The True Detective (34 page)

From his angle again, he watches her. She doesn’t look his way and he wonders if she looked for him in the moments he was gone. When she comes out, though, when the class ends and the room begins to empty, and there she is with her friend Barbara, a moment later than it seems she should be, she says to him, too directly,
“What are you doing?”

He doesn’t know what to say. So surprised that she is critical, so dumbfounded that she has seen right into his taking
advantage, he feels too humiliated to speak, even as he does walk along the hallway beside the two girls. “Well, I was just going to say hello,” he manages to say, as neither of the two girls has said anything more.

He is slowing up to turn away, and Vanessa has a new expression on her face. “Okay,” she says. “You want to meet us for lunch?”

“I have second lunch,” he says.

“I know what lunch you have,” she says. “That’s what lunch we have. So meet us for lunch.”

“Sure,” he says, “okay,” knowing already, in the humiliation he is experiencing, that he will not.

“Anything new about your brother?” Vanessa says, as he is moving away.

“No,” he says. “Why should there be?”

Getting turned the rest of the way around, saying no more, he keeps going, with no idea where he is going. He moves along, thinking of the main door just ahead when a hand grips his shoulder and tries to stop him.

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa says.

“That’s okay,” he says. “No problem.” She seems to fade, and getting his back turned a second time, he continues on his way.

Near the main door, though, there is Cormac, and another boy, and Cormac says to him, “Matt—hey, what’s going on? Have they found your brother?”

“No,” Matt says. “No, not yet.”

“Jesus, how’s it going?” the other boy says.

“All kinds of rumors are going around,” Cormac says. “Even Mr. Kazur talked about it today, when he wasn’t saying nasty things about Reagan.”

“A bunch of kids, I heard, are going to be given lie-detector tests,” the other boy says.

“Who said that?” Matt says.

“I could get one myself, because the police did talk to me,” Cormac says.

“I heard it could have something to do with drugs,” the other boy says. “That your brother hit on somebody’s supply line and they took him hostage to teach him a lesson.”

“Or knocked him off,” Cormac says. “That’s what I heard.”

“Somebody else said they think the police might be in on it themselves because they control all the drug traffic and what happened is your brother accidentally discovered their network—”

“Who said that?” Matt says. “I haven’t heard any of that stuff.”

“I think that’s all bullshit,” Cormac says. “Who ever heard of something like that in some little town like this?”

“They did pick up somebody,” Matt says. “This guy who offered Eric a ride. But they let him go. I do know that, because the police showed me his picture and asked me all kinds of questions about him.”

“Wow—did they really?” the other boy says. “What kind of questions?”

“Oh, nothing, really. I’m not supposed to say,” Matt says, and sensing the feeling of cheapness coming up in him again, moves away, saying, “I gotta go; I’m supposed to go in and answer some more questions myself.”

You liar!
he is thinking, passing through the door, walking into the air.
Stupid liar! You make me sick.

All it is, he says to himself as he turns on the main sidewalk and hurries along as if to escape—all it is is you’re more concerned with
her
than you are with your own brother. That’s why you came here. Because you’re a total zero. And she knows it.

Leaving the curb, Matt breaks into a run, to get away from himself. Along the street, angling to cross, he slips between parked cars and lopes on, the air in his eyes.

He feels an urge to go to the police station. That’s what he’ll do, he decides. Go see Lieutenant Dulac. On whatever pretext, he’ll go see that one person—he is realizing as he jogs away from himself, as his feet hit the sidewalk one after another—who understands things, who knows what is going on, who heard the things he had to say and didn’t look at him like he was crazy.

The idea seems so right, so appealing that Matt increases his pace. A glow comes up in his eyes.

D
ULAC IS OUTSIDE
,
WALKING
,
GOING TO MEET THE WITNESS
. The man called at nine, as agreed, and upon a brief exchange, as he declined to come to the police station, however casually or carefully, Dulac suggested they meet two blocks down the street at Fisherman’s Pier, near the wide river and away from any activity at this time of day.

Walking out on the pier now—the restaurant is closed and there is only the choppy seawater around the pilings below, not to mention an occasional squawking gull or a fishing boat motoring by out in the river—Dulac is trying again, or still, to sort out his thoughts and questions, the possible moves and implications concerning both the suspect and the man he is about to meet.

He is finding the air pleasant here, away from the confusion of phones and voices, almost away from the pressure itself of
being directly responsible for the case. In the near shadow of the old Memorial Bridge, he waits next to a bleached wooden post and looks out over the green water lifting toward him in its massive way. Dulac is trying to think things out. There are a dozen things, it seems, to consider all at once, not least of all the possibilities of something inconsistent emerging to eliminate the suspect altogether, to have his tip sheet priority dropped from A double plus to C.

His license plate has to be familiar, Dulac thinks. It has to be. Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts. Anything else would have spoken loud and clear, even if it was only seen in a rearview mirror. There’s no way a strange license plate would go unnoticed. Would it? Even on a short drive to sex?

No. The license plate would be noticed. It was daylight. The plate had to be familiar. He’d bet on it.

The details they have, he thinks. Two cheers at least for a gay witness. The suspect’s exact height. Five nine and three-quarters. Green eyes. Brown hair. Clean fingernails—well cared for—so he isn’t likely to be a laborer. Clean toenails, too, of all things. What does that mean? If the witness was as good with details as he had been so far on the phone, they should be able to come up with a composite approaching a photograph.

And, of course, a name: Anthony. Alias or not, it could tell them something. Even as an alias, it might be known to others. Yes, Your Honor, we learned that the suspect had used the name Anthony in half a dozen different places, four of them alone on the day the Wells boy disappeared.

Was there any reason the secret witness would be putting them on? Of course, Dulac thinks. Main reason: he had picked up the boy himself. Another reason: a wish to protect someone. Protecting someone was not terribly remote, either. Clever, but not unique. The world of up-front sex. A companion (Dulac has
difficulty with the term
lover
) commits a crime. A clever person might come in, be close to an investigation, attempt to turn it away from the actual offender.

Still, Dulac thinks, there’s nothing to suggest the witness is lying. Nothing about him seems deceptive, and nothing he has said so far suggests he is anything other than what he has said he is.

He’ll see, Dulac thinks. In about two minutes now, when he can see the guy’s face as he talks, he’ll see.

Use good judgment, Dulac reminds himself. Don’t be an old bull in a china closet. Be alert.
Think
. You can have the sonofabitch in hand by tonight. After the news. After the papers are on the street. Go with full disclosure, strike with everything. That’s probably the way to do it. Act quickly then. Listen carefully and act quickly. Avoid mistakes. With a little luck then, and another good break or two, you’ll have him. And the boy will be okay. A little worse for the wear, but okay.

Hearing footsteps on the wooden dock, he turns to see a man walking toward him. As if casually and not immediately, Dulac slips his hands from his pants pockets, where he had held them for warmth. The man is keeping his eyes on him, coming directly. Looks like an ordinary businessman, Dulac thinks. That Boston newscaster. No glasses. Receding hairline. That congressman from Maine, Your Honor. As the man is within a half a dozen steps, Dulac says, “Hullo there.”

“Hi,” the man says.

“You’re—who I think you are?” Dulac says.

“Probably. Lieutenant Dulac?”

“Right,” Dulac says, shaking hands, continuing then to show his shield, to verify his identity and to be official. “Your name?” he says.

“Can we wait on that?” the man says.

“Okay for now,” Dulac says. “I understand your concern,” he adds. “As I told you on the phone, I’ll do all I can to preserve your anonymity. I don’t see and my chief doesn’t see, right now, any reason why you’d ever be called to testify in this, although the chief says it isn’t out of the question, if we should end up in a strictly circumstantial situation. At that time, of course, you’d have the option to testify or not. Or you could be subpoenaed. Okay? For now, you can simply be a secret witness which is no different, really, from someone telephoning in a complaint and leaving the burden of proof up to us. If there was a reward, you’d be eligible for that, under this program, but there isn’t any reward. So far at least.”

“I’m not here for a reward,” the man says.

“Fine,” Dulac says. “That’s fine. The thing I have to get across to you, right now, is the time pressure we’re under. Frankly, we should have done this last night, or at five or six o’clock this morning.”

“You believe the boy is still alive?”

“Well, we hope so,” Dulac says, surprised. “If we can get any kind of lead on this guy, from what you have to tell us, our hope is—my hope is—we can maybe flush him out, or have someone identify him, without the boy getting caught in the crossfire.”

“I’ll do what I can,” the man says. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Good. What we need first of all is to have you work with one of our officers, to come up with a composite. I’d like this in this afternoon’s papers, which means it should be ready to be handed out at a press conference, which is scheduled for just about an hour from now. Okay?

“Then, I need to dig more deeply into your statement and get it on tape, to come up with
more
details, more information. As for you being
seen
—because all this needs to be done at the police station—my thought was to have you put on glasses, say,
and a hat, for purposes of coming and going. You could even do a false mustache, if you wanted to. There’s a little shop down here, it’s like a head shop, where you can get such things—I can go in and get them, at our expense—so you wouldn’t be identifiable even to a clerk, it if came to that.”

“Lieutenant, aren’t we wasting time?”

“We are. But I have to cover these things. Something else I need to know is how to get in touch with you, by phone, any time, day or night. Also, I want you to understand: first of all, this is admirable of you to come forward and take time like this to help. I want you to understand I will do all I can to protect your identity, but the thrust of all this, the purpose—my first responsibility—is to see if we can walk out of this without losing the life of a twelve-year-old boy. So, you see, you
have
to help, you see, irrespective of risk to you, simply because it’s your responsibility, because this boy’s life, if it isn’t lost already, is almost certainly at stake. Okay? There’s where we stand. I can’t guarantee your identity.”

Dulac looks to the man, trying to catch his elusive eyes; he adds, as the man doesn’t say anything, “I could lie to you.”

The man lifts his eyes then. “Lieutenant,” he says, “I think you’re sort of emotional about this.”

Dulac says nothing, looks back at the man as if he, Dulac, is a rock, as if he is not emotional at all.

“An appeal to my humanity,” the man says. “It’s what I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

“Good,” Dulac says. “Good. That’s fine. That’s good. Now we’re talking. What we have so far. We’ve ordered up printouts of every sex offender, first name Anthony or Tony, in the three-state area. What I want you to do, first off, is look at what photographs we
do
have, in case this guy wasn’t just using Tony as an alias.” Turning, Dulac has started walking back along the pier.

“I’m sure it is an alias,” the man says, walking beside him, “I used one myself. I always do in situations like that.”

“Okay,” Dulac says. “Okay. I understand. Still, it could tell us something. I’d like you to work right off, with an officer, to come up with a composite. Then, the questions, from two or three of us, to see what other details about this guy we can dig out of you.”

“I
am
going to pick up some glasses,” the man says. “And a hat, which I have in my car. Why don’t you go on Lieutenant, and I’ll catch up with you.”

Dulac pauses over this. “You’re not gonna take off on me, are you?” he says.

“No, Lieutenant, I’m not going to take off. I don’t want you to see my car, okay? I have an Indiana Jones hat in there, which I’ve never had the courage to wear, and if I’m going to go incognito, I might as well look neat, you see.”

“I’m not too crazy about letting you out of my sight,” Dulac says. “Not right now. You’re the key to my case, you know.”

“Lieutenant, you appealed to my humanity; it worked.”

“I said I’d need to be able to get in touch,” Dulac says. “Why don’t you give me some numbers now and at least a first name. In case you get hit by a car.”

The man is removing pen and notepad from an inside pocket, saying, “To get in touch with me—you mean to ask more questions? For what purpose?”

“That, follow-up questions, and maybe to look at a lineup or listen to a recorded voice maybe. I’m not sure. For example, a young man was reported to have visited a sex store, Saturday afternoon, to have viewed a film called
Children in Bondage.
The clerk there said this young man, who had an unusually
reddish complexion, not only viewed this film but also asked if he—”