“He did awful…” She motioned for the ashtray, and when Jack set it on the sheets, she ground out the cigarette.
“He killed your kitten, didn’t he?” Jack said quietly.
“Yes, the morning after we had our fight I found Shingles hanging from the clothesline by a wire noose.”
It took a few seconds for the word “wire” to fully sink in for Jack. When it did he nearly shouted. He wanted to grab the telephone book and look up the Ringer address. He wanted to find the man and shake him by the collar until he confessed to the murder of Willie. The only thing that stopped Jack was the insanity of it all. He had no proof. He had a twenty-year-old horror story of animal mutilation and murder plus the untrustworthy gossip of a drug-dealing kid. He had coincidences. Vietnam, wire, sadism. He had nothing, goddamn nothing, but coincidence.
“Tell me all you know about him,” Jack said, shaking another cigarette from his pack. “I want to know everything you can remember about the family.”
“We were all poor in that neighborhood, but the Ringers were worse than poor, they were considered white trash. His mother was a now-and-again whore, and that’s what I called her when I was mad at Nick.” Eileen gave an ironic laugh. “I know that probably sounds funny coming from me, but in 1960 it was the worst slur you could make about a kid’s mom. Whoring just wasn’t a socially acceptable hobby in a little southeast Texas town. If you whored, everyone knew it, and you became an outcast.”
Jack tried to picture the small town of Eileen’s childhood. He had always lived in cities, and although there were people around with small-town mentalities, it was not the same as growing up in provincial 1960 Bloomington, Texas. He felt an ache for the little girl Eileen had been. He wished he had known her with her long pigtails and quick temper.
“Nick and Daley’s father wasn’t around much. He worked at the switch yard for the railroad when he was in town, and when he was gone Nick’s mother turned tricks. Finally he left them altogether. I realize now Nick’s mom had to do something to keep body and soul together, but kids can’t rationalize and they take on the prejudice of their elders. Besides, Mrs. Ringer was sluttish in other ways. She let the boys run wild and put a lot of responsibility on Daley’s shoulders even though he was two years younger than Nick. That was because Nick was a… troublemaker.
“He was into trouble all the time, most of it of his own making. And he was a strange boy—aggressive, cruel, always looking for revenge for what he felt were unfair judgments against his family. In a way I couldn’t blame him. He was pitiful and life was hard for him then, but no one made him cruel. No one made him kill Shingles.”
“You’re sure he did it?” Jack asked when Eileen shuddered.
“Positive. I’d seen him kill other small animals. Frogs, snakes, birds. Then after Shingles was killed, I started watching him closer. I wanted to catch him doing something I could report to my father, something he could be punished for. By that time I hated him. He scared me, and he had taken away the first pet I’d ever loved. I wanted my own revenge.”
Eileen took another cigarette and got out of bed. As memories returned, she began to walk around the room. “So I watched. I’d run straight home from school and watch his house through the bushes from my bedroom window. I imagined I was Nancy Drew and that Nick would go to jail for all his wrongdoing. I knew—I just knew he’d do it again, kill something, and strangle it. That’s what he did, strangled small innocent things that couldn’t fight back. I guess it made him feel powerful.” She shook her head slowly.
“Then one day it happened. It was a weekend, a Saturday. School had just started so it must have been September. God, it was hot. The black pavement in the streets was spotted with bubbles where the tar rose. The sun was so bright it hurt your eyes.
“I was bored and feeling hateful. I’d been watching Nick’s house from my bedroom window since early morning, and it was almost two in the afternoon. My mother thought I was sulking because I didn’t like the new school clothes she’d bought me, so she left me alone. I was sleepy and about to give up when I saw Nick through the bushes. He and Daley had been arguing all day. Daley wanted Nick to play with him or go somewhere and Nick wouldn’t do anything. Finally Daley went inside to get out of the sun and Nick came from the thicket behind our houses and passed by the bushes where I saw him.
“Well, that was it. Finally I had some sleuthing to do.” Eileen smiled at the memory. “I got out of the house without being seen and followed Nick across the street and through a weedy lot. It was kind of fun. I was still mad at him and he still scared me, but you have to remember it had been a long summer and school was so boring. So tracking Nick without getting caught was an adventure. At least I was doing something.
“Nick cut through yards and alleys. He crawled between stopped railroad tanker cars at the tracks. I stayed with him at a safe enough distance so I wouldn’t be seen. What I didn’t want to happen was for Nick to discover I was following him. Being around him when Daley was present was bad enough. I couldn’t imagine getting caught alone with him.”
Eileen paused and stared out the window. The moon was down and nothing stirred in the house.
Jack knew he was seeing a side of Eileen she had never before revealed. The more she talked about when she was a child, the more southern inflections entered her speech.
A portrait of Nick Ringer was evolving in Jack’s mind too. He did not want to, but the more he learned about the Ringers, the more convinced the boy Eileen was describing could have grown up to commit the murders. The police academy spent very little time on the psychological aspect of an officer’s education, but it was easy to see a pattern in the disturbed boy that might have erupted in the grown man.
“There were birds singing everywhere in the woods,” Eileen continued. “We were on a country road back of the railroad tracks. Nick walked down the center of the road through the hot gravel. To keep from being seen, I went into the trees that lined the road. I ran from tree to tree like a little rabbit. It was a game, a stupid kid’s game. I was Sherlock Holmes, and nothing could touch me because I was so smart. Never in a million years would I be discovered.” Eileen began to tremble and Jack went to her, enfolding her in his arms.
“But I was wrong. I was fooled by a kid much smarter and craftier than me. I was a minor-league sleuth pitted against a master. You see, Nick was practiced at this. I’d forgotten he had a brother who tailed him everywhere. After a while Nick had developed a sixth sense that told him when someone was behind him or when eyes were on his every move. He’d actually known from the very beginning—from the second I leaped off my porch to trail him—that I was there. I really was the rabbit. And the fox walked ahead of me kicking gravel in the late afternoon sun.
“The woods thinned, I was scampering further and further between tree trunks trying not to be seen. There was more brush in my way and cockleburrs latched onto my socks and my clothes and tangled in my pigtails. The game was rapidly losing its thrill. I was soaking wet with sweat and my throat was dry. I was out of breath and my legs ached.”
Jack heard Eileen’s breath shorten and come in quick gasps as she spoke. Her eyes closed and her fingers tightened around his hand.
“We’d come to the burial ground,” she said calmly. “It wasn’t a city graveyard or a family plot. It was a deserted piece of land where Nick came to bury the animals he killed. It was his own private reserve, a secret place full of death.
“I didn’t know that at first, of course. I was disappointed that I’d come all that way chasing after Nick to wind up on an ugly patch of scrub land in the middle of nowhere. There were a few short-needle pines that looked as if they were dying. There was a broken-down fence and a dry red ditch. When I crept closer I could see where sticks had been piled up and set on fire in the ditch. Suddenly I realized that this place meant something special to Nick. He walked on it as if it were sacred ground. I’ve seen people in cemeteries since who moved that way—slow, with their heads down as if they are communicating with those who have passed on.” Eileen paused for a moment before continuing.