"Not long after they got to the 7-Eleven, the Wexler boy sent T.J. down the street to look for your son," Jack says. "When T.J. got to Queen Street, he saw the bike and the sneaker lying on the sidewalk. Of course, they all thought of the Fisherman. Ebbie Wexler figured they might get blamed for leaving him behind, and he came up with the story you heard — that Tyler left them, instead of the other way around."
"If you saw all four boys around ten past eight, that means Tyler disappeared only a few minutes later. What does this guy do, lurk in hedges?"
"Maybe he does exactly that," Jack says. "Did you have people check out that hedge?"
( feathers)
"The staties went over it, through it, and under it. Leaves and dirt, that's what they came up with."
As if driving a spike with his hand, Fred Marshall bangs his fist down onto the desk. "My son was gone for four hours before anyone noticed his bike. Now it's almost seven-thirty! He's been missing for most of the day! I shouldn't be sitting here, I should be driving around, looking for him."
"Everybody is looking for your son, Fred," Dale says. "My guys, the staties, even the FBI."
"I have no faith in them," Fred says. "They haven't found Irma Freneau, have they? Why should they find my son? As far as I can see, I've got one chance here." When he looks at Jack, emotion turns his eyes into lamps. "That chance is you, Lieutenant. Will you help me?"
Jack's third and most troubling thought, withheld until now and purely that of an experienced policeman, causes him to say, "I'd like to talk to your wife. If you're planning on visiting her tomorrow, would you mind if I came along?"
Dale blinks and says, "Maybe we should talk about this."
"Do you think it would do some good?"
"It might," Jack says.
"Seeing you might do her some good, anyhow," Fred says. "Don't you live in Norway Valley? That's on the way to Arden. I can pick you up about nine."
"Jack," Dale says.
"See you at nine," Jack says, ignoring the signals of mingled distress and anger emanating from his friend, also the little voice that whispers
( feather).
"Amazing," says Henry Leyden. "I don't know whether to thank you or congratulate you. Both, I suppose. It's too late in the game to make 'bitchrod,' like me, but I think you could have a shot at 'dope.' "
"Don't lose your head. The only reason I went down there was to keep the boy's father from coming to my house."
"That wasn't the only reason."
"You're right. I was feeling sort of edgy and hemmed in. I felt like getting out, changing the scenery."
"But there was also another reason."
"Henry, you are hip-deep in pigshit, do you know that? You want to think I acted out of civic duty, or honor, or compassion, or altruism, or something, but I didn't. I don't like having to say this, but I'm a lot less good-hearted and responsible than you think I am."
" 'Hip-deep in pigshit'? Man, you are absolutely on the money. I have been hip-deep in pigshit, not to mention chest-deep and even chin-deep in pigshit, most of my life."
"Nice of you to admit it."
"However, you misunderstand me. You're right, I do think you are a good, decent person. I don't just think it, I know it. You're modest, you're compassionate, you're honorable, you're responsible — no matter what you think of yourself right now. But that wasn't what I was talking about."
"What did you mean, then?"
"The other reason you decided to go to the police station is connected to this problem, this concern, whatever it is, that's been bugging you for the past couple of weeks. It's like you've been walking around under a shadow."
"Huh," Jack said.
"This problem, this secret of yours, takes up half your attention, so you're only half present; the rest of you is somewhere else. Sweetie, don't you think I can tell when you're worried and preoccupied? I might be blind, but I can see."
"Okay. Let's suppose that something has been on my mind lately. What could that have to do with going to the station house?"
"There are two possibilities. Either you were going off to confront it, or you were fleeing from it."
Jack does not speak.
"All of which suggests that this problem has to do with your life as a policeman. It could be some old case coming back to haunt you. Maybe a psychotic thug you put in jail was released and is threatening to kill you. Or, hell, I'm completely full of shit and you found out you have liver cancer and a life expectancy of three months."
"I don't have cancer, at least as far as I know, and no ex-con wants to kill me. All of my old cases, most of them, anyway, are safely asleep in the records warehouse of the LAPD. Of course, something has been bothering me lately, and I should have expected you to see that. But I didn't want to, I don't know, burden you with it until I managed to figure it out for myself."
"Tell me one thing, will you? Were you going toward it, or running away?"
"There's no answer to that question."
"We shall see. Isn't the food ready by now? I'm starving, literally starving. You cook too slow. I would have been done ten minutes ago."
"Hold your horses," Jack says. "Coming right up. The problem is this crazy kitchen of yours."