Black House (23 page)

“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 Gilbertson’s story, a boy goes out for a ride on his bicycle and vanishes, perhaps as a result of abduction, from the sidewalk in front of Maxton’s. 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 staring, takes time to adjust 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 evening’s 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. Marshall’s friendly, good-looking face and slender runner’s body are as good as testimonials to responsibility, decency, good manners and good neighborliness, modesty, and a generous heart. The 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 wishes to help the man. Jack had come to the station expecting that he would respond to Dale’s 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, certainly never in the early stages of an investigation. (The thought hidden at the center of Jack’s 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.)

Jack’s second thought is that of both a cop and a fellow citizen, and while he continues his adjustment to the third, which is wholly the product of his rusty yet still accurate cop reflexes, he makes it public. “The bikes I saw outside belong to Tyler’s friends? Is someone questioning them now?”

“Bobby Dulac,” Dale says. “I talked to them when they came in, but I didn’t get anywhere. According to them, they were all together on Chase Street, and Tyler rode off by himself. They claim they didn’t see anything. Maybe they didn’t.”

“But you think there’s more.”

“Honest to God, I do. But I don’t know what the dickens it could be, and we have to send them home before their parents get bent out of shape.”

“Who are they, what are their names?”

Fred Marshall wraps his fingers together as if around the handle of an invisible baseball bat. “Ebbie Wexler, T. J. Renniker, and Ronnie Metzger. They’re the kids Ty’s been hanging around with this summer.” An unspoken judgment hovers about this last sentence.

“It sounds like you don’t 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 avoid the appearance of unfairness. “Not if you put it like that. Ebbie seems like kind 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 sort of small for his age, and Ebbie Wexler is . . . um . . .”

“Heavyset and tall for his age,” Jack says. “The perfect situation for a bully.”

“You’re saying
you
know Ebbie
Wexler
?”

“No, but I saw 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 Leyden 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 Marshall’s widening eyes indicate that some kind of hope, some promise, 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 him,” says Ty’s father. “They were faster on their bikes than Ty, and sometimes they, you know . . . they teased him.”

“By racing ahead and leaving him alone,” Jack says. Fred Marshall’s glum nod speaks of boyhood humiliations shared with this sympathetic father. Jack remembers the inflamed, hostile face and raised finger of Ebbie Wexler and wonders if and how the boy might 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 certainly 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 interrogation room, top of the stairs.” Dale aims a finger at the ceiling. “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 interrogation room appear to have succumbed to its leaden 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 move alongside 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 chair, his eyes like dinner plates. The third boy, T. J. Renniker, has dropped his head atop his crossed 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. That’s why his abrupt appearance within their dozy scene frightened them. If Jack had been in charge, he would have separated the boys and questioned them individually, but now he must deal with Bobby Dulac’s 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 and says, “Wake up, bumdell
.
.
.
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 excellent record and a roomful of citations and medals. When I go after a bad guy, I usually wind up arresting him. Three years 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 Marshall was with you before he disappeared this morning. Did the Fisherman take him? I hate to say it, but I think he did. Maybe we can get Tyler back, and maybe we can’t, 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 justice. 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, I’m 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 can’t say I’m thrilled 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. “Maybe it looked like I did, but I didn’t.”

“You’re lying, and we haven’t even started to talk about Tyler Marshall yet. I’ll give you one more chance. Tell me the truth.”

Ebbie smirks. “I don’t go around flipping the bird at people I don’t 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, don’t—I take it back—I did it, okay?”

“Too late,” Jack says. He watches as Bobby grasps the boy’s elbow and pulls him toward the door. Red-faced and sweating, Ebbie plants his feet on the floor, and the forward pressure applied to his arm 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 shut and cuts off a wail of fear.

The two remaining boys have turned the color of skim milk and seem incapable of movement. “Don’t worry about him,” Jack says. “He’ll be fine. In fifteen, twenty minutes, you’ll be free to go home. I didn’t think there was any point in talking to someone who lies from the git-go, that’s all. Remember: even lousy cops know when they’re being lied to, and I am a
great
cop. So this is what we are going to do now. We’re going to talk about what happened this morning, about what Tyler was doing, the way you separated from him, where you were, what you did afterward, anyone you might 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 index finger into his mouth and begins to worry the nail with his front teeth. “Ebbie flipped you,” Ronnie says.

“No kidding. After 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. “It’s not a pomorium, mushhead, it’s a
em-por-ee-um.
”

“And?”

“And Ty said—” Ronnie glances at T.J. “Ty said he hadda go somewhere.”

“Which way did he go, east or west?”

The boys treat this question as though it were asked in a foreign 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 answer exists. Finally, Ronnie says, “I don’t know.”

“How about you, T.J.? Do you know?”

T.J. shakes his head.

“Good. That’s honest. You don’t know because you didn’t see him leave, did you? And he didn’t 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 awe. He has just revealed himself to be Sherlock Holmes.

“Remember when I drove past in my truck?” They nod in unison. “Tyler was with you.” They nod again. “You’d 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 didn’t go off on his own. He couldn’t 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 didn’t 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, then 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 Marshall’s absence. “Ebbie said Ty would buy us some more cards,” helpful 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?”