The True Detective (20 page)

With time to wait then, seeing Mizener walking back toward the car, Dulac looks at Matt in the back seat and says, “Matt, listen, let me give you some friendly advice. If you know anything, just come clean. You’ll make everything a lot easier on yourself. Whatever it is.”

“I don’t know anything,” Matt says. “I swear I don’t.”

Dulac keeps looking at him. “Your brother’s missing,” he says. “Something strange is going on, and I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I,” Matt says.

V
ERNON
’
S DECISION IS BOTH SPONTANEOUS AND A CLIMAX
of all that has been running through his mind in these hours of driving here and there, parking to nibble food, sitting in the car, circling. He is so exhausted his bones and muscles ache and there is a sign preceding an intersection with a blinking yellow light: a right hand turn will take them east, in the direction of the ocean, of Portsmouth, of some possible resolution to this situation he has found impossible to resolve. A return, he thinks, to where it started, to the way things were.

He makes the turn. Portsmouth lies ahead. He is driving in the direction of the boy’s home.

He glances to the boy, to see if he is aware of what has happened.

He drives along and glances again. The boy only sits there; he shows no change.

“Portsmouth is this way,” Vernon says.

The boy looks around some, appears to give this some thought.

“We’re going back to Portsmouth,” Vernon says, and he adds, when there is no response from the boy, “What do you think of that?”

“You going to let me go?” the boy says.

“I want to,” Vernon says. “And I will—as soon as I’m convinced you won’t make trouble.”

They roll along, as if in a momentary vacuum in which Vernon is waiting for confirmation. “You won’t, will you?” he says at last.

The boy shakes his head. “No,” he says.

“Are you hungry?” Vernon says.

The boy shakes his head in the same deliberate way. “No,” he says.

Vernon drives along. The day is turning now. Evening is coming on. Vernon’s eyes burn some, from lack of sleep, as he blinks them. He has to take a chance, he is thinking. He has to. There is no alternative. He has to trust the boy enough to let him go. There is no alternative, he tells himself.

T
HE INTERROGATION ROOM HAS WHITE WALLS AND CEILING
, and one-way glass in the door; the room’s lights are also white. There is an old wooden table without drawers, and several chairs.
A tape recorder on the table is revolving soundlessly. Matt, waiting as if in a hospital for this to begin, sits in a straight-backed chair on one side of the table; Dulac is on the other side and Mizener is angled far enough away that he has to extend more than an arm’s length every other moment, on every other question, to tap ashes into a metal ashtray from which gold paint has all but disappeared.

Matt sits with his hands between his legs or shifts them to the tops of his legs. He makes little eye contact. He looks mostly at the tape recorder.

Dulac says then, “Matt, tell me this. Have you had any of what might be considered to be sexual problems?” They have asked him about his father and school, their family move to Portsmouth eight years ago.

“What do you mean?”

“Let me rephrase that,” Dulac says. “Have you had any bad sexual experiences? What would be considered to be unusual or abnormal sexual experiences? With men, say? Have you been accosted by men?”

“No.”

“Relations with a girl?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? How can you not know that?”

“I guess.”

“Matt, I don’t mean to pry into your private life. Really. I just want to get some ideas. About your sexual orientation. This whole business is strange and I’m going to find out what’s going on. Now, when you have sexual relations with a girl, you either do or you don’t, it’s either yes or no. Have you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Other than with a girl? How about men?”

“I said no!”

“Any men ever make suggestions to you, proposition you?”

“No.”

“What about your brother?”

“Not that I know of.”

“He ever tell you about anyone putting moves on him?”

“No!”

“Why is your face so red?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Okay. Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“What does that mean? Yes or no?”

Matt hesitates, shifts or squirms. “No,” he says.

“You’d like to have a girlfriend? There’s someone you like?”

“I guess so.”

“If you had a choice?”

“I guess so.”

“You don’t consider yourself gay?”

“No—heck no,” Matt says.

“Okay. Let’s move along then. Tell me, what were you doing—why?—in that building? I don’t get it.”

“I was just there,” Matt says. “I was looking for Eric.”

“Go on.”

“I found those magazines.”

“So?”

“I got carried away, that’s all.”

Dulac pauses. “You got anything so far?” he says to Mizener.

“Let’s get to the witness,” he says.

“Witness about what?” Matt says.

“Matt, we know you lied to us. Your brother is missing, and we know you lied to us about the time he came up missing. We’ve talked to someone who—”

“Cormac,” Matt says.

“Right, Cormac,” Dulac says.

“I told that one lie,” Matt says. “That’s all.”

“Just one?”

“Yes.”

“Which one? Explain which one.”

“Just that I said I was with Cormac, yesterday, or last night, and I wasn’t.”

“Where were you?”

“I was with this girl. I said that’s where I was.”

“Okay, Matt. What girl? Where?”

“We were at the Mall; then we went to her house.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know. I guess from six thirty or so. We had a Coke, and then we went to her house.”

“You had a Coke at the Mall; then you went to her house? Until when?”

“Nine. She had to go in at nine.”

“In? You said you were at her house.”

“Well, we were outside her house.”

“Outside where?”

“We were in the garage.”

“In the garage? Until nine o’clock? What were you doing in the garage?”

“We were just messing around.”

“Okay. What did you do then? At nine?”

“Nothing. I just walked home. Then my mother called.”

“What time did you get home?”

“About nine thirty, I guess.”

“Okay, we’ll get back to that in a second. You say you were with this girl from six thirty until nine. In the garage. What is this girl’s name and address? Did you see her parents?”

“She won’t be questioned, will she?” Matt says.

Dulac looks up at him, catches his eyes. “What do you think we’re doing here?” he says. “Do you think this is a joke? She’ll be questioned all right. Hell yes, she’ll be questioned! We’ve caught you lying to us, okay? We’ve caught you in that building, playing with yourself. We’re not here on a fucking Sunday afternoon because we don’t have anything better to do. You say you lied because you were with this girl. You lie because you’re with a girl! I think you’d better wake up. That’s not a reason to lie. You think you’re talking to the fucking parish priest? You think this is a chat with your fucking school counselor? Your brother is missing. Right now you are a suspect.”

“Vanessa Dineen,” Matt says.

“Where does she live?”

“Woodlawn Circle. I don’t know the number.”

“What did you do all this time?”

“We just messed around. In her garage. Like I said.”

“I see. Okay. What about from five or so until you met her? From the time you left the movie theater?”

“I just walked around.”

“Why did you leave the theater?”

“I was ticked off at Cormac, that’s all.”

“Why is that? What did he do?”

“He’s just a jerk. We ran into this girl earlier, and she was with this friend of hers named Barbara, and I wanted to do something with them and he didn’t want to. That’s all.”

“Did anyone see you, at this girl’s house?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You were in the garage for
two hours?”

“We were in the car there, her mother’s car.”

“Her people were in the house?”

“I guess so. There were lights on. We sort of sneaked in, then I sneaked away.”

“Did you see your brother at any time throughout this time?”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea where he is? Do you think he would have run away?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Matt says.

“You don’t think he’d run away?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, where do you think he is?”

“I don’t know. I was looking for him. I thought he might be hiding or something. Or like camping out, because he likes that kind of stuff.”

“Why did you lie to us?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not good enough,” Dulac says.

“She’s black,” Matt says.

Dulac pauses, looks at him. “She’s black?” he says. “This girl is black?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you didn’t go
in
the house when you went to her house?”

“Yes.”

“They live on Woodlawn Circle?”

“Her father’s in the Air Force, like a colonel or something,” Matt says.

“Matt,” Dulac says. “Listen to me now. Do you know anything at all about your brother’s whereabouts?”

“I don’t,” Matt says. “I wish I did.”

Dulac leans back. “Neil,” he says, “why don’t you go ahead and check out the girl. Double-check with her family, too; be
sure this checks out. I’m going to take this guy home, then I’m going to get on those fliers. You have anything to add?”

“Not right now,” Mizener says, taking up his pad and pencil. “Maybe later.”

Dulac remains sitting, as Mizener leaves the room. He sits looking at Matt. Then he says, “Where would
you
go? Suppose you ran away. You know kids used to run away to join the circus or the Merchant Marine. Things like that. Where would you go; what would you run away
to?
You know what I’m saying?”

“I think so. But I just don’t know. He likes the Navy and all that, but he’s only twelve.”

“Yeah. What about Florida, Disneyland, or something?”

“I just don’t think so. He’s not like that.”

“Not like what?”

“I don’t know. He’s like—well, he doesn’t go for kiddy things like that, like Disneyland. I don’t think. He likes things like . . . the Marines.”

“You like him, as your brother?”

“Sure,” Matt says. On a gasp, then, he has to check himself against crying.

Dulac watches. Then he says, “Matt, is there anything at all you haven’t told me?”

“No,” Matt says.

Dulac shrugs. “It’s okay to cry,” he says then.

“Is he going to be okay?” Matt says.

“Let’s hope so,” Dulac says, getting to his feet.

Moments later, as the tape recorder is turned off and they are walking out to the car, Dulac says, “There’s a chance he’ll come walking in any minute. Especially if he’s resourceful like you say, if he’s the kind of kid who likes to camp out and so on.”

Matt is nodding.

“In the meantime, anything you can think of about where he would go, however off the wall, I’d like you to let me know.”

“Okay,” Matt says.

“Try not to worry.”

Matt nods.

“Don’t worry about what color your friend’s skin is, either,” he says. “That’s no big deal.”

Matt nods, keeps walking next to the man.

H
ERE WHERE THEY HAVE PULLED UP
,
IN
H
AMPTON
B
EACH
, darkness looks to be falling quickly over both the horizon and the ocean. The line between the two is no longer distinguishable. Nor are there any other cars in this parking lot at water’s edge, but a couple times Vernon has seen people pass on the wide expanse of sand, has seen their colorless shapes as they walked by. He is so tired by now, he feels he could fall asleep in seconds if he allowed himself to do so. He doesn’t. He keeps stirring himself awake, and he says now to the boy, “You’re part way home. Do you realize that? That’s where you’re going to be, in no time, if things work out.”

“I won’t tell,” the boy says.

Surprised he has spoken, Vernon looks at him through the dimness. He had been so quiet, he had thought he might have fallen asleep.

“Do you know where we are?” Vernon says.

“No. By the water,” the boy says.

“You don’t know where we are?”

“At some beach,” the boy says.

Vernon is looking through the windshield. For a moment now he hasn’t seen anyone walking on the damp sand over which water and sky seem to be spreading a darkening haze. “I want to take you back,” he says, “because I have other things to do.”

“I won’t tell,” the boy says again.

This only makes Vernon disbelieve him, and he says, “How can I believe that?”

“You can, because it’s true,” the boy says.

“Would you meet me—if I asked you to meet me—on Friday night?” Vernon says.

The boy takes a moment. “I don’t know,” he says.

Vernon looks back to the gray dimness of sea and sky; a single chop of water looks unusually white. He likes the boy’s answer. “Let’s walk on the beach,” he says. “I’ll untie you—we’ll walk down the beach and back—and if you show that I can trust you, then I’ll take you home. I’ll even buy you something to eat before I take you home. Are you hungry?”

“No,” the boy says. “I’m not hungry.”

“You have to be,” Vernon says. “So don’t lie.”

The boy doesn’t respond.

“We’ll walk on the beach, as a test,” Vernon says. If he takes off, Vernon is thinking, he’ll just let him go. If he doesn’t, all the better; he’ll buy him something to eat and let him off in town. He’ll take his chances.

Reaching, lifting away the sleeping bag, he unties the boy’s ankles. “We’re going to go walk on the beach,” he says. “It’s going to be a test to see if I can trust you. Just wait now, until I come
around to your side of the car.” Reaching past the boy, he pulls out the lock.