It had to be You

find him. I didn’t want to be thought either crazy or a coward.“
    “If it makes you feel better, the boy was dead before you arrived. You couldn’t have saved him if you’d tried. That noise you heard was a shotgun,“ Howard told him.
    But Howard thought that not calling the police was where Charley had stepped over into cowardice. It might have been that it wasn’t a phone line. Maybe even if it was, the phone could have no longer worked. Or the resident hadn’t bothered to call? It had been Charley’s duty to report what he’d seen, even if the children found out about it, and laughed at him. They probably already laughed at him anyway for the way he dressed and his long dirty hair.
    Charley, having told his story, asked, “How do you know about this? And how did you recognize me as having anything to do with it?“
    “You were described by the woman who lives in that house.“
    “How did she describe me?”
    He’s vain as well, Howard thought.
    “As having longish brown hair and a red beret,“ Howard said, leaving out the rest of the description, which had characterized him as a Communist. “The reason the old woman has a phone line is that a bunch of men fish there in the summer—“
    “There are fish in that putrid lake?“ Charley interrupted.
    “I suppose there are. That’s the reason for the phone line. The men offered to pay for it so they could tell their wives and girlfriends when they’d be home.“
    “Did the police get the boy out of the lake?“ Charley asked.
    “Not until the ice broke up in the spring.”
    “Do you know who he was?“
    “Nobody knows yet. But I’ll give you some good advice, Charley. You better tell Chief of Police Simpson in Beacon everything you told me. I’m going to tell him anyway, but you’d be better off if you told him before I do. If you don’t—I know where to find you.”
    Charley fumbled in his pocket for change and rose and walked to the front to pay his bill without another word.
    Ralph sat down in Charley’s chair. “What a sissy he is. All that long hair. The silly hat.”
    Walker said, “That’s just a superficial description. He’s also a coward. He had a duty to report to the police himself instead of leaving it to an invisible person.”
    Ralph looked longingly at all the food Charley had left on his plate. “You are going to call Chief Simpson right away, aren’t you?“ he asked.
    “As soon as we’ve had our own breakfast, you bet I will. I want Simpson to know, before Charley can find a phone, what he said to us. Just so he doesn’t leave something out of the version he told us. Still, finding him here was better than having to comb the woods all day. It’s already starting to rain again.”
    Walker signaled to Mabel that she could take away the congealing eggs and ham and bring them the same, adding fried potatoes and strong coffee with lots of sugar.

    “A tall man all in black?“ Simpson asked. “With a black fur hat?“
    “I don’t know if he was tall. This Charley fella was pretty short. Maybe he thinks everybody else is tall,“ Howard said.
    “The person in black sounds like someone who’d just been to a funeral. Did Charley say when he saw all this happen?“
    “Not specifically. But he suggested it was when the kids he teaches were out for Christmas. By the way, have you received any tips from what you put in the local papers about a young man who’s been missing?“
    “Tons of them. Mostly from young women who can’t read very well. One of them called yesterday and said her boyfriend disappeared last week. Another said hers ran off a month ago. I had made clear it was last winter.“
    “How’s the gout?“
    “Lots better. I can get my shoes on and keep ‘em on for two hours at a time before my toes start hurting again. How’s your case going?”
    “Slowly,“ Howard admitted.

    The Harbinger boys turned up very early with a load of long, thin boards. “How can I help?“ Robert asked eagerly. Mattie was ready to go home later that day, and all her bedding, including the heavy waxed pad on the bed, had to go down to the laundry.
    Harry Harbinger said, “We have to measure the platform indents at the top floor, then you can hold the plumb line on the marks we make.”
    Robert had no idea what a plumb line was, but if it was necessary, he’d be eager to hold it.
    Holding it turned out to be the easy part. The plumb line was a strong, thin string with a heavy lead weight attached at the end.