Dead of Night

“Ain’t left yet.” Farrington turned to Sean. “The Kryders are moving to their place in Florida.”



“I guess it was time for him to retire,” Sean said gently, willing to learn what he could.



“He took it early,” the girl said. “He got all upset about the Layla LeMay thing.”



“Barbara, shut up,” Officer Farrington said, his voice very sharp and very clear.



Sean tried hard to look indifferent. He said, “Thank you very much,” and left with the instructions, wondering if they’d call ahead to the ex-sergeant, warn him of Sean’s impending visit.



* * *



Sergeant Kryder had indeed gotten a call from the police station. His front light was on when Sean parked in front of his modest house. Sean didn’t have a plan for interrogating the retired policeman. He would play it by ear. If Rue had written the man’s phone number in her book, then the man had befriended her.



Sean knocked at the door very gently, and a slim, clean-shaven man of medium height with thinning fair hair and a guarded smile opened the door. “Can I help you?” the man asked.



“Sergeant Kryder?”



“Yes, I’m Will Kryder.”



“I would like to speak with you about a mutual friend.”



“I have a mutual friend with a vampire?” Kryder seemed to catch himself. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to offend. Please come in.” The older man didn’t seem sure about the wisdom of inviting Sean in, but he stood aside, and Sean stepped into the small living room. Cartons were stacked everywhere, and the house looked bare. The furniture was still there, but the walls were blank, and none of the normal odds and ends were on the tables.



A dark-haired woman was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a dish towel in her hand. Two cats rubbed her ankles, and a little Pekingese leaped from the couch, barking ferociously. He stopped when he got close to Sean. He backed up, whining. The woman actually looked embarrassed.



“Don’t worry,” Sean said. “You can never tell with dogs. Cats generally like us.” He knelt and held out a hand, and the cats both sniffed it without fear. The Pekingese retreated into the kitchen.



Sean stood, and the woman extended her hand. She had an air of health and intelligence about her that was very appealing. She looked Sean in the eyes, apparently not knowing that he could do all kinds of things with such a direct look. “I’m Judith,” she said. “I apologize for the appearance of the house, but we’re leaving in two days. When Will retired, we decided to move down to our Florida house. It’s been in Will’s family for years.”



Will had been watching Sean intently. “Please have a seat,” he said.



Sean sank into the armchair, and Will Kryder sat on the couch. Judith said, “I’ll just go dry the dishes,” and vanished into the kitchen, but Sean was aware that she could hear them if she chose.



“Our mutual friend?” Will prompted.



“Layla.”



Will’s face hardened. “Who are you? Who sent you here?”



“I came here because I want to find out what happened to her.”



“Why?”



“Because she’s scared of something. Because I can’t make it go away unless I know what it is.”



“Seems to me if she wanted you to know, she would tell you herself.”



“She is too frightened.”



“Are you here to ask me where she is?”



Sean was surprised. “No. I know where she is. I see her every night.”



“I don’t believe you. I think you’re some kind of private detective. We knew someone would be coming sooner or later, someone like you. That’s why we’re leaving town. If you think you can get rid of us easy, let me tell you, you can’t.” Will’s pleasant face was set in firm lines. He suddenly had a gun in his lap, and it was pointed at Sean.



“It’s easy to see you haven’t met a vampire before,” Sean said.



“Why is that?”



Before Will could pull the trigger, Sean had the gun. He bent the barrel and tossed it behind him.



“Judith!” Will yelled. “Run!” He dove for Sean, apparently intending to grapple with Sean until Judith could get clear.



Sean held the man still by clamping Kryder’s hands to his sides. He said, “Calm yourself, Mr. Kryder.” Judith was in the room now, a butcher knife in her hands. She danced back and forth, reluctant to stab Sean but determined to help her husband.



Sean liked the Kryders.



“Please be calm, both of you,” he said, and the quiet of his voice, the stillness of his posture, seemed to strike both of the Kryders at the same time. Will stopped struggling and looked at Sean’s white face intently. Judith lowered the knife, and Sean could tell she was relieved to be able to.



“She calls herself Rue May now,” he told them. “She’s going to the university, and she has a cat named Martha.”



Judith’s eyes widened. “He does know her,” she said.



“He could have found that out from surveillance.” Will was not so sure.



“How did you meet her?” Judith asked.



“I dance with her. We dance for money.”



The couple exchanged a glance.



“What does she do before she goes on stage?” Judith asked suddenly.



“Head up, chest out, shoulders square, big smile, pretty hands.” Sean smiled his rare smile.



Will Kryder nodded at Judith. “I reckon you can let go of me now,” he told Sean. “How is she?”



“She’s lonely. And she saw something the other night that scared her.”



“What do you know about her?”



“I know she was a beauty queen. I know she danced in a lot of contests. I know she never seems to hear from her family. I know she has a brother. I know she’s hiding under another name.”



“Have you seen her stomach?”



“The scars, yes.”



“You know how she got that way?” Kryder didn’t seem to be concerned with how Sean had come to see the scars.



Sean shook his head.



“Judith, you tell him.”



Judith sat on the couch beside her husband. Her hands clasped tightly in her lap, she appeared to be organizing her thoughts.



“I taught her when she was in tenth grade,” Judith said. “She’d won a lot of titles even then. Layla is just...beautiful. And her mother pushed and pushed. Her mother is an ex-beauty queen, and she married Tex LeMay after she’d had two years of college, I think. Tex was a handsome man, still is, but he’s not tough, not at all. He let LeeAnne push him around at home, and at work he let his boss stomp on what was left of his...manhood.”



Sean didn’t have to feign his interest. “His boss?”



“Carver Hutton III.” Will’s face was rigid with dislike as he spoke the name.



“The family that owns this town.”



“Yes,” Judith said. “The family that owns this town. That’s who Tex works for. The other LeMay kid, Les, was always a dim bulb compared to Layla. Les is a good boy, and I think he’s kept in touch with Layla—did you say she calls herself Rue these days? Les is off at college now, and he doesn’t come home much.”



“Carver IV came back from his last year of college one Christmas, two years ago,” Will said. “Layla’d been elected Christmas Parade Queen, and she was riding in the big sleigh—’course, it’s really a horse-drawn wagon, we don’t get snow every year—and she was wearing white, and a sparkly crown. She looked like she was born to do that.”



“She’s a sweet girl, too,” Judith said unexpectedly. “I’m not saying she’s an angel or a saint, but Layla’s a kind young woman. And she’s got a backbone like her mother. No, I take that back. Her mother’s got a strong will, but her backbone doesn’t even belong to her. It belongs to the Social God.”



Will laughed, a small, choked laugh, as if the familiar reference sparked a familiar response. “That’s the god that rules some small towns,” he said to Sean. “The one that says you have to do everything exactly correct, follow all the rules, and you’ll go to heaven. Social heaven.”



“Where you get invited to all the right places and hang around with all the right people,” Judith elaborated.



Sean was beginning to have a buzzing feeling in his head. He recognized it as intense anger.



“What happened?” he asked. He was pretty sure he knew.



“Carver asked Layla out. She was only seventeen. She was flattered, excited. He treated her real well the first two times, she told me. The third time, he raped her.”



“She came over here,” Judith said. “Her mom wouldn’t listen, and her dad said she must be mistaken. He asked her didn’t she wear a lot of perfume and makeup, or a sexy dress.” Judith shook her head. “She’d—it was her first time. She was a mess. Will called the chief of police at the time. He wasn’t a monster,” Judith said softly. “But he wasn’t willing to lose his job over arresting Carver.”



“She shut herself in the house and wouldn’t come out for two weeks,” Will said. “Her mother called us, told us to quit telling lies about the Huttons. She said Layla had just misunderstood the situation. Her exact words.”



“Then,” said Judith heavily, “Layla found out she was pregnant.”



The buzzing in Sean’s head grew louder, more insistent. He had never felt like this before, in his hundreds of years.



“She called Carver and told him. I guess she thought something so serious would bring him to his senses. Maybe she imagined that his parents had brought on all his violence. Maybe she thought he would do right by her somehow. She was just seventeen. I don’t know what she thought. Maybe she wanted him to take her to a doctor, I don’t know. She didn’t want to tell her parents.”



“He decided to take care of it himself,” Sean said.



“Yeah,” Will said. “He lost his mind. Usually, he can act like a real person when other people are around.” Will Kryder sounded as detached as if he were discussing the habits of an exotic animal, but his hands were clasped in front of him so tightly that they were white. “Carver couldn’t maintain the facade that night. He pulled up in front of the LeMays’ house, and Layla came out, without saying anything to Tex or LeeAnne about where she was going. But Les was watching out the window, and he saw...he saw...”



“After he socked her in the face a few times, he broke his soda bottle and used that,” Judith said simply. There was a long moment of silence. “Les got him off in time to save Layla’s life, by hitting Carver with his baseball bat...he was on the high school team, then.”



“Go on,” Sean managed to say. They’d been lost in these tragic memories, but when they heard his voice, they looked up, to be absolutely terrified by Sean’s face. “I’m not angry with you,” Sean said, very quietly. “Go on.”



“The scene at the hospital was—you can imagine,” Will said, his voice weary. “She lost the baby, of course, and there was considerable damage. Permanent damage. She was in the hospital for a while.”



“No one could ignore that,” Judith said bitterly. “But the Huttons got a good lawyer, of course, and he made a case for insanity. Here in Pineville, of course, a Hutton won’t get convicted of jaywalking. He was declared temporarily insane, and the judge sentenced him to time in a mental institution and ordered his family to pay all Layla’s medical expenses. He did grant Layla a restraining order against Carver ever contacting her again, or even coming within a hundred feet of her. I guess that’s worth the paper it’s printed on. When the mental doctors decided Carver was ‘stabilized,’ he could be released, and he had to go through so many courses of outpatient anger management and other therapy. That took four years.” She shook her head. “Of course, that doesn’t mean jack.”



“He mutilates Layla, he causes the death of his own child in her womb, and after a token sentence, he walks free.” Sean shook his head, his expression remote. “Since I’ve lived in America, I’ve admired its justice system. So much better than when I was a boy in Ireland, when children could be hung for stealing bread when they were hungry. But this isn’t any better.”



The Kryders both looked embarrassed, as if they were personally responsible for the injustice. “That’s another reason we’re moving,” Will said. “Sooner or later, when we least expect it, Carver III will make us pay for backing Layla up. She stayed with us some, when she was convalescing. She didn’t want to see her parents. Les used to come over, visit her. Not LeeAnne. Not Tex.”