Twisted

window.
    Following her gaze, he’d seen, in the park across the street, a figure crouching in the bushes.
    “Oh, Daddy, he’s following me.”
    Horrified, Ron had led her to the living room, calling out, “Doris, we’re having a family conference! Come in here! Now!” He’d gestured his wife into the room then sat next to Gwen. “What is it, baby? Tell us.”
    Ron preferred that Doris pick up Gwen at school. But occasionally, if his wife was busy, he let Gwen walk home. There were no bad neighborhoods in Locust Grove, certainly not along the trim, manicured route to the high school—the greatest threats were usually aesthetic: a cheap bungalow or a flock of plastic flamingos, herds of plaster Bambis.
    Or so Ron had believed.
    That autumn night Gwen had sat with her handsin her lap, staring at the floor, and explained in a meek voice, “I was walking home today, okay? And there was this guy.”
    Ron’s heart had gone cold, hands shaking, anger growing within him.
    “Tell us,” Doris had said. “What happened?”
    “Nothing happened. Not like that. He just like started to talk to me. He’s going, ‘You’re so pretty. I’ll bet you’re smart. Where do you live?’ ”
    “Did he know you?”
    “I don’t think so. He acted all funny. Like he was sort of retarded, you know. Kind of saying things that didn’t make sense. I told him you didn’t want me to talk to strangers and I ran home.”
    “Oh, you poor thing.” Her mother embraced her.
    “I didn’t think he followed me. But . . .” She bit her lip. “But that’s him.”
    Ron had jogged toward the bush where he’d seen the young man. He was in a curious pose. It reminded Ron of one of those green plastic soldiers he’d buy when he was a kid. The kneeling soldier, aiming his rifle.
    The boy saw Ron coming and fled.
    The sheriff’s office knew all about the boy. Harle’s parents had moved to Locust Grove a few months before, virtually driven out of Ridgeford, Connecticut, because their son had targeted a young blonde, about Gwen’s age, and had begun following her. The boy was of average intelligence but had suffered psychotic episodes when younger. The police hadn’t been able to stop him because he’d only hurt one person in all his months of stalking—the girl’s brotherhad attacked him. Harle had nearly beaten the boy to death but all charges were dropped on the grounds of self-defense.
    The Ebbers family had at last fled the state, hoping to start over fresh.
    But the only change was that Harle had found himself a new victim: Gwen.
    The boy had fallen into his obsessive vigil: staring into Gwen’s classrooms at school and kneeling beside the juniper bush, keeping his eyes glued to the girl’s bedroom.
    Ron had tried to get a restraining order but, without any illegal conduct on Harle’s part, the magistrate couldn’t issue one.
    Finally, after Harle had stationed himself beside the juniper bush for six nights straight, Ron stormed into the state mental health department and demanded that something be done. The department had implored the boy’s parents to send him to a private-care hospital for six months. The county would pay ninety percent of the fee. The Ebbers agreed and, under an involuntary commitment order, the boy was taken off to Garden City.
    But now he was back, kneeling like a soldier beside the infamous juniper bush, only one week after the ambulance had carted him off.
    Finally Sheriff Hanlon came on the line.
    “Ron, I was going to call you.”
    “You knew about him?” Ron shouted. “Why the hell didn’t you tell us? He’s out there right now.”
    “I just found out about it myself. The boy talked to a shrink at the hospital. Apparently he gave the right answers and they decided to release him.Keeping him any longer on a dicey order like that, there was a risk of liability for the county.”
    “What about liability for my daughter?” Ron spat out.
    “There’ll be a hearing in a few weeks but they can’t keep him in the hospital till then. Probably not after the hearing either, the way it’s shaking out.”
    Tonight as mist settled on the town of Locust Grove, this beautiful spring night, crickets chirped like greaseless gears, and Harle Ebbers was frozen in his familiar pose, dark eyes searching for a delicate young girl whose father happened to be deciding at that moment that this couldn’t go on any longer.
    “Look, Ron,” the sheriff said sympathetically, “I know it’s tough.