Seeing Mandy might have been bearable—sort of—had she not been so adamant, so determined to get him to commit suicide, and in truth last night he was one heartbeat away from washing down a fistful of tranquilizer and antipsychotic meds with good whiskey; but then Sarah had called him. Fate, it seemed, was not a total coldhearted bitch. Standing there with his hand clenched around the pills, he listened to her voice on the phone, that soft and sweet voice that he loved so dearly, and she had asked him to come home. Home.
He stood on that knife-edge for a long time, and then he had washed the pills down the sink and gone home. To Sarah, to his kids, and to sleep. Now, as the day wore on he lay in bed and searched in his soul for one single reason to get up. He could find none except shame, and after a while that was enough. He let out the chestful of air that he’d been holding and slowly, cautiously, got out of bed, listening for sounds of Sarah and hearing her clattering pots downstairs. He tiptoed to the bathroom and closed the door before turning on the small light over the sink to search for signs of change in his face.
The face in the mirror had changed, that was sure enough—but not into the snarling mask of a monster. Instead Terry saw a face that looked forty years older than his thirty-nine years. Sunken cheeks, rheumy eyes with bruise-colored bags under them. Rubbery lips. Ashy skin. “Christ!” he breathed, and then stopped, aware that he had just uttered a profanity. Terry Wolfe never, ever cursed. He thought about it for a long time, examining his face and at the same time looking as far inward as he dared. “Shit on it,” he concluded, and he liked the sound of it.
There was a pair of sweats and a T-shirt hanging on the back of the bathroom door and he pulled these on and went through the bathroom’s connecting door into the twins’ room, and then out and downstairs, through the quiet house, and into the garage through the kitchen door. He opened the passenger car door and sat down as he fished his cell phone out of the glove compartment and saw that he had missed seventy-one calls. “Holy shit!” He said and again stopped to listen to the mental echo of the obscenity, and again he liked the sound of the obscenity. It felt…liberating.
Terry scrolled through the missed numbers: Gus, Crow, Saul Weinstock, Harry LeBeau, and Frank Ferro, that cop from Philly. Seventy-one calls. What the hell had been happening while he was asleep? Setting the phone down on his thigh, he flipped down the visor and opened the little panel that hid the mirror. He turned on the dome light and stared into his reflected eyes, searching, searching, for the monster. If it was there, he couldn’t see it.
“Thank God,” he said, and then picked up his cell phone again and stepped back into the world.
Chapter 6
(1)
Late that afternoon Ferro advised Gus to impose a curfew on the town. The chief looked at him as if he’s just suggested that they should all dance naked down Corn Hill. “With Boyd still out there it’s the safest thing,” Ferro insisted.
“The town selectmen will have my balls if I do that. This is October!”
LaMastra looked from him to his partner. “See, Frank, I told you he’d go all
“Vince, please,” Ferro said.
Gus went as red as a tomato, his body swelling as if it was about to burst. “This is hardly something to joke about—”
“We apologize, Chief,” Ferro said, shooting a harsh look at LaMastra. “Vince and I are both tired and frustrated.”
The chief grunted. They were sitting in Gus’s office on Corn Hill. There was a lot of bustle as off-duty officers were coming in to replace the working shift. Everyone looked angry and there was a lot of harsh chatter about what they’d do if they found the bastard who had killed two of their own.
“But,” Ferro pushed on, “a curfew does seem to be the best course of action. Boyd is still out there, and—”
“Don’t patronize me, Frank. I’m not stupid. I know how dangerous the situation is, but you have to appreciate my position. Pine Deep is a tourist town and decisions that affect the tourism industry are not made by me. Terry makes the principal decisions—”
“The mayor’s off the radar, Chief,” LaMastra observed.
“Which means that Harry LeBeau has authority,” Gus said stubbornly, “and even then he has to get a majority vote from the selectmen, even in a police emergency.” When he saw the looks on their faces he added defensively, “I didn’t set it up, but it’s more than my job is worth to issue a curfew without permission.” He paused, realizing how that sounded, and added, “Even if I do agree.”
“Well, can you at least give LeBeau a call and set things in motion? The sun is already down.”
