"By now," said Cooley.
"Even if he wasn't, he's a juvenile. What was you going to do if you found him, beat him up? Shoot him with that damn gun?"
"He killed my boy, Gus."
Hiibert said after a moment, "How's Ellen?"
"Okay. She's asleep upstairs. Doc Phillips gave her something."
"I know what a knock this is for you, Tom, and Ellen too, but you can't take the damn law in your own hands, and I can't let you do it. Now what I want to know is, have you given it up? Because if you haven't, I've got to take your badge."
"Think you're man enough?" Cooley asked, and put down his fork.
"Now, Tom, don't be that way."
"You can have the goddamn badge any time you want it," Cooley said. He got up and threw his plate into the sink. The scared faces of two young children appeared in the doorway and then vanished. "You kids stay the hell out of here!" Cooley shouted.
"Tom, are you coming back to work? That's all I'm asking. There was an armed robbery at the Idle Hour Monday night, I had to call in the sheriff, and there's some vandalism up at the junior high school."
"Yeah, I'm coming back to work. What the hell else can I do?"
"Okay. Get some rest first. God, you look awful."
The following afternoon, just after lunch time, Cooley got out of his car in front of the Andersons' house and stood looking it over. It was a white one-story house with wood siding and a shake roof, behind a picket fence and a big maple tree. Unraked leaves were all over the yard. At the end of the driveway was a garage; through the open doors he could see workbenches and stacks of lumber. He climbed the porch steps, looking at the scratches on the paint, and rang the bell.
After a moment the door opened. "Afternoon, Miz Anderson," Cooley said. "Like to come in and talk to you, if you don't mind." She was pale, and her eyes were pink-rimmed.
"Yes, come in," she said. She led him into the living room. "Mr. Cooley, I want you to know we're terribly sorry about what happened."
"Appreciate that," Cooley said. He put his hat on his knee and took out a dog-eared notebook.
"My husband and I were at your house Tuesday night, but Mrs. Williams told us you were out of town. She said your wife was ill. I hope she's feeling better?"
"Sure. She'll be all right. Now about your boy -- haven't heard from him, I suppose?"
"No. Nothing."
"Any idea where he might of gone?"
"No. I've racked my brains."
"Some relative, maybe?"
She shook her head. "We don't have any family in Oregon. I have a sister in Iowa, and Don's brother lives in Utah."
"Mind giving me their addresses?"
After a moment Mrs. Anderson said, "I don't see any point in it. They never met Gene -- he doesn't know where they are."
"Might help anyway -- you never know."
When she remained silent, Cooley said, "What about the boy -- what does he like to do? Any hobbies?"
"He likes to draw. And reading -- he likes to read."
"Got a recent photo of him?"
She shook her head slowly. "No."
"Well, an old one, then -- whatever you got. You must have some pictures."
"They're put away," she said. "I don't know where they are."
Chief Cooley closed his notebook. "This ain't the right attitude, Miz Anderson," he said. "I'm just trying to do my job."
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Well, thanks a hell of a lot for nothing," Cooley told her, and put on his hat. "I can find my way out."
When Donald Anderson came home that night, she told him about Cooley's visit.
"Why didn't you give him the pictures?" Anderson asked. "What are you afraid of?"
"I don't know. I don't trust that man."
"Well, I don't like him either, but he's trying to find Gene. What can he do to him? He's just a boy -- it must of been an accident. The worst that could happen, they'd send him to a home for a year."
Mrs. Anderson closed her eyes. "I hope he's safe," she said. "And I hope Chief Cooley doesn't find him, ever."
On the Sunday after the funeral, Cooley drove past the Methodist Church and saw Donald Anderson's gray Chevy pickup in the parking lot. He kept on going, drove through the quiet neighborhood where the Andersons lived, and parked in the alley. The air was crisp and cool; threads of blue smoke rose from chimneys toward an overcast sky. There was no sound except for the lonesome barking of a dog up the hill.
Cooley jimmied open a basement window and let himself down into the musty darkness. He found the stairs, climbed them, opened the door into the kitchen. The pendulum clock on the wall was ticking quietly. There was a rich fragrance in the room; he felt the oven door, and it was warm. A gray cat came from somewhere, looked at him with slitted eyes and made a querulous sound.
There were two doors in the back of the kitchen; one led to the narrow screened porch. Cooley opened the other and went in, followed by the cat. This room was obviously newer than the rest of the house; the walls and ceiling were covered with Fir-tex, a gray, pulpy material made from wood fibers. The room was cold, and the air had a lifeless smell. There was a narrow metal bed, some bookshelves, a bureau, a wooden desk, an easy chair, and a floor lamp. A model airplane hung from the ceiling. Games and puzzles were stacked on the bookshelves. The bare floor and the woodwork were painted dark blue.
The cat watched him as he opened desk drawers one by one and sorted through the papers inside. Most of them were drawings in pencil and ink; some were partly ink, partly crayon. There was a clutter of ink bottles, pens, brushes, erasers, rulers; some baseball cards with a rubber band around them; gum wrappers, dice, a stamp album; glue, string, paperclips. He put everything back and closed the drawers.
In the closet he found a gray windbreaker, a yellow slicker and hood, galoshes, a pair of shoes neatly lined up with the laces tied. In the corner there was a tall stack of magazines, mostly "Boy's Life." Bile rose in Cooley's throat. They had kept the kid's room and all his stuff waiting for him, because they thought he was coming back.
Cooley thought about Paul's room at home. He had cleaned it all out, the baseball bat and mitt, the piles of dirty socks, trading cards, the clothing, the cigarettes hidden in the back of the drawer. He didn't want anything to remind him. He had closed the door oft the empty room.
The other two, the girls, were not much good; he had never wanted wanted girls. It was Paul he had counted on, his firstborn, awkward and eager. All that life and energy now was nothing but a lump of meat in a box with dirt shoveled over it.
The cat followed him out, and he shut the door. Beyond the kitchen was the living-dining room -- a table with an embroidered cloth, an oil space heater emitting a cheerful warmth, a sofa, chairs. The walls were plaster painted with gray calsomine, powdery to the touch. The first of the three doors opened into a room crowded with a brass bed, a desk, a green metal filing cabinet. The room smelled of stale cigars.
The next was the bathroom. The third was a woman's bedroom, with a flowered quilt on the bed, a dressing table and chiffonier. Cooley went through the drawers, feeling under stacks of stockings, underwear, folded clothing. In the third drawer his fingers struck something hard. He drew out a leather jewel case and a stack of photo albums.
The cat climbed on the bed to watch him. He turned the pages of the first album: snapshots of the Andersons with their arms around each other in front of what looked like a 1928 Ford sedan. Mrs. Anderson's hair was bobbed, and she wore a cloche hat. The Andersons at the beach, with four other people, waving at the camera. Pictures of houses.
The next album was baby pictures, all of the same child, fat-cheeked and bright-eyed, patent-leather shoes on his feet and a knitted cap on his head. Under this there was a stack of matted enlargements, and as soon as he felt that one of them was in a metal frame, Cooley knew. He pulled it out: it was a picture of the kid in his first suit, gawky and shy, probably taken not more than a year or two ago.