The man growled at him. The growl didn’t sound human at all. Nor was it like any animal Tony had heard. He heard a bear growl in a picture show once, and the lion on the picture credits screen, but this didn’t sound like either of those. Tony’s fear almost paralyzed him. His self-preservation instinct took over, however. He raised his knee and caught the man squarely in the groin. The man hesitated but didn’t seem as hurt as a blow like that should have made him. The hesitation, however, was enough to allow Tony to free himself from the man’s grip.
He ran through the cemetery gate and through it up Eternal Lane toward Main Street. The man was right behind him, but couldn’t catch up. Tony was clearly faster, but he was getting tired. He decided to go into the woods where he hoped that the man would not be able to see him.
He decided to go east even though his house was west. Surely, if the man knew who he was, he would expect Tony to go toward home. Instead he would cross him up and go through the woods back to Main Street. Then he could go along Main to home while the man was looking for him in the woods. As he entered the woods he stumbled over a downed branch lying directly in his path. It was about the size of a kid’s baseball bat. He picked it up and carried it in his hand just in case his escape plan didn’t work.
The plan worked just as he hoped it would. He entered Main Street near the bus stop and started along the street toward home. His only problem was that the man had guessed what he was going to do and was in the woods near the road to the cemetery waiting for him. As he approached, the man stepped out of the woods in front of him brandishing his long sword. So, he was probably not going to be able to outsmart the man. He had to move quickly, but couldn’t decide what to do. He made his decision too slowly. The man grabbed him from behind. He held Tony in a tight grip but he only got hold of Tony’s left arm. The man spun him around until they were facing each other. As he did, Tony raised the stick and caught the man squarely on the side of his head. The man hesitated. He didn’t seem as hurt as a blow like that should have made him, but he did lighten his grip on Tony’s arm and that was enough for Tony to twist free from the man’s grip.
Tony turned and ran toward home as fast as he had even run before. In less than a quarter minute he was there.
The man did not follow. Tony charged into the house ready to tell his parents what had happened and crashed into Lisa’s father who was standing in the entrance to the living room.
The man grabbed Tony by his arm, spun him around and pushed him across the room nearly making him fall.
Tony’s father was immediately on his feet. “Hey. What the hell are you doing?”
“Little bastard ran into me.”
“I’ll run into you if you touch him again.”
Lisa’s mother spoke up. “Hasn’t there been enough violence for you two men. We’re supposed to be here to see what this young one knows about Lisa. What did you boys do to my daughter?”
“We didn’t do anything to Lisa, Mrs. Demarco.”
“You were the last one beside that Brown boy to see her alive.”
“There were others there, too.”
“They won’t tell us anything.”
“And neither will we if you don’t calm down,” Tony’s father said.
“All right,” Lisa’s father said. “All we want to do is ask Tony a few questions.”
“Is that all right with you, Tony,” Tony’s mother said.
“Do I have to?”
“I think it might clear the air, Son.”
“All right.” Tony sat on the couch next to his dad.
Lisa’s mother rose from her seat and towered over Tony. “First off tell us what you saw when you saw Lisa down on the rock with that Brown boy.”
“I already told Mr. Bacon what I saw. I don’t see why I have to repeat it for you.”
“Be civil, Tony,” his mother said.
“I’ll be civil, but I won’t describe in detail what I saw that day. It’s a police matter. We should leave it to them. Mr. Bacon said that that place on the rocks is a crime scene, and what happened down there was a crime to which I was a witness, and I shouldn’t talk about it to anyone but the police, and I won’t.”
“Well, I guess that’s it,” Tony’s dad said. “Tony’s been instructed by the police to not discuss this with anyone but them. He hasn’t told even us what he saw in detail, and we certainly aren’t going to force him to tell you any more about it than you already know.”
Lisa’s mother sat back down. “I don’t see why you insist on protecting him on this. I’ll tell you what I think. I think your son and his friends Craig Cook, Tom Price, and Lee Sanders did something to my little girl and nobody is going to do anything about it.”
“Those guys are not my friends.”
“Is this why you and Cook got into a fight. Did he want to tell what happened and you and your friends fought him about it?”
Tony’s dad rose to his feet. “I think this has gone far enough. Thank you folks for stopping by this evening, but I think you had better go now.’
Lisa’s father was also on his feet. “I’m not going anywhere until we get to the bottom of this.”
“As of this minute, Demarco you are trespassing. If you don’t leave immediately, I’ll call the cops and have you ejected from this premises.”
Lisa’s mother walked to the door. “We’ll leave Stephen Hunter, but you haven’t heard the last of this.”
Tony’s dad slammed the door behind them.
Mom, Dad,” Tony said. I have something to tell you.”
“Go ahead, Son,” his mom said.
“I was attacked by a man tonight on the way home from the picture show. He jumped me between here and the bus stop and chased me. He had a big sword. I kneed him and got away.”
“Who was it,” Tony’s dad said?
“I couldn’t tell. It was too dark and he had on black clothes. He looked oriental to me but that can’t be. There’s none of them around here that I know about. He was dressed up in some kind of costume like you see in the picture shows. It was weird.”
Tony’s dad picked up the phone and called the police number.
Ten minutes later, Officer Bacon was at the door.
“Sorry it took me so long to get here. Based on what you told me on the phone, I have two officers out scouring the neighborhood right now. If you’d called me sooner, we would have a better chance of finding this man.”
“We had company when Tony got in,” Tony’s mother said. That’s the reason for the delay. He didn’t tell us what had happened until they left.”
“I assume that your company was the Demarcos. I saw them walking home on the way here. Was it a social visit?”
“Not likely,” Tony’s dad said. They wanted to ask him a lot of questions about their daughter. It got nasty real quick. I had to threaten to call you to get them to leave.”
“They have been going around town asking questions for some time. They seem to think that the boys had something to do with their daughter’s disappearance.”
“What do you think, Bacon?” Tony’s dad was pacing.
“I think that her disappearance is a police matter and I’m not at liberty to discuss what I or my department thinks yet.”
“But, off the record do you think Tony had anything to do with Lisa Demarco’s disappearance?
“Off the record, no.” Tony please come with me and show me where you were attacked and tell me exactly in as much detail as you can remember what happened out there? Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, you are welcome to accompany us if you wish.”
When the four of them were outside, Bacon suggested that they start at the bus stop and proceed to where Tony arrived back home. They walked the entire rout including the trek through the woods. Join pointed out where each thing happened and exactly what he did and what the man did.
When they got to the point where he wrestled with the man, Bacon interrupted him. “Describe the man to me.”
“He was fairly tall and a little hea
vy. Maybe as tall as you. I saw his face for just a second. It looked oriental with slanted eyes and a big mustache like in the old comic picture shows. He was wearing black billowy clothes like a costume from a picture show; like the costume they showed at the moving picture house today that was called a Japanese sam... something.
“Could it have been samurai.”
“Maybe. That sounds like it. He was wearing black slick looking gloves like shiny leather gloves. When I ran and he chased me he seemed to get out of breath fairly quick. I could head him breathing, almost wheezing but not really wheezing. It was like no sound I’ve heard before When I kneed him, he let out a sound almost like an animal’s growl. I thought maybe like a bear’s growl.”
“Have you ever heard a real bear growl?”
“Only in a picture show.”
“Anything else you can tell me about him?”
“Not really. It was dark and I was plenty scared. I didn’t take the time to study him real close. All I wanted to do was get away from him as quick as I could.”
“Well here we are back at your house. I’m going to join the others and see if we can find any trace of this man before the track gets too cold. If you think of anything else, call me.” He handed Tony his card.
“Do you think you’ll find him,” Tony’s mother said?”
“We might get lucky.
“But you don’t think you’ll find him tonight,” Tony’s dad said.
“The odds are against it. There was too long a time from the time he attacked and when we got the report. He’s most likely out of the area by now.”
“Do you think Tony needs to stay at home for a while?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. But, Tony, I wouldn’t go anywhere alone, especially at night, until we catch this freak. Okay.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I may just hide in my room for a while.” He said it to reassure the adults, but he had no intention of doing that. Now more than even he wanted to find out what happened to Lisa. He no longer believed that she had run off with Brown or that Brown had done something to her.
Chapter 6
On Sunday morning, Tony’s mother and dad took him to church and afterwards came home to eat dinner. It took his Mother almost an hour to cook the fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and peas and butterbeans as was usual for a Sunday dinner. Tony didn’t say much during dinner. He listened to his parents discuss family affairs and gossip about the neighbors but it was hard for him to concentrate on what they were saying. All he could think about was going with Ned to look for Lisa.
When they were finished, and eaten the lemon pie his dad suggested that they go for a ride, maybe go to see Tony’s grandparents. Tony begged off saying that he had promised to meet the guys at Ned’s house to practice their basketball.
Ned was in the garage, as usual, working on his book case. He had finished dinner and was ready to go with Tony to the river.
On the way to the river, they talked about their current situation.
“You’re really flipped on Lisa, aren’t you,” Ned said?
“Have been since I was about ten. I day dreamed about seeing her naked, but I had trouble imagining it. The only naked female I had ever seen was on a French postcard Craig stole from his dad’s dresser. The picture was so fuzzy you couldn’t really see much. One side of the card showed her from the rear. Her butt was round and plump. On the other side of the card was a picture of her from the front. The ends of her breasts were covered with tassels. Her bottom, the part I really wanted to see, was covered with a panel of cloth. You thought you could see something, but you really couldn’t. I had a dream one time in which I got a girl to undress, but the dream ended there because my brain couldn’t fill in what she looked like naked.
“One night last summer I snuck over to Lisa’s house and peeked in her window. She got down to her pink panties and bra, and pulled the curtains closed. It was almost like she knew somebody was out there and wanted whoever it was to see that much and no more. I decided right then that night that when I grew up I was going to marry Lisa and live happily with her ever after, in a rose covered cottage, with a white picket fence, just like in that movie Mom took me to see in Petersburg.”
“Did you ever try to do anything about your feelings?”
“I asked her to go to a movie with me last March. She said that she was flattered, but her friends would laugh her off the school bus if she went to the movies with a grade school boy. After all, she told me, ‘I’ll be going to junior high school next year.’ I never realized that she was that old before. I just always thought of her as Lisa. I thanked her anyway, figuring that I’d ask her again when I got a little older. Now, I wonder if I’ll ever get that chance.”
“Sure you will. She’ll turn up.”
“I wish I could believe that. I think she won’t. I think they will never find her.”
“You think she ran away with that Brown kid?”
“I don’t want to believe that.” They entered the cemetery.
Ned walked a little closer to Tony. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“Me too, but I thought it was just me.” He had no intention of telling Ned about the soldier. Ned would just think his imagination had gotten away from him and wouldn’t believe that it actually happened. He wanted to tell Ned about the samurai warrior, and he would, but that could wait until, later after they finished looking for Lisa.
“I think this place affects everybody that way. I keep expecting one of these graves to open up and a white skeleton to rise up out of it and come after me. Even Eric complained about it and he’s a year older.”
“I didn’t think Eric was afraid of anything.”
“Eric’s big and brave, but he’s still just a kid. A lot of his brave is a front.”
“Just the same, I wish he was here now.”
“He’s coming. I saw him a little while ago. He had something to do, but he should be here any time.”
“Are we supposed to wait for him?”
“He said he would see us at the river and to wait for him there.”
Once they were past the last grave stone, the two boys split and went down the curvy path down the steep hill single file. Ned stopped at the old spring and took a drink from it.
“I wouldn’t drink from that thing,” Tony said. “There’s cows upstream from it.”
“I never heard of anybody getting sick from the spring.”
“Me neither, but there may be cow piss or shit in it all the same.”
“I never thought of that.” He wiped his mouth and spit.
“Here we are.” Tony slid down the bank into the canal and climbed up the river side of it. “Down there’s where they were, right out on the flat rocks just up from the swimming hole. They were doing it on the rocks.”
“Could you really see what they were doing?”
“It was a long way away. I could see them moving and I could hear them moaning, but I couldn’t see much in detail. Hey. Here comes Eric.”
“Hi guys,” Eric said. “Is that where it happened?”
“Let’s go down and I’ll show you exactly where they were on the rocks.” They climbed and skidded down to the mud flat at the bottom of the bank, and walked out onto the rocks. Tony led the way to the spot where the couple had been. “Right here,” He began to look around, inspecting every inch.
“Don’t you think the police have already done that,” Ned said.
“They might have missed something.”
“Not likely,” Eric said.
Nevertheless, they continued to look closely at the area for a while. They saw nothing helpful.
“Where did they go up the far bank?” Eric started walking south toward the far bank?
Tony passed him and walked slowly to the spot where he had seen them disappear into the woods. On the way, he took the time to inspect every inch of the path they had taken. Again, he saw nothing useful. “They went over the bank and into the woods right here.” The bank on t
he south side of the river was as high as that on the North. It formed the side wall of the canal on that side of the river, which, unlike the north canal, was filled with water.
“Maybe,” Tony said. “Or maybe they swam across right here.”
“Or maybe they didn’t cross into the woods at all,” Ned said. “Maybe he parked his car down in the old park where the merry go round used to be, and they just walked down to the bridge, crossed over to the park, got into his car, and drove away.”
“So, what do we do now?” Eric said
“My guess is that they crossed the canal right here,” Tony said. “They didn’t know who was up on the other bank. They may have thought it was just a bunch of kids, but they had no way of being sure. I’m betting that the police would guess that they would have parked in the old park and walked down there. They would search there and find nothing. Suppose they parked on the Potaucac side of the river, maybe even in the woods next to the cemetery. We would never have seen a car in there. If they had parked up in the old park on the south side of the river, they would probably not have come all the way down here. It’s at least a half mile.
“So, if they were on the rocks near the north bank, why would they go all the way across the river? There are plenty of flat spaces on the south side. If they parked next to the cemetery, they would have to get back across the river.”
“Then why wouldn’t they just walk west on the south side of the bank to the bridge and cross the river down there?” Ned asked.
“Somebody might have seen them.”
“What difference would that have made?” Eric said?
“None at all,” Ned said, “Except that they were not just a young white couple out for a stroll. People would have seen them, recognized her, and it would be all over town in two hours.”
“Maybe twenty minutes,” Tony said. “Okay, if they didn’t cross the bridge into the Crossing. They had to across the canal.”
“And back across,” Eric said. “They would have been soaking wet.”
“In the first place, they were carrying their clothes. Lisa at least was not wearing her regular clothes anyway. Supposed they stashed them somewhere and went back across the canal to get them. She sure couldn’t go home wearing red panties and a black bra. They went wherever her go-home clothes were and exchanged them. Probably left the ones she wore with him somewhere and wore her regular clothes home. Then they walked down to the bridge, crossed the canal on the power company’s pedestrian bridge below the car bridge and dropped back down on the south bank. There would have been little chance of someone spotting them if they had done that. They then walked down to right here and crossed over the river on the rocks.”
The Watcher: A Tony Hunter Novel Page 4