Allander peered back at Jade from his mug shots, his voice rattling around in Jade's head. Jade looked around the living room and saw only Allander. And corpses.
The pain in his head intensified and he grunted out loud, pressing his fists to his forehead to slow the dull throbbing. He stumbled toward the study, accidentally stepping on the remote control and turning on the TV. Allander's trial tape continued.
The mother of the molested girl sobbed on the witness stand, her cries following Jade down the hall. He banged through the study door and fell into his chair. He took deep breaths, counting them backward. He started with twenty and worked his way down. As he counted, he pulled himself slowly to the desk.
Above his pounding heart, his mind carried him back to a place from his youth, a place that smelled like wood sweepings and burning leaves. It carried him across a field where foxtails waved in the wind, catching the sun in all its yellow splendor and reflecting it back so brightly one needed to raise an arm against the glare.
Four boys cut a path through the high weeds, leaving a small trail behind them as foxtails fell beneath their feet. Looks of preadolescent cruelty sat across their freckled faces. Raised on country breakfasts and yellow school buses, boys like these were too naive to have empathy. All four had the same haircut, a side part with hair flared across in the front so that it spiked up or dangled over their foreheads.
They were voiceless to Jade as they screamed, though he noticed the strain in their necks and the rise and fall of their Adam's apples. With a sweeping aerial view, he saw up ahead to where the children were running.
The field led to an enormous mound with a large scarecrow planted in the middle. The scarecrow's arms cast a fierce shadow from its ten-foot perch. The enormous clothes hanging limply from the wooden frame were the product of hours of Mrs. Joe Allen's work on the sewing machine.
The scarecrow was stitched for the town fair back in '61, and the Allens left it out among the weeds as a sort of eerie landmark about which the locals could weave stories to entertain travelers. Mr. Hollow, they called him. He was surrounded by a circle of rocks, making the mound look like some mystical shrine to an ancient deity. Large crows would settle over the vast span of Mr. Hollow's arms, setting him alive with fluttering motion.
Mr. Hollow didn't come down until '79 when Slick James and a crew of his friends ran him over during a drunken ride in their Ford pickup. He was so big he left a dent in Slick's front bumper and Slick bragged for weeks about the size of the deer he hit on Highway 74.
In the vast expanse of weedland between the four running boys and the scarecrow there was a smaller figure, an animated dot in Jade's view. It was another boy, about eleven years old, whose run was clumsy with fear. A silver chain with medical tags bounced around his neck as he moved.
Jade could see his face more clearly now, the droop of his cheeks, the full upper eyelids, and the lolling lower lip. It was a miracle that his awkward legs found footing at all, but he lurched along with a spastic rhythm. A thin line of drool spun from the retarded boy's lip, draping across his shirt, and he grunted like an animal fleeing a predator.
In the distance, another boy ran down a countryside path into a quaint two-story home. He carried a baseball bat across his shoulder, his glove hooked on the end of the bat through the wrist hole. The boy looked tough; he was definitely a scrapper, and he wore a baseball hat cocked defiantly backward on his head.
The screen door slammed behind him as he casually loped into the house. His eyes were green, as green as emeralds. Jade looked into his eyes and his pulse raced.
A pair of hands grabbed him, nails digging into his arms. The face of a woman, distorted with rage and fear. Goddamnit, where's your brother? I told you to watch your brother! Over her shoulder as she bent to swat his face, the boy could see a bedroom door open, a frayed cord dangling from the doorknob. Behind the swinging door, yellow-and-pink striped wallpaper-the wallpaper of a circus tent-was visible, suited to a child much younger than eleven. On the floor a small music box lay on its side, thrown down in the child's rage at being trapped alone in his room. A brightly colored porcelain circus tent was glued on top of the lid. The woman's hand drew back to land another blow on the boy's reddened cheek.
The images scattered dreamlike across Jade's mind, every detail unfolding with excruciatingly slow clarity as the scene started to come apart.
The slap of his hand on the desk brought him back to reality. Jade shook his head as he raised it from the desk. He had been counting. Forward or backward, he didn't know, but he was on 153.
The box of pens and pencils faced him and he ran his fingertips across it. He had to move, had to keep moving. There was still a lot of digging to be done at the Atlasias', with Darby in particular. He pushed himself back from the desk and stood up, walked out of the study, and closed the door behind him.
After a minute, he came back in, picked up the phone, and dialed.
"Yeah. Travers. I'm heading back to the Atlasias.' You coming? Yeah, whatever. I just want a driver."
Chapter 36
Darby had greeted Jade and Travers coolly, but with forgiveness in her smile. We're all doing our jobs here, her smile said. Let's not forget that. She had just come in from a visit with neighbors and she was breathless. She seemed always to be slightly breathless, Jade thought.
Now he and Travers sat side by side on a brown couch, facing Allander's parents as classical music played softly in the background. It was a shame to interrupt the peaceful sound with words. Especially these words.
As soon as Jade said Allander's name, the makeup came out again. Darby turned away, looking into a small mirror. Arching her eyebrows, blushing her cheeks, painting her lips.
"Mr. Marlow, you have a propensity for ruining my afternoons," she said with a wicked grin.
Jade didn't respond.
"Oh, come now. I'm just teasing you. Since you're down here to make me miserable, you should at least allow me the occasional tension breaker."
"All right. Fair enough." Jade was being gentle. He found that he liked Darby and Thomas more each time he saw them. He wondered why. It might have been the sad but honest life they had managed to put back together for themselves. Like resurrecting a house after a tornado blows through, he thought.
"I need to ask you a few questions about Allander's childhood."
"Why?" Darby asked. "Is it really necessary to get into all this?"
"Well-" Travers started.
"Yes, I'm afraid so," Jade said, shooting Travers a warning look. "I'm trying to get a profile of how he thinks. I need your help."
"And why…" Darby's voice trailed off.
"Should you help me?" Jade finished. "Because you don't want him to kill more people. Because you feel responsible every time he does. Because he should be caught. Because you know you agree with me."
He was going out on a limb, but he thought he was right. He and Darby stared at each other for a long time, momentarily forgetting that Thomas and Travers were in the room.
"You're going to kill him," Darby said simply. "And you want me to help."
"I don't know if you've been watching the news, but-"
"Please, Mr. Marlow," Darby said, cutting him off sharply. "Let's not play these games. I am well aware of what is going on and you are well aware that I am. So why don't you reconsider how you're going to ask for our help."
Jade sighed and rubbed his forehead. He noticed a hint of a smile on Travers's lips.
"Look, Darby. My job's not exactly a picnic-"