The Edge of Sleep (35 page)

“A little nip couldn’t hurt,” said Tee, tipping up a beer to prove his point. The police chief had brought over a cold six-pack on a mission of commiseration. Receiving no cooperation from his friend. Tee had undertaken the six-pack on his own. He was making impressive progress.

“It heartens the disconsolate,” Tee said. “I read that somewhere. On a cereal box. I think.”

“What heartens the disconsolate?” Becker asked.

Tee lifted the beer can. “Getting shit-faced.”

“Are you disconsolate. Tee?”

“No, you are, but if you’re not going to do it, somebody has to.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Becker said.

“Is that what they’re for? I always wondered. Well, it’s a small sacrifice to make for a buddy. I know you’d do the same for me if I got dumped.”

“What I will do is drive you home after you finish your sacrifice. It wouldn’t look good if the chief got arrested for DWI.”

Tee belched loudly, then tapped his chest with his fist, looking immensely pleased with himself.

“So why are these fine women dumping you all over the place?” he asked. “What do you do to them?”

Becker studied empty space for a moment before answering. “I think I make the mistake of falling in love with them,” he said at last.

Becker’s distress and confusion were so obvious that Tee shifted uncomfortably in his chair and examined the top of his beer can.

“I think in the beginning I’m a mystery to them and they find that intriguing and challenging. But once I fall in love with them. I’m not a mystery anymore because I make an effort for them to really get to know me.”

Tee wished Becker would not be quite so open about the whole business. He was not accustomed to being spoken to like this by another man. He didn’t know how to respond. If Becker were a woman, there would be no problem, of course. Tee would already be on the sofa beside her, a comforting arm on her shoulder. A comforting arm on Becker’s shoulder would make them both so uncomfortable that Tee could not imagine placing his there.

“Once they get to know the real me, it scares them,” Becker continued.

“You’re not so scary,” Tee said.

Becker looked at him directly.

“You don’t know the real me,” Becker said in a tone that implied that Tee was much better off in ignorance. Tee drank again, then broached a new subject.

“So, you’re retired again, or what?”

“She didn’t think she could continue to work with me, under the circumstances.”

Tee did not inquire what the circumstances were for fear of setting off further confessionals.

“Must be nice, sitting around, doing nothing.”

“It sucks,” Becker said.

“Well, except for that part it must be nice. You get awful broody when you’re on a case, you know. On the other hand, look how bright and cheery you are now that you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“I haven’t stopped thinking about it just because I’m not officially on the case,” said Becker.

“Could have fooled me. You’re just so carefree ...”

“A kid is going to be killed. Tee. We’re going to find the body of Bobby Reynolds and then another kid will be taken and I know it as sure as I know you’re sitting here, and there’s not a god damned thing I can do about it—except think.”

“You ought to cultivate some bad habits ...”

“And every kid from here on is on my head. It’s going to keep happening because I couldn’t stop it from happening.”

“It’s not your fault, for Christ’s sake ...”

“I fucked it. Tee. I just plain fucked it. I got off on the wrong foot because I was so sure it had to be a certain very specific kind of person. I thought I understood exactly who that person was and everything I did after that was wrong, and everything everyone else did was wrong, too, as a result of my being wrong and being sure I was right.”

“What are you. Sherlock Holmes? You never fucked up before?”

Becker paused for a moment.

“I always understood them before,” he said.

“Understood who?”

“The killers. The animals. The monsters. Whatever you want to call them.”

“What’s to understand? They’re shitheads.”

“Spoken like a cop.”

“You telling me they’re not shitheads? You specialize in serial killers, no? You’re the expert on psychos who kill again and again and again, right? You’re saying these people are not shitheads?”

Becker paused again. He fiddled briefly with his shoelace.

“We’re all shitheads. Tee. That’s why I could always understand them.”

“Maybe it’s the beer,” Tee said, “but it sounds to me as if you’re lumping me in the same category as the shitheads, and I resent that.”

“Maybe it’s the beer,” Becker agreed.

“Because I personally, have never drained the blood out of people and boiled their bones, the way what’s-his-name did. I have never grabbed a kid from a shopping mall and beaten him to death.”

“They weren’t beaten to death.” Becker said. “They were beaten to dying. And then they were smothered.”

“A nice distinction.”

“A merciful one, maybe.”

“You got a funny idea of mercy.”

“You ever been beaten. Tee?”

“No.”

“Beaten regularly, viciously, by someone you were dependent on for your food, your shelter, your life?”

“No.”

“Beaten by somebody you loved and you didn’t know what you had done to make them so angry at you?”

“I said no.”

“Someone who kept reminding you that he loved you even while he was beating you? No? Then maybe you don’t know if it was mercy or not.”

“What are you pissed off at me about?”

“For that matter, have you ever killed anybody?”

“In Clamden? It’s against the law.” Tee chuckled, hoping Becker would join him, but Becker continued, his visage darkening steadily.

“What if you did. Tee? What if in the line of duty, perfectly legitimately, you put a hole through some shithead and watched the life ooze out of him?”

“I guess I’d deal ...”

“And what if you found out, to your great surprise, it didn’t bother you all that much? What if you discovered you even kind of liked it?”

Tee felt as if he was being hammered by the queries that were not questions. He wanted to be away, but the room seemed to have shrunk and the power of Becker’s anger—if that’s what it was—was pinning Tee to the chair.

“You didn’t wish it, you hadn’t planned on it, but suddenly there it was. Just an accident, a result of something else you were doing, but there it was. You liked killing the shithead. You liked it throughout your whole god damned body and mind and soul, it gave you a thrill like nothing else could or ever had. What then, Tee?”

“I’d see a shrink pretty damned fast.”

“Good thinking. What if you discovered that the shrink was fascinated by you but had no clue how to change you? What if half a dozen shrinks were powerless to erase that thrill that came to you in only one way?”

“Then I guess I’d have a problem.”

Becker laughed, sharply, bitterly.

“That would be correct,” he said. “Now assume that you were, and are, an outstanding peace officer, sworn to uphold the law and preserve the Constitution. What if you were the fucking Chief of Police, but you had this little problem? Then suddenly you came upon a shithead who had a similar problem, had a tendency to thrill a little too much when he killed someone, you know, but with the difference that he wasn’t an outstanding officer of the law and local Chief of Police so his chances to kill people legally were rather limited. So, lacking your own native strength of will and inbred desire to do good works, this shithead has taken to getting his thrills as best he can. Not always in the same manly, straightforward way as yourself, of course, not by just doing away with people in the course of duty, but in more inventive and leisurely ways more in keeping with his individual temperament and personality—such as slowly draining the blood out of his house guests as you mentioned or hanging them from the basement pipes to study anatomy before stuffing pillows with their hair or maybe just tying them up and practicing all the positions in the Kama Sutra on their bodies before he feels called upon to get rid of them out of embarrassment over his excesses. See, whatever his peculiarities, he still suffers from essentially the same little problem that you have. Now, under those circumstances, and bearing in mind that you are the chief of fucking police and have an inherent tendency to consider yourself a human being despite your problem, don’t you think you might make an effort to try to understand these shitheads? Since you have the same affliction and all. Like fellow stutterers, say. In terms of insight, you might be one step ahead of the average peace officer who not only doesn’t stutter but also regards stutterers as an alien and therefore downright different species altogether. What do you think?”

“It must be the beer,” Tee said. “But I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about ...”

“I thought we were discussing bad habits.”

“... and tomorrow you’re going to be glad I don’t remember it, either.” Tee tipped up the last of the six-pack of beers. He rose shakily to his feet. “A pleasure, as always,” Tee said.

“I’m sorry,” Becker said, suddenly contrite.

“Not at all.”

“I had no right to dump that on you.”

“Only glad I could help,” said Tee. He clung to the chair to steady himself. “I live to serve. Besides, I’ve already forgotten what you said.”

Becker drove Tee home and walked him to the door, where Tee turned and dropped a heavy hand on Becker’s shoulder.

“You’re not nearly as big an asshole as you think you are,” Tee said.

“How do you know?”

“Because if you were, I wouldn’t enjoy drinking with you so much.”

“I am awfully good company,” Becker said. “It’s one of my better qualities.”

“It is one of your qualities. And I didn’t hear you stutter once all night, so what was that all about, anyway?” Fumbling with his key, shushing Becker with a finger to his lips to keep from waking his wife. Tee stepped into his house in a half crouch.

Once inside. Tee drew himself erect and stopped staggering. He leaned against the door and sighed heavily with relief. It was not good, he thought, to know your friends too well. An awful lot of secrets were best kept that way.

Becker called Hemmings on his direct line, avoiding the switchboard and the resultant entry of the call in the log.

“You know officially I’m no longer on the case,” Becker said.

“Back on medical extension, I understand,” Hemmings said cautiously. “Sorry to hear about that.”

“Thank you.” Becker wondered how much of the sarcasm he heard in Hemmings’s voice was his own imagination. Just how crazy did the agents think he was? Drooling, unable to tie his own shoelaces? Living on medication? Or just taking advantage of a good opportunity to get out while clinging to the pension rights. Or did they think about him at all?

“Just wanted to make sure you know my status,” Becker continued. “I don’t want you to end up with your ass in a ditch.”

“I appreciate the thought. What can I do for you?” Hemmings asked.

“I was curious, Hairy. About the Reynolds case, and the others ...”

“Can’t get it out of your mind, right?”

“Right, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t apologize. We’re all obsessive/compulsive or we wouldn’t be with the Bureau. What about it?”

“What have you turned up on the search for a nurse’s uniform?”

“Well,” Hemmings said, and Becker could detect in the single word the enthusiasm rising. A technician happy to complain about his problems. “I’m working only with a map and the yellow pages, you know. I started with the Amell Wicker case because I figured since the Reynolds snatch is only three weeks old, any uniform might not even have come to the attention of the cleaners as unclaimed yet. The Wicker case is two years old. They would have noticed an unclaimed uniform by now if they are ever going to. So I started there and I’m working my way forward in time. I began with a ten-mile radius around the point of seizure, which was the Upper Saddle River mall, and called every cleaner listed in the yellow pages in the towns within that circle. That’s a little better than 314 square miles, you understand. A lot of cleaners. When that didn’t produce anything, I increased the radius to twenty miles and started over. I don’t know how quick your math is, Becker, but that increases the area to cover by another 942 square miles. You go to a thirty-mile radius and that’s another 1,884 square miles and so forth out to the fifty-mile radius we figure is the maximum. That’s a lot of phone calls.”

“Good thing you got a WATS line,” Becker said. Then, in response to the silence, he added. “Must be a bitch.” Hemmings was not noted for his sense of humor.

“It’s time-consuming, what with one thing and another.”

“Have you turned up anything yet?”

“One unclaimed uniform at a Royal Cleaners in Ramsey belonging to one Mrs. Howard Elston, R.N. Unfortunately, Mrs. Elston died three weeks before the Wicker snatch, so I don’t think she’s the one we’re after.”

“Are you still at it?”

“I haven’t been told to stop.” Hemmings said. “Yet.”

“You know, it might be instructive to check the local hospitals and doctors’ offices to see if any nurse turned up missing all of a sudden.”

The phone was silent again. Becker thought at first that he had proposed a job of work huge enough to daunt even Hemmings.

“I think not,” Hemmings said at last.

“Too much?”

“Wrong direction,” Hemmings said. “I believe you are backing the wrong horse.”

“Why?”

“I take it you haven’t heard?”

“Hairy, I’m off the case. I haven’t heard anything. What is it?”

“They found the Reynolds boy.”

“Shit! God damn it! ... Where?”

“Off Route 84 in Connecticut between Bickford and Sandy Hook.”

“Same m.o.?”

“No autopsy yet, they just found him this morning, but I gather it’s the same. Beatings, trash bag, naked, so forth. But with a difference this time.”

“What?”

“A print.”

Becker caught his breath. “You said he was naked.”

“Indeed. But there was a half dollar in the bag this time. It had a hole in it, somebody was apparently wearing it as a medal. And on the half dollar, so I am told, were a thumbprint and an index finger as clean and neat as you could ask for.”