Neville stroked Bodie’s head as he interrupted. “He’s in good hands.”
“You’ve got to watch over him, John. You’ve got to be extra careful.”
“Consider it done.”
Blaine couldn’t sleep. His thoughts kept hammering away at him and there seemed no way to soften them.
He was worried. He was scared.
The fragility of life was nothing new to him. He had seen firsthand how quickly it could be snuffed out and had considered his own passing often enough to be unfazed by it. There was no sense worrying over that moment, because when it came even he would be powerless to prevent it. Yet now life’s fragility took on deeper meaning. The very focus of his existence was in turmoil. What did he owe the boy? And what did he owe himself? He was forty years old and had celebrated that milestone with a disheartening realization. The events he had found himself a part of lately were all random, unconnected, unlike his Vietnam service and after.
And after …
And after …
The phone on the nighttable rang, jarring him, and Blaine felt for it in the darkness.
“Yes?”
“Would this be Mr. Blaine McCracken?”
“It would.”
“This is Chief Inspector Alvin Willie of the Reading Police, sir. There’s been some trouble at the Reading School. Youd better get down here.”
Chapter 5
Chief Inspector Alvin Willie was a portly man with a huge bald head and no neck to speak of. He was dressed in civilian clothes and his shirt was only half tucked into his trousers. He showed McCracken the splinters where the front door of housemaster John Neville’s residence had been kicked in.
“Rather amateurish, I’d say,” the chief said.
“No,” Blaine told him, still in a daze. “He’d want to attract attention. He’d want to draw John down here.”
“Sounds foolish.”
“Anything but. Where’s the body?”
“This way,” Chief Willie said, and started forward through the hall.
They first came upon the partially covered corpses of Bodie and Doyle. Blood had pooled beneath their open mouths and Blaine could tell from the angle of their heads that the poor animals’ necks had been snapped. Inside the den a uniformed officer was ready to cover Neville’s body with a sheet when a glance from Willie stopped him. The corpse’s head and shoulders were propped up against a wall. The face was frozen in twisted pain, the neck bent at an impossible curve, obviously having been snapped as well. But there was something strange about the positioning. Neville hadn’t died there; he had been dragged over and propped up, as if to be made a witness to something after death.
Blaine shuddered at the strength required to finish the muscular Neville and his two dogs. Someone was making a point, someone who enjoyed his work. And the point could only have been aimed at him. But what had gone on in this room after the housemaster had been killed?
“It happened between ninety minutes and two hours ago,” Chief Willie explained. He was sweating profusely, the perspiration soaking through his clothes and shining off his exposed dome. “As near as we can tell, whoever was responsible entered through the residence, and after … doing all this, made his way to the area of the boys’ rooms upstairs.”
“Was there a delay between the time the killer finished here and went upstairs?”
Alvin Willie looked surprised by Blaine’s conclusion. “We think so, yes, judging by the interval between the time the dogs stopped barking and …”
“And what?”
“The Ericson boy’s roommate was knocked unconscious prior to the boy being taken.”
“How did you know to call me?”
“It was in the boy’s file. A note pinned to it in what we believe is Neville’s writing.”
“Damn. He never should have written anything down …”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.”
“If there’s anything I should know that could help me in all this …”
“I would tell you, Chief. Believe me, there isn’t. This isn’t your problem anymore,” Blaine added, regretting it immediately.
“You’re damn well wrong about that. There’s a man dead here and a boy’s missing you’re linked to. I need some answers. First off, what is your connection to the kidnapped boy?”
But McCracken’s mind had wandered to the moments leading to Neville’s death. He would have charged down the stairs with the dogs ahead of him, perhaps a weapon in hand. He would have known instantly what was happening and with the dogs should have made a decent fight of it. That worried Blaine more than anything else. Two dogs meant two killers, he saw that now. They could have entered in any number of ways but they chose one that guaranteed a confrontation. And after Neville was dead, what then?
“You hear me?” Alvin Willie was asking as Blaine brushed by him to proceed along with the scenario in his mind.
There was something anomalous here. A man like Neville would have called the police first.
“He didn’t call you, did he?” Blaine asked suddenly.
“I got a question on the table for you first, mister!”
“The lines were cut from the outside, weren’t they?”
Willie’s huge jowls puckered. “How in the hell did you know that?”
“They wanted to take him alone.”
“They? Who’s they?”
“Two people did this, Chief Inspector. If your lab men are worth anything, they’ll confirm it.”
McCracken started for the staircase, but Willie cut him off.
“What’s your connection with the missing boy, Mr. McCracken?”
“You read his file.”
“I read a note attached to his file. Didn’t say much at all. Just your name, the time you were arriving yesterday, and the hotel where you were staying.”
“That’s it, then.”
Alvin Willie was losing his patience. “I got a dead housemaster who was a damn good bloke and a kidnapped—”
Willie stopped with the approach of another uniformed officer down the stairs.
“I’ve got the boy’s statement, sir.”
“What boy?” McCracken demanded.
Willie barely acknowledged him. “That’s none of your business.”
McCracken edged himself up close to the fat man, pushing down the urge to jack him against the wall. “You wanna know how wrong you are, Chief? You want the answer to your questions? Fine. The kidnapped boy’s my son, and he got taken almost surely because of me. I saw him for the first time yesterday and the details of that don’t matter. All I can tell you is that all this is almost surely meant as a warning for me. Somebody’s showing off. Somebody wants me to know how ruthless they are. They probably want something from me in return for the boy. But don’t bother trying to run a make on me because every U.S. agency with three letters will tell you to get fucked. Am I making myself clear?”
Alvin Willie managed a nod. He could not recall a time when he’d been more intimidated by a single man. There was strength behind this one, incredible strength, but it was his resolve that did the trick more than anything.
“You’ll want to read the statement, then.”
“I’ll want to see the boy who gave it.”
“I wasn’t supposed to be awake, sir,” the boy whose name was Gilbert told him. “I wasn’t supposed to be by the window.”
“I understand,” Blaine said. “This is just between us.”
“But the police, I gave them that statement.”
“Did you tell them everything?”
“I think I did.”
“But you’re not sure.”