"But those are rumors, as I said." The woman shrugged. "Nobody ever proved it, though in recent years they looked for her. They never were successful."
"But back in eighteen-ninety… how come you know all about this?"
"I'm a member of the Potter's Field Historical Society."
"I still don't understand."
So she explained. "No one lives here. Baynard had two children. They grew up to manage the estate. Then they had children, and this new set gave the mansion to the county to avoid the taxes. They're not very wealthy now. They live in houses down the hill beside the swimming pool. We've fixed this place up just the way it used to be. The plumbing's from the eighteen-nineties. We even shut the power off. To get around at night, you have to use a flashlight, either that or candles or a lantern if you want to be authentic."
Dunlap faced the mansion. Oh, that's swell, he thought. So now we've got a haunted house. The only thing that's missing is a thunderstorm.
Well, there wouldn't be a storm, but sundown would do just as fine. He saw the orange distorted disc where it was almost behind the western mountains. In a while, the grounds would be completely dark, except for flashlights, headlights, maybe even candles, lanterns as this woman had suggested, and the search up through the mansion for the little boy. He felt his scalp tighten as the woman said beside him, "Whose child is it?"
"I don't know."
Exhausted, Dunlap walked toward Slaughter, who spoke to four policemen.
"We need nets," Dunlap heard as he came closer.
"Nets?"
And Dunlap saw that it was Rettig, standing with the young policeman Dunlap had gone to Slaughter's with this morning. That seemed several days ago.
"You heard me. Nets. You think that we should club him, do you?" Slaughter asked. "Or shoot him?"
"But nets, I don't know where you'd find them."
"Try a sporting-goods store, or that zoo down in the park. Rettig, you're in charge of that. The rest of you, I want you watching both sides of the mansion. Let's get moving."
They stared at Slaughter. Then they hurried toward the mansion.
"Hold it," Slaughter told them.
They spun to face him.
"Give your keys to this man. I want your headlights on the building."
They glanced at Dunlap who had not expected this. Instinctively, he held his hand out. Then he had a set of car keys. Mindless, he expected more, but then he realized that Rettig would take one car. These keys fit another. Slaughter's was the third car, and the fourth had been driven by the two policemen who were in the mansion. They separated to watch the sides as Slaughter shoved a ring of keys at him.
"You understand?"
"I think so," Dunlap said. "I'll spread the cars out so they're pointed toward the windows."
"Run the engines. I don't want the batteries to die. And use the searchlights by the sideview mirrors."
"What about the woman's car?"
"You've got the right idea."
Dunlap nodded, running toward the cruisers. Slaughter's car he recognized, and Rettig now was driving down the gravel driveway, siren wailing. Dunlap went toward the car beside where Rettig had been parked, and got in, fumbling for a key to fit, and started the engine. In a while he understood that someone else could just as easily have done this, but the tactic was a way for Slaughter to distract him.
It helped. There wasn't any doubt about that. Breathing quickly, taken up with interest, Dunlap adjusted to the burning in his stomach. He was glad to be in motion, driving the cruiser toward the mansion, aiming straight ahead and stopping where he judged that the headlights would be most effective. He groped down to turn them on. He found the switch upon the searchlight, and he flicked it, and this right side of the mansion, almost to the second story, was bright against the dusk.
He got out, running now toward Slaughter's car and did the same, this time aiming toward the left side of the mansion, and the place was lit up there as well. The woman had been watching, and she didn't need to have somebody tell her. She was getting in her car to move it once again, aiming toward the front door, and the sun was down below the mountains, the park a murky gray below him, but the windows reflected all the headlights, and people wouldn't have to stumble in the darkness.
Dunlap heard another car. He thought it was a cruiser, but the siren wasn't wailing, and he didn't see the silhouette of domelights on the roof. As it stopped where he was watching, he could see the mother and the father. Oh, dear God, no.
They scrambled out. "Where's Slaughter?"
"I'm not certain."
Even as he said that, Slaughter came out from the mansion, standing on the porch, the glare of headlights on him, staring at them. He and the parents approached each other, the parents hurrying.
"You shouldn't be here," Slaughter told them. Dunlap saw that he was angry. "How'd you know?"
"We have a neighbor with a police radio. Have you found him?"
Slaughter pointed toward the upper stories. "He's in there. That's as much as I've been told. I'm asking you to go back home and wait to hear from me."
Dunlap thought that Slaughter, standing in the headlights' glare, seemed to age a dozen years, his cheeks sagging, dark lines underneath his eyes.
"But why should he be hiding? Let me go inside and talk to him," the woman said.
"No, I don't think so." Slaughter looked down at the ground and scraped a bootsole in the dust. "I think that you should let me handle this." He looked at them.
"You heard my wife. She's going up to talk to him," the husband said.
"I'm sorry. I can't let you."
"That's what you think."
The husband and wife moved forward. Slaughter stepped ahead to cut them off.
"Those headlights, those police cars. Hell, you've scared him half to death," the husband said.
"I didn't want to tell you, but you evidently haven't heard the rest of it. Your son attacked again. A man this time. The man was bitten in the throat."
The wife froze, her mouth open. "Oh, my God."
The husband gasped.
"The man is over in that ambulance. Go take a look, and then you'll know why I can't let you in there."
They turned toward where Slaughter pointed as the two white-coated men stepped from the back of the ambulance and shut the doors.
"We've done all we can here," one of them shouted.
Slaughter nodded, and the two men rushed to get inside the front. The siren started as the engine roared, the lights went on, and they were swerving in a circle, speeding down the gravel driveway.
Dunlap watched until he couldn't see it anymore. He turned and saw the woman crying.
"Please. I think that you should leave here," Slaughter said.
"I want to stay," the woman sobbed.
Slaughter raised both arms and let them flop down loose against his sides. "At least stay in the car. The best thing you can do is aim your car lights toward the house. And please, don't get in the way. We've got too much to do. I promise, we'll watch out for his safety."
She wept as her husband held her, both of them nodding.
"Thank you," Slaughter said.
They moved weakly toward their car.
And then they heard it. Everybody did. They all turned, mother, father, Slaughter, Dunlap, the policemen by the house, staring toward the upper levels.
Deep inside, above there, from which floor wasn't certain, something, someone started howling. It was like a coyote or a dog, a wolf up in the mountains, worse though, mournful, hoarse and hollow, rising, baying, howling, then diminishing, then rising once again.
It went on two more times like that, chilling, echoing from somewhere deep above there. Dunlap felt his backbone shiver. Then it ended, and the night, except for idling engine motors, finally was quiet.
"What the hell was that?" a man blurted from the right side of the mansion.
"I'm not sure I want to know," another shouted back.
And Slaughter started racing toward the front door of the mansion.