He pushed past the diminutive, chubby couple, both wearing jeans and T-shirts. In their late thirties.
"Mr. Ashberry," the man said uneasily, looking at his wife.
"Is your son here?"
"We don't know. Listen, sir, we had nothing to do with him getting out of that hospital. We was all for keeping him there, as I think you know."
"What do you mean you don't know where he is?"
"He comes and goes," his wife said. "Through his bedroom window. Sometimes we don't see him for days."
"Ever try discipline? Ever try a belt? What is it, you think children should walk all over you?"
The father gave a mournful laugh.
His wife said, "Has he done something else?"
As if what the boy had done wasn't enough. "Oh, he's just threatening to rape her, that's all."
"Oh, no, no." She clutched her hands together, fingers dirty and bedecked with cheap rings. "But it's just talk," the woman blurted. "It's always just talk, with him."
Ron whirled to face her. Her short black hair was badly in need of a wash and she smelled of sour onions. He muttered, "It's gone past the talk stage and I'm not going to put up with it. I want to see him."
They glanced at each other and the father led him down a dark corridor toward one of two bedrooms. Something -- old food, it seemed -- crunched under Ron's feet. The man looked over his shoulder, saw his wife standing in the living room and said, "I'm so sorry for all this, sir. I truly am. I wish I had it in my heart to, you know, make him go away."
"We tried that," Ron said cynically.
"I don't mean a hospital or jail." His voice fell to a whisper. "To go away forever. You know what I mean. I've thought about it some. She has too but she doesn't say it. Being his mother and all. One night I almost done it. When he was asleep." He paused and caressed a crater in the Sheetrock, made by a fist, it seemed. "I wasn't strong enough. I wished I was. But I couldn't do it."
His wife joined them and he fell silent. The father knocked timidly on the door and when there was no response he shrugged. "Ain't much we can do. He keeps it locked and won't give us a key."
"Oh, for God's sake." Ron stepped back and slammed his foot into the door.
"No!" the mother cried. "He'll be mad. Don't --"
The door crashed open and Ron stepped inside, flicking on the light. He stopped, astonished.
In contrast to the rest of the house, Harle's room was immaculate.
The bed was made and the blankets were taut as a buck private's. The desktop ordered and polished. The rug vacuumed. Bookshelves neat, and all the books were alphabetized.
"He does it himself," Harle's mother said with a splinter of pride. "Cleans up. See, he's not really so bad --"
"Not really so bad? Are you out of your mind? Look at that! Just look!"
On the walls were posters from World War Two movies, Nazi paraphernalia, swastikas, bones. A bayonet dangled from one wall. A miniature samurai sword sat on a footlocker. One poster was a comic book scene of a man with knives for feet, ripping apart an opponent he was fighting. Blood sprayed in the air.
Three pairs of spit-polished combat boots sat by the bedside. A tape, The Faces of Death, sat on the VCR, attached to a spotless television.
Ron reached for the door to the closet.
"No," his mother said firmly. "Not there. He don't let us go in there. We're never supposed to do that!"
The double door too was locked but with one yank Ron ripped the panels open, nearly wrenching them off the hinges.
Gruesome toys, monsters and vampires, characters from horror films, fell out. Rubber mock-ups of severed limbs, taxidermied animals, a snake's skeleton, Freddy Krueger posters.
And in the center of the closet floor was the main attraction: an altar dedicated to Gwen Ashberry.
Ron cried out in horror as he dropped to his knees, staring at the frightening tableau. Several photographs of Gwen were pinned to the wall. Harle must have taken them on the days when she walked home from school by herself. In two of the snapshots she was strolling obliviously along the sidewalk. In the third she was turning and smiling off into the distance. And in the fourth -- the one that struck him like a fist -- she was bending down to tie her shoe, her short skirt hiked high on her trim legs. This was the photo in the center of the shrine.
She loves me, I love her she loves me I love she loves I love she loves she loves she loves shelovesshelovesshelovessssss...
On the floor, between two candles, what looked like a white flower, sprouting from a dime store coffee mug, printed with the name Gwen on it. Ron touched the flower. It was cloth... but what exactly? When he pulled the girl's underpants from the mug all he could do was give a deep moan and clutch the frail garment to his chest. He remembered Doris commenting several months ago that she'd found the outer door to the laundry room open. So, he'd been in the house!
In his fury Ron ripped down the picture of Gwen bending over. Then the others. Shredded them beneath his strong fingers.
"Please, don't do that! No, no!" his mother cried.
"Really, mister!"
"Harle'll be mad. I can't stand it when he gets mad at us."
Ron rose to his feet, flung the cup into a Nazi flag, where it shattered. He pushed past the cowering couple, flung open the front door and strode out into the street.
"Where are you?" he cried. "Where? You son of a bitch!"
The peaceful dusk in Locust Grove had tipped into peaceful night. Ron saw nothing but faint houselights, he heard nothing but his own voice, dulled by the mist, returning to him from a dozen distant places.
Ron leapt into his car and left long black worms of skid marks as he knocked over garbage cans, streaking into the street.
*
Three hours later, he returned home.
The bright security lights were on, one of them trained directly at the juniper bush.
"Where've you been?" Doris demanded. "I've called everybody I could think of, trying to find you."
"Driving around, looking for him. Is everything okay?" he asked.
"I thought I heard somebody in the work shed about an hour ago, rummaging around."
"And?"
"I called the police and they came by. Didn't find anything. Might've been a raccoon. The window was open. But the door was locked."
"Gwen?"
"She's upstairs asleep. Did you find him?"
"No, no trace. At least I hope I put the fear of God into him so we'll have a few days' peace." He looked around the house. "Let's make sure everything's locked up."
Ron walked to the front door and opened it, stepping back in shock at the sight of the huge dark form filling the doorway. Gasping, he instinctively drew back his fist.
"Whoa, there, buddy, take it easy." Sheriff Hanlon stepped forward into the hallway light.
Ron closed his eyes in relief. "You scared me."
"I'll ditto that. Mind if I come in?"
"Yeah, yeah, sure," Ron snapped. The sheriff entered, nodding to Doris, who ushered him into the living room. He declined coffee.
Husband and wife looked at the sheriff, a big man in a tan uniform. He sat on the couch and said simply, "Harle Ebbers was found dead about a half hour ago. He was hit by a train on the LIRR tracks."
Doris gasped. The sheriff nodded grimly. Ron didn't even try to keep the smile off his face. "Praise Him from whom all blessings flow."
The sheriff kept his face emotionless. He looked back to his notebook. "Where've you been for the past three hours, Ron? Since you left the Ebbers' house?"
"You went there?" Doris asked.
Ron knitted his fingers together then decided it made him look guilty and he unlinked them. "Driving around," he answered. "Looking for Harle. Somebody had to. You weren't."
"And you found him," the sheriff said.
"No, I didn't find him."
"Yessir. Well, somebody sure did. Ron, we've got reports of you threatening that boy tonight. The Clarkes and the Phillips heard scr
eaming and looked out. They heard you saying that you didn't care if you got caught, or even executed, you wanted to kill him. And then you took off chasing him down Maple."
"Well, I --"
"And then we got reports that you caused a disturbance at the Ebbers' place and fled." He read from his notebook. "'In a very agitated frame of mind.'"
"'Agitated frame of mind.' Of course I was agitated. He had a pair of my daughter's underwear in this goddamn altar in his closet."
Doris's hand rose to her mouth.
"And I found some pictures of her he'd taken on the way home from school."
"And then?"
"I drove around looking for him. I didn't find him. I came home. Look, Sheriff, I said I'd kill him. Sure. I'll admit it. And if he was running from me and got hit when he was crossing the tracks, I'm sorry. If that's, I don't know, negligent homicide or something, then arrest me for it."
The sheriff's broad face cracked a faint smile. "'Negligent homicide.' Let me ask you, you read about that somewhere? Hear it on Court TV?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just that it sounded a little rehearsed. Like maybe you'd thought it up before. You threw it at me pretty quick just then."
"Look, don't blame me if he got hit by a train. What the hell're you smiling at?"
"You're good is what I'm smiling at. I think you know that boy was dead before the train came along."
Doris was frowning. Her head swiveled toward her husband.
The sheriff continued. "Somebody crushed his skull with a blunt object -- that was the cause of death -- and dragged him a few feet to the roadbed. Left him on the tracks. The killer was hoping his getting hit by a train'd cover up the evidence of the blows. But the train wheel only hit his neck. The head was intact enough so the medical examiner could be sure about the cause of death."
"Well," Ron said.
"Do you own an Arnold Palmer model forty-seven golf club? A driving wood?"
A long pause.
"I don't know."
"Do you golf?"
"Yes."
"Do you own golf clubs?"
"I've been buying golf clubs all my life."
"I ask 'cause that was the murder weapon. I'm thinking you beat him to death, left him on the tracks and threw the club in Hammond Lake. Only you missed and it ended up in the marsh beside the lake, sticking straight up. Took the county troopers all of five minutes to find it."
Doris turned to the sheriff. "No, it wasn't him! Somebody broke into our shed tonight and must've stolen a club. Ron keeps a lot of his old ones there. He must've stolen one. I can prove it -- I called you about it."
"I know that, Mrs. Ashberry. But you said nothing was missing."
"I didn't check the clubs. I didn't think to."
Ron swallowed. "You think I'd be stupid enough to kill that boy after I called the police and after I threatened him in front of witnesses?"
The sheriff said, "People do stupid things when they're upset. And they sometimes do some pretty smart things when they're pretending they're upset."
"Oh, come on, Sheriff. With my own golf club?"
"Which you were planning to send to the bottom of fifty feet of water and another five of mud. By the way, whether it's yours or not, that club's got your fingerprints all over it."
"How did you get my prints?" Ron demanded.
"The Ebbers'. The boy's closet door and some coffee cup you smashed up. Now, Ron, I want to ask you a few more questions."
He looked out the kitchen window. He happened to catch sight of the juniper bush. He said, "I don't think I want to say anything more."
"That's your right."
"And I want to see a lawyer."
"That's your right too, sir. If you could hold out your hands for me, please. We're gonna slip these cuffs on and then take a little ride."
*
Ron Ashberry entered the Montauk Men's Correctional Facility as an instant hero, having made such a great sacrifice to save his little girl.
And the day that Gwen gave that interview on Channel 9, the whole wing was in the TV room, watching. Ron sat glumly in the back row and listened to her talk with the anchorwoman.
"Here was this creep who'd stolen my underwear and'd taken pictures of me on my way home from school and in my swimsuit and everything. I mean, he was like a real stalker... and the police didn't do anything about it. It was my father who saved me. I'm, like, totally proud of him."
Ron Ashberry heard this and thought just what he'd thought a thousand times since that night in April: I'm glad you're proud of me, baby. Except, except, except... I didn't do it. I didn't kill Harle Ebbers.
Just after he'd been arrested, the defense lawyer had suggested that maybe Doris was the killer though Ron knew she wouldn't have let him take the blame. Besides, friends and neighbors confirmed that she'd been on the phone with them, asking about Ron's whereabouts, at the time of the boy's death. Phone records bore this out too.
Then there was Harle's father. Ron remembered what the man had told him earlier that evening. But Ron's tearing out of the driveway caused such a stir in the Ebbers' neighborhood that several snooping neighbors kept an eye on the house for the rest of the evening and could testify that neither husband nor wife had left the bungalow all night.
Ron had even proposed the theory that the boy had killed himself. He knew Ron was out to get him and, in his psychotic frame of mind, Harle wanted to retaliate, get back at the Ashberry family. He'd stolen the golf club and wandered to the train track, where he'd beat himself silly, flung the club toward the lake and crawled onto the tracks to die. His defense lawyer gave it a shot but the DA and police laughed at that one.
And then in a flash, Ron had figured it out.
The brother of the girl in Connecticut! The girl who'd been the previous victim. Ron envisioned the scenario: the young man had come to Locust Grove and had stalked the stalker, seeking revenge both for his sister and for the beating he himself had taken. The brother -- afraid that Harle was about to be sent back to the safety of the hospital -- decided to act fast and had broken into the work shed to get a weapon.
The DA hadn't liked that theory either and went forward with the case.
Everyone recommended that Ron take a plea, which he finally did, exhausted with protesting his innocence. There was no trial; the judge accepted the plea and sentenced him to twenty years. He'd be eligible for parole in seven. His secret hope was that the boy in Connecticut would have a change of heart and confess. But until that day Ron Ashberry would be a guest of the people of the State of New York.
Sitting in the TV room, staring at Gwen on the screen, absently playing with the zipper of his orange jumpsuit, Ron was vaguely aware of a nagging thought. What was it?
Something that Gwen had said to the interviewer a moment earlier.
Wait...
What pictures of her in her swimsuit?
He sat up.
Ron hadn't found any photos of her in a bathing suit in Harle's closet. And there hadn't been any introduced at trial, since there'd been no trial. He'd never heard about any swimsuit pictures. If there were any, how had Gwen known about them?
A terrible thought came to him, so terrible that it was laughable. Though he didn't laugh; he was compelled to consider it -- and the other thoughts that sprang up like ugly crabgrass around it: that the only person who'd ever heard Harle threaten Gwen with the full-moon story was Gwen herself. That nobody'd ever heard Harle's side of the situation -- no one except the psychiatrist in Garden City and, come to think of it, he'd let the boy out of the hospital. That all the young man had ever said to Ron was that he loved Gwen and she loved him -- nothing worse than what any young man with a crush might say, even if his demeanor was pretty scary.
Ron's thoughts, racing: They'd just been accepting Gwen's story about Harle's approaching her on the way home from school eight months ago. And had been assuming all along that he'd pursued Gwen, that she hadn't encouraged him.
And her und
erpants?...
Could she have given him the panties herself?
Suddenly enraged, Ron leapt to his feet; his chair flew backward with a loud slam. A guard ambled over and motioned for Ron to pick it up.
As he did, Ron's thoughts raged. Could it actually have happened -- what he was now thinking? Was it possible?
Had she been... flirting with that psycho all along?
Had she actually posed for him, given him a pair of the underwear?
Why, that little slut!
He'd take her over his knee! He'd ground her so fast. She always behaved when he spanked her, and the harder he whipped her the quicker she toed the line. He'd call Doris, insist she take the Ping-Pong paddle to the girl. He'd --
"Yo, Ashberry," the guard grumbled, looking at Ron's purple face, as it glared up at the screen. "You can't cool it off, git it on outa here."
Ron slowly turned to him.
And he did cool off. Inhaling deep breaths, he realized he was just being paranoid. Gwen was pure. She was innocence itself. Besides, he told himself, be logical. What possible reason would she have to flirt with someone like Harle Ebbers, to encourage him? Ron had raised her properly. Taught her the right values. Family values. She was exactly his vision of what a young woman ought to be.
But thinking of his daughter left him feeling empty, without the heart to continue watching the interview. Ron turned away from the TV and shuffled to the rec room to be by himself.
And so he didn't hear the end of the interview, the part where the reporter asked Gwen what she was going to do now. She answered, with a girlish giggle, that she was about to leave for a week in Washington with her teacher and some classmates, a trip she'd been looking forward to for months. Was she going with her boyfriend? the reporter asked. She didn't have one, the girl said coyly. Not yet. But she sure was in the market.
Then the reporter asked about plans after high school. Was she going to college?
No, Gwen didn't believe college was for her. She wanted to do something fun, something that involved travel. She thought she might try her hand at a sport. Golf probably. Over the past several years her father had spent countless hours forcing her to practice her strokes.
"He always said I should learn a proper sport," she explained. "He was quite a taskmaster. But one thing I'll say -- I've got a great swing."
"I know it's been hard for you but I'm sure you're relieved to have that monster out of your life," the reporter offered.