David Wiltse - The Edge of Sleep

Karen washed her face and brushed her teeth and when she was certain she could muster a cheerful smile for her son, she went in to see him. Becker was sitting on the floor making another newspaper tree and Jack, still dressed in his airplane pajamas, was dancing around the room in a bounding gavotte that included frequent leaps onto and off of his bed.

“You still here?” Karen said. She was surprised by the tightness in her voice.

Becker held the newspaper over his head. “By popular request.” he said.

“Stop jumping on your bed,” she said to Jack.

“I was just showing him,” Jack said. He pointed at Becker as if to clarify any doubt.

“You know you’re not supposed to jump on your bed. Now stop it.”

Although she had not raised her voice. Jack stopped in mid-bounce and stepped carefully to the floor.

“I forgot,” he said lamely.

“How long have you been up?” she asked Becker.

“A couple of hours. I got up when I heard the fax machine working.”

“You can’t hear the fax machine from my bedroom.”

“You can’t hear the fax machine.” he corrected her.

“What did it say?”

“It’s not my place to be reading your faxes,” he said.

“What did it say?”

“The first one was a report on the detailed search of the mall.”

“And?”

“Nothing. He wasn’t hidden there and they found no indication that he ever was.”

“And the second fax?”

“It’s a printout of all the delinquencies at hotels, motels, and monthly rental homes within a thirty-five-mile radius of Stamford within forty-eight hours of the time the boy was found. It’s six pages long.”

“What boy?” Jack asked.

“No one, honey. How about you getting dressed now.”

“He said a boy was found,” Jack insisted. “Was a boy lost?”

“Not really. Now you get dressed. Mr. Becker and Mommy have a little work to do.”

“How did he get lost?”

“Jack… ”

Becker kneeled in front of the boy.

“He got lost because children do sometimes,” Becker said, “but the reason he stayed lost so long was that he didn’t do what he should have done. Do you know what he should have done when he got lost?”

“What?”

“He should have yelled,” Becker said. “He should have yelled and screamed and made as much noise as he could so that the people looking for him could find him. There were a lot of people trying to find the boy, including your mommy. Your mommy is a very good finder, did you know that, Jack?”

Jack shook his head uncertainly. He was not certain of his mother’s finding abilities, but he was fascinated to learn.

“Well, she is. Your mommy is very, very good at it. But even she couldn’t find the lost boy, because she didn’t know where to look because he didn’t make enough noise. He should have made all the noise he possibly could and he should have kept doing it until he was found. The worst thing to do if you ever get lost is to keep quiet about it. If you’re in trouble of any kind, you be sure to call for help. Okay?”

“Okay… but what happened to him?”

“He finally got found,” Becker said.

“Did you find him, Mommy?”

“Not personally, sweetheart.”

“The people who work for your mommy found him,”

Becker said. “The boy is safe at home now, and your mommy gets a lot of the credit for that.”

Jack smiled. He was not sure that he completely understood, but the sense of pride he felt about his mother was clear enough.

“You’re a pretty good liar,” Karen said to Becker when they were alone in the kitchen. “I thought you prided yourself on telling the truth.”

“When the truth is appropriate,” Becker said. “If a lie is called for, I can usually manage.”

“So how do I know if you’re telling me the truth?” she asked.

“Why not assume I’m telling you the truth until you see my nose grow?”

“I think it’s safer to assume you’re lying until I see your nose shrink… but thanks for the plug with Jack.”

“You deserve it.”

“It’s nice to have your kid think you’re good at what you do-even if he doesn’t know what it is.”

As Karen drove them toward the mall in Bickford. Becker went through the printout that had come in by fax.

“You check my logic as I go along,” Becker said. “First we can eliminate the women from the list, right?”

“As devil’s advocate, why?”

“Women almost never commit serial murders, one. Two, the upper body strength required to pitch the victim out the window of a moving car while driving it at the same time would make her some kind of steroid-huge, iron-pumping giant. That’s the kind of person who would have been noticed in the mall or museum. Women like that are certain to get a stare from every man in the place.”

“Women would notice her, too. All right, eliminate the women from the list.”

They were silent for a few moments as Becker went through the six pages and struck off the names that were obviously women. He circled those given names that were just initials for further investigation.

“You’re very good with him,” Karen said.

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t think you would be.”

Becker looked up from the list and studied her profile. “Why?”

She shrugged. “No practice, maybe. I don’t know. It just took me sort of by surprise.”

“Do you think I’m some kind of monster?” He sounded hurt.

“I know you’re not a monster. John. Forget the remark. I didn’t mean anything by it. Some people are good with kids and some aren’t, that’s all I meant.”

“We eliminate all those who stayed less than a week before skipping out.”

“Why?”

“We assume Lamont was holed up with the victim, which is far safer than moving around periodically. Something went wrong, he killed the victim and fled. Remember, he kept all these kids for at least six weeks, right?”

“Except for one.”

“Which makes it very unlikely he was going to a new location every week. That’s too many transfers in and out of the car, too many times to check in, too many things to go wrong.”

“Okay,” Karen said. “Check them off.”

Becker moved slowly over the names, calculating dates. “He likes you,” Karen said.

“Good. I like him, too.”

Karen flashed her headlights at a car in the passing lane in front of her. The driver remained blissfully unaware. At the first opportunity Karen swung past him on the right, then into the left lane again. She jabbed her finger to the right, trying to tell the driver to get over, but she could tell in her mirror that he had barely even noticed her, or how she happened to be in front of him.

“How do you know he likes me?” Becker asked.

“He told me,” she said. She looked at Becker, whose eyes had not left the list on his lap.

“He’s a good boy,” he said.

“He’s a wonderful boy.”

“That, too. I meant he’s well-behaved.”

“Oh. Well, mostly. He has his mad moments.”

“He told me he’s going to sleep-over camp this summer,” Becker said. He drew his pen through a line and went on to the next.

“Next week,” Karen said. “Did he sound… how did he sound when he told you about it?”

“Excited. He’s looking forward to it.”

“Really? Excited? It’s his first time away from home. He’s very ambivalent about it.”

“Didn’t sound that way. How are you?”

“Ambivalent,” she admitted. “He’s so young. He’s never been away, he doesn’t even like to go to sleep-overs at his friends’ houses.”

“So why is he going to camp?”

Karen paused. “He says he wants to but… I’m not sure how much of it is because I pushed him into it. I tried not to. I tried to stay neutral, but maybe the way I worded it, maybe… The idea of two whole weeks without any responsibilities to anyone but myself, it’s like heaven. I mean. I’ll miss him like crazy, I know that, but to just come home after work and vegetate-it’s been ten years. I wanted him to go. I wanted him to want to go… And lie is so quick to anticipate what he thinks I want. When he actually does do something wrong, which is not very often, if he spills his milk, for instance, he gets this look on his face as if he’s going to be shot. It makes me feel like a monster. The other day he put his dinner dishes in the dishwasher without scraping them and he was so apologetic. I don’t know, is it normal? Am I doing it all wrong? Do all parents worry about how they’re raising their kids, or is it just single mothers?