In the Night Season (27 page)

S
HAW RESTED HIS HEAD ON HIS
arms, sitting at his desk in the lamp light. Frank Bell had taken the chair on the other side of the desk. He looked through a manila folder—part of the report of the trace evidence team: the print in the blood was that of a boy’s tennis shoe. Probably it was as they had surmised. The boy had stumbled into the scene, and run away in panic. There were two more prints out in the gravel drive and several more in the ground near the little stream; the distance from each other of the prints in the driveway indicated the long strides of flight, of someone running. But who and where was this boy? There was no logical choice, other than Jason Michaelson.

Shaw had spoken with three of the boy’s teachers. Jason had not been in class for several days; his mother had been asked to seek counseling for him outside the jurisdiction of the school. The loss of the father had changed him: a bright, inquisitive, and rather witty boy who had become sullen and withdrawn, even unruly and disruptive.

All the adjectives, Shaw remembered, from his own grief.

Probably what Nora Michaelson had said was true: he had left the evening before, on a car journey south with his grandfather. But there
had been a boy in the Bishop house; a boy had hidden in the bloody space behind the couch. Who?

Edward Bishop lived alone and saw no other boys in the area that anyone knew about. Everyone mentioned that he had been going over to the Michaelson house in the afternoons to check on Jason Michaelson.

And there were the hate messages warning him away, too.

All right. The boy had been getting into trouble. It stood to reason that this might be why a grandfather traveled east, to take him on a road trip south. There was no basis for questioning what Nora Michaelson had told him. But it was possible, wasn’t it, that knowledge of the murder had frightened Nora Michaelson into putting the boy out of the way of questions?

Shaw thought of the shaken look on her face in the small opening of the front door of the house that had belonged to his grandfather.

“Two intruders,” Frank Bell said. “As if we couldn’t figure that from the way he was trussed up.”

“Wait a minute.” Shaw sat forward.

“One strong man could do it, I suppose.”

“What if this has nothing to do with the Virginia Front?”

“I’ve been thinking that, too.”

“What if it’s somebody else?” Shaw said.

“Yeah?”

He picked up the phone and dialed David Ross at home. He got the machine. At the voice prompt, he said, “David, pick up if you’re there.”

The line opened. “Tell me.”

“What if there’s something else going on?”

“I just took a kid named Greg Cullen over to the psycho ward. He claims he’s the Virginia Front.”

Shaw waited.

“A mental defective, Phil. He didn’t have squat. He had some printed stuff that looked promising—desktop publishing, you know. But nothing else. Kid produced some hate letters from his computer and tried to get us to arrest him. Whole thing was made up.”

“Did you let him go?”

“He couldn’t supply a single link to the crime scene. He’s a persecution freak.”

“Yeah, but he just might be the Virginia Front, too.”

“I don’t follow.”

“What if this crime has nothing to do with hate?”

Ross was silent for a moment. “I still don’t follow. We’ve got the printed messages, and we’ve got a public claim from a hate group that it’s their killing. The phone guy knew about the messages, and he had crime scene stuff, too.”

“Did you hold Greg Cullen?”

“I took him over to the mental health clinic, Phil.”

Shaw thanked him and started to hang up.

“There’ll be FBI types tomorrow,” Ross said. “I got the call in my office this afternoon. Violation of Bishop’s civil rights.”

“I’ll be glad to have their help,” Shaw said.

Ross sighed on the other end. “We find the guy wearing those boots, and we find the so-called Virginia Front.”

“I don’t know,” Shaw said. “It’s too tidy.”

“It was all over the news tonight. They’re all so goddam excited. Especially that Susan Jones woman. I got the feeling she was going right out to pray for another murder, so she could
really
get into it.”

After Shaw hung up, Frank Bell said, “I agree with you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Imagine stumbling into a thing like that. You think a kid could manage not to yell, seeing it happen? Blood washing over his shoes that way?”

“He’s the one who broke all the lights. I think he came in after it was done. I think he was alone in the house for a while, hiding.”

“Lord,” Frank Bell said. “I hope we don’t find a boy’s body somewhere out there.” He only glanced in Shaw’s direction. “Sorry.”

“Go on home,” Shaw told him. “There’s nothing else we can do right now.”

The other man stood and dropped the folder on the desk. He rubbed his eyes. “You holding up okay?”

“Some,” Shaw said.

Bell walked over and put one hand on his shoulder. “Tough time of year.”

“Yes.”

The other stretched and yawned. “I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight. If you’re up, give me a call. I’ll come over and we’ll play some black-jack or something.”

Shaw said, “I’ll be all right.”

When he was alone, he looked through the folder again. There wasn’t much there: they had found no fingerprints, no fibers, no signs of the struggle that must’ve taken place. A man doesn’t simply lie down and wait for people to tie his hands to his feet. Whoever these men were, they had taken the trouble to wipe all the surfaces in the room and to put whatever had been disturbed back in place. And they had left the music playing.

The probability he had to face was that he would never know more than he knew at this moment, and if he didn’t find another body—some boy’s body?—or if he managed somehow to find whoever this boy was, and the boy was still alive and could be spoken to, the interview would yield only the fact that the boy had come upon the scene before Bishop’s housekeeper did. And the shadowy Virginia Front, whoever they might be, were out there somewhere, with their retrograde derangement.

He closed the office door and went along the lighted hallway to the lobby, where two uniformed troopers stood talking.

It had grown even colder outside. The lights of the hospital were visible, the low buildings ranged across the top of the hill, with the flagpole shining in the light. He drove toward home. The moon went behind a thick wall of clouds ahead, and he thought of snow. As he pulled past the subdivision, he decided to stop in on Carol and Mary. His old house, he noticed, was also lighted, upstairs and down. Carol answered the door after peering out at him. She wore a bathrobe and slippers; her hair was up in curlers. “Well?” she said. “What is it? You scared me.”

“I said I’d try to look in on you.”

“It’s late,” she said.

He nodded. “I know.”

“Did you—?”

“Nothing yet,” he said.

She didn’t move from the door. “Mary’s upstairs asleep.”

“Her light’s on.”

“We’re keeping all the lights on.”

“Can I come in a minute?”

She stepped aside. The sofa in the living room was piled with clothes and boxes and Mary’s schoolwork. He saw through the kitchen hallway to the back entrance, where Carol had stacked tin cans against the door. On the counter, the chairs, and the table were other boxes stuffed with newspaper-wrapped dishes. Opposite the sink, on a microwave table, a small portable television flickered.

“I don’t have any coffee made.”

“I wouldn’t want any.” He walked through to the kitchen and looked out that window. “Have you been hearing noises?”

“Of course. We’re both scared out of our minds.” She clutched the robe about her chest. “I feel like everything’s closing in on us.”

“I know the feeling.”

“It’s the winter. The dark. I wish we were out of here.”

“It gets dark in Richmond, too, Carol.”

She did not respond to this. On the kitchen table were books she had been studying—a sociology course she was taking at the community college. The winter quarter was ending soon, and there were exams to study for.

“Can I go upstairs and kiss Mary?”

“She’s asleep. Don’t wake her.”

“I won’t wake her,” he said.

Carol shrugged. He interpreted this as permission, and walked to the stairs and up, along a passage still adorned with photographs of his little family when it was still a little family. Carol could not bring herself to take them down, even now—photographs of Willy as a baby and a toddler, and a solid, square-shouldered boy unafraid of anything (all boy, Carol’s mother had said about him).

Mary lay in a sprawl on top of her covers, an afghan pulled over her shoulders. Her legs were exposed. He got a blanket from the linen closet out in the hall and covered her, then bent down to kiss
her gingerly on the cheek. He touched the top of her head, the soft richness of her dark hair. He wanted to lie down here and hold her, and he thought of the woman, Marjorie Powers, starting out on a bright winter morning, carrying her life and her assumptions that would be changed forever in the awful minute of discovering Edward Bishop’s body. Mary sighed and turned. He kissed the side of her face, then backed out of the room.

Downstairs, Carol stood by the front door. Evidently, she wanted him to leave.

“Do you want to stay?” she said.

He paused.

“You can sleep on the couch.”

“No,” he told her, and some small part of him felt the stir of vindictiveness, that she only wanted the security of him in the house, and he could deny it to her. The thought went through him and then he was left with an unbidden sense of being wrong again—the knowledge that there were things about which neither of them had been very forgiving or understanding. He had an image of his girl upstairs, so sweetly asleep. He said, “If there was any danger at all, I would. But I think this business with Bishop was
about
something. I don’t think it’s random. And I don’t think there’s anything for you to be afraid of.”

“Okay,” she said. “But I’m afraid nonetheless.”

He opened the door. Perhaps a month ago, she had paid a man to change all the locks. “Good night,” he said.

She watched as he walked out to the car. Heavy, dark clouds were moving across the brightness of the moon. He got in, started the engine, looked out to see that she still stood in the light of the open door. There had been times when, leaving his house, he had paused to wave, and she had waited just like that, leaning on the frame, a sad shadow.

He waved now, and she backed off and closed the door.

Driving home, he remembered with an ache that Mary had won her spelling bee. There were people all around him who had solid families; the ground under their feet was shifting slower for them, changes were coming at a speed they could bear, that most of them never even noticed.

H
ENRY
S
PENCER STARTED TO LEAD
the way down into the basement. He had decided there wasn’t any choice but to try something: this nervous man did indeed have it in him to kill, and in fact he was struggling with himself about that, and nothing else. Spencer had this impression and found in himself the curious, empty will to go through with everything—take him downstairs to the safe which could not be opened and try something, anything, to survive. There were things he might pick up and use in the basement.

Mostly, he was stalling for time to think.

“I think we’ll use the duct tape again,” Ricky said.

Gwendolyn breathed forth a small sound of alarm.

“No,” Spencer said. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t have a choice, man.”

“Oh, but I do have a choice. I won’t tell you the combination of the safe if you tape us up again.”

“Nor will I,” Gwendolyn said.

Ricky paused to think. It had become quite clear to Spencer how vacant this man was. Ricky put the gun hand up to the side of his head and used the square end of the pistol to scratch there. He looked
like a suicide whose attitude about the act he was about to commit was almost whimsical. Then he glared at Spencer. “You don’t have the upper hand here, you know.”

“Come on,” Henry Spencer told him. “Don’t you think I want you out of here? I’ll give you what’s in the goddam safe and you’ll have it. It’ll be all yours. I don’t want it. I don’t have the slightest use for it.”

“I could make you give me the combination,” Ricky said.

“I’m gonna open the safe for you,” Spencer said. “What if the phone rings?” He was reaching, he knew. But the other seemed to have been affected by the thought.

“I have to answer the phone,” Gwendolyn said.

Ricky scratched the same place on the side of his head, this time with the blunt handle end of the pistol. “Okay. We’ll all go down.”

“Let my wife stay up here,” Spencer said.

The other seemed suspicious.

“The phone.”

“Naw. She comes too,” Ricky said, showing anger. “What do you think I am, man? You think I’m stupid or something? I’m not stupid.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Ricky aimed the gun. “You go first.”

Spencer opened the door to the basement and flicked the lights on. He started down.

“Slow,” Ricky said.

He paused. Gwendolyn was directly behind him. If he faltered or took a false step, the other might get a round off, and Gwendolyn would be shot. He went very slowly to the last step. The safe was in the middle of the basement floor, surrounded by hanging laundry and dress forms and boxes. There was a counter on the left side crowded with tools and open parts of a computer Spencer had been working to upgrade. The shell was standing open, and two hard drives had been set on either side of it. On the wall above this, there were screwdrivers, wrenches, a hammer, pliers, a wood saw. On the other side of the room, the washer and dryer seemed hunched into the dim corners, and clothes baskets sat on top of
them. There was a jar of nails and screws atop the safe, along with a pair of work gloves, a tape measure, part of a radio alarm clock Spencer had planned to fix, and a bottle of bleach.

Ricky came to the last step and pointed the pistol at Spencer. He indicated the safe. “That? That’s not big enough.”

“It’s where I put what he sent me,” Henry Spencer said. There was nothing else to say. He knelt down and turned the knob, which was stiff from the decades of disuse. It squeaked. The inner workings were rusted. He turned it halfway, then stopped and turned it back. It resisted.

“It’s too small,” Ricky said, with dismay.

Spencer could hear Gwendolyn breathing, standing near. Absurdly, he recalled talking with friends about this odd thing, this safe built into the floor of his basement that he could not use. It had been a conversation piece, a joke.

“Come on,” Ricky said. “I’m telling you they couldn’t be in that little thing.”

“It’s temperamental,” said Gwendolyn in a trembling voice.

The knob had caught. Spencer couldn’t get it to move either way. He was aware of the younger man behind him, at a distance, growing more agitated every second.

“Come
on
, man.”

In that instant Gwendolyn moved, a sudden turn, her arm swinging, and a heavy thud was followed by a huge shattering fall. Spencer got painfully to his feet—the arthritis in his lower back and knees—and saw Ricky lying on the stairs, scrabbling to get up them, his gun hand back, the Glock firing now as if by reflex. Something hit Spencer in the scalp, at his hairline, tearing past him, knocking him back into the safe and onto the floor. The gun kept going off, over the sound of the other man still struggling with the stairs. Spencer made an attempt to sit up and couldn’t. The area of light available to him closed down, grew smaller from the periphery inward, to a small pinpoint, and then that, too, began to diminish. He couldn’t see Gwendolyn. He looked for her in the spreading dark. He tried to cry out, to make any kind of noise, and realized that sound, too, had thinned out, a narrow band of high-pitched shattering, something squalling,
far away, in a distance. It faded, was lost. Then quite abruptly everything went away. He was in a stillness, under water, in a great, sunless sea. Floating. The borders of his being changed, then changed again. He was a boy, staring out a window at snow. 1932. People were crowding away out of a lighted room, and snow was at the windows, thick, windblown. Someone moved him, or moved at the perimeter of this silence, this blindness that was himself.

And he opened his eyes.

Gwendolyn was holding him, had lifted him onto her lap, whimpering, pressing a folded towel against his forehead.

“Honey?” he heard himself say.

“It cut you,” she said. “I threw the jar of nails into him and he ran. He shot twice and dropped the gun and it went off again. Oh, Henry, you’re all right.” She ran the towel over the burning spot on his scalp.

“I’m shot,” Spencer told her.

“It cut you,” his wife cried. “It’s a cut. It went into the wall behind you, Henry. Oh, Henry, are you all right? Can you see me? You were knocked out. Tell me you’re all right.”

He lost consciousness again. The edges blurred, and came back. “Where—” he said. “Where’s the gun?”

She had it in a fold of her skirt. She brought it out and showed it to him. Then she began to sob. Her eyes were hysterical, brighter than he could believe. “I hit him with the jar of nails. It bounced off his chest and he panicked. He’s sitting up in the living room crying like a little boy.”

Spencer started to get up, but couldn’t. She lifted, and he used the corner of the iron safe for support.

“I’m afraid to call the police,” she said. “I’m afraid what might happen in Virginia.” They tottered to the stairs, and he took the gun from her.

In the living room, Ricky sat on the sofa, elbows resting on knees, hands to his face.

“I’m not a murderer,” he muttered. “I never killed anybody. I’m three thousand miles away. They can’t say I had anything to do with it.”

Spencer took a step toward him, but felt abruptly light-headed and hung back. His wife leaned into him, holding him up. He made his way to the chair opposite and leaned on the back of it, still standing.

Ricky looked at him. “Oh, Jesus—call an ambulance.”

Spencer’s shirt was covered with blood. Gwendolyn still held a piece of cloth to his head, standing next to him, staring at him with that brilliant-eyed hysteria. Spencer aimed the gun at the abject figure on the couch.

“Don’t shoot,” Ricky said pitifully. It was clear that the fight and the menace were gone out of him. When he spoke again, it was with exhaustion. “It’s over, man.”

Spencer relaxed his aim. “How many of you are there,” he said without inflection.

“Four.”

“Here?”

“I’m the only one here. The other three are in Virginia. Look, I didn’t hurt anything. I’m not a murderer. I thought the gun went off and killed you.”

Spencer was silent. He had begun to feel as though he might pass out. “I need to help my daughter and her son live,” he said.

Gwendolyn sat down on the piano bench, the bloody cloth in her lap, and set her frightened gaze on the young man. “Will you please help us?”