had been snatched even onward his bicycle turned up. new-fashioned this afternoon, she got so swingeing Fred had to call Dr. Skarda and explicate her over to French County Lutheran in Arden, where they took one look at her and put her in ward D, the mental wing. So you pot imagine what kind of shape Freds in. He insists on lecture to you. I have no confidence in you, he said to me. intimately, Dale had said, if you dont put in down(a) here, Fred Marshall is going to base up at your house, thats whatll happen. I cant put the computerized axial tomography on a leash, and Im non going to lock him up respectcapable to handle him alfresco(a) from you. On cover song of everything else, we need you here, jack up. All right, Dale had said. I get laid youre not making any promises. just now you know what you should do.Would these conversations have been enough to get him into his survivalup and on the road to Sumner Street? Very wish wellspringly, bozo imagines, which renders the triad factor, the mystery story, barely acknowledged one, inconsequential. It means slide fastener. A silly attack of nerves, a buildup of anxiety, completely natural under the circumstances. The kind of thing that could happen to anybody. He felt bid getting out of the house, so what? No one could accuse him of escaping. He was traveling toward, not running outdoor(a) from, that which he intimately motiveed to escape the dark undertow of the Fishermans crimes. Neither was he committing himself to any deeper involvement. A friend of Dales and the father of a child apparently wanting, this Fred Marshall, insisted on talking to him fine, let him talk. If half an hour with a retired tec could help Fred Marshall get a handle on his problems, the retired detective was willing to distri yete him the age.Everything else was provided personal. Waking dreams and robins eggs messed with your mind, still that was merely personal. It could be out-waited, outwitted, figured out. No rational person took that engorge h ard equivalent a summer storm, it blew in, it blew out. forthwith, as he coasted through the greenish light at Centralia and noted, with a cops reflexive awareness, the row of Harleys lined up in the Sand Bars parking lot, he felt himself advance into bond with the afternoons difficulties. It made perfect sense that he should have found himself uneffective well, let us say unwilling to inconsiderate the refrigerator door. frightening surprises made you think twice. A light in his living dwell had expired, and when he had gone to the drawer that contained half a dozen new halogen bulbs, he had been unable to open it. In fact, he had not kind of been able to open any drawer, footlocker, or closet in his house, which had denied him the electrical capacity to make a cup of tea, change his clothes, prepare lunch, or do anything scarcely leaf half heartedly through playscripts and watch television. When the flap of the letter box had threatened to c onceal a pyramid of keen blue eggs, he had decided to put off collecting the mail until the contiguous day. Anyhow, all he ever got were financial statements, magazines, and junk mail.Lets not make it telephone set worse than it was, jackfruit tree says to himself. I could have opened every door, drawer, and cabinet in the place, moreover I didnt want to. I wasnt afraid that robins eggs were going to come spilling out of the refrigerator or the closet its unless that I didnt want to reward the fortuity of amazeing one of the resound things. Show me a psychiatrist who says thats neurotic, and Ill collection you a moron who doesnt generalise psychology. All the old-timers used to tell me that instituteing homicide messed with your gallery. Hell, thats why I retired in the first placeWhat was I vatical to do, stay on the draw in until I ate my gun? Youre a smart guy, hydrogen Leyden, and I love you, nevertheless thither are some things you dont GETAll right, he was going to Sumner Str eet. Everybody was yelling at him to do something, and thats what he was doing. Hed say hello to Dale, greet the male childs, sit down with this Fred Marshall, the solid citizen with a missing son, and give him the usual oatmeal well-nigh everything thinkable existence through, bombast blah, the FBI is working hand in glove with us on this one, and the means has the finest investigators in the world. That oatmeal. As far as poop was concerned, his primary obligation was to stroke Fred Marshalls fur, as if to soothe the timbers of an injured cat when Marshall had calmed down, dumps supposed obligation to the community an obligation that existed simply in the minds of new(prenominal)s would be fulfilled, outlet him to go pricker to the privacy he had earned. If Dale didnt equivalent it, he could engage a running jump into the Mississippi if Henry didnt bid it, Jack would refuse to read Bleak House and force him to listen kind of to Lawrence Welk, Vaughn Monroe, or something equally excruciating. Bad Dixieland. Years ago, someone had given Jack a CD called Fats Manassas & His Muskrat All Stars Stompin the Ramble. Thirty consequences of Fats Manassas, and Henry would be begging for mercy.This image makes Jack expression comfortable enough to essay that his hesitation before cup tabular arrays and drawers had been merely a temporary unwillingness, not phobic inability. Even art object his attention was elsewhere, as it chiefly was, the shoved-in ashtray down the stairs the dash has mocked and taunted him since he first climbed into the pickup. A kind of sinister suggestiveness, an airwave of latent malice, surrounds the ashtrays flat runty panel.Does he fear that a small blue egg lurks behind the little panel?Of course not. nil is in there still air and molded black plastic.In that case, he can pull it out.The buildings on the outskirts of French Landing slide course past the pickups windowpanes. Jack has reached al more or less the e xact point at which Henry pulled the plug on Dirtysperm. Obviously he can open the ashtray. secret code could be unsubdividedr. You just get your fingers under there and tug. Easiest thing in the world. He extends a hand. Before his fingers touch the panel, he snatches the hand back. Drops of hidrosis glide down his forehead and lodge in his eyebrows.It isnt a broad deal, he says aloud. You got some kind of problem here, Jacky-boy?Again, he extends his hand to the ashtray. dead aware that he is gainful more than attention to the bottom of his fascia than to the road, he glances up and cuts his speed by half. He refuses to hit his brakes. Its just an ashtray, for Gods sake. His fingers meet the panel, then curl under its lip. Jack glances at the road once more. Then, with the decisivesness of a nurse ripping a strip of mag tape off a patients hairy abdomen, he yanks out the sliding tray. The lightness attachment, which he had unknowingly dislodged in his drive trend that mo rning, bounces terzetto inches into the air, greatly resembling, to Jacks scandalize eye, a flying black-and-silver egg.He veers off the road, bumps over the weedy shoulder, and heads toward a looming telephone pole. The lighter drops back into the tray with a loud, metallic thwack no egg in the world could have produced. The telephone pole swims close-set(prenominal) and nearly fills the windshield. Jack stamps on the brake and jerks to a halt, arousing a con of ticks and rattles from the ashtray. If he had not cut his speed before opening the ashtray, he would have driven straight into the pole, which stands about four feet from the hood of the pickup. Jack wipes the sweat off his face and picks up the lighter. Shit on a shingle. He clicks the attachment into its receptacle and collapses backward against the after part. No wonder they say smoke can kill you, he says. The joke is too feeble to interest him, and for a tally of seconds he does nothing but slump against the se at and regard the sparse traffic on Lyall Road. When his heart rate drops back to something standardized customary, he reminds himself that he did, after all, open the ashtray.Blond, rumpled tomcat Lund has evidently been prepped for his arrival, for when Jack walks past triple bicycles lined up next to the door and enters the station, the young officer orchestrates off from behind his desk and rushes forward to talk that Dale and Fred Marshall are waiting for him in Dales office, and he will show him right in. Theyll be gay to see him, thats for sure. I am, too, Lieutenant Sawyer, Lund adds. boy, I gotta say it. What you got, I think, we need.Call me Jack. Im not a lieutenant anymore. Im not even a cop anymore. Jack had met Tom Lund during the Kinderling investigation, and he had care the young mans eagerness and dedication. In love with his job, his uniform, and his badge, respectful of his chief and tremendous by Jack, Lund had uncomplainingly logged hundreds of hours o n the telephone, in records offices, and in his car, checking and rechecking the often unconnected details spun off by the collision attendween a Wisconsin farm-insurance salesman and dickens Sunset Strip working girls. All the while, Tom Lund had retained the industrious sparkle of a high school quarterback running onto the subject for his first gamey.He does not look that way anymore, Jack observes. no- intelligent smudges hang beneath his eyeball, and the bones in his face are more prominent. More than sleeplessness and exhaustion lie behind Lunds affect his eyeball bear the helplessly blow out of the water expression of those who have suffered a great moral shock. The Fisherman has stolen a good part of Tom Lunds youth. just Ill see what I can do, Jack says, fliping the promise of a commitment greater than he intends.We can sure use anything you can give us, Lund says. It is too much, too servile, and as Lund turns away and leads him to the office, Jack thinks, I didnt come here to be your savior.The thought instantly makes him feel guilty.Lund knocks, opens the door to announce Jack, shows him in, and vanishes like a g server, utterly unnoticed by the both men who rise from their electric chairs and fasten their eyes upon their put downors face, one with visible gratitude, the other with an enormous degree of the same emotion mixed with naked need, which makes Jack even more uncomfortable.Over Dales garbled introduction, Fred Marshall says, Thank you for agreeing to come, convey you so much. Thats all I can . . . His right arm sticks out like a pump handle. When Jack takes his hand, an even greater mensuration of feeling floods into Fred Marshalls face. His hand fastens on Jacks and seems almost to claim it, as an fauna claims its prey. He squeezes, hard, a considerable number of times. His eyes fill. I cant . . . Marshall pulls his hand away and scrubs the tears off his face. Now his eyes look raw and intensely vulnerable. Boy oh boy, he says. Im really glad youre here, Mr. Sawyer. Or should I say Lieutenant?Jack is fine. why dont the twain of you fill me in on what happened today?Dale points toward a waiting chair the terzetto men take their places the painful but essentially simple story of Fred, Judy, and Tyler Marshall begins. Fred speaks first, at some length. In his version of the story, a valiant, lionhearted woman, a devoted wife and mother, succumbs to baffling, multifaceted transformations and disorders, and develops mysterious symptoms unnoted by her ignorant, stupid, self- bear oned husband. She blurts out nonsense words she writes crazy stuff on sheets of notepaper, rams the papers into her mouth, and tries to swallow them. She sees the tragedy coming in advance, and it unhinges her. Sounds crazy, but the self-centered husband thinks its the truth. That is, he thinks he thinks its the truth, because hes been thinking about it since he first talked to Dale, and even though it sounds crazy, it kind of makes sense. Because what other explanation could there be? So thats what he thinks he thinks that his wife started to lose her mind because she knew that the Fisherman was on the way. Things like that are possible, he guesses. For example, the brave discomfit wife knew that her beautiful wonderful son was missing even before the stupid selfish husband, who went to work exactly as if it were a normal day, told her about the bicycle. That pretty much proved what he was talking about. The beautiful little boy went out with his three friends, but only the three friends came back, and officer Danny Tcheda found the little sons Schwinn roulette wheel and one of his poor gym shoes on the sidewalk outside Maxtons.Danny Cheetah? asks Jack, who, like Fred Marshall, is beginning to think he thinks a number of alarming things.Tcheda, says Dale, and spells it for him. Dale tells his own, far shorter version of the story. In Dale Gilbertsons story, a boy goes out for a ride on his bicycle a nd vanishes, perchance as a result of abduction, from the sidewalk in front of Maxtons. That is all of the story Dale knows, and he trusts that Jack Sawyer will be able to fill in many of the surrounding blanks.Jack Sawyer, at whom both of the other men in the room are pure(a), takes time to come up to the three thoughts he now thinks he thinks. The first is not so much a thought as a response that embodies a hidden thought from the moment Fred Marshall clutched his hand and said Boy oh boy, Jack found himself liking the man, an unanticipated turn in the evenings plot. Fred Marshall strikes him as something like the poster boy for small-town life. If you put his picture on billboards advertising French County real estate, you could sell a lot of second homes to people in Milwaukee and Chicago. Marshalls friendly, good-looking face and slender runners body are as good as testimonials to responsibility, decency, good manners and good neighborliness, modesty, and a generous heart. T he more Fred Marshall accuses himself of selfishness and stupidity, the more Jack likes him. And the more he likes him, the more he sympathizes with his terrible plight, the more he deales to help the man. Jack had come to the station expecting that he would respond to Dales friend like a policeman, but his cop reflexes have rusted from disuse. He is responding like a fellow citizen. Cops, as Jack well knows, seldom view the civilians caught up in the backwash of a crime as fellow citizens, for sure never in the early stages of an investigation. (The thought hidden at the center of Jacks response to the man before him is that Fred Marshall, being what he is, cannot harbor suspicions about anyone with whom he is on good terms.)Jacks second thought is that of both a cop and a fellow citizen, and while he continues his adjustment to the terce, which is wholly the product of his rusty yet still accurate cop reflexes, he makes it public. The bikes I saying outside belong to Tylers fr iends? Is someone questioning them now?Bobby Dulac, Dale says. I talked to them when they came in, but I didnt get anywhere. According to them, they were all in concert on Chase Street, and Tyler rode off by himself. They claim they didnt see anything. possibly they didnt.But you think theres more.Honest to God, I do. But I dont know what the dickens it could be, and we have to send them home before their parents get change shape out of shape.Who are they, what are their names?Fred Marshall wraps his fingers together as if nearly the handle of an invisible baseball bat. Ebbie Wexler, T. J. Renniker, and Ronnie Metzger. Theyre the kids Tys been hanging around with this summer. An unspoken judgment hovers about this last sentence.It sounds like you dont consider them the best possible company for your son.Well, no, says Fred, caught between his desire to tell the truth and his innate wish to stave off the appearance of unfairness. Not if you put it like that. Ebbie seems like kin d of a bully, and the other two are maybe a little on the . . . slow side? I hope . . . or I was hoping . . . that Ty would realize he could do better and spend his free time with kids who are more on, you know . . .More on his level.Right. The trouble is, my son is way of small for his age, and Ebbie Wexler is . . . um . . .Heavyset and tall for his age, Jack says. The perfect web site for a bully.Youre saying you know Ebbie Wexler?No, but I axiom him this morning. He was with the other two boys and your son.Dale jolts upright in his chair, and Fred Marshall drops his invisible bat. When was that? Dale asks. At the same time, Fred Marshall asks, Where?Chase Street, about ten past eight. I came in to pick up Henry Ley-den and drive him home. When we were on our way out of town, the boys drove their bikes into the road right in front of me. I got a good look at your son, Mr. Marshall. He seemed like a great kid.Fred Marshalls widening eyes indicate that some kind of hope, some pro mise, is taking shape before him Dale relaxes. That pretty much matches their story. It would have been right before Ty took off on his own. If he did.Or they took off and left field him, says Tys father. They were faster on their bikes than Ty, and sometimes they, you know . . . they teased him.By rush along ahead and go away him alone, Jack says. Fred Marshalls glum nod speaks of boyhood humiliations shared with this large-hearted father. Jack remembers the inflamed, hostile face and raised finger of Ebbie Wexler and wonders if and how the boy powerfulness be protecting himself. Dale had said that he smelled the presence of falsity in the boys story, but why would they lie? Whatever their reasons, the lie almost for sure began with Ebbie Wexler. The other two followed orders.For the moment setting aside the third of his thoughts, Jack says, I want to talk to the boys before you send them home. Where are they?The scrutiny room, top of the stairs. Dale aims a finger at the cei ling. Tom will take you up.With its battleship-gray walls, gray metal table, and single window narrow as a slit in a castle wall, the room at the top of the stairs seems designed to elicit confessions through boredom and despair, and when Tom Lund leads Jack through the door, the four inhabitants of the inquiry room appear to have succumbed to its tiresome atmosphere. Bobby Dulac looks sideways, stops drumming a pencil on the tabletop, and says, Well, hoo-ray for Hollywood. Dale said you were coming down. Even Bobby gleams a little less conspicuously in this gloom. Did you want to interrogate these here hoodlums, Lieutenant?In a minute, maybe. Two of the three hoodlums on the far side of the table watch Jack motivate on board Bobby Dulac as if fearing he will clap them in a cell. The words interrogate and Lieutenant have had the bracing effect of a cold wind from Canada. Ebbie Wexler squints at Jack, trying to look tough, and the boy beside him, Ronnie Metzger, wriggles in his c hair, his eyes like dinner plates. The third boy, T. J. Ren-niker, has dropped his head atop his cover arms and appears to be asleep.Wake him up, Jack says. I have something to say, and I want you all to hear it. In fact, he has nothing to say, but he needs these boys to pay attention to him. He already knows that Dale was right. If they are not lying, they are at least holding something back. Thats why his fragmented appearance within their dozy scene frightened them. If Jack had been in charge, he would have differentiated the boys and questioned them individually, but now he moldiness deal with Bobby Dulacs mistake. He has to treat them collectively, to begin with, and he has to work on their fear. He does not want to terrorize the boys, merely to get their hearts pumping a bit faster after that, he can separate them. The weakest, guiltiest link has already declared himself. Jack feels no compunction about telling lies to get information.Ronnie Metzger shoves T.J.s shoulder an d says, Wake up, bum-dell . . . dumbbell.The sleeping boy moans, lifts his head from the table, begins to stretch out his arms. His eyes fasten on Jack, and blinking and swallowing he snaps into an upright position.Welcome back, Jack says. I want to introduce myself and explain what I am doing here. My name is Jack Sawyer, and I am a lieutenant in the Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. I have an gauzy record and a roomful of citations and medals. When I go after a bad guy, I usually wind up take holding him. Three long time ago, I came here on a case from Los Angeles. Two weeks later, a man named Thornberg Kinderling was shipped back to L.A. in chains. Because I know this area and have worked with its law enforcement officers, the LAPD asked me to assist your local force in its investigation of the Fisherman murders. He glances down to see if Bobby Dulac is grinning at this nonsense, but Bobby is staring frozen-faced across the table. Your friend Tyler Marshal l was with you before he disappeared this morning. Did the Fisherman take him? I hate to say it, but I think he did. perchance we can get Tyler back, and maybe we cant, but if I am going to stop the Fisherman, I need you to tell me exactly what happened, down to the last detail. You have to be completely honest with me, because if you lie or keep anything secret, you will be guilty of obstruction of evaluator. Obstruction of justice is a serious, serious crime. Officer Dulac, what is the minimum sentence for that crime in the state of Wisconsin?Five years, Im pretty sure, Bobby Dulac says.Ebbie Wexler bites the inside of his cheek Ronnie Metzger looks away and frowns at the table T. J. Renniker dully contemplates the narrow window.Jack sits down beside Bobby Dulac. Incidentally, I was the guy in the pickup one of you gave the finger to this morning. I cant say Im stir to see you again.Two heads swivel toward Ebbie, who squints ferociously, trying to solve this brand-new problem. I did not, he says, having settled on outright denial. possibly it looked like I did, but I didnt.Youre lying, and we havent even started to talk about Tyler Marshall yet. Ill give you one more chance. sound out me the truth.Ebbie smirks. I dont go around flipping the boo at people I dont know.Stand up, Jack says.Ebbie glances from side to side, but his friends are unable to meet his gaze. He shoves back his chair and stands up, uncertainly.Officer Dulac, Jack says, take this boy outside and hold him there.Bobby Dulac performs his role perfectly. He uncoils from his chair and keeps his eyes on Ebbie as he glides toward him. He resembles a panther on the way to a sumptuous meal. Ebbie Wexler jumps back and tries to stay Bobby with a raised palm. No, dont I take it back I did it, all right?Too late, Jack says. He watches as Bobby grasps the boys elbow and pulls him toward the door. Red-faced and sudor, Ebbie plants his feet on the floor, and the forward pressure app be to his a rm folds him over the bulge of his stomach. He staggers forward, yelping and scattering tears. Bobbie Dulac opens the door and hauls him into the bleak second-floor corridor. The door slams leave off and cuts off a wail of fear.The two remaining boys have turned the color of skim milk and seem incapable of movement. Dont worry about him, Jack says. Hell be fine. In fifteen, twenty minutes, youll be free to go home. I didnt think there was any point in talking to someone who lies from the git-go, thats all. Remember even lousy cops know when theyre being lied to and I am a great cop. So this is what we are going to do now. Were going to talk about what happened this morning, about what Tyler was doing, the way you uninvolved from him, where you were, what you did afterward, anyone you expertness have seen, that kind of thing. He leans back and flattens his hands on the table. Go on, tell me what happened.Ronnie and T.J. look at each other. T.J. inserts his right king finger into his mouth and begins to worry the nail with his front teeth. Ebbie flipped you, Ronnie says.No kidding. subsequently that.Uh, Ty said he hadda go someplace.He hadda go someplace, T.J. chimes in.Where were you right then?Uh . . . outside the Allsorts Pomorium.Emporium, T.J. says. Its not a pomorium, mushhead, its a em-poree-um.And?And Ty said Ronnie glances at T.J. Ty said he hadda go somewhere.Which way did he go, east or double-u?The boys treat this question as though it were asked in a external language, by puzzling over it, mutely.Toward the river, or away from the river?They consult each other again. The question has been asked in English, but no proper attend exists. Finally, Ronnie says, I dont know.How about you, T.J.? Do you know?T.J. shakes his head. undecomposed. Thats honest. You dont know because you didnt see him leave, did you? And he didnt really say he had to go somewhere, did he? I bet Ebbie made that up.T.J. wriggles, and Ronnie gazes at Jack with wondering a we. He has just break offed himself to be Sherlock Holmes.Remember when I drove past in my hand truck? They nod in unison. Tyler was with you. They nod again. Youd already left the sidewalk in front of the Allsorts Emporium, and you were riding east on Chase Street away from the river. I saw you in my rearview mirror. Ebbie was pedaling very fast. The two of you could almost keep up with him. Tyler was smaller than the rest of you, and he fell behind. So I know he didnt go off on his own. He couldnt keep up.Ronnie Metzger wails, And he got way, way behind, and the Misherfun came out and grabbed him. He promptly bursts into tears.Jack leans forward. Did you see it happen? Either one of you?Noooaa, Ronnie sobs. T.J. slowly shakes his head.You didnt see anyone talking with Ty, or a car stopping, or him going into a shop, or anything like that?The boys utter an incoherent, overlapping babble to the effect that they saw nothing.When did you realize he was gone?T.J. opens his mouth, the n closes it. Ronnie says, When we were having the Slurpees. His face pursed with tension, T.J. nods in agreement.Two more questions reveal that they had enjoyed the Slurpees at the 7-Eleven, where they also purchased Magic cards, and that it had probably taken them no more than a couple of minutes to notice Tyler Marshalls absence. Ebbie said Ty would buy us some more cards, facilitative Ronnie adds.They have reached the moment for which Jack has been waiting. Whatever the secret may be, it took place soon after the boys came out of the 7-Eleven and saw that Tyler had still not joined them. And the secret is T.J.s alone. The kid is practically sweating blood, while the memory of the Slurpees and Magic cards has calmed down his friend to a remarkable degree. There is only one more question he wishes to ask the two of them. So Ebbie wanted to find Tyler. Did you all get on your bikes and search around, or did Ebbie send just one of you?Huh? Ronnie says. T.J. drops his chin and cross es his arms on the top of his head, as if to ward off a blow. Tyler went somewheres, Ronnie says. We didnt look for him, we went to the park. To trade the Magic cards.I see, Jack says. Ronnie, give thanks you. You have been very helpful. Id like you to go outside and stay with Ebbie and Officer Dulac while I have a short conversation with T.J. It shouldnt take more than five minutes, if that.I can go? At Jacks nod, Ronnie moves hesitantly out of his chair. When he reaches the door, T.J. emits a whimper. Then Ronnie is gone, and T.J. jerks backward into his chair and tries to become as small as possible while staring at Jack with eyes that have become shiny, flat, and perfectly round.T.J., Jack says, you have nothing to worry about, I promise you. Now that he is alone with the boy who had declared his guilt by falling asleep in the interrogation room, Jack Sawyer wants above all to absolve him of that guilt. He knows T.J.s secret, and the secret is nothing it is useless. No matter w hat you tell me, Im not going to arrest you. Thats a promise, too. Youre not in any trouble, son. In fact, Im glad you and your friends could come down here and help us straighten things out.He goes on in this vein for another three or four minutes, in the course of which T. J. Renniker, formerly condemned to death by firing squad, gradually comprehends that his condone has come through and his release from what his buddy Ronnie would call vurance dile is imminent. A little color returns to his face. He returns to his former size, and his eyes lose their horror-stricken glaze.Tell me what Ebbie did, Jack says. Just between you and me. I wont tell him anything. Honest. I wont rat you out.He wanted Ty to buy more Magic cards, T.J. says, feeling his way through unknown territory. If Ty was there, he woulda. Ebbie can get kind of mean. So . . . so he told me, go downstreet and get the slowpoke, or Ill give you an Indian burn.You got on your bike and rode back down Chase Street.Uh-huh. I looked, but I didnt see Ty anywheres. I thought I would, you know? Because where else could he be?And . . . ? Jack reels in the answer he knows is coming by winding his hand through the air.And I still didnt see him. And I got to Queen Street, where the old folks home is, with the big hedge out front. And, um, I saw his bike there. On the sidewalk in front of the hedge. His sneaker was there, too. And some leaves off the hedge.There it is, the worthless secret. Maybe not entirely worthless it gives them a pretty accurate fix on the time of the boys disappearance 815, say, or 820. The bike lay on the sidewalk next to the sneaker for something like four hours before Danny Tcheda spot them. Maxtons takes up just about all the land on that partition of Queen Street, and no one was showing up for the Strawberry Fest until noon.T.J. describes being afraid if the Fisherman pulled Ty into that hedge, maybe hed come back for more In answer to Jacks final question, the boy says, Ebbie to ld us to say Ty rode away from in front of the Allsorts, so people wouldnt, like, blame us. In case he was killed. Ty isnt really killed, is he? Kids like Ty dont get killed.I hope not, Jack says.Me, too. T.J. snuffles and wipes his nose on his arm.Lets get you on your way home, Jack says, leaving his chair.T.J. stands up and begins to move along the side of the table. Oh I just rememberedWhat?I saw feathers on the sidewalk.The floor beneath Jacks feet seems to roll left, then right, like the deck of a ship. He steadies himself by grasping the back of a chair. Really. He takes care to compose himself before turning to the boy. What do you mean, feathers? dusky ones. Big. They looked like they came off a crow. One was next to the bike, and the other was in the sneaker.Thats funny, says Jack, buying time until he ceases to reverberate from the unexpect appearance of feathers in his conversation with T. J. Renniker. That he should respond at all is ridiculous that he should have felt, even for a second, that he was likely to faint is grotesque. T.J.s feathers were real crow feathers on a real sidewalk. His were dream feathers, feathers from unreal robins, unreal as everything else in a dream. Jack tells himself a number of helpful things like this, and soon he does feel normal once again, but we should be aware that, for the rest of the night and much of the next day, the word feathers floats, surrounded by an aura as charged as an electrical storm, beneath and through his thoughts, now and then surfacing with the sizzling munch of a lightning bolt.Its weird, T.J. says. Like, how did a feather get in his sneaker?Maybe the wind blew it there, Jack says, conveniently ignoring the nonexistence of wind this day. Reassured by the stability of the floor, he waves T.J. into the hallway, then follows him out.Ebbie Wexler pushes himself off the wall and stamps up alongside Bobby Dulac. Still in character, Bobby might have been carved from a closure of marble. Ronnie Me tzger sidles away. We can send these boys home, Jack says. Theyve done their duty.T.J., what did you say? Ebbie asks, glowering.He made it clear that you know nothing about your friends disappearance, Jack says.Ebbie relaxes, though not without distributing scowls all around. The final and most malignant scowl is for Jack, who raises his eyebrows. I didnt cry, Ebbie says. I was scared, but I didnt cry.You were scared, all right, Jack says. Next time, dont lie to me. You had your chance to help the police, and you blew it.Ebbie struggles with this notion and succeeds, at least partially, in absorbing it. Okay, but I wasnt really flippin at you. It was the stupid music.I hated it, too. The guy who was with me insisted on make foring it. You know who he was?In the face of Ebbies envious glower, Jack says, George Rathbun.It is like saying Superman, or Arnold Schwarzenegger Ebbies suspicion evaporates, and his face transforms. exculpatory wonder fills his small, close-set eyes. You kn ow George Rathbun?Hes one of my best friends, Jack says, not adding that most of his other best friends are, in a sense, also George Rathbun.Cool, Ebbie says.In the background, T.J. and Ronnie echo, Cool.George is pretty cool, Jack says. Ill tell him you said that. Lets go downstairs and get you kids on your bikes.Still wrapped in the glory of having gazed upon the great, the tremendous George Rathbun, the boys progress their bicycles, pedal away down Sumner Street, and swerve off onto Second. Bobby Dulac says, That was a good trick, what you said about George Rathbun. Sent them away happy.It wasnt a trick.So startled that he jostles back into the station house side by side with Jack, Bobby says, George Rathbun is a friend of yours?Yep, Jack says. And sometimes, he can be a real pain in the ass.Dale and Fred Marshall look up as Jack enters the office, Dale with a cautious expectancy, Fred Marshall with what Jack sees, heartbreakingly, as hope.Well? Dale says.( feathers)You were rig ht, they were hiding something, but it isnt much.Fred Marshall slumps against the back of his chair, letting some of his impression in a future hope leak out of him like air from a punctured tire.Not long after they got to the 7-Eleven, the Wexler boy sent T.J. down the street to look for your son, Jack says. When T.J. got to Queen Street, he saw the bike and the sneaker lying on the sidewalk. Of course, they all thought of the Fisherman. Ebbie Wexler figured they might get blamed for leaving him behind, and he came up with the story you heard that Tyler left them, instead of the other way around.If you saw all four boys around ten past eight, that means Tyler disappeared only a few minutes later. What does this guy do, lurk in hedges?Maybe he does exactly that, Jack says. Did you have people check out that hedge?( feathers)The staties went over it, through it, and under it. Leaves and dirt, thats what they came up with.As if brainish a spike with his hand, Fred Marshall bangs his fist down onto the desk. My son was gone for four hours before anyone noticed his bike. Now its almost seven-thirty Hes been missing for most of the day I shouldnt be sitting here, I should be thrust around, looking for him.Everybody is looking for your son, Fred, Dale says. My guys, the staties, even the FBI.I have no reliance in them, Fred says. They havent found Irma Freneau, have they? Why should they find my son? As far as I can see, Ive got one chance here. When he looks at Jack, emotion turns his eyes into lamps. That chance is you, Lieutenant. Will you help me?Jacks third and most troubling thought, withheld until now and purely that of an experienced policeman, causes him to say, Id like to talk to your wife. If youre planning on visiting her tomorrow, would you mind if I came along?Dale act involuntarily and says, Maybe we should talk about this.Do you think it would do some good?It might, Jack says.Seeing you might do her some good, anyhow, Fred says. Dont you follow in Norway Valley? Thats on the way to Arden. I can pick you up about nine.Jack, Dale says.See you at nine, Jack says, ignoring the signals of mingled distress and yellow bile emanating from his friend, also the little voice that whispers( feather).Amazing, says Henry Leyden. I dont know whether to thank you or congratulate you. Both, I suppose. Its too late in the game to make bitchrod, like me, but I think you could have a shot at dope. Dont lose your head. The only reason I went down there was to keep the boys father from coming to my house.That wasnt the only reason.Youre right. I was feeling sort of edgy and hemmed in. I felt like getting out, changing the scenery.But there was also another reason.Henry, you are hip-deep in pigshit, do you know that? You want to think I acted out of civic duty, or honor, or compassion, or altruism, or something, but I didnt. I dont like having to say this, but Im a lot less good-hearted and responsible than you think I am. Hip-deep in pigshit ? Man, you are absolutely on the money. I have been hip-deep in pigshit, not to mention chest-deep and even chin-deep in pigshit, most of my life.Nice of you to admit it.However, you misunderstand me. Youre right, I do think you are a good, decent person. I dont just think it, I know it. Youre modest, youre compassionate, youre honorable, youre responsible no matter what you think of yourself right now. But that wasnt what I was talking about.What did you mean, then?The other reason you decided to go to the police station is connected to this problem, this concern, whatever it is, thats been bugging you for the past couple of weeks. Its like youve been base on balls around under a shadow.Huh, Jack said.This problem, this secret of yours, takes up half your attention, so youre only half present the rest of you is somewhere else. Sweetie, dont you think I can tell when youre worried and preoccupied? I might be blind, but I can see.Okay. Lets suppose that something has been on my mind lately. What could that have to do with going to the station house?There are two possibilities. Either you were going off to confront it, or you were fleeing from it.Jack does not speak.All of which suggests that this problem has to do with your life as a policeman. It could be some old case coming back to ghostwrite you. Maybe a psychotic thug you put in remit was released and is threatening to kill you. Or, hell, Im completely full of shit and you found out you have liver cancer and a life expectancy of three months.I dont have cancer, at least as far as I know, and no ex-con wants to kill me. All of my old cases, most of them, anyway, are safely asleep in the records warehouse of the LAPD. Of course, something has been bothering me lately, and I should have expected you to see that. But I didnt want to, I dont know, burden you with it until I managed to figure it out for myself.Tell me one thing, will you? Were you going toward it, or running away?Theres no answer to that ques tion.We shall see. Isnt the food ready by now? Im starving, literally starving. You cook too slow. I would have been done ten minutes ago.Hold your horses, Jack says. Coming right up. The problem is this crazy kitchen of yours.Most rational kitchen in America. Maybe in the world. later on ducking out of the police station quickly enough to avoid a useless conversation with Dale, Jack had yielded to impulse and called Henry with the offer of making dinner for both of them. A couple of good steaks, a nice bottle of wine, grilled mushrooms, a big salad. He could pick up everything they needed in French Landing. Jack had cooked for Henry on three or four previous occasions, and Henry had prepared one stupendously bizarre dinner for Jack. (The housekeeper had taken all the herbs and spices off their wheel to wash it, and she had put everything back in the wrong place.) What was he doing in French Landing? Hed explain that when he got there. At eight-thirty he had pulled up before Henrys roomy white farmhouse, greeted Henry, and carried the groceries and his copy of Bleak House into the kitchen. He had tossed the book to the far end of the table, opened the wine, poured a glass for his host and one for himself, and started cooking. Hed had to spend several minutes reacquainting himself with the eccentricities of Henrys kitchen, in which objects were not set by kind pans with pans, knives with knives, pots with pots but according to what sort of meal ask their usage. If Henry wanted to whip up a grilled trout and some new potatoes, he had only to open the proper cabinet to find all the necessary utensils. These were arranged in four basic groups (meat, fish, poultry, and vegetables), with many subgroups and subsubgroups within each category. The filing system confounded Jack, who often had to friction match into several widely separated realms before coming upon the frying pan or spatula he was looking for. As Jack chopped, wandered the shelves, and cooked, Hen ry had set(p) the table in the kitchen with plates and silverware and sat down to quiz his troubled friend.Now the steaks, rare, are transported to the plates, the mushrooms arrayed around them, and the enormous wooden salad bowl installed on the center of the table. Henry pronounces the meal delicious, takes a sip of his wine, and says, If you still wont talk about your trouble, whatever it is, youd better at least tell me what happened at the station. I suppose theres very little doubt that another child was snatched.Next to none, Im sorry to say. Its a boy named Tyler Marshall. His fathers name is Fred Marshall, and he full treatment out at Goltzs. Do you know him?Been a long time since I bought a combine, Henry says.The first thing that struck me was that Fred Marshall was a very nice guy, Jack says, and goes on to recount, in great detail and leaving nothing out, the evenings events and revelations, except for one matter, that of his third, his unspoken, thought.You actually a sked to visit Marshalls wife? In the mental wing at French County Lutheran?Yes, I did, Jack says. Im going there tomorrow.I dont get it. Henry eats by hunting the food with his knife, spearing it with his fork, and measuring off a narrow strip of steak. Why would you want to see the mother?Because one way or another I think shes involved, Jack says.Oh, come off it. The boys own mother?Im not saying shes the Fisherman, because of course she isnt. But according to her husband, Judy Marshalls behavior started to change before Amy St. Pierre disappeared. She got worse and worse as the murders went on, and on the day her son vanished, she flipped out completely. Her husband had to have her committed.Wouldnt you say she had an excellent reason to break down?She flipped out before anyone told her about her son. Her husband thinks she has ESP He said she saw the murders in advance, she knew the Fisherman was on the way. And she knew her son was gone before they found the bike when Fred Mar shall came home, he found her tearing at the walls and talking nonsense. all told out of control.You hear about lots of cases where a mother is dead aware of some threat or injury to her child. A pyschic bond. Sounds like mumbo jumbo, but I guess it happens.I dont believe in ESP, and I dont believe in coincidence.So what are you saying?Judy Marshall knows something, and whatever she knows is a real showstopper. Fred cant see it hes much too close and Dale cant see it, either. You should have heard him talk about her.So what is she supposed to know?I think she may know the doer. I think it has to be someone close to her. Whoever he is, she knows his name, and its driving her crazy.Henry frowns and uses his inchworm proficiency to entrap another piece of steak. So youre going to the hospital to open her up, he finally says.Yes. Basically.A mysterious silence follows this statement. Henry lightly whittles away at the meat, chews what he whittles, and washes it down with Jordan cab ernet.How did your deejay gig go? Was it all right?It was a thing of beauty. All the adorable old swingers cut devoid on the dance floor, even the ones in wheelchairs. One guy sort of rubbed me the wrong way. He was rude to a woman named Alice, and he asked me to play doll Magowans Nightmare, which doesnt exist, as you probably know Its Lady Magowans Dream. Woody Herman.Good boy. The thing was, he had this terrible voice. It sounded like something out of hell Anyhow, I didnt have the Woody Herman record, and he asked for the Bunny Berigan I Cant Get Started. Which happened to be Rhodas favorite record. What with my goofy ear hallucinations and all, it shook me up. I dont know why.For a few minutes they concentrate on their plates.Jack says, What do you think, Henry?Henry tilts his head, auditing an inner voice. Scowling, he sets down his fork. The inner voice continues to demand his attention. He adjusts his shades and faces Jack. In spite of everything you say, you still think like a cop.Jack bridles at the suspicion that Henry is not paying him a compliment. What do you mean by that?Cops see differently than people who arent cops. When a cop looks at someone, he wonders what hes guilty of. The possibility of purity never enters his mind. To a longtime cop, a guy whos put in ten years or more, everyone who isnt a cop is guilty. Only most of them havent been caught yet.Henry has described the mind-set of dozens of men Jack once worked with. Henry, how do you know about that?I can see it in their eyes, Henry says. Thats the way policemen approach the world. You are a policeman.Jack blurts out, I am a coppiceman. Appalled, he blushes. Sorry, that stupid phrase has been running around and around in my head, and it just popped out.Why dont we clear the dishes and start on Bleak House?When their few dishes have been stacked beside the sink, Jack takes the book from the far side of the table and follows Henry toward the living room, pausing on the way to glance , as he always does, at his friends studio. A door with a large glass insert opens into a small, soundproofed chamber bristling with electronic equipment the microphone and turntable back from Maxtons and reinstalled before Henrys well-padded, swiveling chair a disc qualifier and matching digital-analog converter mount, close at hand, beside a mixing board and a massive tape recorder adjacent to the other, larger window, which looks into the kitchen. When Henry had been planning the studio, Rhoda requested the windows, because, shed said, she wanted to be able to see him at work. There isnt a wire in sight. The entire studio has the make grow neatness of the captains quarters on a ship.Looks like youre going to work tonight, Jack says.I want to get two more Henry Shakes ready to send, and Im working on something for a birthday salute to Lester novel and Charlie Parker.Were they born on the same day?Close enough. August ordinal and twenty-ninth. You know, I cant quite tell if you ll want the lights on or not.Lets turn them on, Jack says.And so Henry Leyden switches on the two lamps beside the window, and Jack Sawyer moves to the overstuffed chair near the fireplace and turns on the tall lamp at one of its rounded arms and watches as his friend walks unerringly to the light just inside the front door and the ornate fixture alongside his own, his favorite resting place, the Mission-style sofa, clicking first one, then the other into life, then settles down onto the sofa with one leg stretched out along its length. Even, low light pervades the long room and swells into greater brightness around Jacks chair.Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, he says. He clears his throat. Okay, Henry, were off to the races.London. Michaelmas Term lately over, he reads, and marches into a world made of soot and mud. Muddy dogs, muddy horses, muddy people, a day without light. Soon he has reached the second paragraph softness everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among gree n aits and meadows bedim down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, murk on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats.His voice catches, and his mind temporarily drifts off-focus. What he is reading unhappily reminds him of French Landing, of Sumner Street and Chase Street, of the lights in the window of the Oak Tree Inn, the Thunder Five lurking in Nailhouse Row, and the gray procession from the river, of Queen Street and Maxtons hedges, the little houses spreading out on grids, all of it choked by unseen fog which engulfs a battered NO TRESPASSING sign on the highway and swallows the Sand Bar and glides empty and searching down the valleys.Sorry, he says. I was just thinking I was, too, Henry says. Go on, please.But f or that brief flicker of an old NO TRESPASSING sign completely unaware of the black house he one day will have to enter, Jack concentrates again on the page and continues reading Bleak House. The windows darken as the lamps grow warmer. The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds through the courts, aided or impeded by attorneys Chizzle, Mizzle, and Drizzle Lady Dedlock leaves Sir Leicester Dedlock alone at their great estate with its moldy chapel, stagnant river, and Ghosts base on balls Esther Summerson begins to chirp away in the first person. Our friends decide that the appearance of Esther demands a small libation, if they are to get through much more chirping. Henry unfolds from the sofa, sails into the kitchen, and returns with two short, fat glasses one-third filled with Balvenie Doublewood single-malt whiskey, as well as a glass of plain water for the reader. A couple of sips, a few murmurs of appreciation, and Jack resumes. Esther, Esther, Esther, but beneath the water disto rtion of her relentless sunniness the story gathers steam and carries both reader and listener along in its train.Having come to a convenient stopping point, Jack closes the book and yawns. Henry stands up and stretches. They move to the door, and Henry follows Jack outside beneath a vast night sky brilliantly scattered with stars. Tell me one thing, Henry says.Shoot.When you were in the station house, did you really feel like a cop? Or did you feel like you were affect to be one?Actually, it was kind of surprising, Jack says. In no time at all, I felt like a cop again.Good.Why is that good?Because it means you were running toward that mysterious secret, not away from it.palpitation his head and smiling, deliberately not giving Henry the satisfaction of a reply, Jack steps up into his vehicle and says good-bye from the slight but distinct elevation of the drivers seat. The engine coughs and churns, his headlights snap into being, and Jack is on his way home.