The Boys from Santa Cruz

Pender tinned him, introducing Skip as his colleague, Mr. Epstein. Mesker, who’d taught mathematics at UC Santa Cruz from its founding in 1965 to his retirement a few years earlier, ushered them into a low-ceilinged studio apartment and seated them in cheap matching side chairs with low arms and scratchy upholstery. His wife, Helwidge, a round-faced, apple-cheeked Santa’s wife in loose-bottomed granny jeans and a high-necked blouse buttoned to her chin, served them coffee in delicate blue willow china cups and saucers that looked sadly out of place in the sparsely furnished room.

“When did you last see your son Charles?” asked Pender, after some minimal small talk.

“We visited Charlie three weeks before he died,” said Gerald Mesker, seated next to his wife on the convertible sofa that doubled as their marital bed.

“It’s hard to say whether he recognized us or not,” Helwidge Mesker confided in a hoarse whisper. “But I prefer to think he did, and that he knew we still loved him and cared for him.”

“I’m sure he did,” said Pender, taking out his pocket notebook and well-gnawed pencil stub. “By the way, who was his psychiatrist?”

“Dr. Hillovi,” said the professor. “Fredu Hillovi.”

“Do you happen to know how I can get in touch with him?”

Mesker shook his head. “I don’t even know if he survived the fire-I’d read he was badly burned.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Pender’s homely mug was radiant with sympathy as he glanced around the dismal little room. There were two framed photographs of son Charles on the sofa side table. One was of a teenager in a Boy Scout uniform; he had an archer’s bow in one hand and was holding up a blue ribbon in the other. The other was a candid snapshot of a hulking, middle-aged man with a low forehead and a thousand-yard stare. “It must have been quite a strain, financially, keeping Charles in a private facility.”

“Any parent would have done the same,” the professor replied. “We tried caring for him at home, but…” He glanced over at his wife, who shook her head almost imperceptibly. “Let’s just say it didn’t work out. And if you’ve ever seen the facilities the state of California provides, Agent Pender, you’d understand why we made the choices we did.” Choices, he went on to explain, that included heavily mortgaging their home, then renting it out, furnished, to help pay the bills from Meadows Road.

“But you must understand, we don’t regret any of the sacrifices we made for Charlie,” Helwidge added, in a barely audible voice. “In a way, it’s a comfort, knowing that we did everything we could for him. And now that Charlie is finally at peace…” Overcome with emotion, she slumped sideways against her husband, took his hand, and pressed it movingly against her cheek.

“What Helwidge was going to say is, she and I will be moving back into our house on the first of June,” Gerald concluded brusquely. “And now it’s getting rather late, so if you don’t mind, can we please get this over with as quickly as possible?”

“Of course,” said Pender, setting down his cup and saucer. “Could I speak to you alone?”

“I don’t think-”

“Please.”

Gerald took his wife’s cup and saucer from her and returned them to the tray along with his own. He patted her knee and started to rise, but she seized his hand again and would not relinquish it. “No, I want to hear,” she told Pender. “Whatever you have to say to my husband, you can say in front of me.”

Pender leaned forward. “There is every reason to believe that your son was not killed at Meadows Road,” he said gently. “We have some very convincing evidence that he escaped with another inmate after the fire. We believe he’s still at large, but highly delusional, and I’m sorry to say, very dangerous.” He gave it a moment to sink in before adding, “So if Charles should happen to show up here, I beg you, for your own safety as well as his and everybody else’s, please call 911.”

Helwidge turned to her husband. “What does he mean, Gerry? Is he saying that Charlie’s…alive? He’s alive?”

Judging by the strained, distracted smile Gerald gave his wife, the irony of their situation had not escaped him. “Apparently,” he said, patting his wife’s hand.

“I’m so…happy,” Helwidge managed to say, the color blanching from her cheeks. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she toppled sideways off the sofa onto the shag-carpeted floor before her husband could catch her.

6

It had never occurred to Asmador that there were libraries with telephone directories in almost every town in America. The library in Marshall City was the one he’d used before, so regardless of the danger, that’s where he’d headed after checking out of the trailer court early Saturday morning.

Asmador had reached the library at 3:45P.M., just before closing time, and headed immediately for the shelves of yellow-and-black telephone books in the back of the main room. After striking out in the Humboldt County directory, the last known address of his next intended victim, he’d been in the process of going through the directories in alphabetical order when the reference librarian called to him from her nearby desk. “Excuse me, sir?”

He’d turned, remembering at the last second to smile at the lady. Humans respond well to smiles, he was learning. “Who, me?”

Yeah, him. She couldn’t help noticing…wondered whether he was aware…internet…happy to be of assistance…

“If it’s not too much trouble.” He’d graced her with another smile, and given her the name of the old friend he was trying to locate. She’d tapped a few keys…waited…waited…waited… and there it was. She’d jotted down the number on an index card and handed it across the desk.

“Great, thanks,” he’d said, as the overhead lights winked off and on twice, signaling five minutes to closing. “Do you know where that area code is?”

“No, but I can…” Her fingers had played lightly across the keys again. “That’s Mendocino County.”

“Far out.” Asmador had thanked her again, with all the warmth he could summon, then added sincerely, “I sure wish I’d’ve known about this Internet thing earlier-imagine all the time and trouble I could have saved.”

When he’d returned to the car, though, Sammael had been waiting for him in the backseat, and the Poison Angel had not been a happy councilor. “What do you think’s going to happen when you finish carrying out your mission and that librarian sees your victim’s name in the newspaper? You think she’s not going to remember you, and give the cops your description? Then the next thing you know, there’s one of those, what do they call them, composite sketches of your ugly puss on the front page of every newspaper and the wall of every police station in the country.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll take care of it.”

“See that you do.”

“I will.”

“You’d better.” With a wink, Sammael had vanished again.

Asmador had sighed. Just try and get the last word in with a demon, he’d told himself, opening the glove compartment and taking out the pistol he’d been using to eliminate ancillary problems on the order of caddies and housemaids. A few minutes later, the reference librarian, a wide-hipped female in a frilly- bosomed white blouse, a taut gray skirt, and sensible heels, had emerged from the library, accompanied by an older, bespectacled female librarian pushing a book cart. Asmador had slouched down behind the wheel as the women opened the back of the book drop at the curb, transferred the books to the cart, and wrestled it back inside.

After double-checking to make sure he had a round chambered, Asmador had dropped the pistol into the left inside pocket of his stiff new denim jacket. Leaving the car unlocked in case he needed to make a quick getaway, he’d strolled back to the library entrance and rapped on the automatic glass door, now locked. A few seconds later, he’d seen the reference librarian crossing the darkened room toward the door, shading her eyes to peer through the glass.

“Hi, it’s me,” Asmador had called, waving cheerfully.