"Some days, nights really, when I can tell the days from the nights, I think about how I have nothing to show for my life, about how easy it would be to just end this. But they're counting on me."
Now terns and gulls swarmed across the sand below. A few slate gray pigeons bobbed amid the horde; then a gull raced forward, wings canted, beak hooking, and the pigeons pattered rapidly away.
"The waves sound so far away," she said. "Like in a shell. Don't stare at the beach like that. You're making me nervous. I didn't report that corpse. All right? I'm in this. I'm in it good now. Don't you think it's time you trusted me?" She watched a muscle twitch below his left eye. "Don't you want to talk about it, Steve?"
It took a minute. "What did you call me?" Heat worked to his face.
As she marched away, the gulls rose, wings slapping like banners.
He caught her arm. "How long have you known? How did you...?"
"Give me some credit. After all, I'm a cop too. Kind of." She shrugged away. "Besides, it wasn't as difficult as all that, not that big a deal." She turned up her collar. "Just took a little digging is all. Barry Hobbes is one of five people known to have been killed by Ernest Leeds three years ago. This morning I made a few phone calls. It seems Officer Hobbes had a partner. Tall, blond, name of Steven Donnelly. Apparently, Officer Donnelly vanished shortly after being exonerated in his partner's death." She released a fractured breath. "How'm I doing?"
They walked slowly. The wind groaned.
"Is that it?" he asked at last.
"One other thing. Ernest Leeds was blown to pieces in full view of over a dozen state troopers. Yet these recent killings bear all the earmarks of the murders attributed to him...and now you're here. It can't be a coincidence. Don't you think it's time you told me what the hell is going on?"
"Your lips are practically blue."
The drawer coughed open in a snarl of socks and shirts, one glove, a ski mask.
"What are you looking for? Perry? Answer me."
The boy's glance skimmed in her direction. She still wore the same old sweater she'd had on for days, all stretched out and soft-looking. If she could stand up, it would hang to her knees, but now it had twisted itself around her, the neck pulled so that one pale shoulder poked through. He looked away. "I can't find that jogging suit with the hood, you know, the blue one."
"That's because it's such a mess in here." She forced herself not to tug against the ropes. From where he'd positioned her chair, she could just see a corner of the mirror. She found she couldn't look away from the snarl of her hair, the puffy flesh, the way her complexion took on an almost greenish hue in this light.
"What's the matter?" he demanded. "What? How come you're staring like that?"
She made herself face him. "You've lost more weight. And those pants are too short now."
"So?" His frayed flannel shirt wouldn't stay tucked in. He'd made additional holes in his belt with a nail, and the extra length of it dangled from his belt loop.
"You should let me help you straighten up. Perry, did you hear me?"
He didn't answer, but a moment later he began picking things up off the floor and tossing them into the bathroom, quickly creating a heap of soiled clothing. Then he shoved a different heap into the closet and slammed the door. "I'll straighten up and stuff," he muttered, his eyes slanting to the bed. For a moment, he struggled to smooth it into shape. "I'm so achy." He sprawled on the wrinkled bedspread. "The backs of my legs feel frozen." He turned onto his back and stared down the length of his jeans at her, while he tried to push down the rumpled corner of the bedspread with his foot.
"You were out too long," she told him. "You should let me make the bed."
He peered at her uncertainly, bunching up the sheets with one hand so she wouldn't see the stains.
"You're such a boy. Please, let me. This place needs a good cleaning."
He turned his head as though watching something beyond the walls. She was accustomed to that look, to that strange attention to a world beyond the one she could see. She even knew he might suddenly resume speaking an hour from now as though no pause had taken place. She knew too many things.
He turned over on his stomach and mumbled something into the pillow.
"What? Perry, what?"
He barely lifted his face. "I said it's clean enough."
"You can trust me. Where could I go?" She saw his hand tighten around the bedpost. "You can untie me."
Propping himself on one elbow, he turned and stared, calculating. "Maybe later. I got to wash your hair again. I'll heat up some water."
"It's all right."
"Such long hair."
"Your fingernails are filthy."
"Such a pretty color."
"Don't start anything. Please. Anyway, yours is long too."
"I want you to feel better and stuff. I mean it."
"Why were you out so long today?" She smothered the panic in her voice. "Perry?" He turned his back to her, but she saw the tension in his shoulders: it made her stomach clench.
"Oh, I almost forgot." Suddenly, he bounded off the bed and lunged into the other room. "Where's my jacket?" He hurried back in. "I brought you all this stuff the other night, but I didn't give it to you 'cause you were...you know." He fumbled through the pockets, dumping things on the bed. "See? There's a new comb and perfume and stuff." He stood in front of her, holding up each small item in turn for her to see.
"The perfume is opened." Her voice broke. "Oh God, whose is it? What did you do? Where did you get this?"
"What do you mean? Don't talk about that! Just...!"
"No, I'm sorry--I didn't mean it!" Pressing her head back against the chair, she wept. "Don't hit me! Please! Oh please, don't hurt me. Oh God, why doesn't somebody help me?"
"You're so pretty." All the light had drained from Steve's face. "I've never known anybody with eyes like that before," he went on. "Sometimes I think they're blue, sometimes I think..."
"They're a muddy green, and now you're really making me nervous." Kit tossed the Styrofoam cup into a trash bin. Slowly, they headed across the boardwalk toward the jeep. "Please don't think you have to handle me every minute, all right? I'm on your side. Would it be so hard to just tell me? Just straight out?" She crammed her hands deep into her jacket pockets.
His gait slowed even further, and he leaned on one of the weathered benches. "I don't expect you to understand this." He sank heavily onto the bench. "Or to believe it. Not at first." The wind stirred, and his hair fluttered heavily across his forehead.
She saw a few gray streaks, and the morning sun revealed lines in his face she'd never noticed. "You know I'll..."
"No, don't say anything. Not yet." His shoulders tensed. "Not till I'm finished. It's the only way I'll be able to get it out." Suddenly, his teeth chattered audibly. "You don't know how much I've wanted to tell somebody. Anybody. For years now." The wind seemed to tear his words away, to fling them along the boards. "To begin with, Ernie Leeds was a demented creep who tortured and killed at least six people that I'm aware of, but he didn't kill Barry Hobbes."
"Then who did?"
He watched gulls caught in the upward sweep of the wind. "Me." The cries of the birds scrambled overhead, and the cold stung him to tears.
She wanted to shout at him not to tell her, but her lips formed no words.
"I left him unarmed, stranded in the pines. Knowing what was out there, I left him."
"What do you mean?"
He rubbed a gloved hand across his face. "We got into a fight. I jumped in the car and drove around till I cooled off. Maybe half an hour altogether. When I went back for him, I found his body--didn't even know what it was at first."
She touched his arm, but he didn't seem to notice.
"My fault--as sure as if I'd disemboweled him myself. But Leeds didn't do it. He took the heat to protect someone, a lover probably. At least that's what we think. It fits with his history. And, no, the authorities don't know about it. No reason they should. The real killer's dead too." Suddenly, he got up. "Hell. How do you explain something like this? Without sounding like a raving lunatic?"