A Time of Predators

The woman had a mass of wavy brown hair with sun-lightened streaks, a pretty face as narrow as a fox’s, and clear greenish eyes. The face was flushed, the hair-tips steam-dampened; her terry-cloth robe was of pink and Chinese vermilion in intricate pattern, and huge fluffy pink slippers peeked from under the floor-length hem.

“I’m looking for Barbara Anderson, ma’am,” Curt began.

“I’m a Barbara Anderson,” she said and smiled. She was in her early thirties, old enough to have a son ten years old. Her mouth was small, with laughter dimples at the corners, and her chin was delicate and narrow.

“My name is Curt Halstead. I’m looking for a boy, named Anderson, who saw four men getting out of an old station wagon one evening last April. His mother reported the incident to the sheriff, and...” He stopped because Barbara Anderson was shaking her head. She drew the robe closer about her as if belatedly drilled from her bath. Her eyes were totally expressionless. Her hands, well-shaped yet strong-looking, were without rings. Her voice was high and a little flat. “I guess you want a different Barbara Anderson, Mr. Halstead. I’m not married and I have no son. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I’m sorry to interrupt your bath. I...”

He stopped again, this time because she had shut the door firmly in his face. He heard the bolt snap into place, and grimaced. No real need for her to be so abrupt. Not, of course, that he could really blame her, living there alone. Rather strange that she was, actually.

Curt started the VW with a little jerk because his mind was on things other than driving. Probably divorced, obviously childless, had gotten the house as part of the settlement, perhaps. He wondered if she worked, or lived on alimony, or what. A damned attractive woman.

After turning into Westpoint Drive, toward the Medical Center, Curt remembered and pulled over long enough to draw a line through Anderson, Barbara on his list of possibles.

Chapter 18

Curt ate a solitary Sunday breakfast, staring, without really seeing, out the kitchen window into the live oaks behind the house. In one tree was a vireo, in another a pair of wood warblers. Carrying his dishes to the sink, he saw the calendar. August 10th. Almost a month since he had begun looking for the Anderson boy, and summer vacation was drawing to a close. Fall term raised feelings of active distaste, probably because teaching meant a curtailment of his search.

But what further could he do? Advertise? He not only had exhausted all possible phone-book Andersons; he had, at Archie Matthews’ suggestion, gotten further names from the Polk Directory and the voter registration rolls at the County Courthouse. In all, sixty-seven Andersons.

Curt ran water over his dishes. To hell with it. Today he would try to forget it, the whole thing. Take a walk, maybe. This morning, right now, before the day got too hot. He thrust aside the insistent memory of planning a similar hike with Paula on the Friday night he had driven home to find her dead, and put on soft-soled shoes, sunglasses, a polo shirt. At the foot of the driveway, he paused: north or south? Had the boy on the bike gone north or... damnit, stop it. South he would go, toward the university.

He crossed Linda Vista to be facing traffic, started past the old green phone booth, which stood with open door, inviting confidences. Curt had none to impart, but he did stop, and in an untoward lightness of mood, pulled down the coin return. He chuckled aloud. A dime. He could buy two thirds of a cup of coffee with it somewhere.

Striding along in the growing heat, Curt tried to feel enthusiasm for the resumption of classes. No use. Looked at coldly from the shoulder of a country road, the whole concept of graduate study seemed artificial somehow. Perhaps it was because you could never admit error: not to your department, nor to your students, nor, given enough years of enforced infallibility, to yourself. Curt had always stressed, for instance, that environment determined behavior; yet could he really swallow that the predators were merely determined puppets, no more responsible for the destruction strewn in their wake than a hurricane which savaged the Florida coast before swinging blindly back to sea? No. Curt knew he couldn’t buy that. Wouldn’t buy it. Unless men were responsible, all of their actions were without meaning.

A quarter of a mile beyond the phone booth, Curt came across a narrow footpath beaten down through the high weeds of the ditch. He turned off into it, after a few steps found his trousers dotted with the thistles from August-ripened weeds. The narrow path was iron-hard from lack of rain; it probably had been worn by venturesome small-fry on long school-less summer days.