Chapter 6

November 3

A tiny beam emerged from the duct taped lens, throwing out just enough illumination for eyes accustomed to the dark to pick out details, but invisible from casual observance from outside.  Looking around, he quickly determined that the room belonged to the mother and would hold nothing of interest.

Who cares about an old lady?

The girl's room, however, was ripe.  Intriguing personal items hinted of what she did and what she liked.

Pompoms, he smirked.  You're one of them.  Good looks, and you know it---the kind of girl who wouldn't look twice at me unless one of your jock boyfriends made some insulting remark.  Then you'd laugh, full lips wide and red---mocking me.

But maybe not.  Not every girl's like that.

He checked out the rest of the house, familiarizing himself with he layout, getting comfortable.  Then the voice in his head spoke:  You failed.

It had been his first thought after entering the apartment.  Now, a half hour later, the thought returned, weak enough this time that he could shake it off.  Reentering the girl's bedroom, he shined the light at the bed.  A teddy bear lay across her pillow, its black eyes reflecting the light he directed its way.

From your daddy before the old lady threw him out?  Or was it from the carnival, something one of your jock boyfriends won for you?

He opened the top drawer of a chest of drawers and carefully extracted neatly folded nightie.  A tingling satisfaction coursed through him as the adrenaline and testosterone rush overrode his doubts.  He savored the sensation as he petted the silky fabric.

Your stuff.  Sometimes this is all you have on.

He imagined the heat of her body beneath the fabric, bringing it to life.

I can do what I want.  I can hide and wait for you---watch you get undressed---put this on.

His mouth was dry, his pulse pounded.

But I won't hurt you---I'd never do that.  I'm not like that.

The ticking of the bedside clock broke his reverie.  He glanced at his watch.

Getting late---time to leave.

He directed the beam at the floor and followed it back toward the back door.  Taking a handkerchief from his back pocket, he opened the door, but hesitated.

Can't leave without something to remember you by, a little souvenir.

He went back to the bedroom, got what he wanted, then retraced his steps and slipped out.  Later he worried that what he had taken would be missed.

I doubt it.  You've got so much stuff you'll never miss it.  Even if you do, what difference could it make?  No one saw me.  I'll never come back again anyway.

Once out of the house, the shame returned.

It's over.  I'll never do anything like that again.  It's out of my system now.  Sometimes you just have to get things out of your system.

 

November 6

The Indian Summer day had reached the mid seventies by eleven.  Jill opened the window on the deck to catch the morning breeze. 

"What are you doing?" asked Richard.

"Airing out the house before Carl gets here.  It's beautiful out."

"Why's he coming?" he asked warily.

"Because I asked him to," she said, meeting his eyes evenly.  "I want him to talk to you.  You need to do something about this, and we both know it."

"I've heard what Doc has to say.  I'm working on my . . . uh . . . I'm working on it."

"He thinks you should go to the group with him.  So do I."

"Well, I'm not going," he said tersely.

Further argument was forestalled by a knock at the door.  Richard opened it.

"Come in, Doc.  I know why you're here.  Jill shouldn't have bothered you."

Hoag nodded.  "Well she did.  I came.  And you and I are going to talk unless you insist on continuing to be an ass.  By the way . . . you're no good at it.  Instead of being really irritating, you're only mildly annoying."

He turned to look at Jill with a large smile.  "You, at least, look lovely.  Worth the trip even if your husband, who I was beginning to consider a friend, decides to throw me out on my keester."

"I'm not going to throw you out, Carl, but . . . I don't think going to the group is a good idea.  I don't think I need that."

Hoag nodded as if he were acknowledging that Richard had spoken while his mind was occupied with more important concerns.

"Jill, would it be an imposition to ask for coffee?  I need something, and the sun hasn't gone over the yardarm yet, so alcohol is precluded."

"I'll have to make a pot," she said, coming forward,  "but first I need a hug."

Hoag wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close.  He winked over his shoulder at Richard.

"She's the only reason I put up with you, Partner."

"We'll be out on the porch, Jill," he said, releasing her.

 

Outside, Carl Hoag leaned on the rail and sucked at his pipe while holding his lighter close.  "So you're too good for the boys in the group," he said, trying deliberately to provoke Richard.

"That won't work, Doc.  I just don't want to go."

"What are you afraid of?"

"Wasting my time," said Richard without hesitation.

Hoag nodded, looking out at the trees.  "Jill tells me you're not sleeping well, having bad dreams.  Flashbacks?"

"I'm all right.  I just made the mistake of thinking I was through with all that, that's all.  It's just . . . you know . . . it just keeps coming back . . . won't leave me alone, but I handle it."

"It's important to you, Richard.  It cut deep.  You won't get over it.  Just have to live with it, manage it.  That's what the group is for . . . sharing it over with people who have some idea of what you're talking about.  You just can't stuff this in a closet and forget about it."

Hoag shook his head and grinned wryly.  "Hell, I've said all this before."

"Several times."

"I'm not twisting your arm, Richard, just giving you friendly advice.  We've got a meeting tomorrow evening over at Poplar Bluff.  Give it a try.  What can it hurt?"

Richard nodded unsmilingly but didn't answer.  He gazed toward and through the bare limbed forest.

The thousand-yard stare, thought Hoag.  He clapped Richard on his shoulder, then placed his cup on the rail and went down the steps to his car without another word.

 

November 7

A great motorcycle road, thought Harold in an unusually cheerful mood, though he'd never been on a motorcycle.

This section of U highway wound in a series of S-curves skirting the base of the oak covered hills east of town.  Sharp shafts of sunlight slanted through the trees producing a strobe light effect as his old rust bucket wallowed through the bends exactly at the recommended speed posted on the curve warning signs.  He looked into the side view as a car approached too quickly, and realized that the driver intended to pass a split second before the car swung out with neither a signal nor warning blast of the horn.  At exactly that moment, an oncoming car appeared around the curve ahead, closing quickly.  Harold braked hard to let the fool beside him pass just as the fool decided to brake in order to pull in behind.  A head-on seemed inevitable.  Harold floored the accelerator and felt the engine hesitate, cough, sputter with an ominous clanking of the tappets before catching hold.  The approaching driver braked also, sluing toward the shoulder.  Miraculously, the fool in the trailing car managed to duck back in.

No sooner had the collision been avoided, than Harold heard the high-pitched whine of the trailing car shifting into passing gear.  It swung around and roared past, still in the curves.  The girl in the passenger seat was laughing.  He recognized her as the one he had tried to help in the parking lot---the one who had made a fool of him.  As they accelerated into another curve, the driver threw his hand out the window and shot him the finger.

"You deserved a head-on," he shouted.

Angered, both by what had just occurred and the reminder of his previous humiliation by the two, Harold watched the car speed away.

"I should have run you off the road."

Two thirds of the way up a hill at the end of a three quarter mile straight stretch, the car's tail lights brightened as the driver stood on the brakes before turning onto a lane leading up into the woods.  Harold knew the place because it was on his route.

As he passed the drive he said, "Risk everybody's life for what?  Five or ten seconds?  Deserve to be dead!  Both of you!"

 

At ten fifteen that evening, Richard drove across the county line toward home, trying to decide how much of the truth he would tell Jill when she asked him how things had gone at the meeting.  He'd been afraid that Carl Hoag would take it wrong when he declined to travel together, but the older man seemed to understand.  He'd decided to talk to him about it at the meeting, but Carl had failed to show.  Richard was both irritated and relieved by that.

The meeting had been both what he expected, and not what he expected.  The worst part was that everyone expected the newcomer to spill his guts right away, although no one tried to force the issue.  Compounding everything was Jill's desperate expectation of some kind of breakthrough.  It angered him that she thought going to the damned thing was somehow going to make things all better.  As soon as the thought occurred to him, he felt ashamed of himself.  After everything he had put her through, she was entitled.  Where would he be without her?  In some kind of hell, that's for sure.

A call came over the radio asking who was closest to the clinic.

Relieved for the distraction, he keyed the mic.  "Betty, this is Carter.  I'm off-duty but just coming up on the clinic now.  I can handle it."

Betty told him to take a statement from an "unnamed victim" concerning an assault by an "unknown person or persons."  On the way he called Jill on his cell phone.

"Wake you up?" he asked.

"No.  Where are you?"

"Just got a call to go to the clinic.  I'll be a little late getting home."

"How did everything go?"

The eagerness in her voice irritated him.

"It was okay.  What have my two girls been up to tonight?"

"Mirabelle's finally asleep.  I've been talking to Marta about our little girl.  You know the pictures you took?  I posted them on the bulletin board behind the computer.  I thought she might call, so I took it off the wall and set in on the chair so she could see them if she tried to get in touch while we were out."

"Don't you have to answer first?"

"Normally, but I can set the program for automatic answering.  That way she can call, even look at whatever is in front of the camera.  I leave messages on the board for her."

"Wouldn't it be simpler to type or record a message like on an answering machine?"

"This seems more personal."

"I don't know if I like the idea of someone being able to look into my house any time they want to," he said.  "Never know what they might catch us doing."

"We don't do that in front of the computer, Richard," said Jill, giving his name the French pronunciation the way she did sometimes when they were making love.

"Are you trying to get me to hurry home?"

"Maybe.  Mirabelle is asleep, and I think maybe she will sleep all night tonight.  She certainly didn't today."

"Is something wrong?"

"Not now.  She's been a little angel tonight, but Raven says she was cranky all day and refused to take a nap.  She's cutting teeth, I think."

"You think?"

"She's cutting a tooth," said Jill decisively.  "I can see the white and feel it a little.  I'll show you in the morning."

"Look, I should be home by eleven, eleven-thirty.  If not, I'll call again.  Love you, Babe."

"Me too, Richard," she said with an exaggerated French pronunciation.  "Hurry home and one of your girls will be waiting up for you."

"I'll try," he said, suddenly wishing he had let someone else answer the call to the clinic.

 

Richard knocked at the door of the treatment room and heard Carl Hoag's grunted invitation to come in.  Wearing sandals over white socks, and clad in pale green scrubs as wrinkled as his face, the doctor looked up from his examination.

"I don't suppose you came over just to see why I didn't make the meeting.  Sent you over for the statement, I imagine" he said distractedly as he swabbed at an emaciated man's lashless right eye.  "You'll have to wait a minute."

He stepped back from his examination, removed his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting from a headache that prescription strength ibuprofen had knocked the edge off, but not tamed.

"You may not feel real lucky, Harold, but you are.  Those facial burns are not too much worse than a bad sunburn.  After the initial flash, you must have gotten away from the heat pretty quickly."

"Lucky I had a fire extinguisher handy," he said.  "But those things ain't got much in them.  Fifteen or twenty seconds and the blamed thing was empty.  If that bottle had busted, I'd never have been able to put it out."

"Can I start taking his statement now, Doc?"

"If it's okay with him, it's okay with me."

"Mr. Porter, could you first just start from the beginning and tell me what happened this evening?"

"Sure thing.  I just come back from the store and went to the kitchen to make myself some dinner.  Soon as I turned on the light something come flying through the window.  Broke glass went everywheres and I smelled gasoline.  Then I seen this bottle sort of spinning on the floor, and then there was a kind of explosion . . . not a big one like would blow the house up or anything, though that might have happened if the bottle had busted, but it was like . . . you know, when you pour gasoline on a brush pile and throw a match to it---there was this big whump.  I guess that's when I got burned.  Didn't even know I it ‘til after I got the fire out."

Harold looked down at the floor as if picturing what had happened.

"That's it.  I don't know nothing else to tell you.  After that I drove down here to get looked at ‘cause I knowed I was burned but didn't know how bad."

"Do you have any idea about who did it?" asked Richard.

"Someone who don't want me here . . . ‘cause of what happened a long time ago when I was a kid."

"Has anyone said that to you?  That they don't want you here?"

"A couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from a guy who told me I should leave . . . said I never should have come back.  Maybe he was right, but I got no place else."

"Do you know who it was?"

Harold shook his head.  "No, sir."

Richard folded the notebook away.  "Can he go, Doc?"

"Sure, but I want him to get these filled."  He handed Harold a prescription slip.  "Follow the directions.  One is an antibiotic, the other something for the pain and to help you sleep.  I want you to come by every day for awhile.

Richard followed Porter to the pharmacy and then back to his house.  He tried to imagine someone firebombing a house without some sort of lead up, some sort of warning or threat.  He didn't think Porter was telling him everything, but that wasn't unusual for someone with prison experience, and the man had spent his entire adult life there.

Porter's dilapidated frame rental unit was arranged linearly in the design referred to as a shotgun house.  He supposed that was because anyone firing a shotgun from the front door could hit every room.  The kitchen was at the back of the house, with a bedroom located oddly in the middle.  All the windows and doors stood open.

"You opened all the doors and windows before going to the clinic?" he asked.

"I didn't think I was hurt too bad, and I wanted to get the smoke out."

"You thought about that, but you didn't think to call the police until after you got to the clinic?"

"They say people sometimes do funny stuff when there's a fire.  I heard about this one woman who run back in her burning house to save some of her stuff and come out with nothing but a pair of dirty socks in her hand.  "I guess I was kinda like that . . . weren't thinking too straight."

 

In the middle of a browned and blistered area of the kitchen's linoleum floor lay a heavy brown Champaign bottle with what appeared to be a small amount of gasoline still inside.  A beige powder overlay the spot and the surrounding unburned linoleum.  Harold had acted quickly, despite being burned and not "thinking to straight."  Shards of window glass littered the floor, counter, and sink.  Jagged holes in both the storm and the interior windows revealed that the bottle had been hurled with considerable force.

"There are screens on the rest of the windows," said Richard.  "Why not this one?"

"Don't know.  It was gone when I moved in.  Guess it got tore up and the landlord never replaced it.  He don't fix nothing."

A partially charred piece of cloth, perhaps from a T-shirt, lay near the bottle.  It had served as the wick.  Whoever had done this knew little about Molotov cocktails.  He should have used a flimsier bottle, one that would have shattered on impact.  Instead the magnum had come through the window, and on impact had merely popped its wick free.  The gasoline had spilled, only a small amount vaporizing immediately which accounted for the limited fire and Harold's relatively minor facial burns.

"Run me though this again," he said.  "Where were you when the bottle came through the window?"

Harold walked over to the refrigerator.  "I was putting away groceries and turned when I heared the bottle come through my window."

"So you knew immediately that someone had thrown something through your window?"

"I didn't know what happened.  I just turned and it blowed up in my face.  When I knew I weren't on fire I run to the front room and got the fire extinguisher and come back here and started trying to put her out."

Richard looked around the room.  "Where is the fire extinguisher?"

"I don't know," said Harold.

They found it hanging back on its wall mount, strapped in place.  The dial read "empty."

"You don't remember putting this back?"

Harold shook his head.  "No.  Wonder why I done that?"

"Did you hear of see anyone outside, either before or after?"

"No."

"You didn't see anyone as you came into the house, or as you left for the clinic?  Maybe there was a car parked outside or something like that?"

Harold wrinkled his brow in concentration.  "I don't remember nothing like that.  I'm sorry."

"It's okay.  We'll have the bottle dusted for prints and then check the back yard better in the morning.  Don't go out there tonight, okay?"

Harold nodded his understanding.

"Will you be okay here tonight?"

"Yeah.  The smell's almost gone."

It wasn't.  Richard thought about that.  The house needed cleaning, but the scene should be processed beforehand.  If it was closed up, Harold would have to sleep with the fumes, and it was too cold to leave the windows open.

"Mr. Porter, I'm going to have to take some photos of the scene before anything gets disturbed.  I'm going to bag the bottle and then seal the house.  We'll process it in the morning.  You can't get the place cleaned up until tomorrow anyway.  Do you have any place to stay tonight besides here?"

"I ain't hardly made no friends since I been back."

He hadn't saved money either, and had as yet established credit.  Richard called Jill, told her he would be late.  Then he took him to a cheap motel out on the highway and checked him in using his own credit card.

 

"Not only did you dump him off at that flea bag motel, you spent money we can't afford in order to do it," said Jill when he told her.

"You should have brought him here.  No.  I see.  You did this to keep me from being angry with you for not bringing him here."

"Well, it doesn't look like it worked."

"It worked just the way you wanted it to, Richard Carter.  Now it's too late and the money's gone."

It didn't surprise him that she had seen through his stratagem.  It had worked, however, at least to a limited extent.  Harold Porter was not in his home.  Jill pitied the pathetic man, and he probably was harmless too.  However, Richard's previous tolerance of the man had evaporated, and now he felt nothing but revulsion.  He had come to share Guidry's assessment of the man:  Porter's entire life had been spent in prison.  Whatever he had learned there made him unfit to be around normal people, certainly unfit to be near Jill and Mirabelle.

"Money isn't everything," he said stubbornly.

"Where is your pity, Richard?  He is guilty of bad judgment as a teenager . . . what if he hadn't gone with his cousin that day?  How many other teenagers have done the same sort of thing---I mean gone along with a friend when they shouldn't have?  He's a victim."

"There but for fortune, huh?"  Richard heard the sarcasm in his own voice.  It wasn't a tone he wanted to use with Jill.

"I feel sorry for him too, Dear."

It was a lie.  He didn't like that either, but he didn't want to argue with her anymore.  What he had done may not have been the Christian thing to do, but it was the smart thing.  Besides, he was sure that Porter would be grateful for the motel room. 

 

November 8

After helping process the crime scene the next morning, he paid a call on Marie Preslar's only male relative living in the area.  Whoever had thrown the gasoline bomb probably wanted to scare Porter, not harm him.  It would most likely turn out to be a case of confused or alcohol-fueled red neck civic responsibility---a vigilante who had decided that burning rental property was somehow striking directly at Porter.  It could be any number of outraged citizens, but the logical choice was the murdered girl's cousin, Steve Preslar.  He didn't seem particularly dangerous, nor particularly promising as a suspect.  The forty-two year old sawyer had no history of violence and no criminal record other than a conviction for spotlighting deer years earlier.  He lived alone on an unimproved rural road on the south edge of the county near the Arkansas line.

A closely trimmed crabgrass lawn, now dormant and in the initial stages of being filled with the winter trash that loose running dogs seem to have such a penchant for, surrounded Steve Preslar's small frame house.  It was one of the countless area homes built in the forties and fifties using the abundant native red to white sandstone as a facing material.  Richard recognized the style.  The mason had alternated the red and white stones in a predictable and unappealing cladding pattern.

Before it stopped rolling on the graveled drive, a pack of red beagles surrounded his cruiser yapping excited greetings amid much tail wagging.  Good sign.  Friendly dogs and mean people didn't usually go together.  A canine escort accompanied him to the door where a once-wiry, thin boned man with kinky blond hair, a face lumpy with healed acne scars, and pale, wind-burned lips opened the door and spoke before Richard could so much as state his business.

"If this is about threatening Kinder, I'm sorry I done it.  It was just talk . . . should have known better."

Richard was taken aback by the man's unsolicited confession, but went with it.

"Why did you do that, Mr. Preslar?"

"Because he hired that son of bitch that killed my cousin, and I was mad.  Man like that got no business around kids," he said vehemently, then paused, looking at Richard with clear blue wide-set eyes framed on the inside by epicanthic folds giving the man the aspect of an albino Mongol, except for the tightly curled hair.

"Come on in.  We're letting all the heat out," said Preslar, standing aside to let him in.

The living room was small, dark, and overheated by a wood stove set close to the back wall.  A new smoke pipe, still iridescent with bluing, elbowed to a painted brick flue.  Hot air hung heavy and dry, permeated by the odor of hardwood smoke.

"Mind if I sit?" asked Preslar, collapsing into a recliner with his feet up, trying to look relaxed.

Richard looked at the man's soiled white socks.  The place was cluttered, but the only sign of lax housekeeping was the accumulation of bark and ashes on the concrete hearth near the stove.  Nevertheless, that Preslar was a bachelor showed.  The place looked as if it hadn't endured a woman's touch in living memory.

"Where were you last night, Mr. Preslar?" he asked, watching for the man's reaction.

"Why?"

"Please.  Just answer the question."

Preslar nodded.  "Okay.  What time?"

"Let's start with noon yesterday and carry it on through until you went to bed last night," said Richard.  He knew that the more he could get a suspect to say, the more likely he was to learn something significant.  Maybe Preslar, if he was the one who firebombed Porter's house, would tip his hand by concentrating on the time in question.

"Well I'm a working man . . . so I was at the saw mill until quitting time . . . ‘bout four-thirty.  Then I come home and cleaned up . . . met a buddy out to Mike's . . . played a little nine ball.  After that I went over to Mouse's and we watched basketball.  Then I come home and went to bed."

"Mouse's?"

"Ronnie Spencer.  He's a buddy . . . lives out the other side of Kaleville.  I was there from . . . oh, I don't know . . . maybe eight-thirty or nine until near midnight.  Went to bed around twelve-thirty."

"When did you leave Mike's Lounge?"

"I was there until . . . let me see . . . must've been around eight because I stopped by the house before going out to Mouse's."

"Why did you do that?"

"Had something to take care of."

"What?"

"What difference does it make?  I had to come home to uh . . . I had to doctor myself . . . Okay!  I got hemorrhoids.  You satisfied?  Had to put something on them because they was acting up."

"So," said Richard, "Was this Mouse the buddy you were shooting pool with?"

"No.  That would be Kyle, Kyle Montgomery."

"And you got there at what time?"

"To Mike's?  Six-thirty maybe.  I never checked the clock," he said irritably.  "What the hell is this all about?"

Richard paused a moment to catch the man's eyes before proceeding.

"Someone tried to burn Harold Porter out last night."

"Burn him out?  Oh.  And you think I done it," said Preslar lowering his eyes.  "Did he say---was he hurt?"

"Some.  Flash burns.  Enough to charge whoever did it with felonious assault on top of the arson."

"Too bad he wasn't killed.  I didn't do it, but I got to admit I like it."

He looked up defiantly.  "I'd not only like to see him dead, I'd like to see him plowing the fires of Hell!"

 

The questioning of Preslar's friends and the owner of the pool hall supported his story.  Steve Preslar was where he said he was during the firebombing, although, as Guidry pointed out later with a laugh, the hemorrhoid alibi was a bit shaky.

"I'd look into that personally if I was you, Carter," he cracked.  "Get you a search warrant and make him drop his pants."

 

November 9

He was inside and his heart was pounding.  Tingling in anticipation, he made his way through to the interior rooms until he found the girl's room.  The girl and her mother had left together not ten minutes before.  With any luck they should be gone for at least a couple of hours.  With the masked flashlight he scanned the room.  Team pictures and basketball trophies on a little shelf by her bed showed him that she was an athlete as well as a cheerleader.

I wonder how strong she is, he wondered. 

He pulled out a dresser drawer and pulled out a bra.  Its texture was seductive.  He fondled more of her frilly underthings.  Later she would put them on, totally unaware that he had handled them.  It was a connection between the two of them.  He liked that idea.  The promise to quit was forgotten, although somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that the odds were against him.  If he kept doing it he would be found out.  Then there would be unbearable shame.  Yet he also knew that he couldn't stop.

If I get caught---  Forget that.  I won't get caught.

Just then, as if he had unwittingly conjured it, lights panned the walls.

A car!  They're back!

Please, please, please, he thought as he rushed from the bedroom, scrambling to make it out the back door before whoever it was came in.  He collided with a low table in the living room and fell heavily onto the hardwood floor.  He was certain that he could be heard from outside.

He rolled to his feet just as the door creaked open.  Without thinking, he swung the flashlight just as she flipped on the lights.  For a long moment he stood in the open doorway, gaping at the woman at his feet.  Recovering, he swiped at the light switch, missing the first time, before finally getting the lights off.  The woman lay motionless across the doorway illuminated by pale moonlight.  He peaked out and saw no one in the car.  The lights were off, but he could hear it still running.  He ran a trembling hand over his face and drew a deep breath, frozen by the sudden transformation of his adventure.

He grasped her wrists and dragged her inside.  After shutting the door he set the flashlight onto the floor so that its tiny beam reflected off the ceiling.  He had to see her face.  When his eyes had adjusted to the light, he rolled the woman onto her back.  It was the woman, not the girl. 

What if she comes to?  What if she doesn't?  Ever?

In panic he bent down until he could hear her breathing.

Just knocked her out.  She'll be okay.

His breath still came in gasps.  He stood, paced, looked at the unconscious woman laying in the moonlight, wishing she were the girl.  Hesitatingly he retreated through the darkened house and made his way to the back door.  Then he was out and hurrying away through the backyard in the dark.  Near the fence, he ran into something.  More of a crash than a tinkle, the sound of breaking glass shattered the evening.  A porch light came on, cutting off his escape route.

He held his breath, knowing that someone would call the police.  What to do?  He could feel his heart beat in his ears and along his left arm.  It was loud enough that someone was sure to hear it and find him out.  He stood rooted to the ground, uncertain as how to best escape.  Then he was running through back yards.  A dog barked and another light came on just as he passed near a collapsing porch hanging like an afterthought on the back of a painted brick house.  A foraging cat leaped from the top of a garbage can causing an avalanche of cans and bottles directly in his path.  He fell headlong, scraping both forearms.  Scrambling to his feet, he ran for the darkness, raggedly struggling for breath.

 

"I came back to get Jeanie's purse.  She was going out with her friends after the game," said Emily Steward, wincing as she held an ice pack to her head.

She had already told them that the last thing she remembered was opening the door at around six fifteen.  Forty minutes later she came to and called the police from the bedroom phone.  That call had come to the department at five minutes to seven.  She had seen nothing and knew of no one with whom she or her sister were having problems.  Nothing in the house was missing as far as she could tell, but she promised that she and her sister would look more carefully in the morning.

"How long has your sister been living with you?" asked Richard. 

"About two months---no, since school started.  I'm not thinking too clearly."

"If you're not up to questions right now we can wait until tomorrow."

"No.  I'm fine."

"Okay.  Why isn't your sister living with her parents?"

"No family problem or anything.  Dad just had to move to West Plains for his job and Mom went with him.  Jeannie wanted to finish school here.  It's her senior year and she's on the basketball team.  All her friends . . . the senior trip."

"So there's not been a prowler or anything like that in the neighborhood?"

"No.  This is a good neighborhood . . . I mean, we're close to Kaleville, but far enough away that . . . most folks here are older.  I don't think . . . no, I don't remember anything . . . nothing out of the ordinary . . . nobody . . . no.  Heavens, this head hurts."

Guidry came into the room.  "The ambulance is here," he said tersely.

"Miss Steward, we're going to send you to the clinic now," said Richard.  "You could have a concussion.  After you've seen a doctor someone will take a formal statement from you.  Do you want me to contact your sister?"

"Don't scare her, but that would be good idea I think," she said trying to sit up.  "Let her finish the game first."

"We'll do that and then bring her home or to the clinic, wherever you are."

She closed her eyes, her forehead wrinkling in pain.  "Don't get her excited.  Let her know right away that I'm all right."

"Of course we will," said Richard reassuringly.

 

As the ambulance pulled away for the short trip to the clinic, Guidry stood watching in disbelief as Richard wrote preliminary notes on a pocket pad.

"Think we ought to process the place?" asked Richard.

"For a juvie burglary?" asked Guidry incredulously.

"Why do you assume that it was?"

"Look at the place.  Would you pick this as a prime spot?  Besides, the woman was gone what, ten minutes?  Unless it was a brain fried doper looking for a few bucks, only a kid would break in here . . . certainly no pro."

"If he had good sense, he probably wouldn't be criminal," said Richard.  "But this does look like a kid, a dangerous one."

He looked around the room.

"So he hears her, the most logical thing to do is make it out the back, right?  Even if she sees him, what's she got, a description of his back side---maybe hair color?"

Guidry shrugged.  "She could be lying."

"About what?"

"Over half an hour before she reported it.  I don't know.  It could be a domestic thing . . . she's covering for a good-hearted boyfriend with a temper or something like that."

"Then why the report?  She could just as easily go to the doctor and say she fell and hit her head."

"Yeah, well she says someone was in here waiting for her, but there's no sign of forced entry, so how does he get in?"

"Take another look at the back door and the windows."

"Yeah," said Guidry.

"This wouldn't get much attention in New Orleans," said Richard, noting the lack of enthusiasm.

"Right about that . . . too much real stuff to worry about."

"This ain't New Orleans and I don't think she's lying."

"They all lie, Carter," said his partner with a laugh as he went through to the back.  "How long have you been a cop, and you don't know that?"

"Hey, Carter," he called a moment later.

Holding his flashlight at a low angle he pointed out faint scratch marks.  Just visible was a three quarter inch wide depression on the doorjamb opposite the knob.

"Look how loose this thing is.  The latch is barely caught."

To make his point, Guidry grasped the knob in his gloved hand and pushed the door toward its hinges.  The latch gave and the door swung inward.

"Great security you got out here.  No light, no fence . . . only thing missing is a welcome burglar sign . . . maybe an answering machine:  We're not at home right now.  Come on over and rob us."

"Country people aren't very security conscious," admitted Richard.

 

On the way back to the courthouse, Guidry sat back in the passenger seat with eyes closed.

"Maybe I'm just horny and that's why my mind is running this way," he said with a yawn.  "But maybe there is something more . . . or maybe less . . . to this than burglary.  Still think it's a kid, but now it kind of feels like one of those pimply-faced loser kinda things.  You know . . . peeping tom with his eye on the all American girl next door.  Bet if we ask around we'll find the friendly neighborhood geek.  Then again, maybe it's my own dirty little mind.  Haven't dipped my wick in so long I don't know if I remember the procedure."

"Call it cop's intuition or whatever," he continued.  "That Steward woman tonight, she's got that willowy vulnerability that a certain type of creep can't resist, and little sister---see her picture?  Man, she's got it in spades."

"You and I on the same page," said Richard.  "Imagine that."

Guidry shrugged and yawned again.  "I'm tired.  What do they say around here?  I'm plumb wore out.  What I need is a stiff drink or six."

"You look it.  Go on home.  I got it from here."

"You're a good partner, Ricky.  I owe you."

"Ricky?"  Only one other person had ever called him that---a person now dead and best forgotten.

"Let's stick to Richard," he said.

 

I'll never do it again.  I'll never do it again, he thought in a torrent of self-loathing.  I'll never do it again.  I could have killed her.  Why?  Why?  Why?

But he knew why.  The night crawled by as he endured the darkness in sleepless depression.  His fantasy had become real and now the thing was in him.  He'd seen it when he turned her over.

I'm not like that, he told himself.  I had to find out if I hit her too hard---had to know she was okay---that's all. 

But in the split second before her face had rolled into view came a furtive hope that it was the girl, and that she was his to do with as he wished.  He had seen himself.  He could still feel the cascade of emotions and wordless thoughts in that split second.  The thrill of anticipation, the disappointment of recognition, and the relief that he had been spared the choice.

He replayed what he had done then as if the reliving could absolve him of the earlier thing.  He could still feel her dead weight as he carried her to the couch.  After arranging her comfortably he'd refastened the buttons that had come undone, careful not to touch her or look too closely.  Then he had taken care of her.  He remembered almost as if it had been a movie how he'd brushed the hair back from her forehead as he staunched the blood oozing from the goose egg where she had been hit.

If she'd given me a little more time, I could have gone out the back and she wouldn't have got hit.  Just bad luck.

But if it had been the younger one he would have done it.  He would have been unable to resist it.  In a stark moment of honesty he saw himself clearly.  Unable to stand the realization, he lurched upward in the dark, trying to flee his own thoughts.

"I'm not like that!" he said aloud.  I'm not!  I'm not!  I won't be!

Right.  Like before!

That was different. 

He got dressed and turned on a televised infomercial.  He stared gritty eyed at the hawker's enthusiastic spiel and scripted excitement of audience volunteers.

"It was like poisoning rats," he said aloud.  "It had to be done."

 

November 11

What a revelation, thought Richard as he drove back through the hill country west of Poplar Bluff.  I can't understand it because there was no point to the whole thing.  There never was anything to understand in the first place?  Like I've never thought of that before?

But the whole thing had taught him something.  There were others who had gone through the same thing, or worse.  And some of them were handling it a lot worse than he was.

And I'm not supposed to try and forget it or leave it behind?

As he approached Kaleville, he thought about Guidry's joke about forming a permanent Kaleville Major Crimes Task Force for the two of them to concentrate on.  That way, they could turn over the petty crimes to other deputies and investigate the really big stuff, like who was shooting the stop signs.

Just then, he saw Guidry emerge through the front door of bright blue trailer with most of its underpinning off.  In the harsh light of a mercury vapor lights the former New Orleans cop stood spotlighted on a rickety deck without a railing.  He seemed to be engaged in a serious discussion with a very pretty (and very young) female.

Well, what you do on your own time is your business partner.  I just hope you're not messing around with a juvenile, thought Richard as he continued down the highway leaving the tawdriness of the ersatz town behind him.  Middle age crazy, I guess.

 

After dinner he played on the floor with Mirabelle while Jill organized her notes on the ante-bellum immigrant community that became the Irish Wilderness.  His daughter's coordination and concentration were developing at what he thought was a dizzying pace.  Her attention span seemed longer than normal children, though he knew he wasn't much of an expert in child development.  Though Jill insisted that the child was normal in every way, Richard was convinced that they had an infant genius on their hands.  Of course, Jill described herself as entirely ordinary too, which was nonsense.

No doubt about it, partner.  You're living with two remarkable women.

The more he thought about it, the more  he was convinced that Mirabelle possessed her mother's intelligence and will power.  She also had Jill's temper, though it was never evident unless she was sorely provoked, like not getting exactly what she wanted when she wanted it.  He smiled.  He hated to admit it, but Jill was probably right when she said that Mirabelle only did that with him.  Her mother refused to give in to such antics.

"Feminine wiles don't work on other women, Baby Girl," he said, as he lay on his side next to her on the floor.

Mirabelle looked up at his voice, staring at him with piercing eyes for a moment.  Then she yawned.

"Hard day, Sugar?" he said, succumbing to a sympathetic yawn of his own.  "Me too."

Just then Jill came sliding across the hardwood floor on white socked feet, going into a squat as she neared them.  Rolling lightly onto her blue jeaned knees as she slid to a stop, she threw herself playfully on top of Richard.  They rolled in each other's arms, and Jill ended on top.

"This is how you teach your daughter to behave like a proper young lady?" asked Richard in mock severity, as he squeezed her closer to himself.

"You betcha, Buster." she laughed, and digging her fingers into his ribs.

"Daughter, when you find the man you want, grab him before he can get away and never let him go," she said pulling Mirabelle into the pile with her.

Richard pulled his family into his arms, and held them, perhaps a little too tightly, as if his will alone could make it all last forever.  Jill sought his lips and they kissed.  The break in the action was too long for Mirabelle, who issued a solitary squawks of protest as if to say, "Hey, come on guys.  I'm here too.  Break it up."

Richard tousled her reddish blonde hair.  "You little home wrecker."

"She's just like you, Love," said Jill.

"How can you say that?  She's you made over, Jill---with a touch of your Aunt Mirabelle, from what you've told me of her."

A fleeting sadness passed behind Jill's eyes at the mention of the aunt who had become her mother and confidant.  She was becoming more comfortable with her loss, but he knew that look would never go completely away.

"She has the perseverance.  I hope she will have the wisdom some day to go with it.  I wish I were more like her."

"You are quite remarkable to me," he said, sliding his hands down her hips, cupping the rear of her snug fitting jeans.

"Richard!" said whispered warningly.  "Your daughter is watching."

"She's too young to know what it's all about."

"That may be," said Jill, rolling away from him, "but children grow more quickly than parents realize.  If you get in the habit of---well, when do you decide it is time to not let her see what you are doing or how far you---"  She stopped, flustered at her inability to say what she meant.

Jill was no prude and seldom at a loss for words, which made her current fluster all the more comical.  Richard tried to keep the grin from his face.  He saw the warning look in her eye and tried to restrain himself, but like a mischievous boy trying to keep from snickering in class, his laughter erupted of it's own volition.  Jill tried to maintain her disapproving expression, but succumbed to the same impulse.  They rolled together, laughing happily in each other's arms.  Mirabelle watched them solemnly trying to comprehend this strange adult behavior.  She finally decided that it was play, and scrambled to join in the fun.  Soon all three were laughing entwined together in the loveknot of a young family.

 

Richard lay awake with Jill snuggled into him, her head upon his bare chest.  He thought about their lovemaking earlier in the evening.  He had performed without serious diminished capability, he supposed.  That he should even feel the need to examine his performance was prima facie evidence that all was still not well with him.  Jill deserved better.  Another failing.  He was afraid he was dragging their life together down into the well of his perennial depression.  They loved each other so intensely, but he seemed powerless to hold back the pervading, senseless sadness inside himself.  The image he had was of a closed but unhealed wound feeding its poison into his blood stream until it broke out into a massive infection.

Melodramatic but apt.

She stirred, murmured in her sleep.

He held her to him gently, not knowing whether he was trying to shield her from some irresistible danger like time itself, or trying to find shelter for himself.

"Are you awake?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I thought so.  I can always tell by the beating of your heart."

"You were always wise in the ways of the heart, Jill."

"Banter now, huh?  This is serious.  What has been keeping you awake."

"Nothing."

"Nothing, huh?  That will do it every time.  Why don't you talk to me?"

"I am talking to you."

"No, you're not.  You're doing just the opposite."  She ran her fingers over his chest.  "Carl says you need to talk, if not to me, then to the group.  You never did tell me how your visit went."

"It went fine."

"No.  It did not.  I knew that from the moment you got home.  Tell me about it, Richard.  Don't shut me out.  I need to share this with you---"

"There's nothing to share because nothing happened," he said sharply.  "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you."

"All right.  So tell me what didn't happen?"

"What?"

"If you say nothing happened, then that means you expected something to happen and it didn't.  You expected something and were disappointed."

"I haven't given it a lot of thought, but I suppose you're right.  Even though I knew better, I think once I decided to go, I expected . . . what, a cure or something?  But first Carl doesn't bother to show up . . . that's what I thought at the time.  Then it's all so informal.  There's this VA doctor presiding . . . has to be about twenty-five . . . hasn't been in the service . . . I say to myself, What can he know?  He hasn't experienced anything but the inside of a textbook."

Jill continued to massage his chest, encouraging him without breaking into his narrative.

"When the guys did start talking . . . by the way most of them were ‘Nam vets . . . it was all about stuff going on now . . . catching up on what they had done since the last meeting . . . remarking on who didn't make the meeting, and all the while, of course, sizing up the new guy, me.  Pretty soon it's obvious that they're waiting for me to spill my story.  That's when I realized I wasn't going to get anything out of the meeting.  I got the feeling that they just wanted me to break down and start crying or something so that they could all support me in my misery . . . it's a support group, right?"

"I don't suppose they have any problems of their own," said Jill.

"Now don't get testy with me, Jill.  I'm just sharing with you the way I was thinking.  I'm not putting those guys down . . . at least not most of them, though there are a few in that group that I don't think were ever anything but losers.  I doubt they ever had any real combat experience to traumatize them.  Most of the guys there have been dealing with stuff that's very real to them, and they've been doing it for a lot longer than I have."

He stared at the ceiling a long moment before continuing.

"Jill, they scared me.  If after all this time of trying to deal with it they're no better off than what I saw over there, then what have I got to look forward to?"

You've got a wife who loves you and a beautiful daughter to watch grow up, she thought, but kept her silence.

"Then one of the older guys told his story . . . maybe for my benefit.  I don't know.  It was all about being a seventeen year old grunt living for months in the trenches near the DMZ . . . funny, you think that trench warfare went out with World War I.  Anyway, he tells this story of seeing buddies get hit, killed . . . says he still wakes up hearing the sound of his best friend's head splitting open like a ripe melon.  Says he still wakes up knowing he's going to get killed.  Wakes up in a panic sometimes without remembering the dream that caused it.  Wife left within six weeks of the time he came home . . . said he'd changed.  They all laughed when he said that."

"Why?"

"He had changed . . . like it was some unexplained and unexpected thing.  No one goes into combat for any length of time and comes out the other side not changed."

"At least you got a chance to talk to someone who could understand what you were saying."

"No.  I didn't say anything."

"Why not?"

"Because . . . because none of them are like me.  They have all these problems that have to do with being scared.  I don't put them down, Jill.  They were heroes . . . if there is such a thing.  They were terrified . . . still are . . . but they did what they had to do.  That's not what's wrong with me.  None of them did something he's horrified of."

"You don't know that.  Maybe they did.  Maybe admitting fear is easier than admitting guilt or shame."  After a moment she asked tentatively, "Are you going to go back?  Maybe with more time---"

He shook his head, covered her hand with his.  "My problem is that I went looking for answers, Jill.  I don't think there are any."

"I'm here for you, Richard.  And I need you as much as you need me---and Mirabelle needs us both.  You be strong.  You hear me.  We have too much together.  Let's fight for it."

"How do you put up with me, Jill?" he said pulling her to him.

"I need you," she said.

Fifteen minutes later Jill fell asleep, still pressed into his embrace and listening to the slow steady beat of his strong heart.  He kept her in his embrace, as unwilling to release her as a man adrift would relinquish his hold on a life preserver.

It's Valentine's Day!

The thought saddened him.