Imp

by Andrew Neiderman

  It was better for her that they were, for if she could look back, she would have seen a shadow move over the windowsill of her bedroom. It had been there ever since she dropped off the fire escape ladder. When she and Bobby entered the path to the pond and disappeared within the darkness, the shadow shifted enough to be visible.

  Mary Oaks, her face caught in the moonlight, looked out. Her eyes absorbed the fire in the night sky and turned it back on the darkness. She waited only a moment more and then retreated to her bedroom.

  She would pray and ask for guidance, confident that it would come as it always had.

  SEVEN

  Eddie Morris nearly slowed his patrol car to a crawl as he came to the small hill right before Cy Baum’s farmhouse. It was one of the most dangerous sections of any of the country roads he traveled in his jurisdiction, and he always anticipated danger when he approached it. Until a driver was almost to the crest, it was literally impossible to see any oncoming traffic. Someone asleep at the wheel or simply careless could be too far over, and there would be a head-on collision. He had complained to members of the town board about this part of the road, but there always seemed to be a shortage of funds when it came to the back roads. Besides, as usual, it wasn’t until one or two people were killed that any real interest was taken in a dangerous spot. He just didn’t want to be one of them.

  A car accident was practically the only danger he anticipated as a town policeman in Centerville. He had yet to draw his gun from his holster, much less shoot it. Of course, there were occasional drunks or raucous community college students who came down from the campus in Loch Sheldrake, but, for the most part, his patrols were uneventful visits with old-timers, tough talks with teenagers who were careless about the way they drove their cars or their bikes, and investigations of complaints made about dogs.

  “Nothing as exciting as an overturned garbage can with a mutt dragging the remains of chicken bones across the road,” he would say. His wife, Barbara, would laugh, but she would give him no sympathy.

  “Let it stay calm,” she told him. “I’d rather have a bored husband than a dead or injured one.”

  That wasn’t the point though, was it? he thought. Lately, he had felt himself on the verge of a midlife crisis, thinking that his problem was something deeper and more comprehensive than mere boredom. He kept it to himself; he wasn’t a man who could express his emotions freely. Tight-lipped, monosyllabic—Barbara called him the “Gary Cooper Type,” because he believed that what was personal should remain personal. He couldn’t stand those television talk shows in which guests would spill out the most intimate details of their private lives—their divorces, their problems with alcohol and drugs, their sexual hang-ups. What ever happened to self-pride? Wasn’t it a value anymore?

  This was part of the reason why he enjoyed being around old-timers more than he did people a little younger than he was or about the same age. Barbara told him he was born in the wrong age. She called him, “My Miniver Cheevy.” She was a high school English teacher, so she could make all these allusions and references. Other men might feel “put down” by so-called “brainy women,” but he was proud of her—proud that she was able to manage their home and family while holding down a job. They had three children: Tommy, age fourteen; Carl, age eleven; and Susie, age four, because they both finally decided to try again for a little girl. With each child, Barbara took her year and a half maternity leave. Of course, they were fortunate that his mother-in-law lived near them and was able to handle the children until they were of school age. Even so, they would have placed the children in nursery school or hired a full-time babysitter. Barbara was making a good deal more than he was.

  For a while that was hard to accept. He was thirty-eight years old and had been a town policeman for nearly fifteen years. Everyone just assumed that when Sam Cobler retired in a year or so, Eddie would be appointed the new chief of police. His raise in salary then would put him ahead of Barbara, not that it was a major problem anymore. There was never any real competition between them. Again, he believed that was because of old-fashioned values, values they both accepted. The family was a team effort. What was hers was his and vice versa. There was never any such thing as “her money” or “his money”; there was only “their money.”

  Still, he had been wondering about his life, wondering about the respect he commanded in his community as a local policeman. There was so much degradation of small town law enforcement. They weren’t involved with glamorous crime cases or frightening gunfights. They kept traffic running smoothly in the hamlets, kept hoboes and drunks off the streets, helped settle small arguments, patrolled stores to be sure doors were locked, cruised the town highways to remain visible so people would feel they were doing something, and handled relatively minor crimes. Last year there was a stabbing in the hamlet of Hurleyville, but the perpetrator turned himself in immediately afterward, more hysterical than the man he cut.

  Five years ago, Sam Cobler, who liked to kibitz with his local cronies in Sol’s Luncheonette in Centerville, was playing cards in the afternoon in the back of the store. One of the men playing with them, Jimmy Kaufman, had robbed the bank in Wurtsboro, a town twenty miles away, that morning. Of course, no one at the table knew he was playing with bank money, but the BCI and the State Police tracked him down rather quickly and made the arrest right there in the restaurant, interrupting the game. Naturally, that gave rise to a great deal of humor about the local police.

  Now, approaching his forties, the questions Eddie had about his life seemed to be more vigorous in their demand for answers. Did he lack significance? What would it mean even for him to become chief of police, if the whole force were considered to be a bunch of buffoons? Lately, he sensed something belligerent in his older son’s questions. “What good is it to arrest some kid who’s smoking a joint? That’s not going to stop him, Dad.”

  It was no longer sufficient to reply that he was breaking the law. Tommy was more vocal about his opinions than Eddie ever was at that age. Tommy thought the law was wrong, and if the law was wrong, anyone who enforced it was wrong, too, even if that person was his own father. Can you have respect for yourself if you can’t command the respect of your own children?

  On quiet spring mornings like this one, doing his patrol along the more rural roads alone, these thoughts and questions would bubble to the surface. Looking out at the trees in full bloom, the colors growing richer, the forests thickening around him, he would think of another poetic line Barbara loved to quote: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” How nice it would be to escape back to a simpler time when right and wrong seemed clearer, when a man could be assured of who he was and what he lived to do. This longing wasn’t something he concocted. The old-timers kept it alive, kept it real with their stories and their memories and their comments about the modern world, a world they increasingly saw as unnecessarily complicated and impersonal.

  What was it Maxy Bookbinder, the sixty-eight-year-old town clerk, was trying to tell him yesterday when he used Eddie and his wife as examples of a situation becoming more and more rare? “Do you know what the chances are of a hometown kid graduatin’ and comin’ back here to work and live? I’ll tell you. I did a study coverin’ the last five years. Only fourteen percent of the graduatin’ high school classes ended up here. Fourteen percent!” Maxy said raising his reddish brown freckled hand in the air to make his point. Although his shock of red hair had thinned considerably, it had remarkably resisted the graying process.

  “Well, I had my stint away from home,” Eddie told him. “I served in ‘Nam. I saw what some of this world was like.”

  “That’s not the point, not the point,” Maxy said, lost in his own conclusions. He was a stickler for statistics and spent a good deal of his time preparing various graphs, analyses, and evaluations for the town board. Although most of it was never used for anything significant, Maxy was considered one of the best authorities on the area. People came to him with all sorts of questions, and Edd
ie himself often asked him things about different families when he had to answer complaints or settle arguments.

  Not that he had any difficulties doing it. At six feet three, weighing two hundred and twenty-five pounds, Eddie was an impressive and powerful-looking man. Bob Cohen, one of the two town justices, called him “The Hulk.” He didn’t mind it, as long as people who called him that didn’t think he was all brawn and no brains. Anyway, for a man his size, he was unusually soft-spoken and gentle. He was very fond of little children and had a deep, almost emotional concern for elderly people.

  A good part of the reason for that was his closeness to his grandfather, who had been a close friend of Cy Baum’s. It was why he enjoyed stopping to talk to the old man now. Invariably, there would be all sorts of references to his grandfather—anecdotes, sayings, funny remembrances.

  As soon as he was over the hill, he saw that the old man was out in front of the house with his granddaughter. Eddie had been by before when Cy’s granddaughter was visiting. He thought she was a beautiful little girl, a rival for Susie, who some said belonged on magazine covers. He checked his rearview mirror and pulled over. He thought he always looked comical stepping out of his midsize Chevy patrol car. Even though he had the seat all the way back, he was so long legged, that he seemed to unfold forever. It reminded him of the commercial with the basketball star getting out of a Volkswagen.

  “Got a visitor, I see,” Eddie said, starting across the road. Cy and his granddaughter walked toward him.

  “Yep, but she’s been a good girl, so you don’t have to arrest her today.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet she has. Now let’s see … your name is … I know, Puddles.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Gina said and giggled. She took hold of Cy’s leg and swung herself behind it.

  “It’s not Puddles?” Eddie pretended to give it great thought. “Then it must be … Gina.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I knew I’d get it.”

  “Makin’ your usual tour or doin’ something special?”

  “Little of both. Sam had a complaint from Mrs. Cafton down at Denniston’s Ford. She claimed a bear attacked her dog and played havoc with the garbage cans. Don’t know how that woman lives all alone out there.”

  “It wouldn’t be a mystery if you ever met her mother. Very independent people. Your grandfather and I once stopped to help her change a flat tire. She already had the car jacked up and told us if she needed our help, she’d call the nursing home.”

  “True grit, eh?”

  “Stubborn was more like it. Was it a bear?”

  “I don’t think so. Stray dog is what I think. I haven’t heard of any bear around here for quite a while now, have you?”

  “Saw one two years ago down at Brown’s Pond, but ain’t heard of any near houses.”

  “Maybe that’s what killed the rabbits, Grandpa.”

  “No, I don’t think so, honey.”

  “Had some rabbits killed?”

  “Yeah, just a vicious prank. One disappeared completely and the other was found with its neck broken right by the cage. I’m keeping the new one in the basement.”

  “Any ideas who did it?”

  “I don’t wanna make any accusations. Just leave it for the time being. Suppose you heard what happened to Dick O’Neil’s boy.”

  “No. What happened? Younger or older boy?”

  “Younger. Happened two days ago,” he said, but he indicated with his eyes that he didn’t want to mention it in front of Gina. “Why don’t you get the rabbit, Honey, to show Officer Morris.”

  “Should I?”

  “I’d like that,” Eddie said. Gina thought a second and then ran toward the basement. Both of them laughed. “So what happened?”

  “Stumbled onto a raccoon and got himself badly scratched up.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Yeah. Dick’s blaming it on their dog, but if you ask me, the kid was somewhere he shouldn’t have been. That’s for sure. You leave a coon be and it won’t bother you.”

  “Tough one. Nearly tangled with a bobcat once when I was just a kid. Ugly creatures with their big heads and their slinky, lopsided bodies. Just came upon it in the woods. It looked at me with absolutely no fear. I remember how it took its time to walk off and disappear in the bushes. Told my grandfather and he said really wild animals can sense danger instantly and accurately. Once they know they have nothing to fear, they’ll treat you with total disinterest. That’s the difference between animals and people. When people realize it, that’s when they first take advantage.”

  “Good advice, but can’t figure out how he knew anything about wild animals. He was the noisiest man I ever went hunting with. Talk, talk, talk. I’d say, Pete, you gotta be quiet if you wanna see anything in the woods and he’d promise to be quiet. Not another word, he’d say. Ten minutes later, he’d remember something else and he was off again. Hell, if we saw anything to shoot, it was probably a sick animal, one that was either deaf or stupid.”

  Eddie laughed. How true all that was. He could see his grandfather now, sitting on the porch, reading or pretending to be engrossed in reading while Eddie worked on his school assignments. Every few minutes, his grandfather would interrupt him to relate another story or comment on something he was reading. Usually, Eddie had to retreat into the house to get his work done.

  “How bad was the boy hurt?”

  “Arm torn up some. They took him over to the hospital and he had to have a shot. I think it’s all this unusually early summer heat. It’s got the animals confused and irritable.”

  “Um,” Eddie said. He looked out at the wild bushes and forest as though he were looking for something special. Cy followed his gaze.

  “Screech owls have been playin’ havoc every night, too.”

  “You know about the two cases of rabies?”

  “Confirmed?”

  “Yeah. With a third under suspicion.”

  “Really? That hasn’t happened since …”

  They both turned to Gina, who was shouting for Cy. She began to cry as soon as she had their attention. Hilda Baum came out on the front porch.

  “Now what is it? Oh, hi, Eddie. I didn’t know you were here. What’s the matter, Gina?”

  “The rabbit… is gone.”

  “No. Can’t be,” Cy said. He looked to Eddie for confirmation, but Eddie only shrugged.

  “This whole idea of a pet rabbit has been nothing but trouble,” Hilda said. “It’s probably loose and hiding under something down there.”

  “I’ll help you find it,” Eddie said.

  “Stop crying, Gina,” Cy said. “We’ve got a policeman to help us. We’ll find him. Did he break loose of his leash?” She nodded. “You mean the leash is still around the post?”

  “A part of it is,” she said. Her body shook spasmodically. Eddie picked her up and the three of them headed for the basement.

  “Watch your head,” Cy said. Cy flipped the light switch and went right to the first beam. “I’ll be damned,” he said, taking it into his hands. “Chewed right through it.” He held the leash out to Eddie, who put Gina down and took the leash from him.

  “Smart rabbit.” Eddie looked around at the cartons and old furniture. It wasn’t a cluttered or a messy basement, because Cy Baum was too well-organized a man and hated any kind of disarray. Eddie remembered how neatly laid out his cornfields used to be. Cy anticipated Eddie’s question when he saw Eddie look back at the door.

  “Couldn’t have gotten out last night. I had that closed.”

  “Maybe it ran out when she opened it.”

  “Naw, spring closes it. She’da seen it. Let’s start here and work ourselves around. That way we might flush it out.”

  They began on the right. Gina remained in the middle, waiting for her rabbit to show itself. They pulled away nearly every piece of furniture and moved every carton. They checked every possible opening and hiding place, but the rabbit did not appear. Gina’s face became sadder and sadder.<
br />
  “You don’t have a hat around here that he could have disappeared into, do you, Cy?”

  “Damn.” He scratched his head and looked about. “Sure you didn’t see it run past ya, Gina?”

  “No, Grandpa.”

  “No lock on that door?” Eddie asked.

  “There is, but I don’t use it.”

  “So what do you make of this, Cy?”

  “Someone doesn’t want my granddaughter to have a pet rabbit. If my daughter-in-law was up here, I’d say it was her,” he added to lighten the moment. “What gets me is, how the hell did they know I put this one in the basement? They’d have to be spyin’ on me, for Chrissakes.”

  “And what about the leash?”

  “Well, maybe the rabbit chewed through it and afterward someone came in to get it. Had to happen during the night, though.”

  Eddie nodded and looked around again. Although Cy’s explanation sounded plausible, there was something that just didn’t feel right. He couldn’t explain it, so he didn’t even want to bring it up.

  “I’ll dig around a bit, Cy.”

  “Yeah. I guess I shoulda called you when the first one was let loose. Arnie wanted to do something about it then. Might as well go down and talk to those Cooper kids. You know how they are. I just didn’t think they’d stoop to something like this or have the nerve to sneak into my house.”

  “I’ll do that. Don’t worry, Gina. If your rabbit’s on this road, I’ll find it,” he said. The little girl nodded, but she didn’t look optimistic.