A Child Is Missing (7 page)

Graham measured him coldly for a moment before his eyes softened. “I think their emotions are genuine, Will. That's all I can say. I'll tell you what I can tell you, and when I can. You know I'm good on that.”

“You always were, Jerry. I haven't forgotten.”

Will shook hands with the agent and left. On his way back to the hotel, he remembered something Graham had done a lot of years before. It was in Bessemer in the 1970s, and some student radicals (or so the
Gazette
had called them) at the Bessemer state university branch had staged several protests over the various investigations into the 1971 Attica prison riot that killed more than forty inmates and guards.

The radicals had seen conspiracies and whitewashes everywhere, and they had sided with the prisoners time and again. They had infuriated most of the people in Bessemer, and the police had broken up several demonstrations by enthusiastically using dogs, clubs, and tear gas.

Jerry Graham—at that time, a young FBI agent, and as buttoned-down and conservative as he looked—had been at one of the protests. Will had been sent to cover the disturbance, and he watched from twenty feet away as a wild-eyed young man with dirty hair and even filthier clothes rushed up to Graham. “Fascist motherfucker!” the young man screamed in Graham's face.

Looking sad rather than angry, the agent had calmly wiped the young man's spittle from his face, then had prevailed upon a Bessemer police officer not to arrest the screamer. “Everyone's entitled to be an asshole once,” the agent had told the cop.

Will had been close enough to hear, yet he was sure that Graham hadn't seen him and wasn't feigning compassion for the benefit of the press. Indeed, Will had never told Graham that he had seen what happened. And Will had never forgotten what Graham had said in his office sometime later: “I think those students are a bunch of naïve jerks, but this is still a free country. That's off the record.”

Only later did Will appreciate how principled Graham had been, and how much professional damage he had risked. Graham had given him a lot of “no comments” back then, but he had never lied to him. Never.

So here they both were again, Will thought: the aging FBI man and the aging journalist. Jerry, you always were a cut above most lawmen, FBI or otherwise. Maybe this is where I pay you back.

Nine

The hermit did not always know when the sadness would fall on him. When it did, it was like a weight on his shoulders. Sometimes it was so heavy, it drove him to his knees. Then he would cry like a child, filled with self-disgust, until he couldn't cry anymore. Wolf knew enough to leave him alone then. The dog would retreat to the corners of the cabin, or hide in a thicket until his master's sadness was over.

If only the crying made him feel better. It didn't; it was something he could not help, but it would never make things right.

Sometimes he could shake off the weight before it settled over him; he could do this by swinging an ax, or trotting through the woods, or—whatever. But more often than not, when the weight settled on him, he just gave himself up to the sadness. And the whiskey.

It was getting dark, and he had just made the long cut off the highway, over farmers' fields, through thick patches of woods, and down a wooded hill, until he came out on the winding dirt road. The road was a little wider than a logging trail, but it got little more traffic than that.

He hated shopping trips, so he always figured his needs so that he had to make a trip only once every several weeks. Now, his backpack was heavy with cans of meat and fruit, a bag of flour, coffee, potatoes, batteries. And whiskey; he always bought whiskey.

When he was at a place in the road where the hills were high on one side and a gulley sloped sharply away on the other, the weight of sadness fell on him. Maybe it was because he was tired, or perhaps it was the gloom. Whatever. The sadness came on him, and his eyes filled with tears.

He stopped, adjusted the straps on his pack, felt the deepening cold in his nostrils. Tonight he would drink whiskey, as much as it took to go to sleep. He would put away his supplies in the morning.

If the cabin he and Jo had built had not burned, Jo would still be alive. Wouldn't she? They hadn't done that much in heavy drugs. Yes, Jo would still be alive.

“No. No, no, no, no.” He was startled by his own voice; yes, it was on him, the sadness. He hoped the rest of it wouldn't come—the screams, the voices calling to him for help, the voices he heard in his dreams.

Faster, faster. He left the road, went down a leaf-choked gulley where it was even darker. He sobbed again, loathed himself for it, was glad a rushing stream masked his sounds.

Jo was gone, forever, with their unborn child. He cried for them, cried for himself. Only the hills and trees would know.

He pushed forward. It was getting too dark to see, but he knew the way by heart.

He heard a sound. God, no, don't let it be the voices again. Jo was dead, their child dead, their life together dead.

The boy Jo was carrying would be a young man now. (Somehow, the hermit knew that the child had been a boy.) Would his son have liked living in the woods? Would Jo have changed?

There was a low, cold wind. It shifted slightly, bringing the sound of the rushing brook closer to him. It was then that he heard the sound.

“Mommy … Daddy…”

The hermit put his hands over his ears, shut his eyes as hard as he could to dam up the tears. He didn't remember ever hearing the ghost voices this clearly before. When he felt the wind shift, he took his hands away from his ears and opened his eyes. The wind, that was it. The wind had made the noises. He was not crazy.

His dog barked. The hermit could tell from the sound that Wolf was a couple hundred yards back, at a different bend in the stream.

“Wolf!”

The dog was silent; the hermit listened for the sound of the dog running after him. Nothing.

Wolf must have flushed a rabbit, the hermit thought.

“Wolf!” the hermit shouted louder, to be heard over the stream. “Damn you, Wolf.” The dog could hear him, he knew. There was almost nothing the dog didn't hear.

The wind shifted slightly again, making the sound of the stream a little louder. He heard another noise, or thought he did. It was almost a low moan. Then the wind changed yet again, and the sound was gone. He was relieved; he had heard enough ghost voices.

“Wolf.” He heard the dog tromping through the snowy brush. “Good, Wolf. Okay.”

The dog was next to him now, and panting. Trying to tell him something?

“All right, Wolf. Come on.”

The hermit took the flashlight from his deep pocket, shined it into the darkness to be sure he was headed where he thought.

The dog yelped, whined.

“No. No time to play, Wolf.”

The hermit smelled fresh dirt. Shining the light down at the dog, he saw that the animal's front paws were dark and wet.

“Damn you, Wolf. You would have to dig.” The hermit was tired and didn't want to have to clean mud out of the cabin from Wolf's paws. All he wanted to do in the cabin was shut out the cold and the ghosts and drink some whiskey. He pointed the light where he wanted to go and slapped his side with his gloved hand, the signal to the dog that he was out of patience.

Reluctantly, Wolf obeyed.

Ten

Will had some time before he had to file his story, and the rest of the day lay beyond him like a gray landscape. He was homesick. He was still worried about Fran.

The hospital was only a block away. Maybe there was some improvement.…

The hospital had been built during the Great Depression. The cornerstone said 1935, but just as telling was the WPA-style architecture. Not to mention the several decades of grime stuck on the masonry like burned skin, a reminder of the time when the mills and smelters had brought prosperity with their soot.

Just as Will entered the building, he heard a woman's voice: “Mr. Shafer?”

Will turned and saw the nurse he'd met earlier in the intensive-care unit. “It is Mr. Shafer, isn't it?”

“Yes. Hello again.”

“I'm Heather Casey, Mr. Shafer. Your friend is sleeping very soundly. There's no change.”

“Ah. Well, then, I guess there's no point in my going to see him.”

“Not really.” Nurse Casey frowned, hinted to Will with a shift of her shoulder that he should follow her outside.

They stood on the front walk. “Have you been friends for a very long time, Mr. Shafer?”

“You could say that. Yes. Fran has had his ups and downs. Especially downs lately, but he used to be a fine newsman, and he taught me a lot. More years ago than I care to recall all of a sudden.”

“I know what that feels like. About the years racing away, I mean. But I must tell you—I'm not optimistic.”

“But you said there was no change.”

“No, as far as his vital signs are concerned. But considering his overall condition, the longer he goes without rallying…”

“I see.”

Will was startled when the nurse put a hand on his shoulder. Startled because the gesture was a warmer one than he had expected from his first meeting with the nurse. Startled because her hand felt good on his shoulder, and he saw that she was a far younger-looking, more handsome woman than he had perceived at their first meeting.

“This is tough, I know,” she said.

“Well, it's no sadder than a lot of the things you see, I guess.”

“I'm sure you see some sad things in your line of work, too, Mr. Shafer.”

“Hmmm. And if Fran does make it, he's going to be charged with drunken driving, isn't he?”

“Oh, he already has been, Mr. Shafer. Nothing will happen, of course, until Mr. Spicer is … able to respond.”

“There isn't any doubt, then, I guess? About Fran's being drunk, I mean?”

“I'm afraid not. I know the police at the scene took pictures of the interior of his car. That's standard practice in such cases. There were several empty beer cans in the car. And I drew the blood sample myself right here at the hospital. He tested one point five. Well into the drunk-driving area, I'm afraid.”

“And a young woman was injured. And she was lucky she wasn't killed. Lord. Fran was doing so well for a while. He was a recovering alcoholic. I mean, he wasn't a common drunk. Isn't a common drunk.”

“I'm sure not.” Heather Casey smiled kindly. “My father was an alcoholic, Mr. Shafer, so I have some personal knowledge in this area. So was my … Well, I guess that's why I don't drink. I have to go.”

“Thank you. I do appreciate your kindness. Should I stop by later, do you think?”

“If you wish. If you're here much later, I may be gone.” Heather Casey turned to leave but paused. “If you see a policeman outside the IU unit, it's because he's keeping a watch on Mr. Spicer. They're not being mean. It's just that technically…”

“I know. Thanks.”

Will decided to go back to his room. He had nothing better to do now than file his story. Besides, he would be writing it on a portable computer and sending it to the
Bessemer Gazette
via telephone. Young reporters did that all the time, but Will, while not a total computerphobe, had started his career in the typewriter and pencil era. He thought he had best allow himself extra time.

Back in the hotel, Will called Tom Ryan at the
Gazette
and told him he thought a thousand words would be adequate for his story. Ryan sounded nervous and obsequious.

“Any change in Fran's condition, Will?”

“Nope.”

“Reason I ask, publisher's been in and out of the newsroom all day. Asking about Fran, mostly. Once or twice, he asked if you'd filed your story yet.”

Will shook his head in annoyance: Ryan tended to get nervous with big stories. Now Ryan was clearly worried that Will would screw up badly and it would reflect on him somehow. “Ry, don't worry. If I can't hack it, it'll be my ass, okay?”

“Ha! Will, you can do this. We have faith.”

Will sent a test message, heard back a minute later that his computer was sending garble-free copy back to the
Gazette.
That was a relief, because he thought he heard thunder outside. Electrical storms could play havoc with computers.

Then, with his homesickness momentarily banished by the butterflies, Will began to write.

The hunt for Jamie Brokaw and his kidnappers took a new turn today as investigators received an ominous new ransom demand. And the boy's parents issued emotional pleas for the child's release before going back to their separate homes to pray and wait.

Will paused after that first paragraph, read it several times. As an editor, he was constantly preaching clean, terse lead paragraphs with a minimum of cluttering clauses, abbreviations, and proper nouns. Now he dare not violate his own principles, or he would lose face among the people he was supposed to be supervising.

This isn't bad at all, he decided finally.

Will wrote swiftly and smoothly. He had made a list beforehand of the points he wanted to cover, and roughly in what order, and his prose had always been clear, if not always beautiful. The only trouble was deciding how far he could go in reporting some of the things Graham had told him. Well, he knew damn well that journalism courses didn't cover every situation.

In about an hour, Will was done, and he pressed the
TRANSMIT
command. After a minute or so, he got the message that his story had arrived intact and that he would hear in a little while whether there were any questions. As he waited, Will made a note to himself to be more understanding from now on when reporters on the road got irritable.

The phone rang.

“Will, your story is fine. Just fine,” Ryan said. “Us old guys can show the young squirts how it's done, huh?”

“You betcha, Ry.” And that was as far as Will would go with Ryan on the forced camaraderie; even that took some effort.