Darkness peering Read Online Free PDF Page B

hardworking hard-liner who loved his
family even as he beat them. Early in his marriage, Nalen had followed
in the old man's footsteps, getting drunk with the boys after work at
the Blue Wall, beer and shots and boilermakers, and he'd almost lost
Faye and Billy due to his own stupidity. Almost lost his family. She
had threatened to leave him, but then he'd done the impossible, quit
cold turkey, no

    twelve-step program for Nalen Storrow, thank you very much. And yet..
    and yet maybe he had lost them, after all?
    "You keep looking at me funny," Billy was saying now, and Nalen glanced
away.
    "I guess I'm trying to figure you out."
    "So maybe I did something really stupid just to be part of something ..
that doesn't mean I'd hurt anyone, does it?"
    "You tell me."
    "I mean ... jeesh. She was retarded and everything."
    Nalen could hear the beating of his own heart. Leaning forward, he
held Billy's eye. "Roll up your sleeves."
    Billy's voice rose half an octave. "You think I killed her?"
    "Tell me, son," he said, "tell me you don't know anything about Melissa
D'Agostino's death. Tell me that right now."
    Indignant and scared, Billy rolled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt and
displayed his bare arms. They were the arms of a scrawny teenager,
abrasion-free.
    "Okay." Nalen sat back, inwardly relieved.
    "Jesus, is she really dead?"
    "She was killed yesterday."
    "Wow." He briefly met Nalen's gaze. "What happened?"
    "That's all you need to know for now."
    "Jeez, Dad." His eyes welled with tears and he slumped in his seat.
"I'd never hurt anyone ..."
    "I know you wouldn't," Nalen said, but he knew, he just knew Billy was
holding something back.
    That night, Ozzie Rudd's father brought Ozzie into the station for
questioning, and they didn't get much out of him, either. They also
questioned Boomer Blazo and Neal Fliss. Nobody knew anything about any
cat bell, and nobody had seen Melissa D'Agostino since the day she
disappeared; not since lunch that

    day at school, not since they'd done their usual messing around with
the kids at the Geek Table. All the retards ate lunch together at one
big table, and Ozzie and Boomer and Neal liked to tease them a little
bit. Just a little, and that was the last anybody'd seen of Melissa
D'Agostino.
    Around 10:00 P.M." Hughie Boudreau, drenched with sweat and
exhaustion, pulled Nalen aside and said in an urgent whisper, "Chief,
we gotta talk."
    "What is it, Hughie?"
    "Earlier at the morgue ... ?" He balled his fingers into a fist as if
he were trying to summon the courage to put into words what had been
bothering him all day long.
    "I'm listening."
    "I was walking around the gurney, you know? And the strangest thing
happened." He lowered his voice. "I could've sworn she was watching
me."
    Nalen sighed, muscles bunching. "It's a common experience, Hughie.
Don't worry about it." He patted Hughie's arm, but Hughie wouldn't let
the matter drop.
    "She followed me with her eyes, it seems like, no matter where I was
standing in the room."
    "That's a common illusion, Hughie. Don't let it Spock you."
    "You're the only one I can confide in," Hughie said, pallid and
frail-looking. "I don't know what came over me, but the next thing I
knew ... I was sticking my tongue out at her."
    "You were what?"
    "I had to push her away, you know?" His face was crimson. '"Stop
looking at me' kind of thing. I realize now she wasn't looking at me.
I know that, Chief. Dead people don't look at you. I know what's real
and what's not."
    "Are you sure you can handle all the ramifications of this case,
Hughie?" Nalen asked as gently as he could.
    "Sure, Chief. I mean, it's not like I'm crazy or anything."

    "No, you're not crazy, Hughie."
    "Please don't take me off the case, Chief. I'm really ashamed of
myself."
    Nalen was concerned. Hughie hadn't joined the search party the
previous afternoon because he'd driven off by himself after a bad fight
with his wife. He'd gone all the way to the New York