Jeffery Deaver - Speaking In Tongues

Wearing a baseball cap and thick-framed reading glasses he’d bought at Safeway-he remembered that Eckhard might have seen him near the school in the Mercedes-Matthews walked slowly past. He studied his subject carefully. The teacher was a middle-aged man, in Dockers and a loose tan shirt. Matthews took in all these observations and filed them away but it was the eyes that were most helpful; they told him everything he needed to know about Mr. Eckhard.

Continuing down the sidewalk, Matthews walked into a drugstore and made several purchases. He slipped into the rest room of the store and five minutes later returned to the school yard. He sat down on the bench next to Eckhard’s and rested the Washington Post in his lap. He gazed out at the young girls playing informal games of soccer or jump rope in the school yard.

Once, then twice, Eckhard glanced at him. The second time, Matthews happened to turn his way and saw the teacher looking at him with a hint of curiosity in his tell-all eyes.

Matthews’s face went still with uneasy alarm. He waited a judicious moment then stood quickly and walked past Eckhard. But as he did, the disposable camera fell from the folds of his newspaper. Matthews blinked then stepped forward suddenly to pick it up but his foot struck the yellow-and-black box. It went skidding along the sidewalk and stopped in front of Eckhard.

Matthews froze. The teacher, his eyes on Matthews’s, smiled again. He reached down and picked up the camera, looked at it. Turned it over.

“I-” Matthews began, horrified.

‘It’s okay,” Eckhard said.

“Okay?” Matthews’s voice faltered. He looked up and down the sidewalk, uneasy

“I mean, the camera’s okay,” Eckhard said, rattling it. “It doesn’t seem to be broken.”

Matthews began speaking breathlessly, over explaining-as his script required. “See, what it was, I was going to D.C. later today. I was going to the zoo. Take some pictures of the animals.”

“The zoo.” Eckhard examined the camera.

Matthews again looked up and down the sidewalk.

‘You like photography?” the teacher asked.

After a moment, Matthews said, “Yes, I do. A hobby” Smiled awkwardly, summoning a blush. “Everybody should have a hobby That’s what my father said.” He fell silent.

“It’s my hobby too.”

“Really?”

“Been doing it for about fifteen years,” Eckhard said.

“Me too. Little less, I guess.”

“You live around here?” the teacher asked.

“ Fairfax.”

“Long time?”

“A couple of years.”

Silence grew between them. Eckhard still held the camera. Matthews crossed his arms, rocked on his feet. Looking out over the school yard. Finally he asked, “You do your own developing and printing?”

“Of course,” Eckhard said.

Of course. The expected answer. Matthews’s eyes narrowed and he appeared to relax. “Harder with color,” he offered. “But they don’t make the throwaways in black and white.”

“I’m getting a digital camera,” Eckhard said. “I can just feed the pictures into my computer at home.”

“I’ve heard about those. They’re expensive, aren’t they?”

“They are… But you know hobbies. If they’re important to you you’re willing to spend the money.”

“That’s my philosophy,” Matthews admitted. He sat down next to Eckhard. They looked out on the playing field, at a cluster of girls, who were around ten or eleven years old. Eckhard looked through the eyepiece of the camera. “Lens isn’t telephoto.”

“No,” Matthews said. Then after a moment: “She’s cute. That brunette there.”

“Angela.”

“You know her?”

“I’m a teacher at the high school. I’m also a grade school counselor.” Matthews’s eyes flashed enviously. “Teacher? I work for an insurance company. Actuarial work. Boring. But summers I volunteer at Camp Henry. Maryland. Ages eight through fourteen. You know it?”

Eckhard shook his head. “I also coach girls’ sports.”

“That’s a good job too.” Matthews clicked his tongue.

“Sure is.” Eckhard looked out over the field. “I know most of these girls.”

“You do portraits?”

“Some.”

“You ever photograph her? That girl by the goal post?”

But Eckhard wouldn’t answer. “So, you take pictures just around the area here?”

Matthews said, “Here, California. Europe some. I was in Amsterdam a little while ago.”

“ Amsterdam. I was there a few years ago. Not as interesting as it used to be.”

“That’s what I found.”

“ Bangkok ’s nice, though,” Eckhard volunteered.

“I’m planning on going next year,” Matthews said in a whisper.

“Oh, you have to,” Eckhard encouraged, kneading the yellow box of the camera in his hands. “It’s quite a place.”

Matthews could practically see the synapses firing in Eckhard’s mind, wondering furiously if Matthews was a cop with the Child Welfare Unit of the Fairfax County Police or an FBI agent. Matthews had treated several pedophiles during his days as a practicing therapist. He recognized the classic characteristics in Eckhard. He was intelligent- an organized offender-and he’d know all about the laws of child molestation and pornography. He could probably just keep the testosterone under control to avoid actually molesting a child but photographing young girls was a compulsion that ruled his life.

Matthews offered another conspiratorial smile then glanced at a girl bending down to pick up a ball. Gave a faint sigh. Eckhard followed his gaze and nodded.

The girl stood up. Eckhard said, “ Nancy. She’s nine. Fifth grade.”

“Pretty. You wouldn’t happen to have any pictures of her, would you?”

“I do.” Eckhard paused. “In a nice skirt and blouse, I seem to recall.”

Matthews wrinkled his nose. Shrugged.

He wondered if the man would take the bait.

Snap.

Eckhard whispered, “Well, not the blouse in all of them.”

Matthews exhaled hard. “You wouldn’t happen to have any with you?”

“No. You have any of yours?”

Matthews said, “I keep all of mine on my computer.”

One of Matthews’s patients had seven thousand images of child pornography on computer. He’d traded them with other pedophiles while he’d been serving time for a molestation charge; the computer they resided on was the warden’s at Hammond Falls State Penitentiary in Maryland. The prisoner had written an encryption program to keep the files secret. The FBI cracked it anyway and, despite his willingness to go through therapy; the offense earned him another ten years in prison.

Matthews said, “I don’t have too many in my collection. Only about four thousand.”

Eckhard’s eyes turned to Matthews and they were vacuums, He whispered a long, envious ‘Well..

Matthews added, “I’ve got some videos too. But only about a hundred of them.”

“A hundred?”

Eckhard shifted on the bench. Matthews knew the teacher was lost. Completely. He’d be thinking: At worst, it’s entrapment and I can beat it in court. At worst, I can talk my way out of it. At worst, I’ll flee the country and move to Thailand… As a therapist Matthews was continually astonished at how easily people won completely unwinnable arguments with themselves.

Still, you land a fish with as much care as you hook it.

“You seem worried…,” Matthews started. “And I have to say, I don’t know you, and I’m a little nervous myself. But I’ve just got a feeling about you. Maybe we could help each other out… Let me show you a couple of samples of what I’ve got.”

The teacher’s eyes flickered with lust.

Always the eyes.