The True Detective

by Theodore Weesner

  Writing down the girlfriend’s name and address, telephone number and age, Dulac asks the girl if she knows what time it was that she saw the boy get into the car. The girl is able, as it turns out—on a couple more questions—to say almost exactly when it was because she and her girlfriend had just left Daddy’s Junky Music Store as it was closing at six o’clock. Did they stop anywhere else? No, the girl tells him. She’s absolutely sure of that? Dulac asks, reminding himself for the first time this morning not to close off his mind because they may have a suspect. They looked into windows, that was all, the girl explains, and together, the mother helping some more, they calculate that it was two and a half blocks later that they saw the boy being forced into a car.

  Dulac asks several more questions, mainly about the car and about the description of the boy, and then he thanks the girl and tells her she will be contacted if any more information is needed. Still leaning over the desk, he completes the tip sheet, entering a C in its priority space—meaning no follow-up is required and places it in the wire tray next to the computer where it will be double-checked, entered in the computer file on the case, and the sheet itself filed in a drawer.

  This done, mentioning to the chief’s secretary in passing that he will be right back, he goes looking for Shirley. Finding her at the coffee maker in the squad room, where Mizener as well as two uniformed officers are also gathered with styrofoam cups, he can tell at a glance that she has already heard the news. “Shirley,” he says, “there are some things I have to talk to you about right away, before I see the chief.”

  As she follows to his cubicle, he says, “We need to set up a press conference for ten thirty or so. In the squad room, so we can make this afternoon’s paper. Anyone who calls, from the media, give them the message; call anyone who hasn’t called, and ask them to attend.”

  “How real is this suspect?” Shirley says.

  “I’m not sure; he looks real to me. I’ll know more as soon as I talk to the witness again. Which is what I have to see the chief about. Do you know anything about our secret witness program?”

  “I guess I don’t. Why does it have to be secret?”

  “The guy is gay, the witness; he’s afraid it would hurt his job if it got out.”

  “Poor thing. What else do you have? Is that it?”

  “Is that what?”

  “You said you had several things.”

  “Well, this. We could have something here. If we do, and if the witness is good and cooperates, we could have a full description, even a composite, to put out at the press conference. Question is—what I wanted to ask you—if this is our guy, and if he is holding the boy, what do you think the effect on him would be, the impact, of a composite, a blast of info on him in the papers and on TV?”

  “Gil, what are you saying?”

  “The risk, you see. If we put out a blast of publicity, it seems a good chance that he’d snuff the boy, dispose of the body, and if we picked him up at all, assuming he didn’t take off, claim not to know anything about anything. The critical thing would be forcing his hand. Assuming the boy is still alive.”

  Shirley is looking at him. Pausing, she says, “You think he’s still alive?”

  “We have no reason to think otherwise.”

  “Gee, I don’t know, Gil. I’ll tell you what I think. I think the little boy was picked up by some creep Saturday night, and he never saw daylight again.”

  “That’s your gut reaction?”

  “I guess it is,” she says.

  In his disappointment, Dulac glances down to avoid looking in her eyes. He feels stabbed. Is he being naive? Usually it’s women and children who believe in the impossible. “I have to see the chief,” he says.

  As she starts away, he goes with her a step but turns back to his desk, as if he has forgotten something. Standing there, he feels once more as if he is going to break somehow. A faint anger comes up in him then and he goes on his way.

  CHAPTER 4

  VERNON IS WALKING ON CAMPUS. IN HIS STATE OF MIND HE knows he has parked again, left the boy again, in the Shop ’n Save parking lot. He had thought to look for Anthony but is not looking for or at anyone. His nerves are so pinched that when someone calls his name his heart leaps up and wants to run.

  There is Duncan, closing on him. “Quiet Man,” he says. “What in the world is going on with you?”

  Vernon is unable to say anything to this.

  “Leon says you’re pouting because he’s been so insulting. I said you have something going.” About Duncan’s face is an urge to smile.

  Vernon is unable to respond, and Duncan says, “Well, what is it?” still appearing eager to smile.

  “I’m in trouble,” Vernon says.

  “Trouble—what do you mean?”

  Vernon only looks, glances at him; he cannot say.

  “What kind of trouble?” Duncan says.

  “Life or death,” Vernon says.

  Duncan does more or less smile now. Then he says, “What does that mean?”

  Again Vernon cannot say, even as he is trying to think of something.

  As with all else, a conversation appears hopeless. There is a flash in his mind of the town police towing his car, discovering the boy there, putting A and B together. Was it happening right then? It would be the moment in his life, he is thinking, beyond which nothing would ever be so bad. The worst would be over.

  “Tell me,” Duncan is saying.

  They are approaching a Y-intersection, where it seems to Vernon they will part to go in different directions. As he steps to the side, however, to let other students go by, Duncan stays with him. “Tell me what that means,” Duncan says.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” Vernon says.

  Duncan is shaking his head. “Vernon, you don’t look real good, you know that?”

  “I’m not good,” Vernon says. “I’m not.”

  “What’s the problem? Where are you sleeping?”

  “In my car.”

  “In your car? Jesus Christ—is it Leon? Where are your books?”

  Vernon doesn’t say, cannot remember, although he is trying to think of something.

  “Tell me you’re not sleeping in your car because of that fucking Leon,” Duncan says.

  “I’m not,” Vernon says.

  “If you are, goddamit, I will not stand for it.”

  “I’m not,” Vernon says.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes—yes,” Vernon says.

  Duncan is looking at him. “Vernon, listen,” he says. “If you’re having problems, personal or whatever, why don’t you talk to me about them. Okay? That’s what friends are for, you know.”

  “Okay,” Vernon says. “I will. Later, though.”

  “You get back tonight or later this afternoon, we’ll talk over whatever the problems are. Will you do that?”

  “Okay,” Vernon says.

  “I mean it. I don’t care what the problems are. However personal, you understand? Nothing’s so bad it can’t be talked over and worked out. Okay? Do you need money?”

  “Money?”

  “Are you fixed okay for money? I can loan you some right now if you need it.”

  “No, no, I don’t,” Vernon says.

  “You be back later?” Duncan says. “I want you to say you’ll be back. We’ll talk things out. Tell me you’ll be back?”

  “I will,” Vernon says.

  “Okay,” Duncan says. “Good. I have to go to class. But I’ll see you later. I mean it now.”

  Vernon nods, as if in agreement.

  “Don’t forget now,” Duncan says.

  “I won’t,” Vernon says.

  Duncan nods and goes on, taking the leg to the left. Vernon waits another moment before turning back in the direction from which he came. Maybe he could blurt it out to Anthony, he is thinking. Maybe even to his mother, even as he knew she would not help him go undetected, or help him get away, or call a lawyer for legal assistance, that she would simply rage at hi
m with insane anger, with accusations, would scream at him why? why? why?

  At last though, or down deep, she would understand. Duncan would not understand, he thinks. Not ever.

  He reverses direction. Acting out the slightest role of having forgotten something, he turns to go in the direction he had been going in before running into Duncan. He doesn’t wish to return in the direction of his car. Why don’t they catch him? he thinks. How can he just walk here like this?

  He leaves the overcast air in a moment and turns into the library. Passing through its initial smell of overshoes, he discovers as if for the first time—beyond the long circulation counter—its dryness.

  Warm air and carpets. Peace and quiet. No cars or loud voices. No cruelty here. Why had he never seen that this was life, too? Why had he been so lonely so much, looked so much to others with whom to spend time? Could he stay here forever? he wonders. Would they let him live here, in this building with floors the size of parking lots filled with books?

  Might he trade his life in this way, as payment?

  CHAPTER 5

  MATT IS SITTING AT THE END OF A WOODEN BENCH IN THE locker room. He is waiting for the rush of boys to change into gym clothes and disappear into the gym—which they are doing, quickly, in the midst of a near-constant slam-slamming of locker doors. Matt likes the feeling of being here—it’s more like being home than home all at once—but he has no feeling to put on shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers and run around in the gym. He doesn’t have to be here anyway, he thinks, so it doesn’t matter if he misses gym. Or anything else. For an instant, however, he thinks of his mother at home alone, and his eyes close on him. It’s all so weird, he thinks.

  He looked to see Vanessa earlier, coming into the building, and he looked for her after his first class, and missed her both times. He doesn’t even know yet if she’s in school today. And he can’t go look for her now, even if he does know her room, because of the rule against anyone being in the hallway during classes without a pass. She is what fills his mind, though, he thinks. Eric is there, too, sort of, but not like he was earlier, and his mother comes up in flashes. Vanessa has a grip on him. She seems never to be far away.

  He could just take advantage, he thinks. Given the situation, who would hassle him? No, he tells himself, it wouldn’t be right. The thought of taking advantage of things makes him feel cheap.

  Still, a few minutes later, when he has walked throughout the empty locker room and has wondered again if what is happening is happening to him, he finds himself in an empty hallway, walking along. He isn’t sure what he is doing, knows only that he is tending in the direction of Vanessa’s classroom.

  He catches her eye, but it takes several long minutes. Looking through the glass half of the door on an extreme angle, she finally—in a movement of her head—sees him. She shakes her head once, as if seeing double. She smiles faintly, and looks back down. God, she is actually beautiful, he thinks. A real person sitting in there. He guesses he loves her, as it occurs to him that he’d do anything to be with her.

  When she looks his way again, however, there is something like a warning on her face as if to send him a message of another kind. He feels something of a fool and feels cheap again, but he doesn’t know how to get out of it either, and so he stands there, nearly against the wall, watching her, waiting for her to look up again.

  She doesn’t.

  It’s the racial thing, he thinks. She feels funny letting it show in public that they know each other.

  He does leave for a minute or two. Walking to one of the recessed drinking fountains, he leans down for a mouthful of lukewarm water. And he hears one of the hallway clocks click and looks to see its hand jump. Nothing makes sense, he thinks. Lost in space. That’s how he feels.

  From his angle again, he watches her. She doesn’t look his way and he wonders if she looked for him in the moments he was gone. When she comes out, though, when the class ends and the room begins to empty, and there she is with her friend Barbara, a moment later than it seems she should be, she says to him, too directly, “What are you doing?”

  He doesn’t know what to say. So surprised that she is critical, so dumbfounded that she has seen right into his taking advantage, he feels too humiliated to speak, even as he does walk along the hallway beside the two girls. “Well, I was just going to say hello,” he manages to say, as neither of the two girls has said anything more.

  He is slowing up to turn away, and Vanessa has a new expression on her face. “Okay,” she says. “You want to meet us for lunch?”

  “I have second lunch,” he says.

  “I know what lunch you have,” she says. “That’s what lunch we have. So meet us for lunch.”

  “Sure,” he says, “okay,” knowing already, in the humiliation he is experiencing, that he will not.

  “Anything new about your brother?” Vanessa says, as he is moving away.

  “No,” he says. “Why should there be?”

  Getting turned the rest of the way around, saying no more, he keeps going, with no idea where he is going. He moves along, thinking of the main door just ahead when a hand grips his shoulder and tries to stop him.

  “I’m sorry,” Vanessa says.

  “That’s okay,” he says. “No problem.” She seems to fade, and getting his back turned a second time, he continues on his way.

  Near the main door, though, there is Cormac, and another boy, and Cormac says to him, “Matt—hey, what’s going on? Have they found your brother?”

  “No,” Matt says. “No, not yet.”

  “Jesus, how’s it going?” the other boy says.

  “All kinds of rumors are going around,” Cormac says. “Even Mr. Kazur talked about it today, when he wasn’t saying nasty things about Reagan.”

  “A bunch of kids, I heard, are going to be given lie-detector tests,” the other boy says.

  “Who said that?” Matt says.

  “I could get one myself, because the police did talk to me,” Cormac says.

  “I heard it could have something to do with drugs,” the other boy says. “That your brother hit on somebody’s supply line and they took him hostage to teach him a lesson.”

  “Or knocked him off,” Cormac says. “That’s what I heard.”

  “Somebody else said they think the police might be in on it themselves because they control all the drug traffic and what happened is your brother accidentally discovered their network—”

  “Who said that?” Matt says. “I haven’t heard any of that stuff.”

  “I think that’s all bullshit,” Cormac says. “Who ever heard of something like that in some little town like this?”

  “They did pick up somebody,” Matt says. “This guy who offered Eric a ride. But they let him go. I do know that, because the police showed me his picture and asked me all kinds of questions about him.”

  “Wow—did they really?” the other boy says. “What kind of questions?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. I’m not supposed to say,” Matt says, and sensing the feeling of cheapness coming up in him again, moves away, saying, “I gotta go; I’m supposed to go in and answer some more questions myself.”

  You liar! he is thinking, passing through the door, walking into the air. Stupid liar! You make me sick.

  All it is, he says to himself as he turns on the main sidewalk and hurries along as if to escape—all it is is you’re more concerned with her than you are with your own brother. That’s why you came here. Because you’re a total zero. And she knows it.

  Leaving the curb, Matt breaks into a run, to get away from himself. Along the street, angling to cross, he slips between parked cars and lopes on, the air in his eyes.

  He feels an urge to go to the police station. That’s what he’ll do, he decides. Go see Lieutenant Dulac. On whatever pretext, he’ll go see that one person—he is realizing as he jogs away from himself, as his feet hit the sidewalk one after another—who understands things, who knows what is going on, who heard the things he had
to say and didn’t look at him like he was crazy.

  The idea seems so right, so appealing that Matt increases his pace. A glow comes up in his eyes.

  CHAPTER 6

  DULAC IS OUTSIDE, WALKING, GOING TO MEET THE WITNESS. The man called at nine, as agreed, and upon a brief exchange, as he declined to come to the police station, however casually or carefully, Dulac suggested they meet two blocks down the street at Fisherman’s Pier, near the wide river and away from any activity at this time of day.

  Walking out on the pier now—the restaurant is closed and there is only the choppy seawater around the pilings below, not to mention an occasional squawking gull or a fishing boat motoring by out in the river—Dulac is trying again, or still, to sort out his thoughts and questions, the possible moves and implications concerning both the suspect and the man he is about to meet.

  He is finding the air pleasant here, away from the confusion of phones and voices, almost away from the pressure itself of being directly responsible for the case. In the near shadow of the old Memorial Bridge, he waits next to a bleached wooden post and looks out over the green water lifting toward him in its massive way. Dulac is trying to think things out. There are a dozen things, it seems, to consider all at once, not least of all the possibilities of something inconsistent emerging to eliminate the suspect altogether, to have his tip sheet priority dropped from A double plus to C.

  His license plate has to be familiar, Dulac thinks. It has to be. Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts. Anything else would have spoken loud and clear, even if it was only seen in a rearview mirror. There’s no way a strange license plate would go unnoticed. Would it? Even on a short drive to sex?

  No. The license plate would be noticed. It was daylight. The plate had to be familiar. He’d bet on it.

  The details they have, he thinks. Two cheers at least for a gay witness. The suspect’s exact height. Five nine and three-quarters. Green eyes. Brown hair. Clean fingernails—well cared for—so he isn’t likely to be a laborer. Clean toenails, too, of all things. What does that mean? If the witness was as good with details as he had been so far on the phone, they should be able to come up with a composite approaching a photograph.