Offspring (15 page)

“Then we can’t go. Oh god! Not yet. He’s still around here somewhere.”

“But
Mom
. . .”

“We can’t, Luke. I love Amy. You know I do. I love her . . . very much. But we can’t.”

And it will do none of us any good if you start to cry
, she thought.

Still she not only knew what the raccoon felt, she finally knew something of what her brother was feeling too and understood his hatred ever after for people who were willing to put you in places like this, places where nothing you do could possibly be right or generous or life giving, and knew she was right never to have mourned her uncle’s passing.

“Halbard
, for godsakes! It’s Halbard!”

“That’d be David Halbard,” said the cop. “Scrub Point Road. I’ll call it in.”

The name had come back to him almost as soon as he started thinking about something else
.

Thinking about what he was into here, particularly.

They hadn’t gotten far. Up until this last bend in the road he could still see his battered car through the rear window.

Maybe it was the sheriff’s New York accent that brought his situation home. Or maybe it was the whiskey the fat guy handed him that stopped the shakes long enough for him to think. But here he was with three cops—he assumed the fat guy beside him was a cop, though he didn’t look like one. He looked too old, for one thing—and he was carrying scotch whiskey. But he assumed he was.

Three cops.

And there
he
was, sitting in the backseat with the old guy. Three fucking policemen.

Shit!

He didn’t know which scared him most—going back there or being stuck with three cops doing it.

“Okay,” he said. “Look. You know where you’re going now, right? How ‘bout just letting me off. I really don’t want to go back there. Jesus christ, I don’t.”

The sheriff took his finger off the call button.

“You’ve had a bad shock, Mr. Carey. We know that. When I call this in I’ll call for an ambulance too, get some paramedics out here for you. Believe me, you’re a whole lot better off with us.”

“Hey, I’m fine now, really. I remembered the name, didn’t I? I can walk back to the car and . . .”

“Your car’s a mess, Mr. Carey. The only place it’s going is the garage. We’ll take care of it in the morning.”

“I could just wait there, then. I honestly don’t want to . . .”

“I appreciate your feelings. But I’m calling this in now. You’ll be fine, Mr. Carey, I promise you.”

Case closed
, thought Steven. Cops. Shit. He felt the old cop’s eyes on him. Like he was some sort of freak.

He saw the woman with the ax smashing through the windshield. He saw Marion fat and naked on her bed, her tongue hanging out like a slice of liver, the hairdryer cord sunk deep into her neck
.

“. . . Halbard place on Scrub Point Road,” the sheriff was saying.

“You’re where?” said the dispatcher.

“Route Six, just past the mall.”

“Closest we got is car twelve-o up at Horse Neck Lane. I’ll get them on it.”

“Okay. And call everybody else off house-to-house and get them up here. We may have to go looking.”

“Will do.”

“And get me an ambulance. Lacerations, possible shock. Victim is Mr. Steven Douglas Carey, Connecticut license number M oh nine seven two, one five one eight four, one one three five three. Better make that two ambulances. You don’t know what we’ll find out here. Over.”

“You got it. Over.”

He didn’t like the cop giving his name.
Why did they have to give his name?
He guessed it was routine. But he was getting a feeling about this. Like the car was shrinking, the front seat pressing up against his knees, the cop beside him subtly closer. It was bullshit. He felt it anyway.

He recognized things along the road now and saw that he’d come in this way, then had driven back blindly, not knowing where the hell he was going, just getting out of there, right along the same route. There was the broken-down tractor parked in the ditch, leaning precariously. And the roadside ad for Jim Beam whiskey. Both of them looking lonely against open empty fields beyond.

They were climbing into the hills. The turnoff onto Scrub Point Road was right around here someplace. Beyond the next bend or two.

Something was wrong. He could feel it.

The squawk box crackled to life.

“Sheriff? Confirmation on that name again?”

“Carey. Cable-Apple-Robin-Eve-Yellow. Steven Douglas.”

There was a pause on the dispatcher’s end, a moment of open air, and he knew before the man spoke again that what he was feeling was far from bullshit, that this was pure trouble, that same white-light edge of something
about to happen
he’d felt back at Marion’s, before the cord went around her neck, mere seconds before. Something coiled—cold, frightening, yet almost pleasurable, almost beautiful—inside him.
Easy
, he thought.
Take care. Take stock
.

Winding road. Sixty. Much too fast. Sharp curve ahead. Have to slow down for that. Grassy shoulder. Dropping off down a steep hill. To what?

Nobody around, no lights anywhere.

They haven’t locked the door yet.

Wait. Could be nothing.

The cop beside him was looking at him.

The squad car was slowing, going into the curve.

It’s not nothing. Go!

“That’s what I thought you said,” said the dispatcher. “Interesting. We got an all-points on Steven Douglas Carey about an hour ago. Wanted for questioning related to the murder of . . .”

He slammed open the door, felt the cool air rush against him, tumbled and rolled with the impact. He felt stones bruise his ribs and thighs, the wet soft grass, felt the car rush away ahead of him and then heard the squeal of brakes and still he was rolling, rolling down the hill, way down, the grass much higher now, rolling over cattails and tall thick marsh grass that sliced his face and hands yet slowed his
fall, rolling finally to a stop in some kind of muck while the car doors slammed overhead. And then he was standing up, dizzy as hell at first, hardly able to stand. He shook his head to clear it and felt mud fly off his face.

He found solid earth again and started running.

The beams of flashlights played over the space behind him, coming down from the top of the hill.

Would they follow?

Marion, you bitch, you told on me. Even dead you told somehow
.

He couldn’t see anything at first. It didn’t matter. He was running through water and then out of it again, not knowing which was which until he got there, just running, slogging through, slipping on rocks, pushing aside the cattails with flailing hands. He smelled stagnant water and rotten vegetation as the water grew deeper and he knew he was in some slow-moving stream, moving gradually uphill against its flow.

That didn’t matter either. What mattered was getting the hell away from them and he was doing that, all he had to do was go and keep on going and the months of handball had prepared him,
shit
he was strong, he wasn’t even breathing hard and he knew one goddamn thing, that fat bastard wasn’t going to be following.

Fuck ’em
, he thought.
Fuck ’em
.

Oh you can’t catch me. Oh no you can’t catch me. If you get too close I’m gone, gone, gone like a cool breeze
.

The Blues Project, 1967.

He’d never felt so free.

He heard his own laughter echo through the hills, his feet pounding the clay banks of the stream.

Fuck ’em all
.

His eyes were working again, the moonlight bright as the clouds moved away and he saw he was in a forest, deep, with trees all around.

Shit yes
, he thought. A forest. Plenty of places to hide.

He pulled off the new silk tie and dropped it in the muck behind him and ran.

Manetti was on the horn again.

“. . . right. Tell the state boys he bailed out about a hundred yards from Scrub Point Road off Six. Sounds like he’s moving upstream. We could hear him laughing down there like a goddamn loon. He keeps on laughing like that he won’t be hard to find. Keep me posted.”

Peters had his eyes on the rough dirt road ahead, searching for movement beyond the headlights.

He was gratified that Manetti hadn’t wanted to waste any time on this character. He’d known cops who would never have been able to take Carey getting away from them. Their egos couldn’t manage it. But Manetti had his priorities straight. The people on the hill were priority. And even if he did the murder, this guy was next to nothing tonight.

They pulled into the drive. It looked like half the lights in the house were burning inside.

Manetti left the engine running, his headlights and flasher on.

Normal procedure would be to wait for backup but Manetti wasn’t having any of that either. From what the dispatcher said backup was still minutes away and minutes could make a difference here.

Peters’ hand felt clammy on the butt of his .38. They stepped carefully out of the car.

Harrison threw the beam of his Maglite over the grounds. They saw shattered glass in the driveway from Steven Carey’s windshield. Other than that, nothing.

Peters glanced over the house. Saw the steep hill, the stilts supporting the deck around the other side. The house had two floors and maybe a cellar and that was all.

Evidently you walked through this door directly into the kitchen. He flattened himself against the cedar shingle siding, then turned and looked through the window. There was a lobster pot in the sink. Canned goods and silverware scattered on the floor. No movement at all that he could see. He waited, made sure, then nodded to Manetti and Harrison who were poised with guns drawn at the door.

Harrison tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. The knob was turning. He pushed it open and Manetti rushed inside. Harrison swung and covered him and then went in fast beside him. From there he turned a corner into the hall—Peters could see a bedroom and a stairway—while Manetti took the study. Peters was right behind him. The smell of blood telling him just who was going to find what, and where.

He left the door open a crack.

For the ventilation.

The guy lay on the floor near one of the computers. The computer screen and desk were covered with blood. So were the walls and the potbellied stove and the sliding glass doors.

His arms and legs were gone.

You could see inside the guy. His heart was missing and the liver and kidneys were missing, and there was nothing but a wide pool of blood exploding outward from where his genitals had been—as though he’d pissed himself away. Maybe they’d find his dick beneath a table somewhere.

Manetti was staring down at him.

“Fuck this,” he said.

Peters knew exactly how he was feeling. How empty and hopeless it is when you’re too damn late this time.

“This was a real nice guy,” said Manetti. He shook his head. “Fuck this.”

Peters gave him a moment.

“Halbard, right?” he asked.

Manetti nodded.

Miles Harrison was coming down the stairs. He turned the corner into the room and went white when he saw what was lying there.

“Anything?” asked Manetti. You could see him pull himself up. He was suddenly all business again. He knew his boys.

Harrison forced his eyes off the body. He swallowed. “Broken door to one of the upstairs bedrooms. There was a kid up there for sure, toys all over the
place. Window’s wide open, like maybe somebody got out that way, or tried to. The other room’s got suitcases, perfumes, women’s clothes. There’s a bassinet in the downstairs bedroom and a king-sized bed. Men’s and women’s clothes in the closet.”

“Hold it,” said Peters. “Bassinet? We’re talking about another baby here?”

Harrison just looked at him, thinking, probably, pretty much the same thing he was thinking. That if things could get worse, they just had.

“There’s no chance it’s been sitting there awhile?”

Manetti’s voice was quiet. “They had a daughter, I think it was. A few months ago.”

And there was the headache again, pushing from somewhere in the back of his head. Maybe it had been there all along and he’d just become aware of it, just now let it in. He sighed. He thought about the pint in his inside jacket pocket and dismissed the idea. Maybe these people had some aspirin in the bathroom.

“I’ll be back,” he said.

He was in there with three of them in his hand when he heard a commotion in the den—voices and hurried movement across the floor. Peters stuck his head in.

Manetti and Harrison were at the open door. It looked to Peters like they were about to leave him there.

“Hey? What’s up?” he said.

“Screaming,” said Harrison. His gun was drawn. “Somebody out there screaming.”

Claire saw the headlights and the flasher and thought,
Thank god!

It had seemed like forever they were up there, hoping Melissa would continue sleeping, hoping no one would pass by, hoping for just this—headlights cutting through the night, bringing help and safety and a way out
.

Luke saw them too. “All
right!”
he said.

There was no way she could depend on the police to search the woods. Certainly not right away. They might not get to that for hours or even till morning. Meantime these people were still out here.

And Amy was out here too. Not far.

They had to get down.

She’d called her own judgment into question almost constantly these days—inevitable aftershocks of the marriage. Nine years ago she’d embarked on what she thought of as the single
real
adventure that two people could have together—love, commitment, home, and family—embarked upon it because she thought she knew her partner. And had not.

If she could get this wrong, what else? Certainty was like a skittish colt—she couldn’t grab the reins.

But Amy was out there. That was certain. And twenty years of friendship left her very little room for doubt for a change.