Greely's Cove (27 page)

“Good afternoon, Miss Moreland,” intoned Craslowe with a nod, and as usual he withheld the offer of a handshake.

“Hello, Dr. Craslowe, Mrs. Pauling,” said Lindsay, fighting a crazy little urge to move away from the old man’s looming figure. “I was just about to call you. I suppose you’re wondering why Jeremy didn’t keep his appointment today.”

“I
was
concerned,” said the doctor with an inappropriate smile, one that appeared to torture his craggy face and stretch his brittle lips to the point of cracking. “I made inquiries, naturally, and learned that the police have arrested the lad. Mrs. Pauling and I came here in the hope that we might be of some assistance, or at the very least to prevent Jeremy from being sent to some detention facility for juveniles. That would be most unwise, in my view.”

“That’s why I’m here, too,” said Lindsay. “Were you able to talk to Stu—er, the chief?”

“Oh, yes,” said the doctor. “I explained to him Jeremy’s circumstances and proffered my professional opinion that the lad should remain with his family. For the interim, I offered to shelter him in my home, where he could receive proper care until other arrangements are made.”

Something about that suggestion made Lindsay uneasy. For that matter, Craslowe himself made her uneasy. She itched to tell him about the troubles that Jeremy had caused Nora, to ask him point-blank why he had given the boy a collection of books more suitable for a druidic priest than a modern thirteen-year-old.

She caught herself. This was, after all, the man who had worked a miracle, the man who had freed the consciousness and intellect of a hopelessly impaired child. Craslowe probably had good reasons for giving Jeremy those books, and if anyone could help the lad overcome his current behavioral difficulties, no doubt it was he.

“What did Chief Bromton say to that idea?” asked Lindsay. “He explained that Mr. Trosper is en route from the East, and that the police would hold Jeremy until his father’s arrival. I’m happy to say that the chief has agreed not to send him to the county juvenile facility.”

At least
that
had been taken care of, thought Lindsay with some relief. Even so, she did not like the idea of Jeremy being held here at the police station, alone and without friends or family. If Stu would not release him to her, then she meant to stay with him until Carl arrived, whenever that might be.

“I’m grateful for your help and concern, Doctor,” said Lindsay. “After we get things straightened out here, I want to get your advice about a few things.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Craslowe. “You’re no doubt speaking of Jeremy’s recent behavioral difficulties—”

Does this guy read minds?
Lindsay wondered. Dr. Craslowe had the unsettling habit of answering questions before they were asked, of allaying fears before they were expressed.

“—which, I can assure you, are not cause for undue worry. You must remember that he’s crowding the learning experiences of an entire childhood into a very short period. It is hardly unexpected that he should experience some frustrations, or that these should manifest themselves in mildly aberrant behavior. To be sure, there will be difficulties, Miss Moreland, but with proper care and therapy we can overcome them. Of this I am certain.” Craslowe nodded at Mrs. Pauling, who unhooked the umbrella from his arm and popped it open.

Lindsay wondered if Dr. Craslowe ever used his hands. It occurred to her that he always kept them out of sight, either pocketed or tucked into the small of his back.

“So, if you will excuse us, Miss Moreland,” said the doctor, nodding once again, smiling his dry smile, “we must be going. Other patients, other problems, you know. Good day.”

“Yes, of course. Thanks again, Doctor. Mrs. Pauling.” She returned the nod and watched as the pair hurried through the rain to their car, a boxy black Lincoln parked at the far end of the lot. As they moved away, she remarked to herself how sad Mrs. Pauling looked.

Inside the station house pandemonium reigned.

The vaultlike foyer was jammed with newspaper and television reporters, who were armed with pencils and spiral notebooks, sound equipment, Minicams, and blinding flood-lamps atop long poles. Sandwiched among them was a handful of private citizens who craved nearness to the action, who relished the big-city attention being lavished on little old Greely’s Cove even though it was for the wrong reason. Tucked away in a rear corner of the foyer, tiny in the midst of the press of shoulders, stood Hannie Hazelford, in her blond wig and orange raincoat.

Police Chief Stu Bromton presided from the safety of the steel-mesh enclosure that separated the herd from the inner sanctum, sipping now and again from a Styrofoam cup that Officer Dean Hauck kept filled with coffee. Resting on the counter of the enclosure window was a thicket of microphones into which he droned nonanswers to the reporters’ urgently shouted questions about the tenth disappearance of a citizen of Greely’s Cove. Massive though he was in his immaculate police uniform, the very image of strength and controlled authority, Stu’s broad face was haggard and weary. Pouches bulged beneath his bloodshot eyes, and the burning television lights gave his skin a sickly pallor that did not go well with his freckles.

The news conference was coming to an end, and Stu was glad. He had deemed himself the wrong man to go in front of the cameras, simply because the Washington State Patrol, having finally decided that the Greely’s Cove problem warranted its undivided attention, had effectively coopted his authority over the investigation.

Earlier that day, the troopers had descended in force with forensic teams, helicopters, canine units, and four-wheel-drive Jeeps. They had fanned out over the rolling woods and rocky shore in an all-out effort to find
something
—if not an actual body, a fragment of a lead, anything at all that they could call progress. But since Stu had been the pivotal figure in all the previous investigations, the media had naturally gravitated toward him once again, and the mayor had pressured him to grant the reporters’ urgent requests for an on-camera news conference, if for no other reason than to assure local citizens that their city government was not sitting on its hands.

So Stu had held the conference. And displayed photographs of all the missing. And pleaded for help from anyone who had information. And carefully withheld any mention of the physical evidence collected thus far: mere smudges of stinking slime and mold found inside the Toyota that Teri Zolten had apparently been driving and also in a broom closet of the lobby of the Old Schooner Motel, from which her mother, presumably, had disappeared.

Stu also withheld mention of the fact that the city council had agreed—over the mayor’s strident objections—to retain a forensic psychic named Robinson Sparhawk, whose arrival in Greely’s Cove was expected shortly.

Not a very satisfying news conference all in all, and the dissatisfaction was clear in the faces of the reporters as they packed up their equipment and filed outside. No leads, no suspects, no bodies, not even any plausible theories.

To hell with them,
thought Stu, watching them go, hearing their grumbling. They would never have believed the truth anyway. How do you tell someone, least of all a mob of copy-hungry newshounds, about a
darkness
that you can’t see or touch but can only feel? And how do you explain your certainty that it has corrupted the life of a sleepy little town, that it has spirited away ten of its citizens to black oblivion and caused the suicides of two others, that it’s alive and festering and corroding the natural balance between good and evil?

Right, Chief. And what century are you from?

To hell with them, and to hell with Greely’s Cove. Very soon Stu Bromton intended to put his failures behind him. He took a small comfort from the vision of himself on a sun-drenched beach in some faraway southern clime, free of the nightmare he had endured for the past nine months. He meant to disentangle himself from his unattractive wife and his pathetic children, leaving them in the care of his shitbag father-in-law who would see that they lacked nothing. He would rent a nice little apartment with a view of surf and subtropical sky. He would play the futures market and Wall Street, and he would make a fortune in the coming bull market. To show that he was not a consummate jerk, he would set up trust funds for his wife and kids. And someday he would be able to shake hands with Carl Trosper as an equal, not as the fuckstick police chief of the old hometown, or the boyhood pal who couldn’t cut the mustard in law school.

All he needed was the grubstake, and it was not long in coming, thank God. If he could just hang on for seven or eight more months, if he could just survive the blackness a little while longer...

The last of the news media filed out the door, and Chester Klundt clapped him on the back.

“Well, Chief,” said the mayor, leaning close to his son-in-law’s face, massaging the muscle of his shoulder, “the council members and I have to be going. I just want to say that you did a fine job with those folks”—he nodded toward the outer door, which was about to slam closed—“and that if you need anything, you know where to get in touch.”

“Thanks, Chet,” said Stu, leaning away from the mayor’s rank breath. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“Just one more thing, son,” whispered Klundt. “Millie and I want you to know that we’re praying for you. We’re expecting a miracle, Stu, and you should, too.”

Which did not surprise Stu, of course. On the rear bumper of the Klundts’ Eldorado was a sticker that said: “
EXPECT A MIRACLE!
” And on the trunk lid was the universal badge of evangelical Christians—a chrome outline of a fish.

“I appreciate that,” lied Stu.

The door of the foyer swung open again. Lindsay Moreland strode in and smiled a hello at Hannie Hazelford, who had not yet forsaken her post in the corner. Stu edged away from the mayor toward the window of the mesh enclosure.

“Looks like I’ve got some other business to handle right now, Chet. We’ll take this up again later, okay?” Chester Klundt smiled beatifically and uttered a God-bless-you before heading up the backstairs to his office on the floor above.

Lindsay approached the window of the enclosure and wriggled out of her white raincoat, which she draped over an arm. She wore a black-knit cardigan dress that had bold horizontal stripes in white. Her earrings were bright red porcelain that matched her bracelets. She carried a red leather shoulder bag.

How different she is from her older sister, thought Stu. Though blessed with Lorna’s bold blue eyes and lustrous, grain-colored hair, the same delicacy of face and build, she lacked Lorna’s softness. Lindsay was hard and all business, a real ball-buster.

“Afternoon, Miss Moreland,” said Stu, leaning on the counter. Though he had known her for nearly two weeks and had seen her often since Lorna’s funeral, he still could not bring himself to use her first name. “Did you get your mother taken care of?”

“Yes, I did,” said Lindsay. “I appreciate your getting in touch with me.”

“No problem. By the way, how is she?”

“The doctor says she’ll probably be all right. Nervous exhaustion, stress. I should never have let her try to take care of Jeremy alone.”

“No question about it, that kid’s a real handful. Would you like to see him?”

“I would, thanks.”

Stu signaled his dispatcher, Bonnie Willis, who pressed a button on her desk, producing a loud buzz that disengaged the lock on the front door of the steel-mesh enclosure. Lindsay entered the inner sanctum of the station house and followed the hulking police chief into the squad room, where stood a knot of Greely’s Cove policemen, sheriff’s deputies, and blue-uniformed State Patrol officers, smoking cigarettes and chatting quietly. Off the squad room was a short hallway that led past a cramped detainee cell barely large enough to accommodate a bunk, an open toilet, and a sink. Its massive steel door stood open.

“Even though Jeremy’s in custody,” explained Stu as they walked, “I don’t see any reason to lock him up in there. I’ll let him sit in my office or the squad room, where he can read or watch TV.”

They entered Stu’s cluttered office, which boasted the same gray tile floors and institutional green walls that afflicted the rest of the station house. Stu’s secretary, a jowly woman of fifty who sat at a typing desk across from the chief’s slightly larger metal one, scarcely looked up from her word processor as they came in.

Jeremy sat in a metal side chair, neither reading nor watching TV, but leaning back against a wall, his hands pocketed and his face blank. He wore a faded jean jacket over a blue soccer pullover, jeans that matched the jacket, and white Nike shoes.

“You have a visitor, Jeremy,” said Stu, laying a heavy leg across the corner of his desk. The boy raised his hazel eyes and smiled sweetly.

“Hi, Jeremy,” said Lindsay, moving close, glad for the smile. The boy looked so small and innocent, so incapable of fracturing another person’s reason and injecting insane notions into that person’s mind, as he had apparently done to Nora. His handsome face radiated his mother’s goodness.

“Lindsay, it’s good to see you,” he answered in his slightly British accent. “It’s really quite boring here, and frankly I’m anxious to leave.”

Lindsay returned his smile. “The chief has probably told you that your dad is on his way. When he gets here, you’ll be able to go home. Isn’t that right, Chief Bromton?”

“That’s right. It might be late tonight, though. Catching a plane out of Washington, D.C., on short notice can be tough, I hear.”

“The sooner, the better,” said Jeremy. “I’m certain that he will straighten out this mess. It’s all been a terrible misunderstanding, you know.”

“I’m sure it has been,” said Lindsay. She turned to Stu, whose face had darkened with worry. “Chief, could we talk alone for a moment?”

Outside the closed door of the office, Lindsay asked Stu whether there was any chance on God’s green earth that he would release Jeremy to her custody. She would take the boy home to the bungalow, she promised, and would keep him there until Carl had returned. She gave her personal guarantee that there would be no trouble and that Jeremy would appear in juvenile court whenever his case came up. Surely the chief could see that keeping him here was serving no one’s interest.