Felt for the sniper in my mind. Listened to the child. "I hurt," he said.
Once a child's cry for help. Now a killer's boast.
"He'll be here." Wesley's voice.
148
I WORKED THE ground. No shell casings, no condoms. Not even a beer can. The spot was virgin, waiting for a rapist. I absently pulled some long green reeds from the earth. Climbed into the car, tossed them on the front seat between us.
On the way out, I checked the sign. The Nature Center closed each night at six.
149
"YOU OKAY?"
"That's his spot, Blossom. It's perfect."
She fingered the green stalks. "You know what these are?"
"No."
"This is a scouring rush. Horsetails, we call them. Prospectors used to use them. You crack them open, like this, see? They're hollow. The story is, you could see tiny flecks of gold, where it was leached up out of the ground if there was any underneath."
I wondered if they leached blood.
150
THE NEXT MORNING, the Lincoln circled the Nature Center in tightening loops, pawing the ground before it moved in.
"When are you going to try it?" Blossom.
I lit a cigarette with the dashboard lighter. "I have to get a call first. There's something I need."
The car phone rang. But it was Sherwood, not the Mole.
I let Blossom ride along to the meet with me. Let the cop know what I knew.
Most of it.
151
THE UNMARKED CAR was positioned at the gate to the beach. I pulled in alongside, got out. Blossom followed. Sherwood fell into step with us.
"Good news and bad news. This Luther Swain, he could be the guy. But he's gone. That address you had, it was the last one on record."
"What about his mother?"
Sherwood pulled out a thick slab of a notebook. "According to DPW records, she left about five years ago. The locals terminated her Welfare grant. The kid stayed on in the house until 1986, when he turned eighteen. They offered him some services: outpatient counseling, group therapy. Even said they'd hook him up with SSI Disability. But one day he just up and disappeared."
"You run them on SSI national?"
"Yeah. Zip. If they were getting checks from the government, we'd have located 'em."
"Tax records? Military? Passport?"
"Blank." His look was measured, just short of offended. "We know how to do it, pal, chase the paper. There's no trail. The kid don't even have a driver's license."
"Fuck." Me.
"Detective, did you by any chance pull this boy's medical records?" Blossom.
"Yes, ma'am. They're in the car." His tired eyes tracked her. "If you're thinking the blood banks, it won't fly. He's got type O."
"No, I was thinking…maybe it's not so strange he doesn't have most kinds of ID, but you'd think, a young man, he'd have a driver's license."
"So?"
"Burke, remember that report you read to me? Something about severe damage to his eyes? Maybe that's why he can't get a driver's license."
"I don't know anything about any reports, I said, the words evenly spaced, like rocks dropping into a pond.
"Me neither," said Sherwood. "We had this report of an attempted break-in at the DPW Building, but I figure, it had to be some kids playing a prank. Real rookie move, toss a rock through the glass. Not the kind you'd expect from any big-time New York heist-man."
Blossom's face flushed.
Back at Sherwood's car, we found the records. Blossom translated the big words. "He'll always have trouble with his vision, especially in daylight."
"He couldn't get a driver's license?" Sherwood.
"Not hardly."
"They got no test for buying a gun," the big man said.
152
I TOLD HIM about the Nature Center. We went by to take a look. I showed him what I'd seen. He nodded.
"Wait here."
I saw him talking to a uniformed park ranger. He walked back slow.
"He says they drop the gate every night. Padlock it. Wood gate. Anyone could get through it. Nobody does. Says the kids never park here. They patrol about twice a night. If they'd see someone, they'd chase 'em off. Maybe bust 'em for trespassing, if they were smoking dope."
"He'll work with you?"
"On this? Sure. We shut down the parking spots, like I told you. This one won't get patrols."
"How about if a car was going to park in here. Every night. Would he look the other way? Stay down?"
His eyes were someplace else. "What d'you have in mind?"
"Drawing his fire."
He walked a few feet away, back to me. I let him have his silence, waiting.
Sherwood turned to face me. "You're crazy. Crazy as he is. If this boy's the one you want, he's certifiable. Got him a Get Out of Jail Free card behind his past record. Hell, he was on medication right up to the time he cut loose and disappeared."
"I'm not crazy. I'm waiting for a car. Special car. You'll see. It should be able to handle anything he can throw."
"And what's my piece?"
"You got to be in position before dark. Nice and early. I'll park right where the Lincoln is right now. You can work anywhere from the left."
He scanned the terrain. "I was in 'Nam," he said. Absently, under his breath. "Infantry. It looks like that. I could deploy a dozen men in there. Spotlights, the whole works."
I moved close to him, my voice pitched low. "It has to be a deal, Sherwood. A square deal, both sides. You work from the left, okay? Nothing to the right of that point…see, where the tracks make that kind of peak?"
"Who's gonna be on the right?"
"Someone for me. I'm not gonna testify in court, okay? This works, he throws down on me, opens up, I'm out of here. Turn the key and go. Just make sure you fire across, not down."
"What else?"
"Just your own people. You post this on the bulletin board, Officer Revis takes a look, I could have trouble. The way this is, you and your team, you're staking out the place. On a hunch. You be as surprised as anyone else, a car pulls in."
"You want me to risk my badge?"
"Up to you. All I want, you either stay out of here or come in the way I said. Either way."
"When you gonna start?"
"I'll let you know."
153
AT VIRGIL'S HOUSE that night.
"What've you got that you're sure of?"
He brought down an old lever-action .30-30 carbine, the stock burnished with generations of hand-rubbed oil. "This Winchester was my daddy's. He taught me to use it. Before this all started, I was teaching Lloyd. We was going deer hunting, this winter, him and me."
"There's no paper on this?"
"No. I got me an old thirty-ought-six too. The one I was gonna have Lloyd use."
I lit a smoke.
"You started up again?"
I ignored him. "Lloyd, you sure you want to do this? This isn't some bar fight now."
"Yessir."
"'Cause of all the trouble this guy caused you?"
The boy's fists were clenched, voice vibrating, working for control. "Not him. The other one. The one who…"
"I know," I told him.
154
BLOSSOM WAS IN the kitchen with Rebecca, Virginia monopolizing conversation, Junior sitting quiet.
I thought about all Virgil had. Watching him polish the cut-down barrels of a twelve-gauge with emery paper.
"You could walk away from this," I told him.
"Why didn't you?"
I didn't answer him.
Wesley knew.
"He knows I'm coming," I told my brother.
The mountain man jacked a shell into the chamber of his carbine. It made a sharp, clean sound in the living room. His face was set in lines of bone.