“I was talking to Shep sweetie. Listen, are there any people about?”
The line was silent a moment, and then Evan said, “Uh huh.”
“Can you go to them and tell them who you are? Is there a policeman nearby?”
“I guess so,” Evan said. “But what if they’re … what if they’re just like …”
“Do you think they might be?”
“I don’t know. Can’t I stay on the phone?”
“Yes, sweetie. Of course you can. Everything is going to be fine. Don’t you worry about anything.”
“Mom!”
His voice rose to a crescendo around her name, a high point of surprise and fear, and then the line clicked.
“Evan?”
No answer.
“Evan?”
Shep pulled the phone from her grasp and put it to his ear. “He hung up.”
“Oh, God. He sounded so frightened! Something happened!”
“You don’t know that. Somebody might have needed the phone.”
“No. You didn’t hear him. He was terrified. He cried my name.”
Shep put large hands on her shoulders and shook her gently.
“He gave us enough information. The phone number alone should take us to him. All we need to do is call Peterson. It’s nearly over.”
Evan was alive. Her son was alive. That much she knew. They hadn’t killed him. And if they hadn’t done that yet, then maybe they weren’t going to. Maybe.
“Are you all right?”
Bonnie turned to Shep and realized that she was shaking. “Yes, yes.” She took a deep breath to calm herself, then reached for the phone to call Peterson.
Evan backed slowly away from the phone, the sound of his mother’s voice still clear in his mind. A gray car had pulled up to the front of the drugstore. He could not see who was in it, but the hair on the back of his neck was rising in some instinctive warning.
“Hey!”
At the sound of the voice, Evan spun. A man in a white smock was leaning over the pharmacy counter. He pointed at Evan.
“What are you doing?”
Evan forced himself not to look to the front of the store, at the gray car. He tried to smile for the pharmacist.
“Nothing,” he said.
The man behind the counter was skinny as a pencil, and his eyes were shiny and small. He seemed to see everything about Evan in a quick glance.
“Dressed kind of light, aren’t you son?”
There was no explaining the pajamas, or his bare feet. Not with the rain falling so hard outside. The man behind the counter, who looked neither old nor young but some indeterminable age between, glanced to the front of the store.
“You’re a shedder, aren’t you? Don’t be frightened. Is there somebody I can call for you? Does Constance know you’re in town?”
The questions meant nothing to Evan, and he did not know how to respond. The pharmacist frowned.
“Tell you what, why don’t I call …”
As he spoke, the front door opened and the bell above it tinkled. Evan spun as if he’d been jabbed.
A woman who looked a little bit like his mom, with a young girl holding onto her hand, came into the store and started looking at the magazine rack. The woman waved to the pharmacist.
“Hi, Mr. Garagee.”
Mr. Garagee frowned again at Evan, then smiled at the woman. “Afternoon, Wanda. How’s little Sarah today?”
The little girl smiled and held tight to her mother’s hand. Garagee turned his attention back to Evan.
“Where’d you say you was from?”
It was too much. Evan left his cover and walked quickly down the aisle toward the door. He passed a few feet behind the woman and the girl. They turned to look at him. The girl looked at his bare feet. The woman smiled halfheartedly, and cast a concerned look to Garagee.
Evan bolted. He hit the door at full stride and sent the bell into a jangling frenzy. Rain spattered his face and feet as he left the store.
The gray car was parked at the curb. Two faces, blurred by the rain on the glass, turned to him as he exploded through the door. The passenger door opened and the lumbering form of Henry stepped out.
“Leave me alone!” Evan cried.
He turned and ran. A voice rose in alarm behind him, and then another. He turned the corner, leaving Main Street, and entered a street of houses. He continued to run.
A car turned onto the street behind him. He heard his name called. A horn blared.
Tears of panic and fear mixed with the rain and blinded him. He rubbed his eyes, stumbling ahead. As the sound of the car’s engine drew closer, he veered off the pavement, onto grass, and darted into the back yard of a house. Still half blind, he ran into a line of laundry, and a wet sheet wrapped around his face. He cried out in his panic and swept the sheet off the line. Free again, he clambered over the rear fence and into the back lane.
“Evan! Wait!”
It was the redhead. But he did not stop. He ran along the lane, then cut through another yard, then across a street, then through another yard. He ran and ran, rain pelting him, tears streaming from his eyes. Finally, breathless, feet throbbing with pain, he collapsed at the rear of a house, beside the garbage cans. He drew his knees up to his chin and hugged himself into a tight ball.
He stayed there a while, crying. Finally, the rain turned to drizzle, and his tears dried. His pursuers, apparently, had given up. If they hadn’t, he could not have run again. He was empty.
He must have drifted off to sleep, for when he next became aware of his surroundings the sky was clear, but turning dark. The air was cool, and he was shivering.
He was still wet from the rain, and covered in dirt from his headlong rush through yards and over fences. Shivering, he stood and brushed himself off. He looked both ways along the alley. At one end, only darkness. At the other, the lights of Main Street.
He needed help. Mom would be looking. He should try to get help.
Arms wrapped around himself, he walked, head bowed, toward the lights.
There was light traffic on the main drag. Cars were parked in front of the cinema a few doors down from the drugstore. A group of young people were gathered outside a video store, smoking and laughing. The ice-cream parlor was jam-packed.
Evan walked slowly along the street, knowing neither where he was going, nor what he was doing.
There was a bench outside a red brick building near one end of the town. The building was dark, and letters above the door said City Hall. The bench advertised a funeral home. Evan sat down. The breeze cooled his skin and ruffled his hair.
Again, he must have drifted off. The sky was peppered with stars when he opened his eyes. The cars were gone from outside the cinema. The lights of the ice-cream parlor were off.
He was surveying the town when the car rolled to a stop beside him. He was so exhausted, so heart weary, that he did not turn to look. A light shone in his face, and he shielded his eyes.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
He did not recognize the voice, and when he finally looked at the car, his heart raced. It was a police car. Inside, a man was leaning across the front seat with a flashlight.
“Let me guess. Your name is Evan Laws.”
Evan nodded, tears springing to his eyes.
“Hell, son, half the police in the damned state are looking for you. Hop in!”
Evan stood on wobbly legs. The passenger door opened and he climbed in, pulling the door closed behind him. The man in the driver’s seat was wearing a brown shirt, with sheriff’s insignia on his shoulders. His hair was short and blond, his face brown and narrow. Blue eyes regarded Evan carefully.
“My name’s Sheriff Risely, Evan. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Evan said nothing.
“You think you can tell me what happened?”
Evan nodded, shivering. Risely turned on the heat, and warm air blasted Evan’s face. He shivered.
“I ran away from them,” Evan said.
“They chased me.
“You got away, huh? Now that’s amazing. That’s incredible.”
He put the car in gear and started driving.
“Is my mom here?”
“No, she’s not. But she’s worried about you. Lots of people are worried about you.”
The lights of the main street faded around them, and then disappeared. The car’s headlights speared into darkness ahead.
“Anything else you can tell me about these people?”
Evan shook his head.
“Do you remember where they took you?”
“A house. A farm.”
“Remember where?”
“No.”
“That’s okay.”
The car rumbled as it left the blacktop and entered a dirt road. Evan could see nothing on either side but darkness, his own reflection. The car radio hissed, and a woman’s voice said something. Risely picked up the radio microphone.
“I’m here, Mary. I’ve found him. Looks okay. I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”
He hung up the microphone.
The headlights swept across a line of trees, and suddenly there were cars and the lights of a house. Risely slowed the car and gave the horn three blasts. More light speared into the darkness as one of the house doors opened. Evan’s mouth was dry.
“You scared a lot of people, son,” Risely said.
His strong hand rested on Evan’s shoulder, gripping tightly. Evan could not move. A shape approached the car, and as it neared the window Evan started to cry.
“Thanks, Ron,” the redhead said.
She leaned down and shook her head as she studied Evan.
“Found him sitting outside city hall. Wish you folks would take a bit better care of him. He’s not as tame as you think. He got a call off to the cities. Might be some trouble.”
“Okay, thanks,” she said.
She opened the door and reached in and took Evan’s hand. She pulled him gently from the car, and led him up to the house. Her grip was firm. The car’s headlights swept across the house as Sheriff Risely backed up. Gravel crunched as he accelerated away.
“That was a pointless thing you did,” she said.
There was no anger in her voice. Suddenly the light coming from the open door was blocked, and Evan looked up. A huge shape filled the doorway.
“He’s okay, Henry. He’s fine.”
Evan bowed his head and continued to cry as she took him into the house.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Can’t you guys do anything?” Shep demanded.
“Apparently not,” Peterson said.
Bonnie, who was getting sick and tired of the two men jabbing at each other, sighed dramatically.
“Do you think you two could keep away from each other’s throats long enough to find my son? Could you do that?”
Peterson blushed.
They were sitting in an office down the hall from the bullpen. It was not Peterson’s office. The name on the door was Arnold Scott. The walls were hung with diplomas from various seminars. Arnold Scott has successfully completed the Mid-Western Law Enforcement Association’s seminar on Personnel Management said one. There was also a University of Michigan degree in criminology. Photographs of a wife and children. A firearms proficiency certificate.
Peterson seemed uncomfortable being here. It was almost 10:00 P.M., and Bonnie was hungry and angry.
“We should know soon enough,” he said to Bonnie.
The phone number Evan had provided turned out to be a pharmacy in a town called Marchmount.
When they had heard that, Bonnie and Shep had glanced at each other. Marchmount Trust?
Marchmount was the seat of Oxford County, about an hour drive north of Minneapolis, and east of St. Cloud. Peterson had called the Sheriff’s Department, and was now waiting for a return call.
“Can’t you just send somebody up there?” Bonnie asked again.
“I explained to you already, it’s out of our jurisdiction. But I guarantee you, we can count on the cooperation of the Oxford Sheriff’s Department.”
Shep twiddled his fingers, looking impatient. The phone on the desk rang, and Peterson picked it up.
“You’re kidding,” he said into the receiver. “You’re kidding me. Yeah. Yeah.”
He hung up. He stared at Shep.
“What?” Shep asked.
“Nothing,” Peterson said. “Another case.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Can’t you call that damned sheriff again?” Bonnie asked. “It’s been nearly two hours.”
“Now, listen to me, he said he’d call by ten. It’s just ten now. Give him a couple of minutes. I know how worried you are about Evan, but if he’s there, we’ll find him.”
Bonnie nodded and compressed her lips. Her stomach was churning.
When the phone rang again she started. Peterson let it ring two times before answering.
“Peterson.” He pointed a finger at Bonnie. “Hello Sheriff.”
He listened a while, staring at Bonnie, then looked down at the desk. “You’re sure? Uh huh. Well, I can ask them, but… No. Thanks for your help.”
He hung up.
“They didn’t find him,” Bonnie said.
“No sign. Nobody saw him. Pharmacist said nobody used the phone all day.”
“But that’s impossible. He gave us the number.”
“That’s the thing. There’s no switchboard record. See, most of the little towns around there are on mechanical switching systems, and the St. Cloud center doesn’t really differentiate between them. I mean, it clumps a lot of them together. Could he have misread the number?”
Bonnie opened her mouth, closed it again. No, no. “It had to have been from there. I mean, it all fits. He seemed so sure.”
“Can you send somebody up to check it out?” Shep asked.
“I told you. It’s out of our jurisdiction.”
“The state police?”
“Without the cooperation of the sheriff, I doubt it, and he says there’s nothing there. Now, I can call him again, have him keep an eye out, but that’s about all.”
“Thanks,” Shep said. “That would be fine.”
Peterson clasped his hands on top of the desk.
“Can we go?” Shep asked.
Peterson looked troubled. “Yes, I suppose so. I’d like you to stick around awhile, until we get the investigation into the shootings finished.”
I’ll keep in touch.”
Bonnie listened, hardly hearing what was said. Only when Shep touched her shoulder did she realize that he was standing. She let him lead her from the office, then downstairs.
In the car, they sat silently for a few minutes. It was no longer raining. The clouds were breaking up, and even inside the city they could see the brighter stars.
“We’re not going to find him, are we?” she said.
“We’ll find him. Can you leave town for a couple of days?”
“Leave town?”
She looked at him, and his eyes were hard, determined.
“I could call Mike. He doesn’t really want me at work, anyway. Why?”
“We’re going up to Marchmount.”
They drove in silence. It was only as she was unlocking the door to the house that Shep spoke again.
“How long will it take you to pack?”
Bonnie averted her eyes from the floor as she came through the door. The carpet was scuffed with mud from the shoes of policemen and ambulance attendants. There were still blood stains on the floor.
“Shep, we’re in no condition to travel. Look at us. We’re exhausted.”
Shep closed the door. He went to the sofa and sat down. His forehead glistened with sweat.
“We don’t have time to waste. If they know the boy called, they might do something.”
“But it’s only an hour drive, right? If we get there tonight, we won’t be able to do much. We’ll have to book into a motel. We’ll just sleep, anyway.”
“If ther
e’s something up there, our presence might provoke some action.”
“Neither of us is in any shape to handle any action we might provoke.”
She went to the fridge and got a beer. She opened it and drank half in three swallows.
“You want to wait until the police find out more?”
“I want to wait until tomorrow morning. We can get a good night’s sleep, then head out.”
Shep stared at her. His face was pale, and he looked sick. There were dark sacks under his eyes. He seemed to look right through her.
“Okay,” he said at last.
“Okay?”
“Sure. Okay.”
He lay out on the sofa, feet poking over the end. He closed his eyes.
“You want something to eat?”
He didn’t answer. His breathing had deepened. Asleep already. Just looking at him made her feel her own aching tiredness. But she finished the beer, and sat looking out the window for a long time.
When she finally lay down on top of the bed, she stared at the ceiling. She stared at it until it blurred as tears filled her eyes. Soon, she was crying so hard, the pillow was soaked. She rolled over and pressed her face into the damp fabric to muffle her sobs.
It had all hit her at once. Since last night, she’d been running at high rev, too busy to look at the big picture. It smashed into her now with the force of a heavyweight body blow, and left her gasping for breath.
Evan was gone. Something was happening. Something she couldn’t even begin to understand. A strange man was sleeping on her couch. People had been shot. The world had turned upside down. Evan was gone. Evan was gone. Her baby, her boy, was gone, and things were being done to him, things so ghastly that the human mind couldn’t even think about them, things that she herself could only imagine as shadowy movements through which she could glimpse Evan’s thin face, streaked with tears, twisted in agony beyond comprehension, as his quivering mouth cried out to her through his terror and pain.
The crying exhausted her further. Finally, her mind could produce no image. Behind her closed eyes was darkness, darker than the night. Soft, empty darkness.
And finally sleep. Deep, silent sleep.
Marchmount sat at the intersection of Route 135 and Marchmount County Road 26. A sign on the highway proclaimed:
TOWNSHIP OF MARCHMOUNT
Nightscape Page 21