The tightness in my chest increased by a factor of ten, and I got out fast. The dreadful thing stayed in my vision even when my back was turned to it. I went through the gate and began to walk quickly down the alley. It had been a wasted gesture, the visit. I wanted only to get away.
When I was no more than thirty feet from the end, a police car swung in front of me, blocking off the alley. A big man sat at the wheel, twisting his body to look at me. I was in full light, fully visible. I automatically felt guilty and afraid, and swiveled sideways to look down to the alley’s other end, which was clear. I looked back at the man in the police car. He was motioning for me to approach him. I walked toward the car, telling myself that I had not done anything.
When I got closer, I saw that the man was Polar Bears, in uniform. He swung open the passenger door and circled a forefinger in the air, and I walked around the front of the car and got in beside him. “You’ve had brighter ideas,” he said. “Suppose someone saw you? I’m trying to keep you from getting your head busted in.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Let’s say it was a guess.” He looked at me in a kindly, almost paternal fashion which was as genuine as a glass eye. “I got a call about an hour ago from a boy works at the filling station. Boy named Hank Speltz. He was a little upset. It seems when you brought in that VW, you gave him a phony name.”
“How did he know it was phony?”
“Oh, Miles,” Polar Bears sighed. He started up the car and rolled away from the curb. At the corner he swung into Main Street and we purred gently along past Zumgo’s and the bars and the bakery and the Cream City brick facade of the Dairyland Laboratories. “You’re a famous man, you know. You’re like a movie star. You have to expect to be recognized.” When we reached the courthouse and the city hall, he did not pull into the police parking lot as I had expected, but kept going on over the bridge. On that side of Arden, the shops drop away fast, after you pass the bowling alley and the restaurants and a few houses, and you are back in open corn country.
“I don’t think it’s a crime to have a car repaired under an assumed name,” I said. “Where are we going, anyhow?”
“Just for a ride around the county, Miles. No, it’s no crime, that’s right. But since damn near everybody knows who you are, it’s not very effective either. It just makes boys like Hank, who aren’t too well supplied upstairs, sort of suspicious. And Miles, why in hell did you use that name?” On “hell” he banged one of his fists into the steering wheel. “Huh? Answer me that. Out of all the names you could have picked, why the devil did you pick Greening? That’s what you don’t want to remind people of, boy. I’m trying to keep all that in the background. We don’t want that to come out.”
“I think it came out the first second I showed up in Arden.”
Polar Bears shook his head, disgusted. “Okay. Let’s forget it. I told that Hank kid to forget about it. He’s probably too young to know about it anyhow.”
“So why are you upset?”
“Forget about my problems, Miles. Let’s see if we can get any work done. You learn any thing talking with Paul Kant?”
“He didn’t do anything. He certainly didn’t kill anybody. He’s a sad frightened man. He isn’t capable of anything like these killings. He’s too scared to do anything but shop for his groceries.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“He’s too frightened even to bury his dog. I saw it just when I was leaving. He couldn’t kill anybody.”
Polar Bears tilted his hat back and hunched clown further on the seat. He was too big to fit comfortably behind a steering wheel. By now we were well out in the country, and I could see the broad loops of the Blundell River between trees. “Is this where the fishermen found the body of the Olson girl?”
He tilted his head and looked at me. “No. That was a couple miles back. We passed the spot about five-six minutes ago.”
“On purpose?”
“On purpose for what?”
I shrugged: we both knew.
“I think our friend Paul might not have told you all the truth,” Polar Bears said. “If he was going out grocery shopping, wouldn’t he manage to buy some dogfood?”
“What are you saying?”
“Did he offer you anything when you were visiting? Lunch? A sandwich? Coffee?”
“No. Why?” Then I saw why. “You mean he doesn’t leave his house? You mean his dog starved to death?”
“Well, it might of starved, or somebody might of helped put it out of its misery. I don’t know. But I do know Paul Kant hasn’t been out of his house in about a week. Unless he sneaks out at night.”
“What does he eat?”
“Damn little. I guess he must have some canned stuff in his kitchen. That’s why you didn’t get any lunch out of him. He’s screwed down pretty tight.”
“Well, how the hell can you—”
He held up one hand. “I can’t make a man go out and buy groceries. And as long as he doesn’t actually starve, it might be better this way. Keeps him away from trouble. You maybe saw one of our local vigilantes watching his house.”
“Can’t you chase them away?”
“Why should I? This way I know what the hotheads are doing. I think there are some things you ought to know about Paul, Miles. I doubt that he’d tell you everything himself.”
“Everything he needed to.”
Polar Bears swung the car into a crossroads and began to go back in the general direction of Arden. We had gone nearly as far as the little town of Blundell, and we had not seen another person yet. The police radio crackled, but Hovre ignored it. He drove still at the same unhurried pace, following the line of the river through the valleys. “I wonder about that. You see, Paul’s had a few problems. Not the sort of thing a man is proud of. He’s been in a little trouble. You know how he lived in that rundown old place with his mother for years — even dropped out of school to nurse her and work so he could pay her doctor bills. Well, when the old lady died, Paul hung around town for a little bit, sort of lost, I guess, but then he packed up and went to Minneapolis for a week. About a month later, he did the same thing. He sort of settled down into a pattern. The last time he went, I got a call from a police sergeant over there. It seems that they had Paul under arrest. It seems they’d even been looking for him.” He glanced over at me, savoring the denouement. He couldn’t keep from smiling. “Seems they had a character used to hang around Boy Scout meetings — in summer, you know, when they meet in school playgrounds. Never said anything, just watched through the fence. When some of the kids walked home, he’d sort of amble on behind ‘em, not saying anything, just trolling after these kids. After a fair number of times, say half a dozen, one of the parents calls the police. And the guy ducks out of the way — police couldn’t find him. Not then. Not until he tried something in a park with lots of mommies and kiddies and cops around. He damn near exposed himself. When they came up on him, it was old Paul, with his hand on his fly. He was their boy. He’d been going over to Minnesota to release his urges, you could say, and then coming back here until he had to do it again. He confessed, of course, but he hadn’t actually done anything. But he was scared. He committed himself voluntarily to our state hospital and stayed put there months. Then he came back. He didn’t have anywhere else to go. Now I suppose he forgot to tell you about that little episode in his life.”
I just nodded. Eventually I thought of something to say. “I’ll have to take your word that what you told me is correct.” Hovre snorted with amusement. “But even so, what Paul did — what he didn’t do, rather — is a million miles from rape. The same person wouldn’t commit both kinds of crime. Not if I understand people at all.”