“I know you’re not a monster. John. Forget the remark. I didn’t mean anything by it. Some people are good with kids and some aren’t, that’s all I meant.”
“We eliminate all those who stayed less than a week before skipping out.”
“Why?”
“We assume Lamont was holed up with the victim, which is far safer than moving around periodically. Something went wrong, he killed the victim and fled. Remember, he kept all these kids for at least six weeks, right?”
“Except for one.”
“Which makes it very unlikely he was going to a new location every week. That’s too many transfers in and out of the car, too many times to check in, too many things to go wrong.”
“Okay,” Karen said. “Check them off.”
Becker moved slowly over the names, calculating dates. “He likes you,” Karen said.
“Good. I like him, too.”
Karen flashed her headlights at a car in the passing lane in front of her. The driver remained blissfully unaware. At the first opportunity Karen swung past him on the right, then into the left lane again. She jabbed her finger to the right, trying to tell the driver to get over, but she could tell in her mirror that he had barely even noticed her, or how she happened to be in front of him.
“How do you know he likes me?” Becker asked.
“He told me,” she said. She looked at Becker, whose eyes had not left the list on his lap.
“He’s a good boy,” he said.
“He’s a wonderful boy.”
“That, too. I meant he’s well-behaved.”
“Oh. Well, mostly. He has his mad moments.”
“He told me he’s going to sleep-over camp this summer,” Becker said. He drew his pen through a line and went on to the next.
“Next week,” Karen said. “Did he sound… how did he sound when he told you about it?”
“Excited. He’s looking forward to it.”
“Really? Excited? It’s his first time away from home. He’s very ambivalent about it.”
“Didn’t sound that way. How are you?”
“Ambivalent,” she admitted. “He’s so young. He’s never been away, he doesn’t even like to go to sleep-overs at his friends’ houses.”
“So why is he going to camp?”
Karen paused. “He says he wants to but… I’m not sure how much of it is because I pushed him into it. I tried not to. I tried to stay neutral, but maybe the way I worded it, maybe… The idea of two whole weeks without any responsibilities to anyone but myself, it’s like heaven. I mean. I’ll miss him like crazy, I know that, but to just come home after work and vegetate-it’s been ten years. I wanted him to go. I wanted him to want to go… And lie is so quick to anticipate what he thinks I want. When he actually does do something wrong, which is not very often, if he spills his milk, for instance, he gets this look on his face as if he’s going to be shot. It makes me feel like a monster. The other day he put his dinner dishes in the dishwasher without scraping them and he was so apologetic. I don’t know, is it normal? Am I doing it all wrong? Do all parents worry about how they’re raising their kids, or is it just single mothers?
… Or is it just me?”
“It looks to me like you’re doing fine.”
“You think?”
“I think you’ve got a hard job and you’re doing a terrific job of it.”
Karen glanced at him to judge the sincerity of his remark, but Becker was intent on the readout. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and take her reassurance where she could get it.
“I’m going to delete hotels, anyplace where he would have to negotiate a lobby and an elevator with the boy. Too risky. Also any rented rooms in a private home without a separate entrance. Same reason. Agreed?”
“Right,” she said. Becker had already begun to whittle at the list. “For a minute this morning I thought you’d gone.”
“I thought you seemed a little pissed off to see me,” Becker said. “Was that because I was still around?”
“No. I got pissed because I thought you’d skipped off without saying goodbye, and when I saw you in Jack’s room, you got some of the residue. Sorry.”
“Why would I skip out?”
“Men do.”
“Do they?”
“In my experience.”
“You’ve had a tough history,” he said.
“I’ve had a history. I’m a woman. That’s basically the only kind we have.”
“Nice that you’re not bitter, though,” he said.
“Screw you.”
“Horrors. I’m on duty.”
Karen glided the car into the right lane in preparation for the turnoff to Bickford.
“Anyway, thank you,” she said.
Becker looked at her in surprise.
“Are you really serious?”
“Not just for staying, but the way you did it. Being so nice to Jack, not acting like you were doing me any favors, being so patient and listening to me-and everything.”
“Are we really such shitheels?” Becker asked.
“Given the chance,” she said. “Most men, yeah.”
“Why do women put up with us?”
“It’s in our saintly nature. Besides, what’s the alternative? If a woman waits for a really good man to come along, she’ll die single and horny as hell… the single part’s not so bad.”
Becker laughed and folded the printout on his lap.
“So anyway,” she continued, “thanks for being decent.”
“You make it sound as if you’re not going to see me again,” Becker said.
“I didn’t know how you felt… if you wanted to, or what. I kind of shanghaied you last night.”
Becker touched her hand where it rested on the steering wheel.
“If I didn’t make that clear last night, I guess I’ll just have to try harder.”
Karen thought for a moment about the sexual marathon of the night before and laughed.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to put up with it,” she said. They lapsed into silence, both feeling slightly embarrassed and uncertain of the next move, as Karen guided them onto the exit ramp.
“The boy who didn’t last as long as the others,” Becker said. For a second it seemed jarringly out of context to Karen, but she quickly reminded herself what the real context of their being together was.
“Ricky Stine,” she said. ‘Taken from his schoolyard in Newburgh.”
“Right. Didn’t you say he was hyperactive?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you suppose that’s why he didn’t last as long? Lamont lost patience with him?”
“Or maybe he was harder to control. That goes with your theory that he is trying to pick the docile ones.”
“And maybe it’s their docility that keeps them alive,” Becker said.
“Alive longer,” Karen amended. “Not alive.”
“Maybe alive long enough this time,” he said. “Lamont is out there somewhere within thirty miles of us. We’ve got to get a list of every place a single male transient could be staying within a thirty-mile radius of Bickford. If we find any names on that list that match the ones on this one”-he tapped the printout on his lap-“we’d have a place to start, at least.”
