Rescue

confidentiality?“
    “I can promise you I won’t tell anyone else you told me 3 thing.“
    “And how good is your promise?“
    “Out on the road, when I was changing the tire? Eddie asked me if I’d promise to go looking for him if anything ever happened to him.“
    Kiernan processed that. “And here you are.“
    “And here I am.“
    Squaring her shoulders, she said, “Ask your questions, and I’ll answer the ones that I can.“
    “Eddie have any close friends?“
    “Not that I’m aware of. I’d usually see him at recess, off by himself.“
    “You have any idea why?“
    “Children can be cruel, Mr. Cuddy, especially to other children who are different.“
    “The birthmark.“
    A reluctant “Yes.“
    I said, “What do you know about Eddie’s homelife?“
    “Not much. We have regular parent-teacher conferences, and the Haldons attended theirs.“
    “Let me guess. Attended, but didn’t really participate.“
    “The way Eddie’s teacher phrased it for me, ‘They answered my questions, but didn’t have any for me.’ “
    “And that’s unusual.“
    “For people like the Haldons, anyway, who have some education themselves. I had the impression that they tolerated the fact that Eddie had to come to school, but they didn’t like it and weren’t about to promote it.“
    “Eddie have any brothers or sisters?“
    “No.“
    “Any problems in school?“
    Another hesitation. “I’ve spoken with his teacher from last year and the one this year so far—and by the way, you are not to approach them.“
    “I won’t.“
    “They need their jobs more than I do.“
    “Like I said.“
    Kiernan squared her shoulders again. “I had the impression that the parents kept him from doing his homework. That he had just enough ability to tread water in class, but that the Haldons focused him entirely on religion, not any other as pect of life or learning.“
    “And they could get away with that?“
    “L-I-B, E-R-T, A-R—“
    “Okay, point taken. Anyone else around here I could talk to?“
    She thought about it. “Nobody that comes to mind. The mother always worked ‘in the home,’ as they say, and I believe the father’s been out of work since the computer factory closed. And my impression is that they’ve been as insular about most things as they have about Eddie’s education.“
    “Last question, then. Did they have you forward his school records anywhere?“
    Kiernan looked down at her blotter, as though she were trying to decide whether we could do lunch on the third Thursday of the month. “This one really could get me fired, Mr. Cuddy.“
    “Not through me it won’t.“
    She didn’t look up. “I got a call from Mr. Haldon. He said they were taking Eddie out of school because he got a ‘scholarship’ to a ‘Christian Institute.’“
    “He give you a name?“
    “No. Just said that Eddie wouldn’t be coming to school anymore as of last Friday.“
    The day after the tire incident. “And did Haldon ask you to forward Eddie’s records anywhere?“
    Kiernan finally looked up at me. “No, and that’s what troubles me.“
    “How do you mean?“
    “When he didn’t ask me about the records, I asked him. The question seemed to... throw him a little. Then he said, ‘Just send them to us.’“
    “Like the need for the records was…“
    “An afterthought.“
    I looked into Christine Kiernan’s eyes. For such a poised woman, they seemed awfully small and scared.
    * * *

    Leaving the school, I drove out toward Lonnie Severn’s place again. Turn at the falling barn, past the neighbor’s baying hound. Going by the trailer, it still looked deserted, the driveway as empty as I’d left it. At the turnout, I pulled in, positioning the car in the shadow of overhanging trees and angling my outside mirror back at the driveway. Then I waited.
    An hour, two, three. I noticed that the air outside the car was colder than in town, the foliage around me turned more to autumn. The leaves on the oaks were the color of rust, the maples more like blood, others I couldn’t recognize ranging in yellows from flat to bright, with the ferns a ghostly pale.
    Into the fourth hour, a kind of false dark settled over the car, that time of day in the fall when the sun isn’t down but behind the trees, and you’re tempted to flick your headlights on anyway. In the entire time I’d been sitting at the turnout, only two cars and one pickup had gone by, none of them containing Severn.
    I’d had plenty of