Fear itself

“Mrs. Day, this is Arthur Bellcock.”

“The man who’s writing the book about Eddie?”

“One of the only advantages to a name like mine, Mrs. Day, is you never get confused with any other Arthur Bellcocks.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Eddie told me he’d given you my name and that you’d probably be in touch, but I thought it wasn’t going to be for another month or so.”

“That was the plan, but due to a scheduling conflict, I’ve had to push things up a few weeks. I was wondering, and I understand if it’s an inconvenience, but I’m actually down in Madison winding up another project, and it would be so helpful if I could drive up tomorrow evening.”

“Oh, I think I can manage to clear my schedule, Mr. Bellcock. And Eddie did encourage me to tell you anything you wanted to know.”

“Good. Because I definitely want to capture him, warts and all.”

“I’ll do the best I can. But you understand, Mr. Bellcock, I was fourteen when Eddie was born, and I moved away from Cortland when he was ten.”

“I understand. At this early stage, everything I can learn about your brother will be a great help. By the way, will Mr. Day be around?”

“Only in spirit,” said Ida. “Dr. Day passed away ten years ago.”

“I’m so sorry. You live alone, then?”

“Alone, but not lonely, as I like to say.”

“A laudable attitude. Until tomorrow then, Mrs. Day.”

“Until tomorrow, Mr. Bellcock.”

2

On Sunday, Linda was up at dawn. From her bedroom window she could see the mist rising placidly from the domesticated water of the canal, like steam from a bowl of soup. The autumn colors of the surrounding woods were muted, drenched in the morning dew.

It occurred to Linda, as she made her way sleepily across the hall to the bathroom, that nobody had told her what hours she was expected to keep. Like today, for instance. Was she supposed to come into the office on Sunday? If so, to do what? Answer the phone? Call forwarding could take care of that. Work on her time line? The Visa and Pac Bell printouts detailing Childs’s credit card purchases and telephone calls wouldn’t be coming in until tomorrow at the earliest. So why go into the office?

The answer came to her after breakfast, as she was down in the cellar ironing, with the second load of yesterday’s laundry now spinning in the dryer. The BOLO, she thought: a “Be On the Lookout” for Simon Childs was undoubtedly being sent out to every law enforcement agency in the United States. But then, so were dozens of other BOLOs, every day of the week. Go-getters memorized them, doughnut dunkers ignored them, but what about your average cop, overworked, overBOLOed, drowning in a sea of red tape and paperwork? Wouldn’t a call or a fax or a heads-up of some kind from a genuine (well, almost genuine) FBI special agent go a long way toward raising his or her consciousness as to the importance of Being On the Lookout for a particular suspect, at least until the Ten Most Wanted List had been updated to include him?

More than likely, thought Linda, holding her favorite blouse up to the unshaded bulb hanging from a crossbeam, to examine the results of her ironing. Still a little wrinkled after twenty-four hours in the dryer, but close enough for guvmint work, as they used to say in San Antone; or at any rate, close enough for guvmint work in an empty office on a Sunday morning.

3

For Pender and Dorie, Saturday had been a day of rest and recuperation. They never made it out of the house-they barely made it out of bed. Canned soup-Dorie’s cupboard had more Campbell’s than a gathering of the Scottish clans-and sleep had sustained them. For Dorie, who had never married, or even shacked up with a man for an extended stretch, this nonsexual bed sharing was something new. Pender, having endured a twenty-year marriage that had gone sour after the first five, was, of course, familiar with it.

By Sunday morning, Pender had had two nights to learn that Dorie hadn’t been kidding about her snoring-she was indeed a window rattler. He didn’t mind, though-at least when she was snoring, she wasn’t thrashing, moaning, or crying out in her sleep.

Not that he blamed her. After what she’d been through, Dorie would be lucky if sleep disturbances were the worst, or last, of her problems. And awake, despite all she must have gone through in that basement in Berkeley, she never complained, which Pender found extraordinary in a day and age when everybody who’d ever had their fanny patted as a kid called themselves a sexual-abuse survivor, and feeling sorry for yourself was practically a cottage industry. Pender was impressed-he only wished he could somehow rescue her from the psychological and emotional shitstorm as successfully as he had from physical danger.

He knew, of course, that it was a risky game, this white knight business. The relationship burying ground was littered with the corpses of failed white-knight/damsel-in-distress romances; nowadays they even warned recruits in the Academy about the syndrome.

But what was a secret sentimentalist to do? Pender was a goner long before the relationship was consummated late Sunday morning. The consummation itself was necessarily gentle. Due to their injuries, they were forced to make love, in Pender’s phrase, like porcupines-very carefully-but perhaps because of the time they’d already spent in bed together, there was little of the awkwardness, emotional discomfort, or uncertainty that so often marked first sexual encounters, even at their age.

Afterward, Dorie went back to sleep; soon she was tossing and whimpering again. Pender reached across his body with his good arm, patted her shoulder, stroked her side all the way to the swell of her hip, then back again, murmuring that it was all right, that everything was okay now.

Which was a lie-everything was not okay. Simon Childs, the man who’d done this to Dorie, was still out there somewhere. And if this case had been personal before, it was doubly so now. Pender tiptoed out of bed without waking Dorie this time, and took his cell into the bathroom with him.

4

The call came in just as Linda was thinking about knocking off for the day. There had been no developments in the investigation, no Childs sightings, either reported or confirmed. He’d probably gone to ground, was the consensus; if the pressure was kept on, sooner or later he’d have to surface, if only to change holes.

In the meantime, she’d made her calls, exchanged a little small talk on the order of sucks catchin’ a Sunday shift, whaddaya gonna do? and gotten a few BOLOs posted that might have languished in somebody’s in box. When the phone rang around quarter to three, she thought it might be one of the callbacks she’d left. Instead it was Pender. She tried, she really did: she told him McDougal had handed her the investigation on the express condition that she keep Pender out of it.

He didn’t sound very impressed. “How long have you been with the Bureau?”

“Seven years.”

“And you still can’t tell when your boss is just covering his ass?”

“He didn’t sound like he was just covering his ass. He sounded concerned.”

“Yes, kiddo-he’s concerned about covering his ass. Let me ask you two questions. One: What’s the priority here-what’s the job?”

“That’s a no-brainer. The job is apprehending Childs as quickly as possible. What’s the second