"You asked me that before," she said. "Poor Jared had too few friends for any of us to be picky about those he did have."
"So you did know Wendell?"
"No, but people, after ... after it happened ... they were saying, `How could you let Jared hang around with him' . . . I didn't know, and if I did. . ."
She shrugged.
"Do you know where he would have had access to a computer?" I said.
"School, town library, places like that, I suppose. But he wouldn't have used one. I don't think he even knew how."
I was quiet. She was quiet. Somewhere next door or across the street, a dog barked. Sitting in the driver's seat of my car, Pearl barked back. Communication is a great thing. The sun shining through the languid sweep of the sprinkler made tiny rainbows in the spray.
"Please," Mrs. Clark said. "Leave him alone. Leave us alone. Jared won't even see us. We can't even live here anymore. We'll have to move and start over. Do you know, can you imagine ... ?"
I shook my head. Tears had welled up in her eyes.
I said, "Neither of the above, Mrs. Clark. I'm sorry."
Then I went back down the walk and shooed Pearl out of the driver's seat and got in and drove away.
Chapter 40
I WAS GETTING CONFLICTING STORIES, and I needed another opinion. So I was back with Jared in the Bethel County Jail. Nobody wanted me there, least of all Jared. But Healy spoke to somebody, and there I was.
"I understand a lot of kids bullied you in school," I said.
Jared shrugged.
"That true?" I said.
"No. Nobody bothered me much."
He snickered.
First snicker of the day.
"Kids didn't pick on you?"
"No."
"They friendly?" I said.
"They didn't see me."
"You a loner?" I said.
"Yeah."
"You like that?" I said.
"I like being a loner," he said.
Snicker.
"I understand you were big into computers and the Internet," I said.
Jared shrugged again and snickered again.
"True?" I said.
"Computers are for losers," he said.
"You didn't use one?"
"No."
"Ever?" I said.
"No,"
Snicker.
"You get along okay with Dr. Blair?" I said.
He didn't do anything, that I could see. But I had a sudden sense of something closing down.
"Sure," he said.
"You see her much?"
"Some."
"She says she couldn't help you much because you wouldn't talk to her about things," I said.
"Fuck her," Jared said.
"Did you talk with her about things?"
"Ask her," Jared said.
"I did. She says you wouldn't."
"Fuck her," he said.
I mouthed it silently along with him.
"You get along good with Dell?" I said.
"Sure."
"You like him?"
"Sure."
"Why'd you start hanging out with him?" I said.
"He was cool."
"What made him cool?" I said.
Jared shrugged.
"He was just cool," Jared said.
"How about Animal?"
Jared shrugged.
"Was Animal cool?" I said.
Jared shrugged again.
"Animal get you the guns?"
He shook his head.
"Your grandmother gave you the money," I said. "Last January. You give it to Animal?"
"I ain't ratting out nobody," Jared said.
"Why do you suppose Dr. Blair told me you were being bullied all the time and that you took refuge in nasty websites?"
"Huh?"
"Why do you suppose Dr. Blair lied about you?" I said.
"She lied about me?"
"If you're telling the truth, then she was lying."
"Fuck her," he said.
"Why do you suppose?" I said.
"'Cause she's a fucking whore, huh?"
"Why do you say that."
Jared got up and went and banged on the door. The guard opened it.
"I wanna go back to my room," he said.
"We call them cells, kid," the guard said and looked at me.
I shrugged and waved him off. The guard took him.
Chapter 41
THE MESSAGE on my answering machine was simple: "Meet me at the Rocks. Nine o'clock in the morning. I got stuff to tell you about Jared. Come alone. I'll be watching you."
Which is why, alone, at 8:20 A.M., I was parking along the street by the park that led to the Rocks near the lake. It had begun to rain again. Still light, but with the promise of heavy in the low sky and the tumescent air. I didn't put on a raincoat; I wanted quick access to my gun.
I was pretty sure Animal had nothing to tell me about Jared. But the only way to know that was to show up and ask him. My guess was he wanted to even things up a little, which surprised me. Maybe he was spunkier than I gave him credit for. Or crazier.
Dowling was pretty quiet at this time on a rainy weekday morning. A car moved past the park now and then, carrying somebody to work somewhere. But to the extent that Dowling had a rush hour, it was over by now. Everybody else was sleeping in. The ground was soft from the wet summer, but the current rain was only a bit more than a mist. The park was empty as I squished through it. The trees that screened the Rocks deflected the light rain so that it seemed almost to have stopped. There was no wind. I could smell the lake. There was no sound. In the clearing where the Rocks started, lying on her back on the ground, was George. I stopped. She was dead. I'd seen too many bodies not to know. I jumped to my right and dropped flat on the ground behind the thick trunk of a big maple tree, and three shots tore through the low branches of the trees where I had been.
On my belly in the soaking leaf mold, I wriggled farther right, toward the big rock formation where the shots had come from, and nestled as flat into the muddy forest floor as I could. There was no sound. I took my gun off my hip and cocked it and waited. The rock formation he was behind was a good place to shoot from. I knew how it was supposed to go. I see George. I rush to her side and kneel beside her. He puts three slugs in me at close range and walks away. But it hadn't gone the way he thought it would, and now he was stuck. The rocks were isolated, and there was no way for him to leave them without exposing himself. I could wait. So could he. He did. I did. The silence of the woods once the gunshots had receded was smothering. It had begun to rain harder. I could feel the drops now, hitting my back as I lay in the mud. Doesn't get much better than this. I could outwait him. I could outwait Methuselah. I lay still. The silence pressed in on us. And the small rain down did rain. I smiled to myself. Ah that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again. Yes, I was a poetic devil, but at issue here, actually, was how well could I shoot. My gun had a two-inch barrel. And the cylinder held five rounds. I carried it because it was light, and because I had little need for distance shooting. But my guess was that he had a nine-millimeter with a longer barrel and maybe ten more rounds in the magazine. My gun would have to do. It's a poor workman who blames his tools. The rain was pounding down now, and there was lightning in the distance followed apace by the roll of thunder. I took my Pirates hat off and put it over my gun hand to protect it from the rain. I didn't need to keep my powder dry. The thing would probably fire under water, but I didn't want it slippery wet in my hand. The lightning came again, and the thunder followed it more quickly. The rainwater plastered my hair to my skull, and the rain ran down over my forehead and into my eyes. I wiped it with the back of my wet hand. When I finished wiping, he was out from behind the rocks. No surprise. It was Animal, and he couldn't stand the waiting.
"Come out, motherfucker," he said. "Stand up and face me, tough guy."
He had a nine-millimeter and was waving it around. "Come on, cocksucker. You think you so big, you man enough, you come out here and stand up to me."
He was probably fifty feet away.
"No sucker punching now," he shouted, "no cops around, motherfucker, just you and me."
It was hard to tell because he was yelling, but I thought he might be crying, too.