know who my folks is!”
Kitteridge took a deep breath. “Now, come on, Jonas. You must know who your parents are.”
Jonas shook his head. “Lotsa kids in the swamp don’t know who their folks is.”
“Come on, Jonas,” Tim repeated, but Judd Duval interrupted him.
“It’s true, Chief. There’s all kinds of kids out there bein’ raised by folks who ain’t their parents. Since they won’t come into town to have their babies, some of ’em just die a-birthing, and other people take the kids. After a while, you don’t hardly know who belongs to who.”
Tim shook his head. It was almost unbelievable that people could live like that at the end of the twentieth century. And yet he’d seen their houses, scattered through the swamp, seen the way they lived. Hell, it was a miracle any of them survived at all. Then he had an idea.
“Are those the kids Amelie was talking about? The ones she called the Dark Man’s kids? Is he the one who decides who gets the kids?”
Though he was speaking to Judd Duval, his eyes were on Jonas. He thought the boy stiffened at the mention of the Dark Man’s name.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked. “Those are the kids Amelie was talking about. The Dark Man’s kids, she said. And she said you’re one of them.”
Jonas’s face remained impassive. “I don’t know what you be talkin’ ’bout.”
Tim leaned forward. “Sure you do,” he said, boring into the boy with his eyes. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“No,” Jonas whispered, his own eyes flicking toward Judd Duval as if searching for help.
But Tim wouldn’t let him go. “That’s it, isn’t it, Jonas?” he pressed, his voice dropping. “Amelie told me about you and George. She told me you were dead. Not just George. You, too.”
Jonas’s eyes widened. “No,” he breathed again, but now his voice was shaking.
“And you are, aren’t you, Jonas? You’ve got no mama, and you’ve got no papa, and you never did have. Isn’t that what the Dark Man tells you? That you’re dead, because you’ve got no folks?”
Jonas’s eyes took on the look of a cornered rat. “Who told you that?” he demanded.
Tim ignored the question. “It’s true, isn’t it? It’s not just George Coulton. It’s you, too! You’re dead!”
Jonas shrank back, and Tim knew he’d struck a nerve. But it was crazy, all of it! Jonas wasn’t dead — he was sitting right there. Was it possible that there really was something going on out there in the swamp? That somehow, for some reason, someone calling himself the Dark Man had convinced a bunch of kids that they were dead?
But why?
And what about the others? The adults? Could they really be so superstitious that they believed in something so crazy?
And then he remembered the voodoo cults of the bayous in Louisiana, and the zombie cults of the Caribbean. There were still people who believed in all of it, and there was no reason for him to think that some of those people might not live right here in the swamp outside Villejeune.
But it still didn’t solve the problem of what had happened to George Coulton.
He didn’t believe that Jonas had killed Coulton — hell, he didn’t really have any proof that the corpse in the cemetery
And no one in the swamp, he was quite certain, would talk to him about any of it.
He was beginning to regret having gotten involved at all. After the little investigating he’d already done, he now understood much more clearly what went on around Villejeune. Orrin Hatfield and Warren Phillips, both men who had spent most of their lives in the area, had known perfectly well what he would run up against in the swamp.
Hostility.
Secretiveness.
Superstition.
A tangle of myths that he would never be able to sort out.
And for what?
Even Amelie Coulton didn’t care if her husband was dead — assuming the corpse was her husband at all.
No one else had even asked about what had happened. Indeed, what had happened to the old man in the swamp apparently wasn’t even that unusual.
So why not let it go? If no one else cared, why should he?
And no matter what he thought, no matter what confusion and myth he might eventually be able to sort out, he was absolutely certain he would never be able to prove a thing.
“All right, Jonas,” he said, eyeing the boy once more. “I guess that’s it.” He glanced up at Judd Duval. “Take him back to his boat.”
As if he feared the police chief might change his mind, Jonas darted out of the little room where the interrogation had taken place.
When he was gone, Judd Duval eyed his boss questioningly. “Well?” he drawled. “What do you think?”
Kitteridge shook his head tiredly. “I think we just wasted most of a day on a wild-goose chase. That boy may not be crazy, but he’s about the closest thing to it I’ve seen in a long time. You think he really believes he’s dead?”
Duval shrugged. “That’s swamp rats for you. Believe anything anyone tells ’em, no matter how dumb it is.” He turned and left the room. In the hall, he signaled Jonas to follow him, but said nothing more until both of them were back in the squad car and he was on his way down to the dock where the boats were tied up. Finally he glanced over at Jonas. “It’s okay,” he said. “He thinks you’re nuts.”
Jonas glared at him. “You in big trouble, Judd,” he growled. “When the Dark Man finds out you helped him find me—”
“He ain’t gonna find out, less’n you tell him,” Judd snarled. “You understand me, boy?”
Jonas sank into a sullen silence, not speaking until they were back at the dock. But as he got into his boat, Jonas’s eyes fixed on Judd once more and his pale, empty gaze made Judd shudder.
His words chilled Judd’s very soul.
“Mebbe he’ll turn me on you, Judd,” he said. “Mebbe he’ll turn me on you, just like he turned me on George.”
Getting into his boat, he untied it, then looked up at Judd once more as he grasped the oars in his strong, callused hands.
“I’m gonna rip it out of you, Judd,” he said softly. “I’m gonna reach inside’a you, and rip your life out. See if I don’t.”
Judd, frozen by the ice-cold words, stood where he was long after Jonas had disappeared back into the swamp.
12
Amelie Coulton looked up as the door to her room opened, but when she saw who it was, her eyes shifted immediately back to the open window that looked out onto the garden outside.
“How are you doing this morning, Amelie?” Warren Phillips asked. When the girl in the bed made no reply, he picked up her wrist, quickly checking her pulse. “You know,” he went on, “there’s no reason for you to stay here, Amelie. If you want, you can go home this afternoon.”
Amelie turned to glare darkly at the doctor. “I ain’t leavin’ ‘thout I got my baby,” she said.
