In the chill of the following morning, just two days before Halloween, a gray mist hung over the lake, clinging to the water like a spirit reluctant to tear itself free from the memory of flesh. DeMarco stood next to the same bridge abutment where Huston had paused the day before. Two dozen men and women from the criminal investigation units of Troops D and E huddled close on either side—primarily troopers from the two county stations affected by the apparent homicide in Mercer County and consequent search for the primary suspect in Crawford County. All wore blaze-orange plastic vests over black jackets. Four of the troopers knelt beside their search dogs, keeping the leashes snug for now. The dogs, all of mixed breed, were certified in tracking, search and rescue, and cadaver identification.
DeMarco’s eyes stung from the morning’s cold. A thin pool of dampness lay in his left lower lid, blurring his vision. The left eye was DeMarco’s weak eye, the one he had injured long ago. It watered up at the slightest provocation these days—from a gust of wind, a blast of air-conditioning, an invisible speck of dust—and no matter how often he blinked, he could not whisk away that tiny pool of dampness that warped a corner of the world behind a rain-streaked window. Sometimes the eye would water for no reason at all, most frequently in the stillness of a new morning when he sat in his dark house with the television on, a glass of tepid Jack in his hand. Now, there on the low bridge, his eyes felt heavy from a lack of sleep. But that was nothing new either; his eyes always felt heavy.
Along the entire length of the bridge, and for some distance on either side—a total of two hundred yards or so—the right lane of the two northbound lanes of Interstate 79 had been blocked off to traffic with orange cones and yellow flashing lights. The passing lane, however, was still open, so DeMarco’s voice as he spoke to the troopers frequently rose to a shout to carry above the rumbling approach and passage of a vehicle.
“If he managed to get ahold of a tarp or a blanket of some kind,” DeMarco said, “he can last out there for two weeks or so. He might still be carrying the murder weapon with him. You should assume that he is. And according to the lab, it’s no piddling little switchblade. Think machete, Bowie knife, maybe even a decorative sword of some kind. Where he might be headed or what might be going through that brain of his is anybody’s guess, so do not attempt to apprehend. You are here to assist in the tracking of a suspect in a multiple homicide. Tracking is the full extent of your job. Any other action you engage in had best be warranted.”
An eighteen-wheeler roared over the bridge now; the vibration rattled up through DeMarco’s boots and into his knees. “Under no circumstances should you lose visual contact with the trooper nearest you. You see anything, and I mean anything, you radio it in to me. You see tracks, you call me. You find a recent campfire, you call me. You see Huston, you back off immediately and call me. Do not approach. The order to close in and apprehend will come from me and me alone. Also, be aware that there are field officers from the Game Commission stationed all around the perimeter of these woods to keep the public out, but that doesn’t mean one or two of them won’t slip past and come sneaking up on us. Therefore, you will exercise all due restraint.”
Now DeMarco gazed out across the tannic water, squinted into the wisps of rising fog, and wondered what else he needed to say. Should he mention the uneasiness he had felt in his gut all morning, the sense of being slightly off balance, as if the floor were canted, ever since the moment the day before when he had walked into the Huston home? Should he attempt to describe the peculiar ache of grief that buffeted him like a bruising wind each time he considered Huston’s smallest victim, the toddler with whom DeMarco shared a name? Should he tell them he had read all of Huston’s novels, that autographed first editions stood side by side in the armoire his wife had left behind, one of them personally inscribed to DeMarco, all sharing the top shelf with his other prized first editions, nearly all of them gifts from Laraine, including the jewels of his collection, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and J. M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea?
Should he tell them of the three lunches he had shared with Thomas Huston, the fondness and admiration he felt for the man—the growing sense, and hope, for the first time in far too many years, that here, perhaps, was a friend?
Would any of that information do anybody any good, least of all himself?
“If all he’s got are the clothes on his back,” DeMarco told them, “he’s not going to last long out there. He’s probably cold and wet and hungry by now. So let’s just get in there and do our job, all right?”
A red-winged blackbird flitted past DeMarco, so close that, had he been quick enough, he could have reached out and grabbed it, could have caught it in his hand. The bird stiffened its wings and glided low over the water. It rested on the tip of a reed at the water’s edge. The reed swayed back and forth under the bird’s weight—so gracefully, DeMarco thought, like water.