"It's all right. Wren. You didn't do anything wrong."
"I asked her to meet me there early," he quietly said.
"What was her reaction?"
"She said she would but not to tell anybody."
"Why did you want her to meet you early?" I continued to probe.
"I wanted to see if she would."
"Why?" Now his face was very red and he was working hard to hold back tears.
"I don't know," he barely said.
"Wren, tell me what happened."
"I rode my bike to the church just to see if she was there."
"What time would this have been?"
"I don't know. But it was at least an hour before the meeting was supposed to start," he said.
"And I saw her through the window. She was inside sitting on the floor practicing guitar."
"Then what?"
"I left and came back with Paul and Will at five. They live over there." He pointed.
"Did you say anything to Emily?" I asked. Tears spilled down his cheeks, and he impatiently wiped them away.
"I didn't say nothing. She kept staring at me but I pretended not to see her. She was upset. Jack asked her what was wrong. "
"Who's Jack?"
"The youth leader. He goes to Montreat Anderson College. He's real fat and's got a beard."
"What was her reply when Jack asked what was wrong?"
"She said she felt like she was getting the flu. Then she left."
"How long before the meeting was over?"
"When I was getting the basket off the top of the piano.
"Cause it was my turn to take up the collection."
"This would have been at the very end of the meeting?"
"That's when she ran out. She took the shortcut." He bit his lower lip and gripped the blanket so hard that the small bones of his hands were clearly defined.
"How do you know she took a shortcut?" I asked. He looked up at me and sniffed loudly. I handed him several tissues, and he blew his nose.
"Wren," I persisted, "did you actually see Emily take the shortcut?"
"No, ma'am," he meekly said.
"Did anybody see her take the shortcut?" He shrugged.
"Then why do you think she took it?"
"Everybody says so," he replied simply.
"Just as everybody has said where her body was found?" I was gentle. When he did not respond, I added more forcefully, "And you know exactly where that is, don't you. Wren?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said almost in a whisper.
"Will you tell me about that place?" Still staring at his hands, he answered, "It's just this place where lots of colored people fish. There's a bunch of weeds and slime, and huge bullfrogs and snakes hanging out of the trees, and that's where she was. A colored man found her, and all she had on was her socks, and it scared him so bad he turned white as you are. After that Dad put in all the lights."
"Lights?"
"He put all these lights in the trees and everywhere. It makes it harder for me to sleep, and then Mom gets mad. "
"Was it your father who told you about the place at the lake?" Wren shook his head.
"Then who did?" I asked.
"Creed."
"Creed?"
"He's one of the janitors at school. He makes toothpicks, and we buy them for a dollar. Ten for a dollar. He soaks them in peppermint and cinnamon.
I like the cinnamon best'cause they're real hot like Fireballs. Sometimes I trade him candy when I run out of lunch money. But you can't tell anybody. " He looked worried.
"What does Creed look like?" I asked as a quiet alarm began to sound in the back of my brain.
"I don't know," Wren said.
"He's a greaser'cause he's always wearing white socks with boots. I guess he's pretty old." He sighed.
"Do you know his last name?" Wren shook his head.
"Has he always worked at your school?" He shook his head again.
"He took Albert's place. Albert got sick from smoking, and they had to cut his lung out."
"Wren," I asked, "did Creed and Emily know each other?" He was talking faster and faster.
"We used to make her mad by saying Creed was her boyfriend'cause one time he gave her some flowers he picked. And he would give her candy'cause she didn't like toothpicks. You know, a lot of girls would rather have candy than toothpicks."
"Yes," I answered with a grim smile, "I suspect a lot of girls would."
The last thing I asked Wren was if he had visited the place at the lake where Emily's body had been found. He claimed he had not.
"I believe him," I said to Marino as we drove away from the Maxwells' well-lit house.
"Not me. I think he's lying his little ass off so his old man don't whip the shit out of him." He turned down the heat.
"This ride heats up better than any one I've ever had. All it's missing is heaters in the seats like you got in your Benz."
"The way he described the scene at the lake," I went on, "tells me he's never been there. I don't think he left the candy there, Marino."
"Then who did?"
"What do you know about a custodian named Creed?"
"Not a damn thing."
"Well," I said, "I think you'd better find him. And I'll tell you something else. I don't think Emily took the shortcut around the lake on her way home from the church."
"Shit," he complained.
"I hate it when you get like this. Just when pieces start to fall in place you shake the hell out of them like a damn puzzle in a box."
"Marino, I took the path around the lake myself. There's no way an eleven-year-old girl-or anybody else, for that matter-would do that when it's getting dark. And it would have been almost completely dark by six p.m." which was the time Emily headed home. "
"Then she lied to her mother," Marino said.
"It would appear so. But why?"
"Maybe because Emily was up to something."
"Such as?"
"I don't know. You got any Scotch in the room? I mean, there's no point in asking if you got bourbon."
"You're right," I said.
"I don't have bourbon."
I found five messages awaiting me when I returned to the Travel-Eze. Three were from Benton Wesley. The Bureau was sending the helicopter to pick me up at dawn. When I got hold of Wesley he cryptically said, "Among other things, we've got rather a crisis situation with your niece. We're bringing you straight back to Quantico."
"What's happened?" I asked as my stomach closed like a fist.
"Is Lucy all right?"
"Kay, this is not a secured line."
"But is she all right?"
"Physically," he said, "she's fine."
10
The next morning I woke up to mist and could not see the mountains. My return north was postponed until afternoon, and I went out for a run in the brisk, moist air.
I wended my way through neighborhoods of cozy homes and modest cars, smiling as a miniature collie behind a chain link fence raced from one border of the yard to another, barking frantically at falling leaves.
The owner emerged from the house as I went past.
"Now, Shooter, hush up!" The woman wore a quilted robe, fuzzy slippers, and curlers, and didn't seem to mind a bit walking outside like that. She picked up the newspaper and smacked it against her palm as she yelled some more. I imagined that prior to Emily Steiner's death, the only crime anyone worried about in this part of the world was a neighbor stealing your newspaper or stringing toilet paper through your trees. Cicadas were sawing the same scratchy tune they had played last night, and locust, sweet peas, and morning glories were wet with dew. By eleven, a cold rain had begun to fall, and I felt as if I were at sea surrounded by brooding waters. I imagined the sun was a porthole, and if I could look through it to the other side I might find an end to this gray day. It was half past two before the weather improved enough for me to leave. I was instructed that the helicopter could not land at the high school because the Warhorses and majorettes would be in the midst of practice. Instead, Whit and I were to meet at a grassy field inside the rugged stone double-arched gate of a tiny town called Montreal, which was as Presbyterian as predestination and but a few miles from the Travel-Eze. The Black Mountain Police arrived with me before Whit appeared, and I sat in a cruiser parked on a dirt road, watching children play flag football. Boys ran after girls and girls ran after boys as everybody pursued the small glory of snatching a red rag from an opposing player's waistband. Young voices carried on a wind that sometimes caught the ball and passed it through the fingers of trees huddled at borders, and whenever it spiraled out of bounds into briars or the street, everybody paused. Equality was sent to the bench as girls waited for boys. When the ball was retrieved, play went on as usual.