The True Detective (38 page)

“They haven’t asked you about this guy? It says he uses the name Anthony, which they think is false. I can’t believe they haven’t asked you about this guy, because my mother says it’s probably somebody you know. Wow—it is scary, believe me.”

“I’ll have to read it,” Matt says.

“Are things real heavy at home?” she says.

“Oh, yeah, they are, but I’m not there. I mean I haven’t been there.”

“Oh.”

“I just been walking. Looking for my brother.”

“Really.”

“I was thinking about you. A lot.”

“Well, we been talking about you—you know. Even Mrs. Sims.”

“Oh.”

“About your brother, you know. Mrs. Sims says she doesn’t think it looks real good. Because he didn’t take anything with him.”

“Yeah,” Matt says, as the significance of the detail shoots once more through his mind.

“Aren’t you scared, being out?” she says.

“Well no,” Matt says, as fear also checks into his mind.

“I’d be,” she says. “I am as it is.”

“You are?”

“Heck yes. Shouldn’t you be home? I mean, is your mother there by herself?”

“I guess so. But I have this thing,” he adds.

“What’s that?”

There it is, coming up in Matt. “About you,” he says.

“Meaning what?”

For a moment he doesn’t say. Then he says, “Don’t you know?”

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Yes, you do.”

She pauses. “Matt, listen,” she says at last. “Come on, you’ve got other things to worry about right now. Okay?”

“God, you’re always doing that!” he says. “Always like you’re the boss or something!”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” she says.

“Forget it,” he says. Hesitating a second too long, he replaces the receiver.

Hesitating a second too long a second time, he lifts the receiver back up, to have her back—only to hear the buzz which says the connection is discontinued. He hooks the receiver back into the cradle. Turning, he hits the palm of his hand upon the aluminum wall. He walks away, keeping his eyes open, holding against even a blink. What a total jerk you are, he says to himself. You are a total jerk.

Nor does he walk to the police station, as he had planned. What for? he thinks. Lieutenant Dulac would just tell him to
get lost. At least that’s what he should do, Matt thinks, walking through town. He should tell him to grow up. He should tell him he’s a total jerk, because that’s what he is, and that no one likes him or ever will, because why should they, why should anyone like anyone who is just a total nothing?

Matt doesn’t walk to the police station, but he walks by it on his way down to the river, to the park along the water there, and he is on the end of a pier, in the brisk sea air, before the mask into which he has set his face begins to break and give way, and he takes in a gasp of air, into his throat and chest, and turns his face down not to be seen even by some passing, squawking, ignorant seagull.

V
ERNON IS WALKING ON THE CAMPUS
. H
E HAS NOT RETURNED
to his car. Not yet. He has circled close enough to be across the street from the parking lot, close enough to believe he can pick out the silver-gray top of his car among the several hundred others packed around it. Is the boy still alive? he wonders. Is he still lying there, still unconscious? Has no one noticed his hair under the sleeping bag? Has no one tapped on the window—opened the door? People are so stupid.

Vernon doesn’t cross the street into the parking lot. He turns back into the campus and walks wide-eyed. There is in him now, after his seeing Anthony, an odd feeling that nothing he does will matter anymore. Is that what he wanted?

In the library, up on the third floor, he makes his way to the men’s room, which is empty and heavily marked with gay messages. Standing at one of four or five urinals in a row, he reads marked and scratched messages. In a moment the door opens and someone walks in. The person crosses the tile floor and stands at a urinal. Vernon stands where he is, looking ahead. In another moment, Vernon realizes, the person is shifting to the urinal beside him. Vernon only stands there. All along the wall is the message: Show It Hard / Get It Sucked.

Vernon stands there. The person is beside him and he knows what is happening, knows it on the periphery of both his mind and his vision. The person next to him is presenting himself.

Vernon looks down, watches the boy manipulate himself near the base of his penis, which is reaching straight out. The boy shifts his pelvis a little, to offer himself in Vernon’s direction.

Vernon is thinking of Uncle Sally long ago. Uncle Sally’s game, his thing, he thinks. He sees at last why it was something Uncle Sally always wanted to reenact. There is reluctance in him and in his hand, but he reaches down and grips the boy’s penis.

No eye contact has occurred.

The boy whispers, “In a booth.”

Vernon doesn’t say anything. He thinks to say that he wants shame, he wants degradation. He wants whatever it may take not to be what he is. If depravity will allow him redemption, he wants it. Holding the straining turkey neck in his hand, however, he doesn’t say anything.

“Come on,” the boy whispers, withdrawing, slipping over and into one of the stalls.

Vernon obeys. It is clumsy squeezing inside; the boy is closing the door, sliding home the latch. The boy’s penis is higher now than it was outside.

“I want it in the ass,”
Vernon says.

“What?”

“I want it in the ass. I want to die.”

“Jesus Christ,”
the boy says.

“I want it to hurt,”
Vernon says, and is crying.
“I want to die.”

The boy is climbing onto the stool, presenting himself.
“Suck it!”
he hisses.

Vernon stands there crying.

“Suck it—you fucking weirdo! Here! Suck it! Suck my cock! Do it!”

The boy fucks him in the mouth, as he stands there. He takes it. His tears continue, his breathing made up of gasping and choking. Nor does he shift away as the boy’s pumping grows erratic—as the boy keeps hissing at him,
“Suck it hard! Suck it hard, goddamn it!
”—and cannot shift away then as the boy is gripping, holding his head with a hand.

Vernon stands choking, crying, spitting into the toilet as the boy, down from his perch—has someone come in out there?—is zipping. Pulling the latch opening the door, the boy says, “Thanks, fag,” and is gone.

Vernon leans to the wall. He spits into the toilet and in a moment sits there, and holds his head, and cries, and it is as if he is a child again and has closed himself in the bathroom to weep in confusion and heartbreak while his mother ignores him. Hers was a resolve that he could never break. He knows now that he has to do what he has to do. He has to, because there is nothing else he can do. It reverberates, keeps reverberating in his mind. He has to get rid of the little boy. Forever.

W
HERE HAS THE TIME GONE
? W
HAT
’
S HAPPENED TO THE
brother? Did his meeting with him get lost in the shuffle? All he seems to know for sure is that Shirley went home for dinner. Is she coming back? Did she say she was bringing him something to eat? Where is that key call, that key person? Why doesn’t this thing break?

Using his shoulder to keep the telephone to his ear, Dulac lights another cigarette. Too many butts, he thinks. His thick glass ashtray, which he has carried to the squad room, is packed with stubs. He lifts his eyes to the wall clock as the man on the other end of the telephone keeps talking, talking like water moving in a stream. Twenty to six. Jesus Christ, he thinks, is everyone having dinner? For of the three lines set up for calls, one is standing idle.

The man he is talking to—listening to—goes on. His dime, Dulac thinks, even as he is growing anxious. The man, calling from Boston, a Dr. Abel, a research psychiatrist with a special interest in criminal behavior, he has said, has been making some interesting remarks, and things are quiet enough for the moment—or Dulac would have cut him off, however rude he might have seemed to be.

Still, being an audience to the man’s rambling lecture is testing his patience. He would feel impatient in any case, but he knows that Mizener, at that very moment, is rounding up some
bodies for a lineup in the interrogation room, and that the secret witness—for whom he is responsible—is due to return yet again to do the lineup. As the voice continues into his ear, Dulac lifts his eyes once more to the clock on the wall.

Five fifty.

Something the man said has caught his attention, and he interrupts. “Doctor, excuse me,” he says. “Excuse me. Just back up a little there, would you? Something you just said, about persons reacting violently, might be pertinent to this case. You see, what we—”

“The kinds of violent reaction,” the doctor says—not reluctant to interrupt him, Dulac notices. “Of the—”

Dulac interrupts back. “Doctor, listen to me, please,” he says. “I’m sorry, I just don’t have time to hear all that you have to say. Okay? I’d like to ask you some questions. A profile and—”

“Well, you need a foundation,” the man says.

“Could be, could be,” Dulac says. “But I don’t have time for it right now. I appreciate your calling, Doctor. But I am pressed, we are pressed for time. If you could give me some responses to what we’re actually dealing with—”

“I’ll try. I only want to help. That’s why I called. I felt it was—”

“Doctor, hold on a second. Let me ask you something. You were talking about different kinds of violent reactions, acting out anger and so on, transference and hostility and all. Let me ask you this: Is there anything we might put out, over TV or in the paper, a kind of subliminal message, or a direct message, an appeal, that might
stop
someone from hurting the little boy in some way, if he hasn’t done so already? Do you know what I’m saying? If we said, ‘Please let Eric Wells go because . . .,’ I don’t know, because he’s supposed to help his mother clean house or he’s supposed to be in the school play? He has to feed his kitten.
You see what I mean? I’m afraid we might be scaring the shit out of this guy. Is there any way we can intercept his emotions—redirect his behavior—do you know what I’m saying?”

“Certainly,” the man says. “However, I don’t know if it’s very possible, what you’re suggesting. Your alleged abductor is probably a pedo—”

“He may not be alleged, Doctor. We’ve got eyewitnesses. It’s real.”

“I see. The individual, in any case, would be a pedophile, which would mean you are
not
dealing with a person who is given to violence as an end in itself. You see, there are—”

“Just stick with this guy, Doctor, please.”

“Lieutenant, I am trying to do just that. Now, this individual would be after what he has been unable to get from adults, because his own personality would be underdeveloped and he would have grown fixated on children. Or remain fixated on them. Do you see? He isn’t being motivated by hostility in itself, although he may be acting out hostility toward what the child represents—childhood itself, and the love and attention perhaps that he did not receive himself when he was a child. So here he is, seeking a substitute for that which was denied. Of course, one of the most pitiful offenders is the elderly widower—”

“Do you believe he’s homosexual? We have reason to believe this person went to a gay bar just an hour or so before the little boy was picked up.”

“He could be homosexual,” the doctor says. “Not necessarily, though. It could be anyone, you see, as far as there being triggered in them a fixation on children. We’ve treated lawyers. High-ranking military officers. Physicians—with very successful practices. And we’ve also treated plumbers and construction—”

Dulac is looking at Mizener, over in his doorway, something of a smile on his face, waving for him to come over. Dulac says
into the phone, “Doctor, excuse me—I’m afraid I have to go. Someone is motioning to me right now. I appreciate your—”

“I’ll hold,” the man says.

“You’ll do what?” Dulac says, although he has heard clearly.

“I’ll hold. If you don’t mind. There are just a couple other things I need to say.”

“Doctor, I’m awfully busy.”

“It will only take a minute or two. If you’ll just do what you have to do, I want to sort out some thoughts on the question you raised.”

Against his better judgment, Dulac agrees, although placing the receiver on his desk, getting to his feet, he mutters, “Jesus Christ,” to himself. “He’s going to hold,” he says to no one.

Mizener, a file folder in one hand, grips his elbow with his other hand. “This guy is something else,” he says.

“You got a lineup?”

“Just about. We’ve got three suspects. This first guy, though, is really something. Listen to this.”

“What?” Dulac says, pulling up with Mizener along the hallway.

Mizener has the folder up to read. “Just listen,” he says. “ ‘Sadler’s residence, a four-room, first-floor apartment, is a filthy wreck. There are dirty dishes, garbage, dirty underwear strewn on dirty floor. Forty-five-pound punching bag suspended from living room ceiling by chain.’ ”

“He’s a suspect?” Dulac says. “You have him here? I don’t understand.”

“Right. He’s in the interrogation room. But listen: ‘Arrested March 11, 1980, June 7, 1980, and November 19,1980, by Hampton Town Police for indecent exposure. November 19, 1980, apprehended for walking on beach and sidewalk naked. Contacted this date’—this is this evening—‘at residence, in response
to anonymous tip, Mr. Sadler answered door stark naked. Undersigned’—that’s me—‘identified himself to suspect as police officer, at which time suspect told undersigned to remove his “fat ass” from his door.’ ”

“Neil, what is this?” Dulac says, growing impatient all over again lingering here in the hall.

“Just a second, Lieutenant, there’s more. Listen to this: Suspect advised undersigned he holds doctor of philosophy degree, University of Chicago, was formerly instructor Mount Holyoke College, but presently unemployed.