Tenderness (20 page)

They had not gone to a motel last night but found a deserted area off the highway, near a meandering brook. The girl spent the night in the sleeping bag while he lay a short distance away, wrapping himself in a blanket as the night air grew cold. He didn’t really sleep, the ground hard beneath him, his senses alert, his body tense. He listened to the night sounds, the occasional throb of a car from the highway, small scurryings in the woods, the noise of insects that he couldn’t identify.

A new sound reached him, and he looked up to
see the girl approaching, dragging the sleeping bag behind her.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I’m scared,” she whispered. “I thought this would be fun, but it’s spooky out here.”

She was beautiful in the moonlight, her hair silver, her face like a pale cameo his mother had worn Sundays. But she was not dark like Maria Valdez and the others. She evoked gentleness in him, a desire to protect her even from the noises of the night. He wondered,
Is there something wrong with me?

“Sleep next to me,” he said.

She slipped into the sleeping bag and he curled up beside her and heard her soft sleeping noises after a while.

Early this afternoon she had spotted a sign proclaiming
MIRROR LAKE—SWIMMING
,
BOATING
,
PICNIC TABLES
.
A FAMILY PLACE
.

“Let’s stop,” she said. “Please, please …”

He did not resist her pleas. He needed a place to pause, to make his plans. And he owed her a few minutes of pleasure.

She frolicked on the beach, dashing into the water now and then, having rolled her shorts impossibly high on her thighs. After a while a young girl joined her, splashing her legs and running away, then coming back again. She was like a
child herself, chasing the little girl, whooping, while the girl’s family smiled their approval. Other families were spread out on blankets.

He watched the girl absently, his thoughts moving toward the future. The future as near as tomorrow. He had to plan his next move. He knew that Lieutenant Proctor was smarter and more subtle than he had given him credit for, and wondered whether the old cop had more tricks up his sleeve, more traps to be sprung.

He had to start over. Get rid of the van. Send the girl home. Had to get out of New England and go as far away as possible. Grow a beard, shave his head—do something to disguise himself.

The girl stood before him, gesturing toward the lake where an old man and a child passed by in a canoe.

“Take me for a canoe ride,” she said.

“No, it’s getting late. You can’t swim.”

“They rent life jackets along with the canoe. Please, Eric. Why did you buy me that hat if you didn’t want to take me out on the water?”

“I didn’t buy you a canoe—I bought you a hat.”

Thinking that sounded clever. Surprised he’d suddenly made a kind of joke.

“It’ll be romantic,” she said. “Like the movies …”

They rented a canoe and a life jacket for her.

He had been instructed in canoeing during a week at summer camp when he was twelve or thirteen and had no trouble remembering the routine. The girl settled down at the far end in her white hat, her hand trailing in the water, like the girl they’d watched two days ago.

The afternoon turned into evening as they cruised the lake, near the shore at first. Then venturing further out. The effort of paddling reminded him that he had not exercised at all since leaving the facility. He had to get in shape again, begin a routine of working out, jogging. His arm muscles ached. He rested, letting the canoe drift. The girl stared dreamily at the water.

I love the breeze on my face, the smell of the air and the water, never realized that water actually has a smell to it, clean and fresh, and Eric is handsome as he paddles the canoe, shifting the paddle from one side to another, and I half-close my eyes, squinting at him, and he looks at me with an expression on his face that I can’t really pin down—I search for a word and come up with an old-fashioned one that nobody uses anymore but you read it in stories.
Fondly
. He looks at me fondly. I know that the look doesn’t have love in it. Or even lust. I still wonder about love or sex or lust. I saw lust in his eyes when he looked at that
girl on the sidewalk. That same lust when he spoke about Maria Valdez. I love him, anyway. I love him because he’s kind to me and he doesn’t want my body, doesn’t want to feel me or touch me, like all the others—old Mr. Stuyvesant and the guy at Aud-Vid Land and Dexter and even Gary—and maybe after a while he might look at me with more than fondness, will kiss me sweetly, tenderly.

I feel so free here in the canoe. I want to shout it to the world. I want to get rid of this life jacket, too tight across my top, digging into my shoulder blades, want to stand up and yell,
Look at me. I’m Lori Cranston.…

As he gazed absently at the girl, thinking how little it took to make her happy—a few new clothes at a store, a canoe ride—she began to take off her life jacket.

“What are you doing?” he asked, amazed at her capacity to catch him by surprise.

“It’s too tight,” she said. “I want to feel free.” Slipping out of the jacket, letting it drop to the floor of the canoe. “There, that’s better.…” Stretching, luxuriating, raising her face to the sky, the white hat perched precariously on her head.

She got to her feet, flinging her arms outward, calling to the wind, the sky, the water. “I’m Lori
Cranston, queen of the sea. The happiest girl in the world …”

The canoe rocked dangerously beneath them.

“Sit down,” he ordered, alarm in his voice. “Please sit down.” As she was about to reply, she lost her balance, her arms flailing the air, her hat taken by the wind and flung away like a huge white bird that had forgotten how to fly. As she swiveled around, trying to regain control, she was swooped away as if by invisible hands and plopped into the water, arms grappling at air, panic flashing in her eyes, as she disappeared from view. The canoe wobbled, almost overturned.

Instinctively, without thought, he dived into the water, shocked by the sudden cold, knifing below the surface, trying to focus, saw her struggling frantically. He reached for her but she began to sink, as if in slow motion, her mouth agape, eyes wild with fright. He dipped, grabbed at her, clutched her fiercely. She kicked against him, then grabbed at him, her hands finding his shoulders, then his throat. He felt himself strangling, fought to break loose but needing to keep her in his grasp. She held on, frenzied, and they both sank lower. Needing air, he pushed for the surface, and she suddenly lost all resistance, ceasing to struggle, rising, rising with him.

They broke through the surface, and he gasped for breath, sweet air rushing into his lungs. She
coughed, sputtered, eyes wild, still clutching him. He reached for the canoe for support, found it had overturned, flung one arm around it, holding the girl with the other.…

God, I was drowning, Eric, terrified, dying, you saved me.… I love you … love me, Eric …

 … while she looked at him, eyes wild but gratitude in them, coughing, spluttering, huge coughs, eyes rolling back, writhing in his grasp. But the panic began again. Thrashing in his arms, she struck her head on the side of the canoe, the
thuck
of the collision loud in the silence of the lake. Suddenly she slipped out of his arms, and he saw, to his horror, that she had disappeared below the surface. He plunged into the water again, found her immediately, but she dragged him down with her, her arms around his neck, strangling as before in her panic. He struggled to free himself, knowing he needed air, needed to surface, or they would both sink to the bottom and drown. He managed to break loose, wrenching one arm away from her, wondering if he had broken it. Arrowed to the surface, lungs burning, gasped for air, arms heavy with weariness. Dived again, searching—
where was she?—nowhere to be seen … up again, drawing deep breaths, canoe drifting away … down again, must find her, must not give up …

Later, darkness descending, he lay on the upended canoe, facedown, paddling wearily with his arms, making slow progress toward shore as the sun went down, cheek pressed against the unyielding surface of the canoe. Paddle, rest awhile, paddle. Not wanting to think of the girl, poor kid, somewhere below the water, cold and lost and alone. The lake was calm now, smooth and shiny like the lid of a coffin.

As he approached the shore, limp with exhaustion, he saw a gathering on the beach, huddled figures revealed in the whirling blue-red lights of police cruisers.

He moaned, the sound like a note of doom, as he continued paddling toward shore, knowing what was waiting for him there.

The old cop was standing at the stove waiting for the water to boil for tea when the telephone rang. He took his time going to the living room and lifted the receiver without expectations.

“Hello,” he said, clearing his throat. His cold was long gone and he blamed age for making his throat hoarse whenever he spoke after hours of silence.

“Great news, Lou,” Pickett said, the brightness of his voice a contrast to recent morning calls in the aftermath of the failed trap for Eric Poole. “They’ve booked Eric Poole out in Springfield. First-degree murder.”

The old cop’s heart fluttered like a moth in his chest.

“That girl, the runaway. He killed her at a lake there. Took her out in a canoe. Claimed she panicked and fell overboard. But when her body was recovered, they found head trauma. From a blunt instrument. Maybe the paddle, which they haven’t recovered yet.”

The lieutenant sighed wearily, heard the whistle of the kettle as the water boiled.

“You there, Lou?” Pickett asked anxiously. “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” he replied. “But Eric Poole was telling the truth, Jimmy. It
was
an accident. The girl wasn’t his type. That wasn’t his method of operation.…”

Long pause, Pickett’s disappointment obvious in his silence. The kettle continued to whistle.

“But it’s all over, right, Lou?” Pickett asked.

The old cop thought of that child in the white First Communion dress and the other children who died long ago in Oregon, and the girls that he knew Eric Poole had killed here in New England.

“Right,” he said. “It’s all over.”
Maybe I can sleep again
.

But that night he was sleepless as usual, tossing and turning, finally snatching a bit of oblivion before waking to find dawn turning the room to pewter. He knew that it was not all over, would never end. Like the phantom pain that remains after a leg is amputated.

He lit a cigarette, and waited for another day to begin.

In the cell, in the dark, the clatter and the clamor of the jail muffled at last, his thoughts were sharper than ever, and images erupted in his mind like fragments in a kaleidoscope.

Sometimes the images were of his dark girls, flashing eyes, tumbling black hair, always the hair, and his tender invasion of the places where he found tenderness in return.

There were times when he could not summon the girls but other images came: the old cop as he thrust his way out of the bushes.
Still the monster, aren’t you, Eric?
He pulled the blanket up to his chin, a chill rattling his bones despite the warmth of the cell. What did the old cop know about monsters? He was tired of the old lieutenant, did not want to think about him anymore.

He also did not want to think about his mother, but she emerged in his mind now and then, her long black hair tumbling over him and the odd shape of her mouth as he had last seen her.

He lay still, waiting for sleep to arrive, for the
images to fade, wanting only the oblivion that sleep could summon.

But before the oblivion there came the girl. Spinning around in that motel room like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes. That silly white hat. And the worst image of all, the one he dreaded but could not prevent: the way she clung to him at the last moment in the waters of the lake:
Love me, Eric
.

Eric touched his cheek, finding moisture there—was this what crying was like?

Later, in the deepest heart of the night, the monster also cried.