'Well,' Sonntag said, bending down close to the boy's ear to whisper. 'Which one?'
The boy didn't answer. He was working a plan out in his head.
'Pick him out, son,' said the detective.
The boy shook his head. 'No,' he said slowly. 'You don't have him. He's not there.'
The boy could literally feel the detective tense.
'What do you mean?'
'I mean the guy I saw isn't there.'
'Kid, come on. We're talking about your father.'
'I know. I want to get the right man and he's not there.'
Sonntag bent closer to him again to whisper, 'Don't be afraid. He can't hurt you. Just pick him out.'
'I'm not afraid. He just isn't there.'
'But one of those men over there is the one you picked out at the bar.'
'It was dark and I was sitting in a patrol car. I saw the beard and thought…'
'Thought what?'
'I thought it was him but it's not. You have the wrong guy.'
Sonntag exhaled loudly angrily. His voice returned to normal volume. 'Let me tell you something, besides you we've got nothing. No weapon, no witness, no camera in the store. The guy you say you picked by mistake does have one thing, though. Gunshot residue on his hands. We know he fired a gun in the last few hours. But if we don't get an ID or recover that weapon and connect him to it, then guess what, he walks out of here like nothing ever happened. He'll have his beer waiting on the bar for him at The Pirate. So do me a favor and look again and pick him out.'
The boy shook his head. 'I can't. He's not there.'
'Well, kid, then I hope you can face your father's ghost. Let's go.'
Sonntag roughly clapped the boy on the shoulder and pushed him toward the door.
Twenty minutes later the boy sat on a bench in the front lobby. His uncle was on the way. Sonntag had told him he had twenty-four hours to change his mind about the identification. That was how long they could hold the running man. After that they had to charge him or let him go. That was fine with the boy. Twenty-four hours was plenty of time to do what he needed to do.
His uncle wasn't happy to see him. He had been told by Sonntag about the failure to make an identification of the running man. 'He was your father but he was my brother,' the uncle said. 'If he was the guy you should've said it was the guy.'
'I would've, but they don't have him. They just wanted to arrest somebody, doesn't matter who.'
'That detective told me on the phone that they had the right guy. That it was you who messed it up.'
'He's wrong. Can you take me to my car?'
'You are supposed to come home with me. The police said you — '
'I am coming to your place but I can't leave my car in the middle of a gas station all night. I also need to go by the house to get some clothes. So drop me off at my car and I'll come by later.'
'Don't make it late.'
'It already is late.'
They said very little the rest of the way. They drove by the Kwik Mart where the shooting had taken place. There were still police cars and a white van in the parking lot. There was yellow tape all around.
'Is that where…?' the uncle asked.
'Yeah.'
The boy looked away. In a few minutes they pulled into the closed gas station and the lights of his uncle's car washed across the boy's Volkswagen.
'Still there,' the uncle said.
'Yeah. Thanks for the ride.'
'We'll see you in a little while?'
'Yes.'
'Look, Bobby, I'm sorry. About your dad. My brother. You know. He wasn't the nicest guy to you, I know. But something like this… It shouldn't have happened, you know?'
'Yes, I know.'
He said goodbye and dosed the door. After his uncle pulled away the boy looked around. The streets were dark and empty. The police were gone. He looked up toward the bridge and the hedge that ran alongside the sidewalk. No police, only darkness.
He thought about the plan and decided it was a good plan, a plan that would work. He went to his car and opened the passenger door. He punched the button on the glove box and the lid dropped open to reveal the red plaid shirt containing the gun was still in place. He pulled it out and held the bundle close to his chest. With his other hand the boy reached into the glove box for the Swiss Army knife he kept in there, mostly for emergencies, or if he needed to turn the fuel feed screw on the car's carburetor.
The boy closed the car door and headed on foot toward the bridge. He chose to stay off the sidewalk, walking instead in the dark shadows along the hedge line.
Three days later the boy found the story on the second page of the metro section. It wasn't a long story but he didn't care about its placement or importance in the newspaper. He cared about its contents.
DOUBLE-MURDER SUSPECT FATALLY WOUNDS SELF
A man the police said was the primary suspect in a convenience store robbery that left two dead was killed himself yesterday when he attempted to retrieve the hidden gun used in the crime.
Police said that Edward Togue, thirty-nine, was shot once in the upper body when he reached into a hedge lining the ramp of the Sunrise Boulevard drawbridge and attempted to withdraw a gun he had apparently hid there three days earlier. The gun's trigger apparently was snagged on a branch inside the hedge and was engaged when Togue pulled on the gun.
The weapon discharged once and the bullet struck Togue. He was fatally wounded and died at the scene.
Police termed the shooting accidental and said it also will serve to conclude the investigation into the Saturday night shooting at the Kwik Mart just three blocks from where Togue killed himself.
Police said the gun Togue was retrieving has been matched by ballistics analysis to the shooting in which a cashier and customer were killed during a robbery. Togue had been arrested shortly after that shooting and questioned by police but later released when no evidence could be found linking him to the shooting.
The boy stopped reading. The rest he knew. He folded the paper closed and put it aside. He went back to packing his clothing and other belongings into boxes. He didn't know if he would be able to fit everything into the bug but he was going to try. He was then going to get in the car and start driving. Not to his aunt's and uncle's home. He was just going to drive.
As he put some photos into a box he thought about what Sonntag had said about his father's ghost. The boy smiled. He knew the only spirit he needed to worry about now was the ghost of Edward Togue.
SHORTCUT
The shortcut took me down into the wooded valley on the other side of the railroad tracks. It was dark down here, because the tall trees created a canopy the sun could not penetrate. It had not been raining, but now water dripped down on me from above. The air was damp, and the plants at ground level seemed huge, some of them with leaves as big as elephant ears.
No one ever cut through here. It was off-limits. But I was late. Very late. The rumor was that there was a tunnel that went directly under the railroad embankment and that it would knock fifteen minutes off my time getting home.
The path grew narrow as it led me farther down. Soon the leaves and branches of the bushes scraped at my arms. And then I finally saw the tunnel. Its opening was dark and lined with whitewashed bricks. As I got closer, I saw tangles of roots hanging down from inside.
I saw no light and thought the rumor couldn’t be true. The tunnel didn’t go through. But then I felt warm air come out of the darkness and wash over me. If there was air coming through, then there had to be an opening on the other side.