Paul hesitated.
“Something wrong?” Emma asked.
“Is Bob home?”
“He’s at work.”
“When did he leave?”
“Same as every day. A few minutes before nine.”
“He’s at the police station?”
“Or cruising around in the patrol car.” Emma no longer needed to ask if something was wrong; she knew. “Why?”
Why indeed? Paul thought. Rather than explain, he said, “Is Mark here?”
“He was,” Emma said. “He and Jeremy went over to the basketball court behind the Union Theater.”
“When was that?”
“Half an hour ago.”
It seemed to him that she had to be telling the truth, for her statement could be verified or disproved so easily. If her husband had killed Mark, what could she hope to gain by such a flimsy lie? Besides, he didn’t think she was the sort of woman who could take part in the cover-up of a murder — certainly not with such apparent equanimity, not without showing a great deal of stress and guilt.
Paul looked down at Rya.
Her face was still a mask of stubbornness — and even more pale and drawn than it had been in the car. “What about Buster?” she asked Emma. Her voice was sharp and too loud. “Did they take Buster over to the court so he could play basketball with them?”
Understandably bewildered by the girl’s uncharacteristic nastiness and her intense reaction to such a simple statement, Emma said, “The squirrel? Oh, they left him with me. Do you want the squirrel?” She stepped back, out of the doorway. “Come in.”
For a moment, recalling the tale of mindless violence that Rya had related just thirty minutes ago, Paul wondered if Bob Thorp was in the kitchen, waiting for him…
But that was absurd. Emma was not aware that supposedly a boy had been slain in her kitchen this morning; he would have wagered nearly any sum on that. And in the light of Emma’s innocence, Rya’s story seemed altogether a fantasy — and not really a very good one, at that.
He went inside.
The canary cage stood in one comer, next to the flip-top waste can. Buster sat on his hind feet and busily nibbled an apple. His tail flicked straight up, and he went stiff as a wooden squirrel when he became aware of the guests. He assessed Paul and Rya and Jenny as if he had never seen them before, decided there was no danger, and returned to his breakfast.
“Mark told me he likes apples,” Emma said.
“He does.”
The kitchen held no evidence that a violent and deadly struggle had taken place there. The dishes on the table were spotted with dried egg yolk, butter, and crumbs of toast. The clock-radio produced soft instrumental music, an orchestrated version of a pop tune. The new issue of the weekly newspaper, distributed that morning, was folded in half and propped against two empty juice glasses and the sugar bowl. A cup of steaming coffee stood beside the paper. If she had watched her husband murder a child, could Emma have sat down to read less than an hour after the killing? Improbable. Impossible. There was no blood on the wall behind the electric range, no blood on the range itself, and no blood, not even one thin smear, on the tile floor.
“Did you come to get Buster?” Emma asked. She was clearly perplexed by their behavior.
“No,” Paul said. “But we’ll take him off your hands. Actually, I’m ashamed to tell you why we did come.”
“They cleaned it up,” Rya said.
“I don’t want to hear—”
“They cleaned up the blood,” she said excitedly.
Paul pointed one finger at her. “You have caused quite enough trouble for one day, young lady. You keep quiet. I’ll talk to you later.”
Ignoring his warning, she said, “They cleaned up the blood and hid his body.”
“Body?” Emma looked confused. “What body?”
“It’s a misunderstanding, a hoax, or—” Paul began.
Rya interrupted him. To Emma she said, “Mr. Thorp killed Mark. You know he did. Don’t lie! You stood at that chair and watched him beat Mark to death. You were naked and—”
“Rya!” Paul said sharply.
“It’s true!”
“I told you to be quiet.”
“She was naked and—”
In eleven years he had never been required to deal out any punishment more severe than a twenty-four-hour suspension of some of her privileges. But now, angry, he started toward her.
Rya pushed past Jenny, threw open the kitchen door, and ran.
Shocked by her defiance, angry and yet worried about her, Paul went after her. When he set foot on the stoop, she was already out of sight. She couldn’t have had time to run to the garage or to the station wagon; therefore, she must have slipped around the comer of the house, either left or right. He decided she would most likely head for Union Road, and he went that way. When he reached the sidewalk he saw her and called to her.
She was nearly a block away, on the far side of the street, still running. If she heard him, she didn’t respond; she disappeared between two houses.
He crossed the street and followed her. But when he reached the rear lawns of those houses, she wasn’t there.
“Rya!”
She didn’t answer him. She might have been too far away to hear — but he suspected that she was hiding nearby.
“Rya, I just want to talk to you!”
Nothing. Silence.
Already his anger had largely given way to concern for her. What in the name of God had possessed the girl? Why had she concocted such a grisly story? And how had she managed to tell it with such passion? He hadn’t really believed any of it, not from the start — yet he’d been so impressed by her sincerity that he’d come to the Thorp house to see for himself. She wasn’t a liar by nature. She wasn’t that good an actress. At least not in his experience. And when her story was shown to be a lie, why had she defended it so ardently? How had she defended it so ardently, knowing it was a lie? Did she believe, perhaps, that it wasn’t a fabrication? Did she think that she actually had seen her brother killed? But if that was the case, she was — mentally disturbed. Rya? Mentally disturbed? Rya was tough. Rya knew how to cope. Rya was a rock. Even an hour ago he would have staked his life on her soundness of mind. Was there any psychological disorder that could strike a child so suddenly, without warning, without any symptoms beforehand?
Deeply worried, he went back across the street to apologize to Emma Thorp.
2
10:15 A.M
Jeremy Thorp stood, almost as if at attention before a military court, in the center of the kitchen.
“Do you understand what I’ve said?” Salsbury asked.
“Yeah.”
“You know what to do?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Any questions?”
“Just one.”
“What is it?”
“What do I do if they don’t show up?”
“They’ll show up,” Salsbury said.
“But what if they don’t?”
“You have a watch, don’t you?”
The boy held up one thin wrist.
“You wait twenty minutes for them. If they don’t show up in that time, come straight back here. Is that understood?”
“Yeah. Twenty minutes.”
“Get moving.”
The boy started toward the door.
“Don’t leave that way. They’ll see you. Go out the front. ”
Jeremy went down the narrow hall to the door.
Salsbury followed, watched until the boy was out of sight behind the neighboring house, closed the door, locked it, and went back to the kitchen.