Happy Policeman (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

The visitors’ lot was empty. DeWitt nosed the squad car to the steps of the center and parked.

Bo asked, “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

What Bo
hadn’t
asked was: “Who is she? When did the affair start?” Any of the expected questions.

“It’s best if I go alone.”

DeWitt got out and trudged up the stairs. In the rec room the lights were on, the Ping-Pong tables and couches empty of the usual teenagers. Feeling a tingle of unease, he walked across the indoor/outdoor carpeting.

A voice from a side room: “ . . . marketing plan.”

Startled, he drew back until he was hidden in the tiny kitchen. The voice was pitched low, and it oozed with salesmanship. It belonged to Hubert Foster.

“Explain marketing,” Seresen said.

It was an eight-block hike from the banker’s house to the center, and the weather was chilly, even for an Autumn. Foster evidently wanted to keep his visit a secret.

“Okay. Let’s consider your goal. You and I know that goal visualization is the first step, right?”

DeWitt tried to imagine what sort of goal Seresen might have. He couldn’t.

Foster would have continued his pitch, but Seresen became uncharacteristically garrulous. “It is the primary truth. As universes leak into each other, all things are one. All time is one. There is no here and now . . .”

“Yes, yes. That’s all very interesting. And
just
what I’m talking about. Marketing means bending the universe in such a way that it works for you. Now.
My suggestion is that a couple of us go to the other side and set up a program.”

DeWitt was fascinated. He leaned over a coffee maker to catch Foster’s every quiet word.

“Those people on the other side are probably hungry. We give them food. We talk to them a little about religion. They’ll go for it. You’ll see—”

“But here.” The alien seemed frustrated. “We set the program here.”

Religion? DeWitt didn’t know what Foster meant by religion, but he knew what he was up to. And it was obvious Seresen hadn’t figured out that he was being used. Foster wanted to cross the Line as some New Age CEO. DeWitt wondered if Loretta had threatened to expose the scam and that was why Foster killed her. He wondered if Seresen knew Foster was the murderer, and was protecting him anyway.

“The people here aren’t receptive. That’s why you haven’t been able to make inroads. They’re tied to outmoded ideas. Look. You start over with a clean slate. Take everything away: food, housing, safety. That’s how you get a fresh market. It’s simple. Over on the other—”

Seresen sounded exasperated. “Life is not simple. It is complex, yet it contains order. A leaf holds the structure of a tree. A speck of dust is a model to the boulder. These things are identical, yet distinct.”

DeWitt leaned farther over, and held his breath.

“I know that, Seresen. You’re preaching to the choir here. Let’s go to the other side. Those people are hungry for the truth. What they need is a leader, and you know I’ve been preparing. How much I’ve worked—”

“You do
not
understand. There is no choice between one side and the other. The Monopoly players are one. The board is one with the pieces. You do
not
understand. Some think the preacher speaks of existence when he talks about this Rapture, but I suspect he does not understand, either. Six years, and you still separate the pieces from the board.”

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Seresen! Don’t leave. I brought flow charts. I’ve got statistics . . .”

DeWitt took a deep breath and walked around the edge of the alcove. Not five feet in front of him, Seresen came to a sudden stop. Behind the small alien, Foster went through a Torku transformation, turning pink from neck to scalp.

Childhood is hungry: it reaches out small, selfish hands. The mature DeWitt could not let go of the adolescent Janet, and Janet was snared by the teenaged Foster. The current Foster was out of shape. His gut strained the buttons of his shirt. Janet didn’t see that he wasn’t a teenager with a convertible anymore.

“Foster? Go home. And Seresen, I want your people in your side of the center right now. There’s going to be trouble.”

The obvious question came not from the Kol, but from Foster. “What kind of trouble?”

“Call them together now.”

Foster stayed put. DeWitt couldn’t tell whether courage kept him from leaving or if his knees had simply locked up.

“Let me handle everything, Seresen. I want you out of the way. Bo and I will need our guns.”

Seresen’s answer was quick and to the point. “No.”

“I’m a cop. You talked a moment ago about order.” Foster’s blush faded to a cadaverous pallor. Now the banker knew that DeWitt had been eavesdropping. “What the badge represents is order. But I can’t stand up against the whole town unarmed.”

“Your type of order is ignorance. We do not need you. I will get my people into the center.”

DeWitt raised his voice. “It’s my
job!”

Seresen’s calm eyes were pink with threads of saffron through them. “It is your job to protect us if you must. It is my job to tell you no. Probabilities spring from this occurrence. They form a resonant pattern.”

“Shit.” For a while DeWitt had thought he had some idea of what the alien was talking about. Now he was totally lost.

“Look. I don’t want you to do anything stupid,” he said. “Bo and I will go up to the church. We’ll check things out. Nothing’s going to happen until around nine.”

Foster shrugged. “Well, DeWitt, if nothing’s going to happen until nine . . .”

“Time is arbitrary,” Seresen told the banker. “And I will get my people from the church.”

DeWitt checked his watch. Five to seven. “All right. Let’s get moving,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jimmy Schoen checked the mirror that hung on the pulpit door and brushed a prodigal lock of hair into place. He straightened his tie and then straightened it again.

“You look just fine, Jimmy.”

He ignored his wife. Cracking open the door, he saw that the congregation was filing in. Doc was among them. As Doc had promised, the rest of the conspirators were there as well.

Schoen would talk of Moses, of the divine right of leadership. And then he had a little surprise. He would preach of Doc’s drunkenness, of Purdy’s vile home movies, of specific fornication and faithlessness. Schoen knew the conspirators well, knew their lies, had kept track of every indiscretion. He had looked into their living-room windows as God looked into their souls.

The demons had already occupied their side of the aisle—but there would be no killing in his church. He would make certain of that. His people would wait until the demons were outside before the hammer of God struck them down.

“Jimmy, honey?” Dee Dee called in her syrupy voice. “Look here, Jimmy. Look who’s come.”

Schoen reluctantly tore his gaze from the filling church. A polite greeting died on his lips.

“Hello, Pastor,” the police chief said.

Chapter Twenty-Four

If the pastor was stunned, his wife was beaming. “It’s so good to
see
you!” Dee Dee clapped her hands in delight. “Jimmy? Isn’t it good to
see
them?”

Schoen, hands trembling, straightened his tie. The knot ended up at an angle to the collar.

Dee Dee aligned it, then stood back to inspect her work.

“DeWitt and Bo are looking into the murder. Isn’t that
inter
esting?” To DeWitt she said, “That’s just the most interesting thing.” Her eyes, brown and sweet, were imperceptive as fudge.

“And
you!”
she said to Bo, who had not backed up quickly enough. “You just look so
good.
Doesn’t Bo look good, Jimmy? Why, I think he’s a Winter. That’s a really nice season to be.
Very
intuitive. And has anybody ever told you you’re a Spring, DeWitt? You should wear more yellow. A light yellow, not anything too heavy. Are y’all staying to service?”

“I . . .” DeWitt began uncertainly, amazed by Dee Dee’s obvious tie to Foster.

“Yes,“ Bo said. “At least until just before nine.”

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed with cunning.

“Oh. Well, you know service ends at eight,” Dee Dee said doubtfully. “But then we have coffee and cookies afterwards. You can buy something from the Washed in the Blood cake sale—“

“They may not want to stay,” Schoen told her.

“Well, honey, they might. Eleanor Wheeler made one of her double chocolate cakes with marshmallow frosting and—”

DeWitt’s grin tightened. “‘Course at nine, we got places to go, people to see.”

“Y’all just stay so
busy.
Don’t they, honey? Don’t they stay so
busy?

Schoen’s mouth settled into a rebuking line. “I know sin when I look it in the face.”

For once Dee Dee had nothing to say.

“Murder is sin,” DeWitt said.

The pastor cleared his throat with an impressive rumble. When his words emerged, they rang, as though he were already standing in the pulpit. “Murder applies to creatures with souls. These demons are godless. Make your choice, Chief: Heaven or Hell. But don’t force the town into the flames with you.”

“Damn it, think for once!” DeWitt said. “We depend on the Torku for everything. What would you do if they were gone?”

Schoen had his answer ready, as though he had had it ready for years. “We’ll pull down the Line!”

“You can’t do that.”

“Heaven’s over there! “ Schoen’s voice rose beyond his usual evangelical control. “Don’t you understand? God is waiting!”

Bo put a hand on Schoen’s arm. The pastor pulled away. “You listen to reason, Pastor. You do anything tonight, you’ll all be cited. You don’t want that. You don’t want to break the law. I know you don’t.”

“I follow
God’s
law! And you’ll find out what God’s law is all about if you stay, Chief. Because I’m naming names. And two of the sinning names are DeWitt Dawson and Hattie Nichols.”

DeWitt felt anesthetized. He wondered if this was the first symptom of a stroke.

“Don’t y’all want some coffee?” Dee Dee said with hysterical cordiality. “I can get us all some coffee.”

Schoen flung open the door to the pulpit. “Your wife’s in her pew, Chief. The same place she sits every night. The children are with her. When I call the sinners to the altar to be forgiven, don’t you want to be cleansed? When I rebuke you as Satan’s messenger, don’t you want to hear? After the righteous strike you down, will you dare stand before the Throne unrepentant?”

Don’t,
DeWitt thought.
Don’t attack the Torku. Don‘t tell Janet.

“You’ve waltzed with the demons for six years, Chief,” Schoen said. “Stay. Have the last dance.”

Bo stepped forward, pushing the preacher aside to glance out the door. “Seresen’s getting the Torku together. Come on, Wittie. Let’s go.”

Bo dragged him, stumbling, outside. In the gravel parking lot Torku were climbing into their UPS vans, and Seresen was standing by the squad car, waiting.

DeWitt balked. “I’ll get Janet and the kids. I’ll bring them with us. She’ll never have to know.”

“He’s going to order those people to kill you! Don’t you get it?” Bo pulled him to the squad car, jerked open the passenger door, and shoved him inside. Seresen hopped into the back seat. Bo got behind the wheel and in a loud shower of gravel sent the car into wild reverse. At the road, he braked and spun. Floorboarding the accelerator, he sped toward town.

Through the rear window, the church receded until it was hidden behind a screen of winter-bare trees. DeWitt pictured Janet and his kids, hands folded in their laps, as they waited for service to begin.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Seresen—what did Foster want?” DeWitt hung onto the door handle as Bo whipped around a curve. “What are you two cooking up?”

Seresen stared out his side window. “We talked of nothing.”

“I was listening! I stood there and heard. Foster wanted you to take him across the Line.”

“You misunderstood.”

DeWitt’s juggling act was in trouble, his concentration lost—Seresen, Janet, and her lover suspended in mid-air. DeWitt had always known he would have to choose. Without a pang of regret, he let Foster fall.

“I have reason to believe Hubert Foster is guilty of the murder of Loretta Harper and the disappearance of Billy Junior and Jason Harper. Are you protecting him, Seresen?”

“Foster isn’t guilty,” Bo said.

“Oh yes, he is. He plans to start his own little empire on the other side of the Line. Then Loretta finds out. She must have threatened to expose him.”

“Foster couldn’t have killed her, DeWitt. He was at my house Sunday night.” But a muscle twitched in Bo’s jaw.

“Oh? How long was he there?”

A pause: Bo was thinking. “He came early afternoon and didn’t leave until eleven that night.”

“Why did Foster tell me he was home? Was he lying?”

“I guess so.”

“Why would he lie about that? What were you doing?”

“We talked.” His upper lip beaded with perspiration.

“You talked, from early afternoon until eleven at night.”

From the back seat Seresen piped up. “The Hubert talks a great deal.”

DeWitt turned around. The car was ripe with the smell of nervous sweat, and a faint Elmer’s Glue smell that must have been Seresen. “What does he talk about?”

“The Hubert is fond of two dimensions. He tries to explain things with flat graphs and charts. I find it illogical and confusing. It is also confusing why the townspeople are so angry.”

“They’re scared. When people are scared, they do stupid things.”

Bo slowed as he entered the center’s parking lot. When the headlights picked out a pink Buick Regal among the delivery trucks, he hit the brakes so hard that Seresen was flung against the rear of DeWitt’s seat.

“Jesus,” Bo said. “It’s Loretta’s car.”

DeWitt jumped out as Bo sprinted to the Regal. The officer was wrapping his fingers in a handkerchief, pulling the door open, taking the ‘keys from the ignition, and going to the trunk.

If the boys were there, the smell would hit first: the heavy green stench of a dead rat in a wall, only a hundred times worse.

Across the lot Seresen was calmly getting out of the squad car. And at the door of the center, five other Torku stood, having appeared as if by magic. They held black sticks in their hands.

Bo was breathing hard. He couldn’t slot the key. A bead of sweat dislodged from his hairline and rolled down the side of his face.

The Torku were closer, only a few feet away.

“They’re the murderers,” Bo said in a rush. “They did it, don’t you see? Maybe Loretta
did
have that meeting with Seresen. Maybe she told him something he didn’t want to hear. Loretta left her house in her car that evening. Miz Wilson said so. Tore off in a hurry, she said. Wherever Loretta was headed, she didn’t make it. Whoever killed her had this Regal.”

‘You don’t have any evidence. Bo, listen to me.”

The key slid home; the trunk popped open. There was a blanket-wrapped bundle over the spare tire.

“You will go now,” Seresen said from the shadows at the front fender of the Regal.

Bo took the handcuffs from his belt. “Kol Seresen, I’m arresting you for the murder of Loretta Harper.”

DeWitt pushed Bo aside and flipped the blankets down, exposing a pile of boxes. Loretta had never made her Mary Kay deliveries. “Seresen!” DeWitt shouted. “Hide the car.”

Bo swiveled, his eyes full of rage,

DeWitt grabbed for the keys. Bo shoved him away. DeWitt shoved back with all the strength of desperation. Bo fell. The handcuffs and keys flew out of his fingers; they clinked across the asphalt.

Seresen picked up the keys and closed the trunk. Slipping into the Regal, he drove it toward the center. The garage door opened; Seresen parked Loretta’s car over a hydraulic lift; and the wall rolled back in place.

Bo knocked DeWitt’s offered hand away. He got to his feet and swayed, clasping the back of his head.

Seresen rushed outside. “It will be best if you come in now.”

“Go on, DeWitt.” Bo gestured. “Follow Seresen. Go plant a wet one on his fat, spotted ass.”

“Stop it, Bo.”

“You’re a whore just like your daddy. You cover for Seresen just like your daddy covered for the Klan.”

With an inarticulate moan, DeWitt grabbed for Bo’s jacket. “You draggle-tail peckerwood white trash! Your mama was nothing but a goddamned drunk!”

Bo pushed him away.

“She crawled under the sheets with every man in town! No wonder your daddy left! And who was there to take her home when she passed out? Who made sure her kids had enough to eat? Had coats in the winter? Don’t you remember? My daddy! So who was the whore?”

He charged. Bo jumped out of the way. DeWitt’s momentum sent him into a postal truck. He heard a whistle behind him and knew what it meant. Before he could duck, Bo’s night stick hit the back of his head.

Sharp, hot pain. DeWitt staggered away, snatching at his belt for any protection: his flashlight, night stick. His mind struggled to think, his eyes to focus. Too slow. A whistle of metal through air, and the night stick smacked his cheek.

He was on his knees now. Bo had him in a choke hold. DeWitt tried to get up. He couldn’t breathe. His own baton was lying inches away, just out of reach.

DeWitt tore at Bo’s arm, fingers sliding on the officer’s jacket. His vision contracted, telescoped, darkened at the edges. The world lost color.

The struggle was eerily silent except for the scrape of Bo’s boot soles and his rapid, grunting breaths.

The gay boy in Dallas had twitched his life out on the sidewalk, hyoid bone crushed. A prolonged death. A crowd-pleaser. The boy flailed while the drunken mob watched.

DeWitt forced himself to go limp. Instantly, Bo released him. DeWitt fell, hands outspread. He caught his night stick, and twisting onto his back, punched the end of it between Bo’s legs.

Only as the stick hit did DeWitt see Bo’s expression. DeWitt, who had never killed anyone, nearly didn’t recognize the emotion for what it was: fear and tremendous regret.

Bo groaned and toppled, curling into a fetal ball, cupping himself.

DeWitt scrabbled to his feet.

“Get . . . “ Bo said, then ran out of air.

“I didn’t mean what I said about your mama. I didn’t mean it.“

“Get . . . out.”

“But my daddy wasn’t like that.”

Bo didn’t reply.

With the weary expediency of his father, DeWitt walked away.