On the Loose (16 page)

"You came away with a lot. Don't blow it."

She carried the phone away from the patio and
into the sun. Much rain had fallen recently, with
trees propelling into leaf, greening overnight.
"Gloria's in the same boat," she said. "Can you do
anything for her?"

"Gloria's your business. Nothing to do with me."

"Am I family, Ben?"

"Yes, you're family."

"Your responsibility?"

"Don't depend on it," he said. "By the way,
someone in the town was asking after you. He
seemed concerned about you."

She laughed, her eye on the lowest branch of a
maple where a cardinal burned through the leaves.
"Not that silly minister, I hope."

"It was Jim Morgan. The police chief."

She watched the cardinal fly away, a live ember.
"He was kind. I'm afraid I wasn't."

"He probably expected that. You're from the
Heights. I told him you were wintering in paradise."

"It could've been, but the scales were tipped.
He's handsome, isn't he?"

"The chief? Depends on what you call handsome. He's a widower."

"We have something in common. Tell him I'm
fine." Following a breeze, she drifted ghostlike
from sun to shade. Another spring, the green reinventing itself, which put a turn in her mood. "Ben,
stay on the line."

"I can't. I have a client waiting."

"Ben, I'm coming home."

It was Bobby Sawhill's sixteenth birthday. Dibble
and Sharon wished him a happy one, and Dibble
gave him a slice of cake from the kitchen. Sharon
gave him a kiss on the ear. Certain emotions were
too much for him, and he looked away. When Dibble left them alone, Bobby said, "I didn't know it
was treat time."

"Dibs arranged it with Mr. Grissom."

Bobby gestured toward the writing table. "I can
sit there now. I don't have to ask."

"Terrific. You've got the world by the balls." She
shed her clothes and helped him out of his. On the
cot she spoke in his ear, the one she had kissed.
"No more titty, all right? Mr. Grissom says it's time
to be grown-up."

Bobby felt embarrassment and a twinge of resentment. "It's my birthday. Why can't I do what I
want? Why can't we do what we always do and
not tell him?"

"Because he's the boss and you're sixteen. You
don't need baby ways. You're not afraid of me,
are you?"

"I love you," he said.

She stroked his hair and ran a finger around the
shell of his ear. "All the boys do, you most of all,
Bobby. But I'm not your mommy." Her hand wandered down and made his part stand at its fullest.
"Your mommy wouldn't do that, would she?"

"I was too little."

"But you're big now, almost as big as Dibs."

"No, I'm not. I'll never be as big as Dibs."

"That's all in your mind." She still had her briefs

on. They were vaporish. "Take them off for me."
Helping him, she lifted one knee and then the
other. "Would you like to lick my envelope?"

He knew what she meant and thought about it.
"No."

"Dibs does." When he didn't answer, she said,
"No rush."

She fitted him with a condom, what the big boys
wear, which pleased him. With coaxing she got
him on her and with maneuvering into her. She
swung her legs around him and locked her ankles.
He began to tremble. "Go ahead, Bobby, you know
what to do." He seemed stricken. His eyes were
squeezed shut, his body taut, toes dug in. "Kiss
Mommy," she whispered and broke the spell. Mo ments later he was gasping, and she was patting
his butt. "Good boy," she said.

Lately, Bobby had been having a recurrent dream
in which he teetered on what seemed the edge of
himself, only threads keeping him from whirling
off into a vastness that was inside him instead of
out, a vastness where he would be alone forever,
no Sherwood, no Dibble, no Sharon. He told Dibble about it and asked what it meant.

"Means you're fucked up. What else is new?"

"Are you fucked up, Dibs?"

Dibble snorted. "Would I be here if I wasn't?"

"You have dreams like mine?"

"I don't tell people my dreams. You shouldn't
either."

They were in the laundry room. Dibble was running T-shirts, jeans, sweats, socks, and underwear
through the washer, which was built for much bigger loads. He didn't want his clothes running
through the same water with others, not even
Bobby's, even though he and Bobby sometimes
shared spit.

He said, "You got money? Get me a soda?"

Bobby always had money, a small monthly allowance from his uncle, half of which he spent on
Dibble, sometimes more. The soft drink machine
was near the door, Pepsi the only selection. He returned with one, glum-faced.

"I miss Duck."

"Sure you do, it's natural." Dibble took a swig of
the Pepsi and shared it. "You think there're no toi lets up in heaven? Sure there are, and Duck's in
charge."

"You don't believe in heaven."

"I'm trying to make you feel good."

"If he's not in heaven, where is he?"

"Nowhere. That's what dead is."

"Yes," Bobby said. "I forgot."

An hour later, back in their room, Bobby sorted
and matched Dibble's socks, and Dibble arranged
them in his wall locker, everything in it neatly
placed. A calendar hung on the inside of one of the
doors, no days crossed off, no entries. In a dry
voice, Dibble said, "Another five months I'm out
of here. What d'you think of that?"

"No," Bobby said with alarm. "It's too soon."

"They're going to send me to a halfway house,
get me ready for the real world. Neighborhood I
come from, Sawhill, people expect to get killed. It
happens, they got no complaints. Only the families do."

"I don't want you to go, Dibs."

"I gotta be a productive member of society. I'll
work at a fucking McDonald's or a Star Market.
Or maybe I'll work toilets like Duck did."

"Not you, Dibs. Never."

"No, not me. I'll get lucky and hit Megabucks."

Bobby said nothing. Finished with the socks, he
began folding sweats, smoothing them with his fingertips, breathing in the redolence of detergent, a
kind of pink smell.

"When I'm gone," Dibble said, "you stay away
from drugs. They'll be trying to get to you."

"There's none here."

"Sure there are. Dorm C. Guys there deal. I
protect you from them. I'm gone, you protect
yourself."

"What if I can't?"

"You worry too much."

"You love me, Dibs?"

"I love me first, then maybe you."

"I love you first, I don't know about me."

A pillow propping his back, Dibble spent the
next hour with his face pressed into a book while
Bobby lay with his eyes shut, their cots no more
than six feet apart, though for Bobby it was like an
ocean. When he felt tears start, he stopped them.
Then Dibble put out the light.

"G'night."

Without asking, Bobby left his bed for Dibble's
and was not repulsed. Dibble tossed an arm
around him. Strange night sounds came through
the open window. For some reason birds were still
awake.

"Ever wonder why guys here don't try to escape?" Dibble said. "They got no reason to. This is
home."

It was a bad year for Chief Morgan. Investigating a
charge of spousal abuse in the Heights, he tried to
comfort the bruised wife and abruptly found her
sobbing in his arms, which led to a relationship
that put him in trouble with her husband, who was
high profile, the ballplayer Crack Alexander.

Worse was a tangled affair with another woman
from the Heights, Arlene Bowman, who wore
crisp white shirts tucked into designer jeans that
individually cost more than the sole dress suit in
Morgan's closet. With her he was a pawn in a
spiteful game she was playing more with herself
than with her husband, diversion a high priority in
her life, as if it were beneficial to her health.

His behavior caused talk in the town and was a
favorite topic among regulars at the Blue Bonnet,
their imaginations rampant behind his back. Randolph Jackson, chairman of the selectmen, told
him to watch his step, too many rumors flying about. Meg O'Brien, shutting his office door behind her, took him to task.

"What is it, Jim? Middle-age crisis?"

That was in the winter. He hated winters. They
wiped away gardens. The summer was worse. One
of his officers, Matt MacGregor, died by his own
hand, mismanagement of his gun, an unauthorized
Magnum. Some in town believed it was suicide
and accused the chief, though not to his face, of a
cover-up. Malcolm Crandall, the town clerk, whispered that he was incompetent.

Kind words came from an unexpected quarter.
Ben Sawhill stopped by the station one day, and
they had coffee together in Morgan's office, the
door closed. Ben said, "If there's anything I can do."

"I'm OK," Morgan said. "I tend to ride these
things out."

"I wouldn't want to see another face behind that
desk."

"Nor would I. How's your sister-in-law?"

"She's back and doing better. We all know what
killed Harry. It was my nephew."

Morgan turned several pages on his calendar
pad to bring it up to date. "Could have been the
booze."

"Doctor at the Lahey said it was his heart, no
surprise. It broke when Bobby's mother died. The
booze held it together." The expression on Ben's
face deepened. "What I really came to say is I hope
there's no hard feelings. We had our differences
over Bobby. We were all pretty emotional at the
time."

"How's he doing at Sherwood?"

"Not bad, I guess. The administrator, fella named
Grissom, says he gets into no trouble but refuses to
take counseling. They can't force it on him."

"You sound worried."

Ben leaned forward and placed his coffee mug
on the desk. "You were probably right about Mrs.
Bullard. I think Bobby killed her too. The horrifying thing is we may never know why."

"I wonder if he knows."

"Maybe not. That's even worse."

Morgan reached into a bottom drawer of his
desk and pulled up an unopened bottle, the cap
sealed. "I don't drink myself, but this is twelveyear-old scotch. I stopped an Andover guy for
speeding, and he tried to bribe me with it. I wrote
him up and confiscated the bottle."

"Pour a little in my coffee," Ben said.

Morgan unscrewed the cap, breaking the seal.
The taste of hard liquor had never appealed to
him, but he poured some for himself too.
"Cheers."

Ben, smiling, said, "I'm surprised that ballplayer
didn't come after you with a bat."

"Don't think I didn't worry about it," Morgan
said.

Crossing the green from opposite directions, they
met by chance. A warm wind blew her hair back
and gave her face more meaning. She was wearing
a thick off-white sweater and dark trousers. Morgan said, "I didn't think you'd remember me."

"Your face," Trish Becker said, "is burnt into my
mind. The face that told me Harry was dead."

"As I remember, you wouldn't let me tell you."

"You were trying so hard to be sensitive to the
situation, and I slammed the door on you. Shall
we, fora moment?"

A bench was nearby. They sat on it. A short distance away teenagers clustered around another
bench. The girls, wearing Spandex, no breath for
their bodies, chattered over and around their
chewing gum. The boys wore ball caps askew.

"Remember when you were that age, Chief? My
father defined adolescence as normal insanity. Do
you have children?"

"No."

"I have a son and daughter, both busy being angry and misunderstood. My son should've finished
college a year ago, but he took time off at his father's expense. Their father feels guilt so he gives
them everything. They visited me in July but didn't
stay long. They got bored."

"Not much for them to do here," Morgan said.
"Young people from the Heights and those of the
town don't mingle. They simply don't know each
other."

Trish viewed him with her head tossed to one
side, a hand on her hair. "Now that Harry's gone
you're the only townie I know. I mean, besides
Ben, but I don't consider him one. Do you?"

"I guess I do. Habit. Did you take back your
own name, or are you Mrs. Sawhill?"

"I've always been Trish Becker, the name I was
born with, damn proud of it." She watched random leaves rattle past her feet. A gray squirrel
scampered across the walkway. "I have a friend living with me. She sold her house in Connecticut
and moved in. A great way for us to economize.
We're counting our pennies. Who lives with you,
Chief?"

"No one."

"I heard you've acquired a reputation," she said
and baited him with a look. "Arlene Bowman is an
acquaintance of mine. I don't see what you saw in
her. Sissy Alexander, on the other hand, is married
to that beastly ballplayer. You must've taken pity.
Am I offending you?"

"You mean you're not trying to?"

"I was testing the water. It seems clear we're in
the same boat. We're looking for something, we
don't know what. Does that sort of sum it up?"

"For you maybe. I don't know about myself."

They glimpsed Reverend Stottle, but he didn't
see them. He was tramping across the far end of
the green. Trish said, "Is he a townie too?"

.Not a real one, though he's been here long
enough."

"The damn fool made a pass at me. Harry was
still alive."

Morgan showed no surprise. "He's harmless."

"I've had it with men, at least for the foreseeable
future, though I wouldn't mind acquiring a
brother. Could you fit the role, Chief?"

"You have a brother-in-law."

"Doesn't count. I'm in love with him. Does that
shock you?"

The cluster of teenagers was breaking up, the
wind deadening their shouts. Couples with arms
slung around each other headed one way, loners
another. "How can it?" Morgan said. "I'm a policeman."