It banged against the door and clawed to move the handle. She was out there, screaming. But the handle wouldn't move. It heard her out there screaming, and it dimly understood that she was gripping at the handle, pulling at the door. It knew that there was no way to reach her. More than that, it understood the danger. Others would be coming. They would trap it. Have to get away. It swung to find an exit, saw the open window, the screen, then the porch and the open air, and it was charging forward, leaping, slamming at the screen. The mesh pressed, cutting at its face. The screen gave way, and it was falling through, the porch rising up to meet it. Darkness. Pain. It shook its head, the salt taste flooding its mouth. Then it could see again, and spitting, gagging, it vaulted across the railing toward the bushes.
"Warren!" it heard someone screaming.
TWO
Slaughter heard as he came driving toward the outskirts. He reached for the microphone. "I've got it, Marge." He switched on the siren and the emergency flasher, staring now at Dunlap. "Well, that drink will have to wait." He pressed hard on the gas pedal, racing past the houses, swerving onto a sidestreet, people staring, as the siren wailed and he was concentrating on the street that stretched before him.
Five o'clock. The forest had become increasingly dark as they hiked down through it toward the cruiser. The sun had been low toward the mountains, and the dusk among the trees had lengthened. They'd almost lost their way, but then Slaughter had noticed the big boulder that he'd chosen as a landmark. It was farther to the left than he had figured, and they'd cut across, then found the loggers' road, and worked along it to the gate. He'd heard that skittering noise again but hadn't paid attention, just had wanted to get over to the cruiser, and he'd slowly backed the cruiser, Dunlap outside watching to make sure the rear wheels didn't jolt down into a sinkhole. Soon he'd swung the cruiser so the front was facing downward. Dunlap got in, and they'd bumped across the saplings and bushes down the road to reach the highway. Even so, the fading light made driving harder, and Slaughter's eyes were strained as he finally moved out from the trees to cross the rangeland. All he wanted was a drink and then some supper, thinking he would check in at the station first, but now he wouldn't have the chance, staring at Dunlap who was fumbling with his camera, both hands shaking, his tongue persistent at his lips.
"You ought to have a bottle with you for emergencies."
"I left a pint back in my room. I figured I'd be brave."
"Well, I can't take the time to drop you off."
"Hell, I wouldn't want you to."
Slaughter squealed around a corner, swerving just in time to miss a young boy in a wagon, thinking, Sure, if you're not careful, you'll hit one kid, rushing to find out about another. Slow down. There's no point in racing if you never get there.
But he couldn't force himself to slow. He strained to watch for people stepping from a corner or from cars parked on the side. He roared through an intersection, one car coming at him from the other way, then swung around another corner as he saw the people up there and the cars along the street and one tall woman standing, crying, other women grouped around her.
As everyone turned toward the cruiser, Slaughter reached down to flick off the siren and the flasher. Other people were crossing toward the house, and at last he was forced to slow. He stopped by a car before the house, double-parking, switching off the engine, reaching for his hat. A plumber's truck was coming toward him. It stopped as he slipped out from the cruiser, walking toward the lawn. He glanced toward the truck and saw a tall man jump out, running toward the group of women, and he guessed that this was the husband as they both came to the women at the same moment. Pushing through, Slaughter vaguely had the sense of Dunlap just behind him. He didn't want Dunlap learning too much, but he couldn't take the time to send him to the cruiser.
The woman clung to her husband.
"Peg, what happened?"
"He attacked me."
"Who?" And that was Slaughter, stepping closer.
She kept sobbing. "Warren did." She gasped for breath.
And Slaughter had a name at least.
"My God, what happened to your leg?" the husband blurted.
They stared at the blood that oozed down her leg and across her shoe.
"He bit me."
"Bit?" her husband said.
"I'm telling you. I couldn't keep away from him."
"Where is he?" Slaughter asked.
"The window. He was crawling like an animal."
Slaughter hurried toward the house. It was a single-story with a porch along the front and down the left side. He guessed that Warren was the boy he'd heard about when Marge had called, and he was thinking that he'd better look in through the windows rather than go into the house and risk the chance of something coming at him. He passed the aspen in the front yard and charged up the stairs. The porch rumbled under him as he looked first in at the living room and, seeing nothing, rushed along the side. Another window toward the living room, but he didn't look through it. He stopped, frowning at a broken screen that hung out from another window. Then he drew his gun-a gun against a little boy?-and swallowed, looking in at what had been a bedroom. But the place was wrecked in there, and he could see the blood, both on the floor inside and on the porch out here, turning toward where it was on the railing just above the broken bushes at the side. He stared off toward the gravel lane back there and sprinted toward the front again.
The woman had continued sobbing as her husband held her. People stood back from them, watching, murmuring to each other.
"Did he break out through the bedroom window?" Slaughter asked.
She nodded, gasping for more breath.
"He ran down toward that lane in back?"
"I didn't see. I only heard the noise, and when I looked in, he was gone. What in God's name made him do it?"
"I don't know yet. But believe me, I'll do everything I can to find out."
"I don't understand why he would bite me." She sobbed uncontrollably as Slaughter ran toward the cruiser, picking up the microphone.
"Marge, we've got a situation here. That young boy had some kind of breakdown. He attacked his mother. Now he's running loose. I want everybody looking for him. Have you got that?"
"Affirmative."
"The same address you gave me. And one thing more. I want the medical examiner."
"Somebody's dead?" Marge asked in alarm.
"Just get him. There's no time to talk about it. I'll call back in fifteen minutes."
Slaughter hung up the microphone. He hadn't thought to ask the mother, but he knew the answer even so, although he had to check for certain, and he slipped out from the cruiser, staring at Dunlap who was near him, and then running toward the woman yet again.
She continued to cling to her husband.
"Mrs. Standish." He had seen the name on the mailbox. "Mrs. Standish, look, I know that this is hard for you, but please, I need to ask some questions."
She slowly turned to him.
This would bring the trouble into the open, Slaughter knew, but he had to ask the question. He glanced at the people near him, turning so his back was to them.
"Did your son complain about an animal that maybe got too rough with him? A dog that bit him, or a cat? Anything like that?"
They stared at him.
"But I don't understand," the woman said.
"No bites at all," the husband said. "We told him not to play with animals he didn't know."
"He cut himself," the woman said, and Slaughter looked at her.
"What is it?" she was asking.
"I don't know. Just tell me how he cut himself."
"Some broken glass," her husband said. "A barrel in the lane back there."
Slaughter felt puzzled. He'd been certain that the boy was bitten. "Several weeks ago. Think back. Did anything seem strange to you?"
"This morning."
"What?"
"He cut himself this morning. Why a dog bite? Why is that important?"
&nbs
p; Slaughter couldn't bring himself to say it. "We've had trouble with those wild dogs in the hills. It's nothing. Look, I need a picture of your son. To help my men identify him."
He hoped that he'd changed the subject, and they looked at him and slowly nodded, walking toward the house, Slaughter just behind them. He really didn't understand now. If the boy had not been bitten, why had he behaved the way he did? Maybe what he'd said to Marge was true. The boy just had a breakdown. Maybe they mistreated him. Maybe he fought back and ran from home. The only way to know was to find the boy, and as the couple went inside the house, Slaughter turned to frown toward the sun. It was almost below the western mountains. Dusk would be here soon, then night, and how on earth they'd find the boy when it was dark, he didn't know.
He peered in at the living room. The place was absolutely clean and ordered. Surely anyone who kept a home so well was not the type to beat a child. But he'd been fooled that way back in Detroit, and he was wishing that his men were here so they could set out, looking for the boy.
The husband came back with a picture. Blond and bright-faced, blue eyes, in his Sunday suit. The boy was much like Slaughter's son had been at this age, and he had some trouble looking at the picture. God, the boy must be in terror out there. Slaughter couldn't show his feelings, though. He simply told the father, "Thank you. I'll return it."
"Listen, my wife's too upset to come back out and talk about this. Find him, will you?"
Slaughter heard the sirens, pivoting as two cruisers pulled up in the street. "We'll have him back. I promise." Then he paused. "I think your wife should see a doctor."
"She'll be all right once she rests a little."
"No, I mean her leg. A human bite. It's probably infected."
"I'll take care to clean it."
"Take her to a doctor," Slaughter told him. "I'll check back to see about it. Look, I have to go."
He stepped from the porch, the photograph in his hand, the policemen coming toward him.
"This is who we're looking for," he said. "Warren is his name, and he's no doubt scared. But stay away from him. He's just a kid, but he attacked his mother, and I don't want any of you hurt."
They waited, looking at the picture.
"You two check the streets down this way. You two check the other way. I'll take the lane in back. Remember. Don't get careless just because he's little. I don't know what's happened here, but something isn't right."
Abruptly Slaughter faced the people on the lawn. "Everything's okay now. We'll take care of things. I want you all to go back to your homes."
But they just stood and looked at him.
"Come on. Let's move it."
Slaughter approached them, gesturing for them to leave, and slowly they dispersed.
"You'll know soon enough how this turns out. Just go back to your homes."
He turned toward his men. They were getting in their cars, and he was all alone, except for Dunlap.
"There's no chance to take you to your room," Slaughter said.
"I was hoping there wasn't."
"Hey, I know you need a story, but if word of this gets out, I told you there'll be a panic."
"I'll be careful."
"I assume I have your promise on that."
Dunlap nodded, looking puzzled. "But if the boy wasn't bitten."
"Yes, I know. It doesn't make much sense." They got in the car.
At the corner, Slaughter steered right, then right again, slowing as he started up the lane. He'd had to make a choice: here or where the lane continued to the left. But this direction took them toward the house the boy had fled from, and he figured that would be the place to start his search, so he was staring up the lane, then at the backyards and the houses on each side.
"I can't watch for everything. You check the yards on your side. I'll check over here."
"Hell, a kid, he could be anywhere."
"Just think of how the yards would look to someone small. A crawl space underneath a shed. A low spot in some bushes. Places an adult would never figure."
"Or he's maybe half a mile from here."
"Don't even think that," Slaughter told him. He was driving past the backyard of the house now, slowing even more, then stopping.
"What's the matter?"
"I just want to look at something."
Slaughter stepped from the cruiser, walking toward a metal barrel near the gravel lane. What made him stop was the blood along the rim and down the barrel. He studied the blood on the ground as well, noticing the large drops leading toward the house. He peered inside the barrel, saw the rusty cans, the broken glass, the blood across it, and the woman had been right. So why then had the kid behaved the way he did?
He glanced around for places where the boy could hide, stooped to check underneath some bushes by the shed, then straightened, walking to the cruiser. Dunlap asked him, "Anything?" But Slaughter only shook his head and worked the gearshift, driving slowly down the lane.
The radio crackled. "Chief, it's Marge. I haven't found the medical examiner."
Slaughter grabbed the microphone. "Well, keep trying. Stay there until you get him. I need lots of help on this. I've got plenty of questions."
They were at a side street now. Slaughter saw a German shepherd on a chain in one backyard. The dog was lunging, held back by the chain as it glared at them. Slaughter studied it a moment. Then he looked across the street toward where the lane continued. Far along it, at the end, he saw the large trees of the city park and all the places where a boy could hide, not to mention all the places in the backyards of the lane. He was looking both ways on the side street. A cruiser went by, and Slaughter nodded grimly to the driver. Then staying to the search plan, he moved across the side street and down the lane. The thing is, he was thinking, we don't have much time until it's dark, and what the hell is that kid doing now? He maybe just was angry at his mother. What, though, if he's crazy? How do we behave if someone traps him and the kid attacks again?
THREE
The medical examiner scowled. He had been a star in his profession once, back in Philadelphia, but that had been ten years ago. Born and raised in Potter's Field, he had left the town to go to school. A doctor's son, he'd wanted to be like his father. He had guessed that he would be a surgeon, but when he had finished pre-med, staying on at Boston for his training, he had found that diagnostics more than surgery attracted him. His father had approved. After all, those specialties were quite compatible. A lot of men could cut, but not as many could detect a cause, and a combination of both could earn considerable fees.
But the son had soon determined he would specialize much more than that. Searching out diseases not just in the living but the dead as well. Pathology, and in particular those duties strictly relegated to a medical examiner. The father had been livid, but for reasons that the son had not expected. Granted that a medical examiner had little chance to make the money that a surgeon could. "But autopsies!" the father had shouted. "You should want to cure the living, not dissect the dead!" The son had not been able to explain himself. The best that he could manage was the notion that determining the cause of death could help prevent another death just like it. But the argument was not convincing, even to himself. He sensed that there was another reason, although that reason wasn't clear to him, but he had made his choice, and despite his father's angry objections, he had continued with his studies.
Even when his father threatened not to pay his tuition, he'd persisted, working part-time, getting money any way he could. As well as with his father, he had trouble with some teachers. They felt that working with the dead was self-defeating for a doctor, and they had tried to change his mind, but he was adamant. Everyone agreed, though: he was good at what he did. He finished in the upper tenth of all his classes, and when he completed all his training, he had little trouble finding work. By then, he and his father no longer spoke to one another. He was certain he would not go back to Potter's Field. The place he chose was Philadelphia, and in five years, he
rose from simply being on the staff to acting as assistant medical examiner. The hard jobs he was always given. More than that, he sought them out: the murders that were mystifying, and those deaths that no one understood, those suicides that maybe had been awkward accidents. He solved them all. It got so other members of the staff would come to watch him do his work. There were betting pools to see how long he might be stymied by a body's puzzle. Homicide detectives hoped that he would be assigned to their investigations. Reporters interviewed him. Magazines did stories on him. Once he even had an article devoted to him in Time.
And so his star had risen, with it self-understanding. He grew to comprehend that what attracted him were riddles from mute witnesses, the pleasures of the chase. Oh, sure, if he had stayed in diagnostics, he'd have had his share of puzzles, but the kind he worked with now were so much different, so more final and detached. He didn't have to bother with compassion, even fear, both in himself and in his patient. He could be objective, logical, and most important, uninvolved. A body there before him, he had this and this to learn about it; he would learn these things, and then this problem would be finished. Except for his excitement as he sensed that he was getting closer to the clue that he was looking for, he never felt emotion. No, that wasn't true. He often felt frustration, but excitement and frustration were related, one the polar feeling of the other, and the satisfaction of his work was in his scientific method, in his order, in the truths that he uncovered.
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