'What do you mean you don't know where he is?'
'He comes and goes,' his wife said. 'Through his bedroom window. Sometimes we don't see him for days.'
'Ever try discipline? Ever try a belt? What is it, you think children should walk all over you?'
The father gave a mournful laugh.
His wife said, 'Has he done something else?'
As if what the boy had done wasn't enough. 'Oh, he's just threatening to rape her, that's all.'
'Oh, no, no.' She clutched her hands together, fingers dirty and bedecked with cheap rings. 'But it's just talk,' the woman blurted. 'It's always just talk, with him.'
Ron whirled to face her. Her short black hair was badly in need of a wash and she smelled of sour onions. He muttered, 'It's gone past the talk stage and I'm not going to put up with it. I want to see him.'
They glanced at each other and the father led him down a dark corridor toward one of two bedrooms. Something — old food, it seemed — crunched under Ron's feet. The man looked over his shoulder, saw his wife standing in the living room and said, 'I'm so sorry for all this, sir. I truly am. I wish I had it in my heart to, you know, make him go away.'
'We tried that,' Ron said cynically.
'I don't mean a hospital or jail.' His voice fell to a whisper. 'To go away forever. You know what I mean. I've thought about it some. She has too but she doesn't say it. Being his mother and all. One night I almost done it. When he was asleep.' He paused and caressed a crater in the Sheetrock, made by a fist, it seemed. 'I wasn't strong enough. I wished I was. But I couldn't do it.'
His wife joined them and he fell silent. The father knocked timidly on the door and when there was no response he shrugged. 'Ain't much we can do. He keeps it locked and won't give us a key.'
'Oh, for God's sake.' Ron stepped back and slammed his foot into the door.
'No!' the mother cried. 'He'll be mad. Don't —'
The door crashed open and Ron stepped inside, flicking on the light. He stopped, astonished.
In contrast to the rest of the house, Harle's room was immaculate.
The bed was made and the blankets were taut as a buck private's. The desktop ordered and polished. The rug vacuumed. Bookshelves neat, and all the books were alphabetized.
'He does it himself,' Harle's mother said with a splinter of pride. 'Cleans up. See, he's not really so bad —'
'Not really so bad? Are you out of your mind? Look at that! Just look!'
On the walls were posters from World War Two movies, Nazi paraphernalia, swastikas, bones. A bayonet dangled from one wall. A miniature samurai sword sat on a footlocker. One poster was a comic book scene of a man with knives for feet, ripping apart an opponent he was fighting. Blood sprayed in the air.
Three pairs of spit-polished combat boots sat by the bedside. A tape,
Ron reached for the door to the closet.
'No,' his mother said firmly. 'Not there. He don't let us go in there. We're never supposed to do that!'
The double door too was locked but with one yank Ron ripped the panels open, nearly wrenching them off the hinges.
Gruesome toys, monsters and vampires, characters from horror films, fell out. Rubber mock-ups of severed limbs, taxidermied animals, a snake's skeleton, Freddy Krueger posters.
And in the center of the closet floor was the main attraction: an altar dedicated to Gwen Ashberry.
Ron cried out in horror as he dropped to his knees, staring at the frightening tableau. Several photographs of Gwen were pinned to the wall. Harle must have taken them on the days when she walked home from school by herself. In two of the snapshots she was strolling obliviously along the sidewalk. In the third she was turning and smiling off into the distance. And in the fourth — the one that struck him like a fist — she was bending down to tie her shoe, her short skirt hiked high on her trim legs. This was the photo in the center of the shrine.
On the floor, between two candles, what looked like a white flower, sprouting from a dime store coffee mug, printed with the name Gwen on it. Ron touched the flower. It was cloth… but what exactly? When he pulled the girl's underpants from the mug all he could do was give a deep moan and clutch the frail garment to his chest. He remembered Doris commenting several months ago that she'd found the outer door to the laundry room open. So, he'd been in the house!
In his fury Ron ripped down the picture of Gwen bending over. Then the others. Shredded them beneath his strong fingers.
'Please, don't do that! No, no!' his mother cried.
'Really, mister!'
'Harle'll be mad. I can't stand it when he gets mad at us.'
Ron rose to his feet, flung the cup into a Nazi flag, where it shattered. He pushed past the cowering couple, flung open the front door and strode out into the street.
'Where are you?' he cried. 'Where? You son of a bitch!'
The peaceful dusk in Locust Grove had tipped into peaceful night. Ron saw nothing but faint houselights, he heard nothing but his own voice, dulled by the mist, returning to him from a dozen distant places.
Ron leapt into his car and left long black worms of skid marks as he knocked over garbage cans, streaking into the street.
Three hours later, he returned home.
The bright security lights were on, one of them trained directly at the juniper bush.
'Where've you been?' Doris demanded. 'I've called everybody I could think of, trying to find you.'
'Driving around, looking for him. Is everything okay?' he asked.
'I thought I heard somebody in the work shed about an hour ago, rummaging around.'
'And?'
'I called the police and they came by. Didn't find anything. Might've been a raccoon. The window was open. But the door was locked.'
'Gwen?'
'She's upstairs asleep. Did you find him?'
'No, no trace. At least I hope I put the fear of God into him so we'll have a few days' peace.' He looked around the house. 'Let's make sure everything's locked up.'
Ron walked to the front door and opened it, stepping back in shock at the sight of the huge dark form filling the doorway. Gasping, he instinctively drew back his fist.
'Whoa, there, buddy, take it easy.' Sheriff Hanlon stepped forward into the hallway light.
Ron closed his eyes in relief. 'You scared me.'
'I'll ditto that. Mind if I come in?'
'Yeah, yeah, sure,' Ron snapped. The sheriff entered, nodding to Doris, who ushered him into the living room. He declined coffee.
Husband and wife looked at the sheriff, a big man in a tan uniform. He sat on the couch and said simply, 'Harle Ebbers was found dead about a half hour ago. He was hit by a train on the LIRR tracks.'
Doris gasped. The sheriff nodded grimly. Ron didn't even try to keep the smile off his face. 'Praise Him from whom all blessings flow.'
The sheriff kept his face emotionless. He looked back to his notebook. 'Where've you been for the past three hours, Ron? Since you left the Ebbers' house?'
'You went there?' Doris asked.
Ron knitted his fingers together then decided it made him look guilty and he unlinked them. 'Driving around,' he answered. 'Looking for Harle. Somebody had to. You weren't.'
'And you found him,' the sheriff said.
'No, I didn't find him.'
'Yessir. Well, somebody sure did. Ron, we've got reports of you threatening that boy tonight. The Clarkes and
