Safer

by Sean Doolittle

  “I don’t mind at all.” I hear what sounds like a whisk on a stainless steel bowl. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I ran across a piece of information that I wanted to corroborate with you. But I also wanted to see how you’d feel about my using it.”

  “Oh? This sounds interesting.”

  “Well, it’s awkward. You just tell me if it’s none of my business, all right? I’m not out to embarrass anyone.”

  “I can’t imagine. What is it?”

  “It has to do with your husband, actually. James?”

  “Ha.” Is it my imagination, or does the whisking get louder? “We don’t refer to him by that name here. Here we call him the son of a bitch. What about him?”

  “Before you left Clark Falls, Roger helped you file a missing-person report? On the son of a bitch?”

  “Good grief.” The whisking pauses. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

  “I understand that Roger helped you recover child support.” Myrna Webster seems like a very nice person. She doesn’t deserve to be manipulated this way. “Is that right?”

  More whisking, then the sound of water running in a sink. “Well, not entirely.”

  “No?”

  “There was child support, if you want to call it that.” Plates clatter together. “The son of a bitch left a college bond for ten thousand bucks on each of the boys’ pillows when he left.”

  “Really.”

  “He must have been planning that for a while.” Myrna snorts in my ear. “It sure as hell wasn’t money I knew about. But the minute I saw it I knew we’d never see the son of a bitch again.”

  “I see.”

  “I never told Roger about that. He’d liked James. And James…” Myrna pauses again. The silence on her end of the line seems vaguely grudging. Finally she sighs. “My husband was a son of a bitch, but he cashed in vacation days at work to go help when they were looking for Brandon. I know that always meant a lot to Roger.”

  I proceed as carefully as I can. “Listen, this has nothing to do with my story. But if you don’t mind my asking, why did you report him missing?”

  “I guess it won’t seem to make a lot of sense, explaining it now,” she says. “But back then, after what happened to Brandon…”

  She stops.

  “Mrs. Webster?”

  “I’m sorry. I still get a little choked up.”

  “Please, don’t be sorry.”

  “You know, I used to babysit Brandon. He and my oldest were the same age, and my youngest was only two years behind. I can’t help thinking about that sometimes.”

  “Of course.”

  “They played together, all three of our boys. Ran all over those woods, rode their bikes all over town. Brandon must have slept over at our place every other weekend the summer before he …” She stops again. “Well.”

  “I’m sorry to bring all of this up.” I’m not lying about that. It’s not easy to feel very good about myself, playing games with this woman, but I think I can find a way to live with it. I don’t think I can find a way to live with this burning in my gut.

  “I don’t think either of them have ever really gotten over it. My boys.” Her voice seems to tighten. “I suppose I was fibbing before, when I told you I couldn’t afford to keep up the house after the son of a bitch left. The truth is, I just couldn’t live there anymore.”

  “That’s certainly understandable.”

  “And my sons. I think it did them good, getting away from that house. Those woods.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “Anyway.” She seems to pull her thoughts back from the same woods she’s remembering for me. “Please don’t put this in your story, but the truth is, I filed that report more for Roger’s sake than for myself.”

  “For Roger’s sake? How so?”

  “He seemed so concerned,” she says. “The way James just up and disappeared, without a word to anyone … well. Roger had his own experience with that.”

  “Yes. I suppose he did.”

  “He wanted me to be sure nothing had happened to the son of a bitch.” Myrna clears her throat. “I guess I thought that if I filed the report, like Roger wanted me to, he could put it out of his mind. Maybe he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m glad you called,” she says. “I wouldn’t want Roger to hear all this from a newspaper story after all these years. He’s such a good man.”

  I don’t have the heart to dispute this. “I’m glad I called too.”

  “Seems like you can’t believe half what you read anymore,” she says.

  “Thank you again, Mrs. Webster. I certainly appreciate the information.”

  “You have a merry Christmas, Ben.”

  40.

  ALL THE WAY ACROSS TOWN, Myrna Webster’s voice hounds my thoughts. My husband was a son of a bitch. But he cashed in vacation days at work to go help when they were looking for Brandon.

  Surely what I’m thinking can’t really be possible. And yet I can’t shake the memory of something Roger told me, that day he took me to the hemlock grove.

  One theory went that he might have made himself part of the search. That’s what Roger had said. He could have joined the volunteers… used the search tracks to hide his own.

  According to the dates in Myrna’s police report, James Webster didn’t abandon his family until long after Brandon Mallory’s disappearance. More than two years had passed since the boy’s body had been found in the woods behind Sycamore Court.

  There were other theories, Roger told me. None of those ever checked out either.

  I stop at a drugstore on the corner of Fifth and Van Dorn. I find what I’m looking for in the electronics section, near the cameras and computer discs and batteries. I stand in line and pay at the register, return to my car and drive on.

  Surely what I’m thinking can’t be possible. And yet I can’t help remembering our first Saturday morning in Clark Falls. The day after Darius Calvin broke into our house, a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

  I imagine Roger walking across the circle to invite us to the emergency meeting of the Ponca Heights Neighborhood Association—all the while knowing that our wolf was a phony, a masquerade he’d arranged himself. Just wanted to make sure you knew you were welcome.

  I imagine Roger crossing the same circle eight years ago. When Myrna Webster and her two sons still lived there, after her husband James had deserted his unit.

  He wanted me to be sure nothing had happened to the son of a bitch.

  Surely what I’m thinking can’t be possible.

  And yet I can’t stop thinking about the fact that there are four names of authority contained in the report Myrna Webster eventually did file on her missing husband.

  One of them is my neighbor. Another owns the company that installed our security alarm after our break- in. Another belongs to the family of my neighbor’s deceased wife, and the last is our own Detective Harmon.

  Among these names, there’s only one person left I can reasonably expect may not know me on sight. According to Debbie’s research, I can find him in Room 242 at Clark Falls Mercy General.

  “Can I help you, sir?” The nurse seems to recognize me, but she’s not sure why. The name tag on her smock says Harriet.

  “Ben,” I tell her. “I’m a friend of the family?”

  “Of course, yes. I knew your face was familiar. I’m sorry.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  Harriet offers a kind smile. “We’re doing what we can to make him comfortable.”

  A youth group from one of the local churches is going from room to room, singing carols. At the moment, they’re doing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” in Room 242.

  “Is it all right if I step in when they’re finished? I don’t mean to stay long.”

  “Of course.” Harriet touches my arm. “He might not recognize you. He goes in and out with the pain.”

  “That’s okay. I just wanted to stop by.
”

  “I’m sure he’ll enjoy the company.” She takes a last look at me, smiles again, then goes about her business. Meanwhile, the church group wraps up with a rousing four- part rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

  When they’re finished, the carolers smile and pass their wishes to me as they file one by one out of the room. They’re all wearing their scarves and hats and mittens, as though moving about a neighborhood, stopping on wintry doorsteps. One guy has sweat running down his face.

  I wait for the last of them to clear the doorway, then step inside. The room is dark except for the flickering light of the muted television mounted on the wall. It’s quiet except for the occasional beep from a machine beside the bed. The distant sound of the carolers starts up again in another room.

  The old man in the bed looks like a pile of bones wrapped in tissue paper. His eyes are open, but he doesn’t appear to be looking at anything. His mouth is slack.

  Van Stockman’s father has taken a hard ride downhill since I last saw him. Two weeks ago, the man was sitting up in his easy chair, growling at strangers. Eight years ago, he was still on the police force. He can’t be more than seventy years old.

  Is it cancer? Cancer and five other terminal diseases? What ever is killing him, it’s killing him.

  “Captain Stockman?”

  In the dimness, I can see him blink. After a moment, his head sags toward the sound of my voice.

  I walk over to the bed. One of his hands clutches the railing. The other rests on his bloated stomach. Laced in his wasted fingers is a crucifix on a rosary. He looks up at me with dull, sunken eyes.

  I nod. “Merry Christmas, sir.”

  He says something, but his voice is little more than a rasp. When I lean forward, he lifts his hand from the railing, gestures limply toward the roll- around table beside the bed. There’s a drink bottle half filled with water, the words Clark Falls Mercy General stamped on the side. I put down my coat, pick up the bottle, and hold the straw against the old man’s lips.

  He sips. Some of the water slips from the corner of his mouth, following a crease in his neck all the way down to the pillow. I put the bottle back on the table.

  Clair Mallory’s father clears his throat. “You’re the reporter.”

  “That’s right.” He knows me on sight after all. He just doesn’t know who I am. “I’m the reporter.”

  He coughs. It sounds like a shovel blade scraping wet earth. His eyes move to the ceiling. Clods of mud shift in his chest as he breathes. “Hell you want?”

  From my coat pocket, I take out the small digital voice recorder I bought at the drugstore on my way here. Ironically, it’s exactly the kind of tool a legitimate reporter might use. Brandon Mallory’s grandfather watches me. His eyes move to the small red light that blinks on when I press the record button.

  “I’m here to ask you about a man named James Webster,” I tell him. “He used to live across the street from your daughter.”

  Stockman looks at me.

  “James Webster’s wife reported him missing eight years ago. You signed off on the paperwork. Do you remember?”

  His eyes seem to focus for a moment, then drift back to the ceiling.

  “James Webster, sir. Thirty-four Sycamore Court. Right across from Clair and Roger. And Brandon.”

  I hear beads click faintly. The old man’s rosary hand moves and falls still.

  Surely what I’m thinking can’t be possible, and yet, in this moment, I know that my darkest speculation is true. It’s almost as if the old man has been waiting for me. For this.

  “You remember,” I say. “Don’t you?”

  Stockman exhales. His breath hitches and clogs on the way out. On impulse, I reach out and take his other hand. I stand by his bed, looking down at him, already half shrouded in hospital sheets.

  His skin is cool. His knuckles feel like marbles under silk. Somewhere, in the physical connection between us, I can feel what this dying man needs. If the world were right, I’d be the priest from his church. Or even the hospital chaplain.

  But it’s only me.

  “Tell me what happened to James Webster.”

  Stockman looks at the recorder. For a moment, he seems transfixed by its patient red light.

  Beads click.

  The crucifix moves: three weak taps, the cross barely lifting, dragging the soft fabric of the gown along with it.

  “We put him in the woods,” he says.

  They say an old dog can sense when the end is near.

  Maybe Gaylon Stockman has been clinging to the instincts that compelled him, as a young man, to swear himself into service of the common good. Maybe he realizes that he’s tethered to a stake and looking his wolf in the jaws.

  I tell myself that I’ve done him a favor. I’ve given him permission to cut himself free before the wolf tears into his belly.

  The truth is, I’ve only tricked a frightened man into telling me a secret. His wolf is hungry.

  The victorious warrior wins first.

  “I made them wait,” he tells me.

  For two years, they knew what James Webster had done. Every volunteer from the search party had been interviewed as part of the original investigation, and Webster had been cleared along with everyone else. But then, at some point during that first terrible summer—after Brandon had been found and Clair Mallory had taken her own life—the neighborhood raccoons had gotten into the Webster family’s garbage.

  “God forgive what I did to that man,” Stockman says, and at first I assume he’s talking about James Webster. Then I realize he’s talking about Roger. “But I made him wait.”

  The old man looks toward the opposite corner of the room while he’s talking, as if watching an old dusty slide show over there. He can’t speak more than a few words without running out of breath, and he clicks the morphine button like a ticket counter. At some point the pain steals his clarity; he begins to mix up his facts. He loses his place, repeats himself. Sometimes his oldest daughter is alive. Sometimes she’s gone.

  Brandon is always gone. Always twelve.

  And it’s always raccoons that get into the garbage.

  That was how Roger found a school paper with Brandon’s name on it. Sometimes it’s a shoe, or a pair of underwear. Stockman tells this part of the story a handful of times, and each time, the damning evidence changes. But it’s always the raccoons who find it.

  For two years, they’d known. For two years, Roger had lived across our circle from the man he believed had murdered his son. Two years watching. Two years waiting.

  “Rodge, he kept tabs on that son of a bitch.” Stockman finds the strength to nod. “You can believe that. God knows he had to do something.”

  I hear Myrna Webster’s voice: He wanted me to be sure nothing had happened to the son of a bitch.

  “Couple years in the clear, the son of a bitch starts driving across town, middle of the day. Watching schoolyards. You see?”

  What I see, when I close my eyes, are Pete and Melody Seward, walking up a slope, their faces like masks.

  By the time he’s finished talking, I would swear that the old man’s face has changed. We put him in the woods. It’s almost as if a mask has fallen away. Beneath, he looks almost at peace. His strength is spent, and he looks grateful to rest.

  At least that’s what I’m telling myself when I hear the door to the room close behind me.

  I turn expecting a nurse and see my own folly.

  Van Stockman must be off duty. He’s wearing jeans and a flannel coat. He turns from the door, one hand still on the lever, eyes black beneath his brow.

  The man beside him wears a suit and an overcoat. His tie is loose, collar unbuttoned. I can see the dull gleam of a gold badge on his belt. I don’t need to see his face to know that I’m not the victorious warrior.

  “Good news,” Detective Harmon tells me. “We found the guy who broke into your house.”

  41.

  BEFORE CUFFING MY HANDS together in fron
t of me, Harmon looks at Van Stockman.

  Van Stockman is busy watching his dying father. After a minute, he looks at the floor. Shakes his head.

  Harmon puts a hand on his neck. “Okay.”

  I feel like I’m floating. I wouldn’t know my feet were touching the floor if I didn’t look down. While I’m looking down, Detective Harmon snaps the cuffs on my wrists and squeezes until they bite.

  “Am I under arrest?” My voice sounds distant and muffled in my ears, as if I’m underwater.

  “Something like that.” He grips the chain connecting the handcuffs together and applies subtle pressure. The pain brings me straight back to Earth, almost all the way to my knees.

  Harmon leads me a few steps and stops at the door. He pockets my voice recorder, turns to Van Stockman, and says, “Take your time.”

  Van Stockman hasn’t stopped staring at me. He looks like he wants to do things. Things that will make Timothy Brand look like he tripped on a flower and fell into a pile of pillows.

  “Van.”

  Stockman finally breaks the glare.

  Harmon nods at him.

  With that, Van Stockman takes a long breath and lets it out slowly. He turns and approaches the bed.

  “Pop,” I hear him say, taking the old man’s hand.

  I hear a buzz, like an insect trapped in cotton. Harmon holds my tether in one hand and digs in his coat pocket with the other. He flips open his phone, holds it to his ear. He listens a moment, then quietly says, “Okay.”

  I’m seeing the situation now. Numb is gone. Anger is back. When Detective Harmon closes his phone, I say, “I don’t think you’re supposed to use those up here.”

  He smiles. It’s not so different from the smile I remember seeing in my living room five months ago, when he was helping us. He leans close and speaks softly in my ear. “More good news. Your wife is home.”