James went hurriedly down the hall; as he came nearer the kitchen he heard voices, his mother’s shrill. “One quart of coffee coming up,” she was saying.
James pushed open the swinging door of the kitchen, and his mother screamed, “It’s my son! Look, everyone, here’s my little boy!”
They were all sitting around the kitchen table, Mr. and Mrs. Ransom-Jones and Mrs. Donald and Virginia. Virginia and Mr. Ransom-Jones were talking earnestly and did not look up when James came in, but Mrs. Donald ran over and threw her arms around him.
“Come and have some coffee, honey,” she said. She looked at Mrs. Ransom-Jones and said unhappily, “Can my honey have some coffee?”
“Mother,” James said, regretting the voice that came out boyish, “Mother, I want you to come home. Right away.”
“Listen to him,” Mrs. Donald said, and Mrs. Ransom-Jones added caressingly, “The dear boy.”
“Something terrible has happened,” James said.
• • •
They gathered, eventually, almost everyone, on what was traditionally their forgotten village green—the sidewalk in front of the Donald house. For once the children were not separated from the adults; nearly every mother kept her hands on her children, and stood next to her husband. The children themselves were silent, afraid to meet each other’s eyes.
“The poor woman,” Mrs. Perlman said companionably to Mrs. Byrne. She had Marilyn in front of her, held by both shoulders. “It’s so terrible to think about, that poor woman.”
Mrs. Merriam was still at the Desmond house, but Harriet stood very close to her father. “All the men,” he was saying, “all the men get flashlights.”
“He called the police from our house,” Mrs. Byrne said. “I suppose they’ll send someone to look for her.”
Mrs. Donald and Virginia stood apart from the rest, with James beside them. “If we’d known,” Mrs. Donald wailed, “if we’d only known in time.” Mrs. Ransom-Jones stood beside her, and she turned and said to Mrs. Ransom-Jones, “If we had only known in time.”
Nothing that anyone said had any purpose; they were waiting for something, for an act on someone’s part that would clarify the situation. No one could do anything at all until the occasion was identified—either it was a great climactic festival over nothing, in which case they would all go quietly home, or else it was an emergency, a crisis, a tragedy, in which case they were all called upon to act together as human beings, to be men and women in a community, the men out on dangerous business, the women waiting, going to the window, wringing their hands.
Mr. Desmond stood in the center; he was frightened, and he said over and over, “It will kill her if we don’t find her right away, I don’t know what else she wants me to do, it will kill her.”
Mr. Ransom-Jones and Mr. Merriam were both trying to take charge. Mr. Merriam was saying, “If all the men get flashlights, we can go around,” and Mr. Ransom-Jones was saying, “The police will be right along, I called them again myself.”
The prevailing mood was one of keen excitement; no one there really wanted Caroline Desmond safe at home, although Mrs. Perlman said crooningly behind Marilyn, “The poor, poor woman,” and Mrs. Donald said again, “If we’d only known in time.” Pleasure was in the feeling that the terrors of the night, the jungle, had come close to their safe lighted homes, touched them nearly, and departed, leaving every family safe but one; an acute physical pleasure like a pain, which made them all regard Mr. Desmond greedily, and then turn their eyes away with guilt.
“All the men get flashlights,” Mr. Merriam said.
James Donald left his mother and came over to Mr. Merriam, saying, “I’ve got a couple of flashes. I think we ought to start looking right away.”
“Good idea,” Mr. Merriam said, as though it had never occurred to him. Mr. Desmond said, “Who’s that—James?” He put his hand on James’s shoulder and said, “It will kill her if we don’t find her.”
James’s voice was, for once, low and steady. He said again, “We ought to start right out.”
It looked as if James were going to take charge, with Mr. Desmond on one side of him and Mr. Merriam on the other, both looking at him and nodding. Mr. Byrne said, “Right away,” and Mr. Ransom-Jones said, “As soon as the police get here.”
In the pale street light, James’s head was with the other men’s heads, held as tall as most of them, and his voice mingling with theirs in stern masculine comment; Pat Byrne broke suddenly away from his mother’s hand, and said loudly, “Did anyone tell them about Toddie?”
“Toddie?” Mr. Desmond said vaguely.
“Toddie?” Mrs. Donald said. She looked around her. “Toddie?”
Suddenly everyone was looking for Toddie; Pat Byrne was allowed to walk over to the group of men forming, and say in his deepest voice, “Tod Donald; he came trying to sell me his bike tonight and he acted awfully funny.”
Frederica Terrel stood on her front steps; Beverley was wakeful, and Frederica did not dare leave her house, but she craned her neck to see, and when voices were raised she could hear. She saw Mr. Desmond isolated for a minute, while the group of men stirred, walking up to one another and speaking, and Mr. Desmond was twisting his hands and looking up and down the street eagerly. That’s no way to find her, Frederica thought wisely; you never find someone who’s running away by just standing there.
Mr. Donald, next door, was standing in his open doorway. Occasionally he moved a little toward the group in the street and then moved back again. He had a book in his hand, with his finger between the pages marking the place, and now and then he looked longing at his own house, at the lighted living-room window. Why doesn’t he go indoors, Frederica thought, they’ve got enough people standing down there. Suddenly James Donald broke away from the group of people in the street and came up to his father. “Where’s Toddie?” he called as he came up, “is he inside?”
Mr. Donald shook his head and James ran past him into the house and came out again after a minute and said, “He’s not there.” He saw Frederica and said to her, “Have you seen my little brother?”
“I saw him yesterday,” Frederica said.
“Today, I mean,” James said. “Tonight.”
“No,” Frederica said. “Not since yesterday.”
Suddenly Mrs. Donald raised her voice down on the street. “Toddie,” she wailed. “My little baby.”
The women standing near Mrs. Donald all moved away from her quickly, and Virginia said roughly, “Be quiet, Mother.”
Down on the street Pat Byrne stood with the men while James waited in front of his own house. “He acted so funny that I was surprised,” Pat said insistently.
Then Mr. Perlman, who had been so quiet until now, waiting with a flashlight in his hand for someone to start off into the dark, said the thing which everyone realized then had been in their minds. “If the two children are together,” Mr. Perlman asked reasonably and softly, “why didn’t the boy bring her home?”
They were all silent, realizing that the first person who spoke now would have to say something worse, something else they were all thinking, something which, whether true or not, would be the most horrible thing that had ever happened on Pepper Street.
It was Mr. Desmond, rightfully, who cracked the tense film of comprehension that lay like the pale yellow of the street light over all the people waiting, keeping even the smallest children taut and expectant. “Toddie!” was all Mr. Desmond said. He walked over to the sidewalk and called up to James, standing on his own front walk, “What has he done to my little girl?”
Frederica crushed herself back against her own front door. She was afraid to open it for fear the slight noise and the movement would catch Mr. Desmond’s attention. The people in the street behind Mr. Desmond had gathered closer together so that it was impossible to single out any one of them; Frederica could see their faces in the light, a
nd their hands, but they were so close together that there were no names for any of the faces, and the hands might be clasped tight in the hands of strangers.
• • •
Pat Byrne and Mr. Perlman were with the two policemen who went up to the creek to hunt for Caroline. On the way up there Pat, who was along to show them the way and to tell them what he knew about Tod, walked with long strides, putting his feet down manfully just as the other men did, and he talked using words he would never have dared use before.
It was dark along the road and even darker in the trees around the creek, and Pat had to steel himself to walk alone, ahead of the rest, as though he were really showing them the way, instead of falling back shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Perlman, who seemed faintly nervous and spoke tremblingly when he spoke at all. Once among the trees, Pat was silent; the two policemen communicated in monosyllables, words like “there,” or “in here.” Mr. Perlman came slowly behind, stumbling. Pat looked more at the darkness, the strange black unfamiliar places; he passed the fallen log without recognizing it and lost his bearings, so that the steady searching movements of the policemen lost meaning for him, their voices were rhythmic in their short words, none of the lights ever shone where Pat could see the way, and he was horribly afraid.
Finally, one of the policemen said, “Down there,” and the other said, “Right,” and Pat followed the light blindly, not yet ready to accept any end to the darkness, an object to the search. Mr. Perlman, saying, “My God,” peering over his shoulder, made Pat look ahead to where the policemen held their lights converged, but there was nothing to see except Caroline Desmond lying on the ground; Pat saw her clearly, and said, “There’s Caroline Desmond.”
She was horribly dirty; no one had ever seen Caroline as dirty as she was then, with mud all over her yellow dress and yellow socks and, of course, Pat understood perfectly, what was all over her head must be blood, unconvincing as it looked in the flashlight. It was absolutely unthinkable at the creek, not twenty feet from the fallen log Pat could walk across, and the really dreadful thing, lying right there next to her as though it might be hers, was the rock with blood on it; part of the creek, belonging to it, a rock which had probably been sitting there as long as Pat had been coming to the creek, a rock he might have stepped over or lifted with his two hands. Even though Pat had never noticed the rock particularly before, it should have been left alone.
• • •
It wasn’t safe behind the wall where a brick might fall on him, and yet Tod was afraid to move anywhere else, with people going all up and down the block, flashing lights and talking to one another. Tod thought they were looking for him, and yet there had never been this much fuss made over him before in his life, and the principal reason he had not run out and said “Here I am,” was his fear of the sudden surprise and the humiliating laughter when they saw him and realized that he thought they were looking for him.
It was cold behind the wall, and Tod kept turning his eyes nervously sideways to see if any of his slight movements had loosened a brick that might come plunging downward; it was like the night he hid in the bushes and heard Hester talking to his brother. James was not visible in the street now; Tod had only been behind the wall for a few minutes and so did not know that his family sat within the walls of their house, all together in one room. What did occur to him was that in any case no one in his family would bother to look for him.
He could see Mr. Ransom-Jones, and Mr. Merriam; they had stood together like that, talking, for a few minutes at the party. Tod had left the party without saying good-bye to Mrs. Ransom-Jones; while leaving stealthily was a social error, technically he was still at the party until he told Mrs. Ransom-Jones that he had had a lovely time. For a minute Tod was prepared to step out from behind the wall and find Mrs. Ransom-Jones, and then he cowered back again. He was safer where he was. But it was long past his bedtime.
He heard voices nearby and looked out carefully to see Mr. and Mrs. Roberts going past across the street. “Too damn drunk to go out with the other men,” Mrs. Roberts was saying.
It was a long time after that; Tod had finally figured out a way to sit down, and had perhaps fallen asleep with his head against the wall, but he looked out suddenly and the street was empty. Not a person, not a light outside. He waited to see if anyone came, and then slipped out from behind the wall and ran, across Cortez Road and on to the sidewalk again in front of Miss Fielding’s, quickly past Miss Fielding’s, jumping almost automatically, as he had done so many times before, over the broken spot in the sidewalk, past the house-for-rent, dark and asleep against the heavy pines that almost hid his own house from him; he stopped, horrified, when he saw that there were lights in his house; were they, could they be waiting up for him?
He went quietly around to the back door, hesitated there till he was sure everything was quiet, and then turned the knob cautiously. It opened, and he slid inside through a narrow opening, closed it softly without trying to make sure that it latched, and then eased himself, step by silent step, up the back stairs. Once in the upstairs hall, familiar and lighted and warm and safe, he could not go slowly any longer but raced for his bed, the pillow, the covers over his head.
Downstairs in the living-room James looked upward, said, “Did I hear something?” looked around at his mother, no longer crying, his father reading, Virginia twisting a lock of hair in her fingers, and rose, saying, “Might as well look again.” He went upstairs and, outside the door of the room he shared with his brother, said, “Toddie?”
“What?” Toddie said from the bed.
“Christ!” James said, and ran to the head of the stairs, yelling downward, “He’s here, everyone! I found him!”
As his mother and father and sister started up the stairs James yelled again, “Virginia, get the Desmonds, hurry!”
• • •
The policeman looked like a doctor, like a dentist, like the man at the movie theatre who wanted to know how old you were before he let you in for half-price. Except that he wore a uniform fascinatingly official, he looked at you in the same way, as though he knew things about you he was not going to tell and yet was going to hurt you anyway, of his own accord, whether you wanted him to or not, like the dentist. Or as though there were no way of getting out of it, and he knew best anyway, like the doctor. Or as though he hated everybody who was legally under twelve, the way the man at the movies looked.
Many people had been in and out of the dining-room where Tod sat with the policeman; James looking stern, and Tod’s mother and father, and unrecognizable people who looked at Tod as though this were their house and not his. Finally he sat there alone with the policeman—the dentist, the doctor—wondering what was going to happen to him.
“All right,” the policeman said finally, leaning back in his chair, the dining-room chair where Mr. Donald sat every night. “All right.”
Tod stared; when they brought him into the dining-room he had gone directly to his own chair, and he sat there now, his legs wrapped around the rungs, his hands in his lap.
“All right,” the policeman said. “Let’s hear all about it.”
Tod shook his head numbly; if he opened his mouth the man might start drilling his teeth, if he moved his arm the man might seize it and puncture him with a needle.
“Scared?” the policeman said. “I’m not surprised. Just tell me what happened.”
Tod shook his head again, and the policeman looked at him, bright cold eyes waiting. “You’re going to have to tell me, sonny,” the policeman said. “You might as well start.”
You’re going to have to. . . . The familiar words stirred in Tod’s mind, and he moved as though to stand up, but the policeman held out a hand and Tod sat still.
“Look,” the policeman said, his voice a little harder, “about an hour or so ago two policemen and—” he looked down at a piece of paper in front of him—“your friend Patrick Byrne went up
to the creek and they found the little girl up there, so we know all about it now. You just tell me what happened.”
Patrick Byrne. That would be Pat. Down on the little piece of paper.
“No one wants to frighten you,” the policeman said. He leaned forward and pointed his pencil toward Tod, now like, most horribly, the school superintendent. “This is a serious thing. I want you to realize that. Tell me how you killed that little girl.”
Tod gasped; once he had been caught copying from his book in an exam.
“Listen, sonny,” the policeman said, “we’re going to put you in jail.”
Without waiting, he stood up after this, and said, gathering his papers together, “Don’t try to run away again. I’m going to leave you here for a little while to think about all this. When you decide to tell me all about it you let me know.” He went out the living-room door, his big back stern and unforgiving and angry as the door closed behind him.
• • •
He was gone longer than he intended, nearly an hour, but Mr. Desmond, crying now, detained him in the hall, and when he came back Tod was dead.
He had taken a piece of clothesline from the kitchen, and his own chair to stand on, the one he sat on every night at dinner. Hanging, his body was straighter than it had ever been in life.
The policeman stood for a minute just inside the door, looking at Tod and flipping his thumbnail across the papers he still held in his hand. “Well,” he said in a great gusty breath, and, finally, “That settles that,” he said.
• • •
Harriet Merriam woke up the next morning with a recollection of disaster. Looking around her sunny room with her head still on the pillow, she searched for the source of the flat dead feeling inside her, the knowledge of despair. Something had happened. She remembered slowly; standing in the street she remembered clearly, and coming home alone to bed in the darkness, and, before that, the people in the street, and Mr. Desmond. Mr. Desmond was part of it, she remembered then, and at last it came to her: he was standing laughing in the kitchen when she went by, following Miss Tyler into the house to hear . . . fat.