THE LAST BOY (34 page)

“My men are ready to go,” announced the SWAT team's leader, trotting up to join the trio.

“Hey! Wait!” cried Tripoli, wading in.

“Who the hell are you?” demanded the Fed, staring hard at Tripoli.

“Tripoli's IPD,” interjected the sheriff.“He's lead investigator.”

“Well, that doesn’t count for shit now,” sneered the trooper as he turned to face Tripoli.“We’re calling the shots here.”

“Like hell,” shouted the Fed.“This is a kidnapping, and—”

“Who have you got in there?” said Tripoli to the sheriff, ignoring the trooper. He was vaguely aware that Sisler had finally caught up and was slumped down on a log, panting.

“It's the kidnapper,” explained the Sheriff. “He's barricaded himself in there.”

“And the perp's armed,” added the SWAT man.

“We’ve already had one man killed this year screwing around— negotiating—with a holed-up psycho,” said the trooper. “No way am I going to risk any of my men—”

“How do you know he's armed?” asked Tripoli.

“Because he's holding a fucking rifle!” snapped the trooper.

Tripoli grabbed the binoculars out of the man's hand. It was
dark in the interior of the hut, but Tripoli could make out a shadowy figure moving around. He was holding a long object in his hand.“How do you know it's a weapon?” he asked, turning back to the men.

“When we first got here,” explained the sheriff,“he poked it out the window. One of my guys spotted it. Looked like an old 303. He keeps sneaking around in there. And he won’t talk.”

“That phone's not working,” argued the Fed. “That's why we gotta toss him another.”

“Yeah?” said the trooper.“You go toss it.”

“Well, pull your guys back then! This is totally nuts,” he turned to Tripoli, appealing to him with hands outstretched.“We don’t have a serial killer in there. Just an old geezer. I saw him. He looks harmless.”

“Yeah, harmless with a high-powered rifle,” injected the trooper.

“Look,” said Tripoli steadily, trying to wrest control.“Why don’t we just bring things down a notch.”

“Christ, that's what I’ve been trying to say,” said the Fed. The sheriff looked as if he could be persuaded and Tripoli could feel a more sane coalition beginning to form.

“And just look at this place,” implored the Fed, “Do you think a maniac would build something like this?”

But then, suddenly, it was too late for talk. One of the sheriff 's men on the perimeter had taken it upon himself to blast a tear gas shell through the open window. The cannister went off with a dull whomp and the tiny hut immediately started filling with gas. Tripoli already could see the gray fog beginning to ooze out of the lower edges of the window frames.

Every set of eyes turned to look.

The bullhorn fell silent.

Even the dogs stopped their howling.

Tripoli left the group and moved right up to the front line close
to the hut. He squatted down and watched, thinking about his decision to give Wally Schuman that drawing.

Everybody waited.

“Shit,” said a deputy hidden behind the tree. “He's not even coughing.”

Suddenly, from where he crouched, Tripoli caught a glimpse of the old man. His hair and beard were as white as snow, though his face was surprisingly unlined, his skin as smooth and unfurrowed as a child's. His eyes were discs of light gray, tender and wise and remarkably untroubled. For an instant, their eyes met and Tripoli could have sworn that there was a look on the old man's face as if he had recognized him, knew him. Shivers ran down Tripoli's spine.

“Hold it!” pleaded Tripoli, rising to his feet.

“Fire another,” urged a trooper.

“No, don’t!” shouted Tripoli,“It's enough already. You’ve got an old man in there. You’ll kill him.”

The mortar, however, was already launched. It catapulted through the other window, exploding an instant later with a hiss of gas.

Again there was silence.

Tripoli waited. And waited.

“Damn you all!” he finally cried and, tearing through the line of flak-jacketed people, raced toward the hut.

“Hey, come back!” someone shouted from behind.

“You idiot, watch out! He's armed!”

But Tripoli, like a man possessed, kicked in the door. It collapsed with his first blow and the tear gas came billowing out. Holding his breath and closing his eyes, Tripoli bolted in.

Someone was lying on the floor and Tripoli stumbled over him. Groping blindly, he took hold of the still body and started to drag. The man was surprisingly light and Tripoli managed to pull him quickly through the doorway out into the fresh air.

Tripoli's eyes and nose were running copiously as he knelt above the old man who lay inert on the earth. There were shouts all around him, and he could feel the pounding of feet as the cops rushed in from the woods. He kept blinking and wiping his eyes, and when his vision had finally cleared he saw a thin old man lying before him on the ground. His skin was as pale as his beard. Barefoot, he was dressed in loose-fitting, homespun garments. His eyes were closed and his arms were folded in a rigid position, clasped protectively across his chest.

The snipers and deputies and troopers moved out from their hiding places in the woods, converging in a tight circle around Tripoli as he knelt over the old man.

“Jesus,” uttered someone,“the old guy's dead.”

“And he didn’t even cough!” exclaimed another voice.“Hey, did you hear him cough?”

“Oh my God,” whispered Tripoli,“Oh my God. What have we done?”

Molly and Danny had hardly gotten back and settled into the office, when Tasha came bursting in on them.

“Did you hear?” she cried.

“Hear what?” asked Molly.

“The Hermit.”

Danny's head snapped around.“Huh?”

“They got him! He's dead. I just heard on the radio. They’ve even got a special report on TV. Larry's got it on his set.”

Sisler and Tripoli took control of the scene as the rest of the men started to disperse, slinking off into the woods. The helicopter carrying the state coroner came in close and settled down into the opening, blades still beating the air, the animals scurrying away to the far side of the hut. People with television cameras kept emerging
from the woods, and the remaining troopers and deputies kept them confined to the far end of the clearing, away from the old man's body just outside the hut.

When the coroner was finished, Tripoli assisted him in slipping the Hermit's corpse into a body bag. They zipped it closed, and then the two of them, with Sisler's help, lugged the plastic pouch toward the helicopter. Jimmy Teeter from IPD helped them hoist it into the craft, then climbed in to accompany it back to the morgue. The old man was now merely evidence and the law required that it be continuously guarded right up through the required autopsy.

“I want you to get his prints as soon as you can!”Tripoli shouted to Teeter above the roar of engines as they revved up, beating the grass flat.

“His what?” called Teeter.

“Prints! Prints!”Tripoli wiggled his fingers.

Teeter nodded, giving a thumbs-up as the machine lifted and then whirled above the trees.

Tripoli wandered around the site. The goats and sheep nervously shuffled back and forth against the wall of overgrowth, bleating and baahing, keeping their distance. Within the clearing he found a small fence of interwoven saplings, and within its protective confines a garden. There were neat lines of beans and peas, some nice-sized heads of cabbage. At the north side of the hut, Tripoli found a mounded section of earth with a trap door. Opening it, he discovered a small, rock-lined cellar containing old potatoes and newly picked mushrooms, all neatly arranged. There were other things in there that appeared to be root crops Tripoli couldn’t identify.

When the last remnants of acrid gas had finally dissipated, Tripoli went inside the hut and looked around. It was finely crafted. Every piece of the structure had been painstakingly fitted, giving it a marvelous solidity. The walls, Tripoli noted, had been furred out and loosely packed with grass to form an insulating barrier. In the center
of the hut, there was a fireplace made of fieldstone, hand fitted without a hint of mortar. A chimney of similar stone ascended through the roof. It, too, was a work of art. The dwelling reminded Tripoli of pictures he had seen of native huts in Africa, the thatch tight and perfectly aligned.

On the floor, where the old Hermit had let it drop, lay his weapon—nothing more than a gnarled walking stick carved to fit his hand. Lining a side wall were cups and bowls made of fired clay, larger containers holding hickory nuts and shell beans and what appeared to be wheat berries. He found balls of white stuff that had a rubbery consistency and smelt like some kind of cheese.

On a corner shelf that had been made of parallel sticks bound with vines, Tripoli discovered a line of old bound volumes. He picked up the closest and carefully opened it. The paper, which felt like parchment, was like nothing he had ever seen before. The pages were all handwritten, printed in an elaborate and laborious style. Some of it was in English that seemed stilted and old. Much of it was in foreign languages. Among the volumes there were books on plants illustrated with sketches, illuminated drawings of the Earth and solar system, directions for the making of tools and the construction of root cellars, diagrams of dams, methods of food preparation and storage. One book contained intricate drawings of insects and flowers and animals, hand-colored and virtual works of art. Awed, Tripoli could not help but feel as though he and his fellow police officers had clumsily stumbled into a hallowed place, a church in which the high priest had just been senselessly murdered.

“What did you find?” asked Sisler bending down to enter the hut.

“Oh?” said Tripoli, startled out of his reverie.

“Get a load of these, will you,” said Sisler, grabbing up one of the volumes and thumbing roughly through it. “Looks like it was written by some monks or something.”

“Hey, take it easy!”Tripoli pulled the book away from Sisler and cradled it tenderly in his large hands. “It's evidence.”

Tripoli kept moving around the hut.

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. I just got this vague feeling that I’m missing something—hey, get me a light,” he said. When Sisler came back with a flashlight, Tripoli found it. Hanging from a wooden peg on the wall was a whistle. It was red and white and made of plastic.

“The sheep,” said Tripoli as they were packing up and getting ready for the trek out of the woods. “And these goats.” Tripoli counted them. There were two ewes and three lambs, a ram circling around them; a mother goat with a pair of twins, the trio pressed tight against an old billy with a beard.

“Yeah, what about them?” asked Sisler.

A man from State Police forensics had arrived and was shooting pictures of the interior of the Hermit's hut. A couple of the guys from IPD were carrying the old man's possessions out to the road. There certainly would be a grand jury investigation, and Tripoli knew the troopers and sheriff were already figuring out ways to cover their respective and collective asses.

“We can’t just leave these poor animals here,” said Tripoli.

The creatures still seemed terrified from all the commotion. They made him think of Danny. Leaving them would be like abandoning the boy here in the forest. How was he ever going to explain to Danny what they had done to the old man?

“Why not?” said Sisler.“Let them just eat the fucking grass—or whatever they do.”

“Chrissake Jerry, they’re domestic animals!”

“So?”

“I’ll keep them out at my place.”

“Yeah? Okay. How we gonna get ’em there?”

“I don’t know,” muttered Tripoli, preoccupied. “Get one of the rookies. Billy Van Ostrand's got a big four-wheeler, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, the poor old man,” said Sandy.

“He had it coming to him,” said Larry as the office crew hunched in front of his TV.

Molly chewed on the nail of her thumb as she watched CNN's footage of the troopers and SWAT team and sheriff's people emerging from the woods with their equipment and dogs.

“You’d think with that army of people,” said Ben,“they’d be able to capture a harmless old man without killing him.”

Then there was a long shot of the old man's hut and a sheet-covered lump close to the door that she guessed was his body. A close-up of the hut, a flimsy thing made out of nothing more than branches and a roof of what looked to be thatch. My God, Molly thought, this was where he held Danny through a whole miserable winter!

Tasha stuck her head in the office.“There's a bunch of reporters here to see Molly and Danny.”

“We’re not here,” said Molly and hurried back to her office. Danny stood at the window, pressing his cheek against the glass. Gently closing the door, she came up behind him and put her face near to his.

He turned to her and his mouth came close to her ear. “But why?” he whispered, his lips quivering, “Why did they have to bother him? He never hurt anyone. I liked him. I liked being with him. And he taught me
everything.
”

As he started to cry, her own eyes welled with tears. “Darling, darling,” she murmured.“My poor baby.”

Danny turned and, burying his face in her breast, wept bitterly. Molly clung to him tightly, bringing her face close to his. Though she felt pity for Danny, hers were the tears of relief. It was over. The nightmare had come to an end.

“He promised me,” said Danny between the sobs wracking his small frame. “He promised me that he wouldn’t hurt the man. Trip promised me.”

“Oh, Sweetie, I know he didn’t mean to hurt him. He's a—”

“He's a liar!” said Danny now pulling away angrily. “He's a dirty liar!”

“No, Honey. You’re so wrong. Trip's a good man. I don’t know if you can understand right now. I know you’re upset, but I think you’ll come to understand things better. I’ve been so worried, so terribly worried. That I’d lose you again. And now there's no one who can take you away from me.”

He stood staring at her.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

He continued to stare at her unblinkingly.