Wireman

CHAPTER 10

JACK AND SAM sat on the porch steps of the DeShane home watching the last of the light dissolve in the night sky. Already Jack had voiced concern over his son’s unusual lateness in returning home, but not until the sun disappeared did he truly begin to worry about Willie’s safety.

“He’s only done this once before,” Jack said, unable to keep still.

“Done what? You mean Willie?” Sam was confused. He had almost forgotten about the boy during their conversation about the police department.

“Yes. He should be home. He’s been told not to be out on the streets after dark.”

“Hold on, Jack. It’s still early. You know how it is with kids. They forget they’re supposed to be home at a certain time when they get to playing. I wouldn’t worry. He’ll come straggling up any minute.”

Sam’s words did not lessen Jack’s anxiety, and his mood was contagious. After fifteen minutes of aimless conversation interrupted by long pauses, Sam too began to fidget. Streams of car lights shone on the nearby freeway. Across the street Maggie had turned on the lamps in the lower-floor sitting room, and the three windows threw yellow light across the lawn.

Suddenly Jack stood up. “I think I’ll call some of his friends.”

Sam followed him inside the dark house. When Jack switched on the lights Sam blinked and his eyes watered. His old eyes were giving him a lot of trouble lately. Could it be the booze? he wondered.

At the kitchen table Sam kept watch through the hallway to the front door while Jack dialed numbers from a tattered address book. Sam expected the boy to walk in any second. He knew Willie almost as well as he did Jack, and the kid was obedient. Oh sure, he liked to try his hand at stretching parental reins now and then, like any kid. But most of the time he came home on time and did as he was told.

“You haven’t seen him since when?” Jack’s voice went up a few decibels, and Sam turned to look at his friend.

When Jack hung up, he quickly began flipping pages in the address book, looking for another number.

“Marvin said they left Willie around five-thirty. Said Willie was on his way home.”

Sam automatically checked his watch. It was seven-thirty, and outside the windows twilight was being engulfed by night.

“I don’t like it, Sam. He wasn’t this late getting home the last time it happened. And I gave him hell about it. It isn’t like Willie to worry me.”

The four boys Willie played with were called and questioned. They told Jack the story. Willie was with them until five-thirty. Then he wanted to go home. Two of the boys thought Willie had no intentions of going home. One thought he had a secret hideout. Another thought be was getting too big for his britches and just did not want to play with his friends.

Jack slumped into a kitchen chair beside Sam. “Where could he be?” he asked, rubbing the scar on his cheek. Sam almost reached out to still Jack’s fingers but stopped himself in time. He knew Jack only did that when he was terribly upset.

“What do you say we ride around the neighborhood and see if we can pick him up?” Sam asked gently. “He might be a couple of blocks from home.”

Jack was instantly on his feet, relieved at a course of action. “That’s a good idea.” He stared out the window over the kitchen sink. Dark, dark. Where the hell was he? Where was Willie?

“Let’s get moving.”

Jack had the Monte Carlo’s engine running and the passenger door open for Sam by the time he came down the walk..

They drove slowly toward the freeway and the feeder lane. The sidewalks were empty. More and more lights came on inside the houses. Sam saw that Jack was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

“I don’t see him,” Jack said twice within a minute.

“Let’s go around the block,” Sam suggested.

Jack turned before they reached the freeway and drove down a street shrouded in darkness. Jack drove even slower until they were barely creeping along to the corner. Still no one was to be seen on the street.

After circling the block where they lived, Jack drove in ever-widening circles. “Maybe we missed him and he’s already home,” he suggested hopefully.

“Should we go check?” Sam knew that was exactly what they should do.

Jack deliberated for a minute, then swung the wheel into a U-turn. “Yeah, we’ll go back. He’s probably sitting there waiting for me. ”

But Willie was not.

“Dammit, Sam. What could have happened?” Jack hurried as the they returned to the car to begin the search again.

“Take it easy, Jack. The boy’s smart. He knows he might get his tail whipped for this and he’s probably skedaddling as fast as he can to get here. He might really have some ‘hideout’ and didn’t notice how late it was. Maybe it’s a ways from the house. You know kids.”

Sam meant to be reassuring, but his words sounded lame even to his own ears.

“I never believed Willie could pull a stunt like this. What time is it?” Jack asked.

Sam consulted his watch as they pulled from the curb. “Eight-ten.”

Jack rubbed the back of his hand across the scar. He was perched on his seat like a stiff bird, his eyes searching both sides of the street. “We’ll go around the neighborhood once more then we’ll branch further out.” Jack coughed and cleared his throat. “I guess you think I’m acting silly, but you know yourself Willie doesn’t stay out. Not at night this way.”

Sam held his tongue. He did not blame Jack for the state he was in. If it was his kid, he would be worried too. Something was wrong and they both knew it. Neither of the men really believed Willie had forgotten the time or had not noticed it was dark. Something had delayed him. Something was keeping him from home.

The sirens came like an announcement of doom. Jack slammed the brakes and the two men were pitched forward in their seats. For a moment they were motionless, their ears attuned to the familiar sound. The two sirens grew louder. A third and a fourth siren joined in.

Jack’s eyes narrowed and he felt a shiver creeping up his spine. Willie. Sirens, trouble, Willie.

Sam broke the spell. He leaned toward the center of the dashboard and switched on the police scanner.

“I have a possible homicide corner of Hadley and Pearce. All available units respond,” came the dispatcher’s nasal twang.

Sam turned the radio off with a savage flick of his wrist. He looked over at his young friend. He did not have to second-guess Jack’s thoughts. Could it be Willie? Even if there was the remotest possibility, it was enough to turn a man’s blood to ice.

Sam put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “We have to go to it,” he said.

One of the sirens neared and headlights rushed toward the Monte Carlo from the rear. A horn blared, but was drowned in the ear-shattering siren. The patrol car swerved around what it took to be a stalled vehicle in their lane and sped past. Sam was shaking Jack roughly.

“Come on, Jack. We have to roll on it!”

Jack pressed the accelerator and they pursued the dwindling red taillights of the patrol car. They ran through stop signs and shot across empty intersections. Sam held onto the door rest and the edge of the seat.

Jack’s lips moved in silent prayer. He had lost his nerve when he had heard the sirens, but he was being ridiculous. Wasn’t he? This had nothing to do with Willie being late. How many sirens had he heard in his lifetime? Yet no matter how he argued with himself, the shiver remained, chilling him all the way through.

The police car stopped. As Jack pulled up behind it, two doors swung open and the driver unsnapped his holster to place his hand on his gun.

Jack killed the headlights and turned off the ignition. . Sam was already out of the car and standing by the fender, looking toward the men and flashlights clustered on a demolition site.

Jack slowly got out of the car. He felt drained. Never in his life had he felt so frightened, so utterly vulnerable.

Men rushed everywhere, a swirl of endless activity. Squawk boxes sounded off and blue bubble lights whirled. Voices were raised and orders given and carried out.

Sam turned and took Jack by the shoulders. “Let me see about this. Stay here and let me go.”

“What if it’s…?”

Sam shook the young father by the arms before he knew he was doing it. “No! Just stay put and I’l1 find out what’s going on.”

“Not Willie…” Jack’s voice trailed away.

Sam clenched his teeth. “Of course not.” His gruff tone was as severe as he could make it. He left Jack and entered the bright circle of light a few yards away.

“I’m sorry, sir, but if you’ll just move back. This is a police matter…” The patrolman’s voice trailed at the look of authority on Sam’s face.

“I’m Bartholomew, detective sergeant, retired.” The name registered immediately, and the patrolman stepped backward at once. He stuttered apologetically, but Sam ignored him.

A plainclothes detective came toward Sam with an outstretched hand. “Sam! What the hell are you doing here?” Lieutenant “Garbo” Kranz asked with a bit of awe in his voice.

Sam ignored the question. “What have you got?” he asked.

Garbo had to catch up with Sam to answer. “It’s a kid,” he said, walking beside the older man. “Messy thing. We got an anonymous call. Body in a lot. Well, we found the body all right, but…”

“Boy or girl?” Sam interrupted, his heart almost stopping at the mention of a child.

Garbo showed his displeasure at the interruption by a down-turning of his mouth. “Boy. I’d say about ten or so.”

“Let me see him.”

“But Sam…”

“I said take me to him, you son of a bitch!”

Garbo was astonished. He had never worked with Sam Bartholomew, but he knew the man’s reputation as a tough old buzzard. And here he was calling an officer in charge a son of a bitch and demanding to be led to the crime scene. Incredible gall.

“Who do you think you’re talking to, Sergeant?”

“I thought I was talking to a responsible commander in charge of homicide, but if you’re any indication of the competence of this force lately, then the whole city’s in a peck of trouble.”

Sam knew he was lashing out at the officer unfairly, but the body must be only a few feet away from where they stood, and he had to get to it.

Garbo stared hard at Sam for a moment, then he sighed and led Sam to the body.

The first thing Sam’s trained, observant eyes took in was the seemingly mindless activity of two blue suits on their knees in the tall, parched winter grass. They looked comical with their asses arched high in the air, heads lowered almost to the ground. They were knocking aimlessly at loose boards and clumps of weeds. “What in God’s name have you got your men doing?”

Garbo gave a strangely soft reply. “They’re looking for something.”

“The murder weapon?”

“No. They’re looking for the boy’s head.”

The blunt words stopped Sam dead in his tracks. His heart jumped so suddenly that Sam felt a moment of searing pain.

Garbo felt, rather than saw, Sam’s reaction. He waited near one of his men, who scrabbled through debris at his feet. “Well, you wanted to see the body, didn’t you? Isn’t that what you got so hot about, Bartholomew? It’s over here and it’s decapitated. Maybe with your renowned expertise we can get this cleared up before the night’s over. Our problem happens to be two-pronged, however. We can’t seem to find the kid’s head, and without the head we can’t make an ID. Bit of a sticky wicket even for you, don’t you agree?”

Sam looked so stricken that Garbo came over to him and took his arm. “Look, that was a cheap trick. I admit we’ve got a bag of snakes here. I for one have never been called in on something like this before. It makes me sick to my stomach.” As soon as he said it Garbo knew he was understating the facts. He was not only sickened, he was as shocked as old man Bartholomew. Who would do such a thing? And the press and TV—would they have a heyday! If the police did not find the boy’s missing head, there was sure to be a wave of fear sweeping through the city.

“My neighbor’s son is missing. He was supposed to be home by sundown.” Sam’s voice faltered, died away on the word sundown.

“Oh, shit.” Garbo shifted uneasily.

“Yeah, that’s about it.”

Garbo squinted against the lights, trying to see the young man Sam had come with, but the glare hurt his eyes and all he could make out were shadowy figures.

“It’s DeShane,” Sam said almost in a whisper. “You know him?”

Garbo was struck speechless. He nodded. He said, “Oh no.”

“Show me. I’ve got to know,” Sam said.

They crossed a pile of broken bricks and Garbo fumbled in his pocket for his flashlight. Where was the damned photographer? Where was the forensic team, the ambulance? Where was…?

Scrunching his eyes as if to keep out what he did not want to see, Sam moved forward to a lump of brown lying in the high grass. The brown was a corduroy jacket. The brown was a pair of Sears’ Tuff jeans. And that was all it was. Torso, arms, legs, feet. The ghastly sight stirred something primeval in Sam’s insides.

First he felt revulsion. Then a pure, icy rage at the indecency the killer had inflicted on a small, helpless little boy. Then Sam felt the futility of all his many years as a cop. He had put some of the maniacs away, but he could not get them all, and his time had passed. It was violence beyond the normal cop’s understanding.

It was violence beyond all understanding.

Garbo tugged at Sam’s sleeve. “Here comes the forensic guys and the ambulance team. We have to move back, Sam.” Garbo’s voice was dulled and professional. He had one more question to ask. “Is it DeShane’s boy? Can you tell?”

Sam nodded and one solitary tear ran down his cheek.

Garbo swore beneath his breath. “Okay. Then get back there to him, and for chrissake keep him away from here. We need you now, Sam.”

Sam tried to nod again, but his head was too heavy. He had never felt such terrible despair. Behind the lights Jack waited for Sam’s news. He had to tell him. But how could he ever? Ever?

As Sam trudged away, he saw the scramblings of two men on their knees in the night—searching for the rest of little Willie DeShane. For some inexplicable reason Sam knew it would never be found.

He stumbled between two squad cars and, momentarily blinded, felt his way along a car where he was stopped by two hands pressing against his chest.

“Sam?” It was Jack, his voice tremulous. “Sam, they told me it’s a kid. A boy, Sam. A boy!”

Sam turned away, unable to meet the young father’s eyes.

“Sam, tell me. You have to tell me I’m wrong. It’s can’t be, it’s not…”

When Sam could not find the strength to form the words, Jack rushed to fill the growing silence.

“Hey, some kid. I know that’s bad, that’s… But we gotta get moving. We need to get out of here and back to the house. Wi1lie’s probably home and hungry for his supper.”

Sam began to shake his head. His bald pate glistened with sweat.

Jack ignored him. “We’ve been here too long and we can’t help, you know that’s the truth. The door’s locked at home. Willie carries his own key, but the house is dark, and he won’t know what to think. Sam?”

Jack’s voice was pleading, desperate, on the edge of a hysteria he could barely control.

Sam knew he had to say it, say the truth right away before Jack went any further. “It’s Willie.”

The inhuman howl from Jack DeShane’s soul was unlike anything Sam had ever heard. Every hand stopped in midair, every foot was rooted to the ground. Sentences went unfinished.

Jack DeShane’s despair made every man within the sound of his cry recoil with a sudden, nameless sense of loss.