In the article, Huston advised aspiring writers on the importance of honing their observational skills, of listening for nuances of speech patterns, finding the gestures and body language that reveal the nature of hidden thoughts, those small but telling physical details that reveal underlying character traits. “Get into the habit of watching people and listening,” Huston had written. “This is your research. Anywhere you can conduct it—at the mall, at a sidewalk café, on a bus or a train or a busy city street—this is your classroom.
“Next, you must learn to translate this observational skill from real people to your characters. You have to come to know your character inside and out, know her history, her childhood, all the traumas and triumphs that made her who she is at the moment your story begins. Only then can you become that character as she makes those choices that will propel the story forward. You, the author, sitting there in your comfortable chair, typing away, must simultaneously be the character who is reacting to her lover’s betrayal, her promotion, or to that bus speeding toward her down the highway. Because only by becoming that character can you know with any authenticity how she will react to those situations. And only then will she be a credible, believable character. Only then will she be real.”
DeMarco leaned back in his chair, stared at the blinking curser. He put himself in Huston’s place, saw himself coming to each of the bedroom doorways, tried to envision Huston’s horrific moment of recognition. Wife dead, throat slit. Son dead, throat slit. Daughter dead, throat slit. Baby dead, stabbed through the heart.
The rage, the grief, it would have gone off in his head like a mushroom cloud, DeMarco thought. The cloud would have blossomed and swelled and filled every crevice and crenellation in his brain. It would have seeped into every cell, numbed and choked and suffocated them.
It was not difficult for DeMarco to imagine. He could see himself inside Huston’s house. He staggered from one room to the next. He had to see, make sure, prove wrong what he already knew. The recognition that they were gone, all gone, would be too much to bear.
How could he bear it? DeMarco wondered. One child alone was too much to bear. You never get over something like that, can never shut out the images. The glass will always be shattering, spraying across your face. Laraine will always be screaming, always pounding her fists against your chest. He was slipping back into his own memory then, and he knew it, but he didn’t care. Sometimes he even wanted to feel sliced apart again by the pain of it, needed to go sliding down that dark, rain-slick street…
He felt a shadow in the doorway then and looked up. Trooper Morgan was watching him. “Aerial report is negative,” Morgan said.
“Yeah,” said DeMarco, his throat dry and hoarse. He could feel the stream of dampness on his left cheek, could taste salt in the corner of his mouth.
“Park commissioner wants to know if they can open up the trails again.”
DeMarco took a slow breath, swallowed hard. “Please remind the park commissioner that in all probability, there is still an armed suspect in those woods. So he can open the fucking trails when I am damn good and sure no more throats are going to be slit open.”
Morgan nodded but otherwise did not move.
“That’s it,” DeMarco told him. “Thanks.”
Morgan stood motionless ten seconds longer, then finally turned away.
DeMarco dragged a hand across his face, then wiped his hand dry on a pant leg.
Nine
To keep the nausea from driving him to his knees again, to keep his brain from feeling swollen too big for his skull, his heart so huge with a fiery ache that it would crush the air from his lungs, Thomas Huston struggled to focus his attention on the surroundings. These woods are ugly, dark, and deep, he thought. He was cold and his clothes still damp and sticking to his skin. He repeatedly ran a hand across his face, but he could not brush away the feeling of cobwebs.
These woods are ugly, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep.
What were those promises? To whom had he made them? He could not remember. All he knew was that he could not stand there forever. He might be spotted. Would that be a bad thing? Would that be the best thing? He could not be sure. Nothing was certain. Nothing was clear.
A kind of narrow trail snaked away in front of him, a deer run. He began to see himself as a character in a story that had come to an impasse. The plot faced a fork in the road. The story could continue, or it could come to an end.
I took the road less traveled by…