The Man From Primrose Lane Part 41

She did. She smiled up at him and I could tell she had finally allowed herself to love him.

"The photographer's son," she said. "I forgot all about him until I saw their logo on a picture at Larry's. The guy who took our pictures at school, he was all crippled and bent up. He had this son who helped him pose the children. He was like forty years old and had bushy hair like the guy in the shopping plaza that day. When he was taking my picture, there was this moment when I thought he might have brushed against my chest with his hand but he played it off like an accident. He told me that I had hair like his mother's. He said my hair was prettier than any other girl's in my whole cla.s.s. If his father's company also did the pictures for the other girls' schools, it has to be him! It has to be!"

There is a theory, a metaphysical, philosophical theory, that when an idea's time has come, it will be recognized by several people at once. It's a sixth-sense explanation for such things as why two authors sometimes come out with similar books in the same season. (For instance, there were two great fictional mysteries with Edgar Allan Poe as the main character, which came out within a month of each other, in 2006.) It explains how two scientists a world apart suddenly and independently discovered the AIDS virus. Or how Tesla and Edison emerged as inventors of electricity. However, I had never witnessed such a thing, and Katy's tandem epiphany made my skin crawl.

"Shhh," said David. "We know. They're arresting him right now. We found Erin. She's safe."

"What?" Katy slipped her arms under his and embraced him. "How?"

"All the pictures had the same backdrop," he said. "No one noticed it until we had Erin's photo to compare to the others."

"Where did you find Erin? What happened to her?"

"Come inside," he said. "I'll explain everything."

I followed them in. I had planned to tell Aunt Peggy I was a distant relative of his Uncle Ira, in town for the funeral. But Peggy was nowhere to be found. And neither was Tanner. The house smelled musty, unlived-in. It smelled like the house on Primrose Lane. And someone was singing. A familiar voice. The sound traveled softly down the hallway and filled the house. I knew the song. "Castle on a Cloud," from Les Mis. "Who is that?" I asked.

"My wife," said David.

We followed him to a door halfway down the hall. The music was coming from inside. I could tell now that it was a recording, clear but mixed with something like static or falling water. The door was locked.

"Tanner?" David said. "Tanner, open up!"

Then, distantly, "Dad?"

"Hey, buddy," he said. "It's me. Open up."

The k.n.o.b shook as Tanner's young hands fidgeted with the lock. Then the door opened. The boy leapt into his father's arms. I saw he was shaking. I a.s.sumed it was because he hadn't seen his dad for a while. In their reunion, David accidentally tripped over a length of dominoes arranged on the floor, causing them to cascade across the length of the room, revealing a red number before setting off some contraption that caused a basket to fall on a plastic mouse. What "88" meant I never did find out. The number of a beloved sportsman, I supposed. I reached over to the microca.s.sette recorder lying on top of the boy's dresser and turned it off.

"Where's Aunt Peggy?" asked David.

"In the East Wing."

"What's she doing in there?"

Tanner didn't answer. His face was buried in his father's neck. Was he crying? I couldn't tell.

"Why'd you lock your door?"

"She told me to."

David laughed. "Why?"

Tanner leaned back and looked at his father with brown eyes the size of half dollars. "So the bad man and his cat couldn't get in."

What the boy said struck me as so odd it took me a full five seconds to sift any meaning from it. Then I understood. Part of it, at least.

David did, too. He set Tanner down. When he spoke, his voice was calm, for his son's sake. Only I knew how much fear he must be feeling. "Tanner. I want you to listen to me. Don't ask any questions. Just do this. In a second I'm going to leave and get Aunt Peggy. When I do, I want you to close the door behind me. Lock it. Then crawl under your bed and cover your ears. No matter what happens, do not come out or open the door for anyone but me. Promise me you will not come out, okay?"

Tanner didn't say anything. He'd seen enough before we arrived.

Somehow, David managed a smile. "I love you," he said.

"Love you," said Tanner.

And then we all heard it-the sound of heavy boots on finished wood, approaching from the East Wing.

I stepped into the hall and wrapped my fingers around my cane. David shut the door behind him. Katy took David's hand in hers and stood between us.

It was then that we heard a low, a soft, a very soft mew. The sound of an old tomcat playing with a stunned mouse.

"Easy," said Trimble, from the darkness of the hallway. "Easy, Beezle."

EPISODE EIGHTEEN.

BEEZLE.

When it came down to it, it was Time that screwed everything up again.

Sometimes you simply overplan.

The day before Katy was to be abducted, I had Aaron fill the tank of my car. I got plenty of sleep that night. I ate a good breakfast. I packed a bag of emergency supplies-Fix-A-Flat, ID, money-in case something happened to the car along the way. When it got to be half-past noon, I called Aaron to come pick me up and drive me to Coventry, to Big Fun. There should have been plenty of time. Katy wasn't abducted until three p.m. We'd be in Coventry by two p.m., even if there was traffic. I had been so focused on the hundreds of variables that could affect our arrival that I didn't consider the constant in the equation. I didn't consider time. I had forgotten it could change, too.

I forgot daylight savings.

We listened to NPR on the radio on the way up to Coventry and somewhere along Route 8 out of Akron the station gave a local news update. "It's currently two-oh-five in the afternoon," the announcer said at the beginning of his sign-off.

"What did he just say?"

"Hmm?" asked Aaron. "I wasn't listening."

"What time did he say it was?"

"A little after two."

"You mean one."

"No, boss. It's two."

I checked my watch. It said one o'clock. And then I remembered.

"Oh, man, did you forget to reset your watch?"

"Yes, Aaron. It's very important we reach Coventry by three p.m. I can't tell you how important. It is essential we get there by three." I tried to keep the panic out of my voice.

Aaron looked at the congested traffic along Route 8, which was not built to handle commuter traffic to begin with and shrank to a single lane up ahead because of construction. I realized if we sat here long enough-say, eleven years-there would be an extra lane and traffic would no longer be an obstacle.

"I'll do my best," he said.

"Drive on the shoulder if you need to. Just get us there by three. Please."

As the eclipse of time approached, I began to second-guess my research. What if Katy was abducted at ten till three instead of three on the nose? What if she was already long gone? Not the end. Not yet. But it would be no solace to Katy that I still had one opportunity left to catch him; by staking out the location where he dumps her body.

The car lurched into a s.p.a.ce up the street from Big Fun at precisely 2:57. I rolled out of the back door and onto the pavement, my cane tumbling some distance away from me. Aaron came around, helped me up, and put the cane in my hand.

"Let me help you," he said.

"No. You have to stay here. Just wait for me."

I hobbled down the sidewalk toward the toy store, scanning the faces of the people walking on the other side of the street. Then I saw her: Katy. Katy as a young girl. Katy at ten. She was twirling on a lamppost like Gene Kelly, her free hand splayed in the sun as if to catch the light, her long hair trailing behind her like some special effect. And I saw him. His back was to me, but I knew it was him, the man I had hunted for four decades. Even from here, I could see his bushy hair blowing in the breeze. He was going to get to her first if I didn't hurry. I picked up the pace, ambling as fast as I could, sure I was about to fall and break my neck and watch this happen in front of me as I died. But I didn't fall.

He was about ten feet from her when I plowed into him at top speed, slamming us both into the brick wall of Big Fun. He gave a yelp of surprise and looked at me as if I were about to slap handcuffs on him.

"Got you, you motherf.u.c.ker," I said.

"Who the f.u.c.k are you?" he whispered.

"You were going to kidnap that girl," I told him.

"No. I wasn't. I don't even know her."

"Liar!"

"Let go of me."

"You're coming with me," I said. "You're going to talk to the police. We're going to get your fingerprints. How much you want to bet you left them at the scene of some other murder?"

The man's eyes went blank. His mind retreated somewhere deep inside for just an instant. It must be the way he looks when he's committing rapes and murders. Total lack of empathy, those eyes warned. A killer's eyes. And then he came back to himself and kicked me, hard, in the groin.

I doubled over and in that instant he fled past Katy and down the sidewalk. I watched him run into Tommy's Diner. By the time I got to the restaurant's doors, Aaron was once again at my side. I let him lead me in and we looked for ten minutes, but he was gone. Through the kitchen, maybe. Out the back door. Gone.

I had lost my answer. I had let him get away. He was free to kill again.

But Katy was alive.

I followed her, again, for a couple years. Softball games. School plays. Swim meets. I looked like a grandfather. No one questioned me.

Sometimes I had Aaron drive me to malls during the holidays, when they were packed with people. I spent days looking for him in the crowds.

But I never saw him again.

I got bored. I started hanging out with the Man from Primrose Lane during the afternoons when he wasn't expecting his own Sherlock ruffian to swing by. Aaron would drop me off around the corner and I would shuffle up the street toward the house. Later, Aaron would pick me up at the same location. I made sure to wear mittens when I visited. To neighbors it appeared like it was just the old hermit out for a walk.

We played a lot of chess. But we never got any better. I think it's a little like playing both sides of the board. Mostly the games ended in a draw.

Many days I sat beside the Man from Primrose Lane, reading one of his paperbacks or writing short stories while he dabbled with his oil paintings. Landscapes from National Geographic, at first. Then portraits. We were both impressed with his natural ability. And here's the strange thing-I never really cared for painting. And when I did try, I wasn't especially good at it. How do you explain that one, if we both have the same DNA?

Sometime around 2001, after the towers fell, one of us got the idea-I think it was him-to collaborate on a book about our adventures and to sell it as mind-blowing fiction. Hey, what else did we have to do, you know? It might even freak the killer out enough to scare him away.

Eventually we settled that I would write it, using my notes from Katy's case and his own from Elaine and Elizabeth's. He would paint the ill.u.s.trations. The main characters, at least.

Then things got weird.

I pa.s.sed you on the street, David. You and Elizabeth must've just moved into your place on Palisades. You were out for a walk, your arms around each other's waists. I was walking away from the house on Primrose, to Aaron's car around the corner. I turned around before you noticed me. But, well, that sort of changed everything.

I returned to the house and told the Man from Primrose Lane what I'd seen. It frightened him. It was weird. Weird that the two of you would find each other. That you would be drawn to her, even in this world where she was alive. It's strange enough to force you to reexamine your idea of the universe, of fate and happenstance. What happened was the Man from Primrose Lane became obsessed again. Obsessed with finding out how the two of you found each other and what it meant in the larger picture.

Some of the details he was able to ferret out of your email accounts; we, of course, knew you used a specific Stephen King novel as a key to all your pa.s.swords because we had done the same in our youth. We reread the emails Elizabeth sent you over the years. We discovered how your lives intersected in that college music cla.s.s.

The Man from Primrose Lane became obsessed mostly over one unanswerable question: if Elaine and Elizabeth had never been murdered in his timeline to begin with, would events have played out this way? He wanted to know if it had been his destiny to be with Elizabeth. He wondered if maybe he had felt that on some level that was the real reason behind his obsession with her cold case.

I tried to point out to him that I had become obsessed with Katy's murder. It's like our brains were programmed to lock on to some mystery and pick it apart, bit by bit, over an eternity. Forget the question of destiny. I've often wondered if maybe we're in h.e.l.l. That's the discussion I wanted to have.

Anyway, he had this feeling that your relations.h.i.+p was jinxed, that it could not possibly work out well for her, especially given the fact that we knew, eventually, you would find your own obsession. That was your destiny. And Elizabeth was in the way.

So he went on your honeymoon, booked a room on your s.h.i.+p, to watch over her. It's a good thing he did. She was halfway over the balcony when he found her. He was there to save her life a second time. And maybe that's what did the trick. Because it seemed to break some kind of spell.

Suddenly all these great things started to happen. You found your case, but solved it before it claimed your soul. You and Elizabeth lasted. And we were allowed a friend. Me and the Man from Primrose Lane. After he saved her for the second time, he had to tell her the truth. And somehow, that truth made her stronger. She was our coconspirator. Yes, she came to the house often. She squeezed in visits while running errands, on trips to the grocery store, or when you were at work late at night. We played gin rummy. The three of us. We talked about your life and career. We gave her advice on how to handle your dark moods. I think, if I were to guess, the Man from Primrose Lane's obsession somehow negated her parents' neglect. She felt balanced, that much was obvious. Of course, she became quite fond of the Man from Primrose Lane.

Were they romantic? I don't believe so. It wasn't that sort of friends.h.i.+p. But he would paint her. She allowed him that. And they would do it in private so she could undress. He showed me one of the better ones, a picture of Elizabeth posed on his bed, lying on her back, her legs trailing across the sheets, a milky-white palm resting against the headboard. She loved you, David. She saw the older you in the Man from Primrose Lane and loved what she saw there. She couldn't wait to grow old with you, she told him.

Eventually it got to a point where I felt like a fifth wheel. Her affection and grat.i.tude always made me feel odd. It seemed wrong, I think. I stopped coming by. When I returned one day in 2008, the Man from Primrose Lane explained that he had asked Elizabeth to stay away. When I asked him why, he wouldn't tell me.

I think it's possible that he knew he was being watched. How he knew, I don't know. He was more paranoid than I had ever seen him. He'd always worn those mittens, said it was "insurance." But when I returned, he was on this cleaning kick. Scrubbing every inch of the house. Said he was worried he'd left fingerprints somewhere. I think he felt fate catching up to him, finally. He may have been preparing for his murder.

I'm sure, now, that the first place Elizabeth went after leaving the hospital was his house. Was the killer waiting in the bushes? Had he come to the home, expecting to catch the Man from Primrose Lane alone, only to surprise Elizabeth? Or had he spotted Elizabeth somewhere, stalked her, and followed her back to his house before killing them both? I don't know how it played out.

There's only one question that matters: does the murderer know what we are? Because if he doesn't, he thinks he's killed the only man who knows his secret. And that means he thinks he's free to kill again.

He wore a thin s.h.i.+rt over a shrunken and shallow chest, his hipbones jutting out like wings. He held a long white gun in one hand. He stank like a gutted deer.

"Oooooowee," said Riley. "We got everyone here. Nice. Come. You really must see what I've done with the place. Come." He motioned to them with the gun, swinging it in the direction of David's office. "Bring your kid, too."

"Go f.u.c.k yourself."

Trimble licked his lips and looked from David to the bedroom door and back again. Then he waved his free hand. "You're right. This is grown-up time. I can play with the kid later." He winked at David.

"I'll-" David began, but Trimble smacked him in the nose with the gun and he went silent. Katy let go of his hand as he stanched the blood that dripped on his hallway carpet.

"Move," said Trimble.