Marge Bartlett stood rigid and still, looking straight ahead with the bag held at her side. The sea gulls rustled away at the garbage. Somewhere in the woods a dog barked. Down the highway another motorcycle snarled. It appeared around the curve. A big one, three-fifty probably, high-rise handlebars, rearview mirror, small front wheel, sissy bar behind. My favorite kind. It swung into the parking lot, and without stopping the rider took the bag from Marge Bartlett, took one turn around the mirror support with the straps, and headed straight across the parking lot toward the stable.
Bridle path, I thought as he went by me. The license plates were covered. I got one flash of Levi’s jeans and engineer’s boots and field jacket and red plastic helmet with blue plastic face shield, and he was behind the riding ring into the bridle path and gone in the woods. I could hear the roar of the bike dwindle, and then I couldn’t hear it, and all there Was was the drone of the cicadas. And the traffic.
Bridle path. Sonova bitch. A lot of per them shot to hell.
Marge Bartlett got back in her Mustang and drove away. I threw my sandwich at the sea gulls, and they flared up and then came down on it and tore it apart. I stood up and took the rake from against the wall and broke the handle across my knee and dropped the two parts on the ground and started for my car. Then I stopped and took a ten-dollar bill out of my wallet and went back and folded it around one of the rake tines and left it there. Vinnie didn’t look as if he could afford my temper tantrum. With the profits he’d shown in the two days I’d spent there, he couldn’t buy a pocket comb.
Healy and Trask were sitting in the front seat of Trask’s cruiser in the parking lot of the Catholic church four blocks from the stable. There was a map spread out against the dashboard in front of them. I pulled up beside them and shut off the engine.
“Your man in the tree spot them?” I asked.
“Nope, lost him as soon as he went into the woods. The trees overhang the trail.”
Trask said, “The goddamned trail splits and runs off in all different directions. There’s no real way to tell where it comes out. Some of the people riding have made new trails.
He could have come out in Lynn, in Saugus, in Smithfield past the roadblock. He’s gone.”
Healy’s face was stiff and the bones showed. He said, “Two days, two goddamned days looking at that place, looking at that goddamned bridle path sign, listening to motorcycles going by on Route 1. Two days. And we stood there with our thumb in our butt. For crissake, Spenser, you were there, you saw people riding into that path; why the hell didn’t you put it together? You’re supposed to be a goddamned hotshot.”
“I’m not a big intellect like you state dicks. I was overextended raking the manure.”
Healy took the map of the woods he’d been looking at and began to wad it into a ball, packing it in his thin freckled hands the way we used to make snowballs when I was a kid. The radio in Trask’s car crackled, and the dispatcher said something I couldn’t understand. Trask responded.
“This is Trask.”
Again the radio in its crackly mechanical voice. And Trask. “Roger; out.” Jiminy, just like in the movies.
“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘Ten Four’?” I said.
Trask turned his big red face at me. “Look, you screwed this thing up, and you feel like a horse’s ass now. Don’t take it out on me.” He looked at Healy. “Did you get that on the radio?” Healy nodded. I said, “What was it?”
“The Bartletts got a phone call from the kidnappers telling them where to get the kid.” He put the car in gear.
and backed out of the parking lot. I followed. Maybe they’ll give him back, I thought. Maybe.
Chapter 7
The call had come perhaps ten minutes after the money had been picked up. The little slick-haired cop had recorded it, and he played it back for Trask and Healy and me. Roger Bartlett said, “Hello.” There was a brief scrap of music and a voice said, “Howdy all you kidnapping freaks,” in the affected southern drawl that is required of everyone who is, under thirty and cool. “This is your old buddy the kidnapper speaking, and we gotta big treat for you all out there in kidnap land.
The big prizewinners in our pay-the-ransom contest are Mr. and Mrs. Roger Bartlett of Smithfield.”
The music came up again and then faded, and several male voices sang a jingle: Behind a school in old Smithfield First prize your ransom it did yield, So in that direction you should be steering, From us no longer you’ll be hearing.
Then the music came up and faded out with some giggles behind it. Roger Bartlett said to us, “He’s gotta be behind one of the schools. There’s six: the four elementary, the junior high, the high school…” Trask said, “What about Our Lady’s?” And Bartlett said, “Right, the Catholic school,” and Healy said, “How about kindergartens? How many private kindergartens in town?”
Trask looked at Bartlett; Bartlett shook his head. Trask shrugged and said, “Hell, I don’t know.”
Healy said, “Okay, Trask, run it down; get your people checking behind and around all the schools in town. And don’t miss anything like a dog school or a driving school.
These are odd people.”
Trask went out to his car and got on the radio. Bartlett went with him. I said to Healy, “What in Christ have we got here?”
Healy shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything like this anywhere. Do you realize the trouble they went to, to rig up that tape recording?”
“Yeah,” I said, “and it’s not just to conceal voices.
There’s something else going on. Something personal in this thing. The ransom note, this call—there’s something wrong.”
Margery Bartlett came in with Earl Maguire. “What’s wrong?” she said. “Is something wrong? Have you found Kevin?”
“Nothing’s wrong, ma’am,” Healy said. “Spenser was talking about something else. Chief Trask is directing the search for Kevin now. I’m sure there will be good news soon.”
But Healy didn’t believe it and I knew he didn’t and he knew I knew. He looked very steadily at me after he’d said it. I looked away. Maguire said, “Sit down, Marge, no sense tiring yourself,” She sat at the kitchen table. Maguire sat opposite her. Healy looked out the back door at Trask. I leaned against the counter. The big Lab that I’d seen my first visit wandered into the kitchen and lapped water noisily from his dish.
Marge Bartlett said, “Punkin, you naughty dog, don’t be so noisy.” Punkin? The dog was big enough to pull a beer wagon. He stopped drinking and flopped down on his side in the middle of the floor. No one said anything. The dog heaved a big sigh, and his stomach rolled.
Marge Bartlett said again, “Punkin! You should be ashamed.” He paid her no attention. “I apologize for my dog,” she said. “But dogs are good. They don’t demand much of you; they just love you for what you are. Just accept you. I’m doing a sculpture of Punkin in clay. I want to capture that trusting and undemanding quality.”