But it had happened. It had been over and done with long ago. The boy was a man.
“Hurry,” the woman yelled. He was almost to the porch, and the woman said softly, with hate and longing, “Good boy! Two more steps...”
Eve yelled, “No!” and made a grab for him. Her hand sliced through his back, which had a spreading sweat stain on the little white cotton shirt, and hit Latovksy. He cried, “Hey, easy,” and she was back.
She shivered uncontrollably and he pulled her to him and put his arms around her. She was enveloped in his jacket and the faint smell of his sweat, but she knew the little boy was still there, beyond Latovksy’s bulk, and she pushed. It was like pushing a sequoia, but he gave way and she darted around him. The clearing was empty, the path overgrown again.
“Two boys?” Latovsky said.
“One about twelve, the other about five, and terrified.”
“Of what?”
“The woman, I guess. I couldn’t see her—she was outside the frame.”
“What about him?”
“He was just a pretty little boy, very thin and pale, with big eyes...” She stopped because she was betraying that terrified child.
“Why did you see that boy?” Latovsky asked softly. “Why not some other kid who’d played on the swing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it him?”
She kept quiet.
“C’mon, Eve. Five women are dead—there’ll be more. Was it him?”
She nodded.
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know. He was such a little boy, five... maybe six, no older. He was just a little boy.” She was pleading for him.
“Not anymore,” Latovsky said quietly.
He turned to Klein. “You rent this place?” He took out his notebook and pen.
Klein nodded.
“Who from?”
“Mrs. Alan Rodney, 85 Greener in Glenvale.”
Latovsky wrote quickly, then turned back to Eve.
“And where can I find you if I need you again, Mrs. Klein?”
“You won’t need her again,” Klein snapped.
“I’ll get it from your license plate,” Latovsky said. “Telling me’ll just save computer time.”
“Tilden House, Old Warren Road, Bridgeton, Connecticut,” she told him.
“Street number?”
“It doesn’t have one.”
Must be a condo complex big enough so everyone in town knew where it was, he thought.
“Okay.” He flipped the book closed and looked at Klein, who was on the far side of the room.
“And you, Mr. Klein. You’ll be here if I need you?”
She paled, Klein looked away, and Latovsky realized he’d just asked the big question: Would Sam Klein of the unromantic name stay on Raven Lake or go home to the lady with something extra inside her skull? Tune in next week, he thought.
Klein took a deep breath and looked at his wife. “You can find me there, too. It’ll take me a couple of days to clear up here, then I’m going back.”
Color rushed to her face, the greenish-brown eyes lit up, and Latovsky wondered how he’d ever thought she was plain.
“Rodney residence,” a woman answered.
“Mrs. Rodney?” Latovsky asked.
“Who’s calling, please?”
He told her. A pause, then she said, “One moment, please.”
He was in the kitchen; the other two were in the living room whispering to each other.
Another woman, who sounded older than the first one, came on the line.
“This is Mrs. Alan Rodney.”
He identified himself again and asked if he could see her this afternoon.
“I suppose, but I don’t know what I could possibly tell—”
He interrupted. “It’ll take me about an hour to get there, maybe a little longer. In the meantime, there’s something you can do for me, ma’am. Save us both time.” He told her what he wanted, hoping she wouldn’t argue with him or demand a reason on the phone. The whispering in the living room stopped and he wondered if they were kissing. Then Mrs. Rodney said, “All the names?”
“Yes, ma’am. I know it’s an imposition and I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”
“Very well, Lieutenant. But please don’t be later than three thirty and be sure to have your badge or whatever with you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly, then hung up and went into the living room. They looked at him, then back at each other, and he knew they’d be in each other’s arms the second he got out of there.
He made his good-byes quickly and left the house, quietly closing the door, although he wanted to slam it. He hesitated on the porch; it was quiet inside and he knew they would be in bed by the time he got down the drive to the road.
Music up. he thought with a bitterness that startled him, Roll credits.
He was on 128 heading east for the Northway when his beeper went off. He pulled over into a lay-by with a wood-burned sign, wright pond, six miles. The rain was getting heavier, the sky was low and thick, no one was making the trek to Wright Pond, and the lay-by was empty. He tried to call in, but static from the mountains or rain made it impossible. He gave up and pulled the batteries on the beeper so it wouldn’t keep going off on the trip back.
“Forgive me for not getting up,” Mrs. Rodney said. She was as old as she’d sounded, with thin, crinkled skin and iron-gray hair pulled back in a meager bun. But her dark eyes were bright and smart.
“May I see your badge, please?”
He’d shown it to the maid at the door, he showed it again, and she examined it carefully, checked his face against the photo in the ID card. Then she handed it back and held out a gnarled bony hand that felt like a leather bag of twigs when he shook it. She smiled and suddenly looked twenty years younger.
“Please sit down, Lieutenant.”
He sat across from her in a wing chair facing a set of rain-streaked French doors that opened to a garden of azaleas and rhododendrons lashed by wind. The storm was getting worse; he was glad to be off the highway.
The maid came in carrying a silver tray with a heavy carved silver tea service on it and set it on the table in front of Mrs. Rodney.
“I ordered hot tea,” she said, “thought it would be welcome on a day like this. Thank you, Alice.” The maid withdrew and Latovsky wondered how she’d handle the heavy pot with her gnarled hands, then saw it was on gimbals. She added the sugar he asked for (no milk) and set the cup and saucer on the tray. “Would you mind taking it?” she asked. “I don’t trust these hands and I’ve had disasters before.”
He took the cup and saucer off the tray and held the elegantly thin china gingerly, half afraid it would burst spontaneously in his hand. He drank quickly, burning his tongue, then put it back on the tray.
“More?” she asked.
“No thank you.”
The fire toasted his face, his eyes burned, and he had trouble keeping them open.
“You’re very tired, aren’t you, Lieutenant?” she said gently.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Last night must have been horrible. That poor, poor woman. It’s been all over TV and radio this afternoon. Your captain just held a press conference.”
So that’s why they’d beeped him; he always stood in for Meers with the press.
“He doesn’t exactly inspire confidence,” she said quietly. She was being polite. Lem Meers was kind, smart, totally loyal to his men, the best detective Latovsky had ever known, the best captain he’d ever had, and a disaster in front of a mike. He jiggled and jerked, cleaned out his ears, picked his nose, couldn’t find two words that went together, and generally came off like an autistic hillbilly. The hillbilly part was true. Meers was from a tiny town at the northern edge of the Park, almost to the border, and he’d once told Latovsky that he had not worn store-bought clothes or watched TV until he was grown.