John Case - The Eighth Day

THE
EIGHTH
DAY

A NOVEL

JOHN CASE

BALLANTINE BOOKS
NEW YORK

Table of Contents

For Elaine

ONE

It was the mailman who reported it, calling 911 half an hour before Delaneys shift was supposed to end.

The pickup was sitting in the driveway and there were lights on in the house, so the mailman thought someone must be home. But it had been days now, and still no one answered when he knocked. The mailbox was filled to overflowing. So maybe, he figured, maybe Mr. Terio had suffered a heart attack.

Delaney shook his head and swore at the mailmans timing. Brent had a play-off game at six, and it was five after five already. Helen would kill him. (Youve got to be there for him, Jack! Show a little support! Whats more importantyour own son or your buddies at the station?) Well, actually... the truth was, he liked to go to his sons games. Brent was a good playerbetter than he had ever beenand it was fun to bask in the kids reflected glory. When things were going well, Brent didnt really need him there. But when the kid screwed upwell, his son was one intense little guy. Took his own failure way too hard. And Helen didnt have a clue how to help the kid handle it. (Will you stop that crying! Its just a game.) So Delaney liked to be thereespecially for a big game. But his chances of making it were fading. He and Poliakoff were all the way to hell and gone, way out by the county line where civilization turned to kudzu.

Sitting behind the wheel, Poliakoff gave Delaney a sidelong glance and chuckled. Dont sweat it. You want to use the siren?

Delaney shook his head.

The guys probably on vacation, Poliakoff insisted. Well take a look aroundIll write it up. No problem.

Delaney gazed out the window. The air was heavy and still, thick with gloom, the way it gets before a thunderstorm. Maybe itll rain, he muttered.

Poliakoff nodded. Thats the spirit, he told him. Think positive.

The cruiser turned onto Barracks Road and, suddenly, though they were barely a mile past a subdivision of bright new town houses, there was nothing in sight but vine-strangled woods and farmland. The occasional rotting barn.

You ever been out this way? Poliakoff asked.

Delaney shrugged. Thats it, over there, he said, nodding at a metal sign stippled with bullet holes. PREACHERMAN LANE. You gotta turn.

They found themselves on a narrow dirt road, flanked by weeds and at the edge of a dense wood. Jesus, Poliakoff muttered as the cruiser crested a rise, then bottomed out with a thud before he could brake. Since when does Fairfax County have dirt roads?

We still got a couple, Delaney replied, thinking the roads wouldnt be around much longer. The Washington suburbs were metastasizing in every direction and had been for twenty years. In a year or two, the farmhouse up aheada yellow farmhouse, suddenly visible on the leftwould be gone, drowned by a rising tide of town houses, Wal-Marts, and Targets.

The mailbox was at the end of the driveway, a battered aluminum cylinder with a faded red flag nailed to the top of a four-by-four T set in concrete. A name was stenciled on the side: C. TERIO.

Next to the mailbox, three or four newspapers were jammed into a white plastic tube that bore the words THE WASHINGTON POST. A dozen other editions lay on the ground in a neatish pile, some already turning yellow.

When the mailman had reached out to 911, hed suggested, You should go in, take a look around the house, see what you can see.

But of course, they couldnt exactly do that. Under the circumstances, the most they could do was knock on the door, walk around the property, talk to the neighborsnot that there were any, far as Delaney could tell.

Climbing out of the cruiser, the deputies stood for a moment, watching and listening. Thunder rumbled in the south, and they could hear the distant hum of the Beltway. With a grin, Poliakoff sang in his cracking baritone, H-e-e-ere we come to save the da-a-yyyy

Lets get this over with, Delaney grumbled, setting off toward the house.

They passed an aging Toyota Tacoma at the end of the driveway, its rear end backed toward the house as if its owner had been loading or unloading something. Together the two policemen crossed the overgrown lawn to the front door.

The knocker was a fancy onehand-hammered iron in the shape of a dragonfly. Poliakoff put his fist around it, drew back, and rapped loudly. Hullo?

Silence.

Hel-lo? Poliakoff cocked his head and listened hard. When no reply came, he tried the door and, finding it locked, gave a little shrug. Lets go around back. Together the deputies made their way around the side of the house, pausing every so often to peer through the windows.

He left enough lights on, Delaney observed.

At the rear of the house, they passed a little gardentomatoes and peppers, zucchini and pole beansthat might have been tidy once but was now abandoned to weeds. Nearby, a screen door led into the kitchen. Poliakoff rapped on its wooden frame four or five times. Anyone home? Mr. Terio! You in there?

Nothing.

Or almost nothing. The air trembled with the on-again, off-again rasp of cicadas and, in the distance, the insectoid murmur of traffic. And there was something else, something... Delaney cocked his head and listened hard. He could hear... laughter. Or not laughter, actually, but... a laugh track. After a moment, he said, The televisions on.

Poliakoff nodded.

Delaney sighed. No way he was going to get to Brents baseball game. He could feel it.

Even so, there was nothing they could do, really. The doors were locked and they didnt have a warrant. There was no real evidence of a medical emergency, much less of foul play. But it was suspicious, and since they were already out here, they might as well take a look around. Be thorough about it.

Poliakoff walked back to where the newspapers were piled up, squatted, and sorted through them. The oldest was dated July 19more than two weeks ago.

A few feet away, Delaney checked out the truck in the driveway. On the front seat he found a faded and sun-curled receipt for a cash purchase at Home Depot. It, too, was dated July 19 and listed ten bags of Sakrete, 130 cinder blocks, a mortaring tool, and a plastic tub.

A real do-it-yourselfer, he remarked, showing the receipt to Poliakoff, then reaching into the cruiser to retrieve his notebook.

Ill check around the other side of the house, Poliakoff told him.

Delaney nodded and leaned back against the cruiser, going through the motions of making notes. Not that there was much to put down.

August 3

C. Terio

2602 Preacherman Lane

Oldest paperJuly 19

Home Depot receipt, same date

He looked at his watch and noted the time: 5:29. The whole thing was a waste of time, no matter how you looked at it. Delaney had responded to a couple of hundred calls like this during his ten years with the department, and nine times out of ten the missing person was senile or off on a bender. Once in a while, they turned up dead, sprawled on the bathroom floor or sitting in the Barcalounger. This kind of thing wasnt really police work. It was more like a janitorial service.

Hey.

Delaney looked up. Poliakoff was calling to him from the other side of the house. Tossing the notebook onto the front seat of the cruiser, he glanced at the skythere was a curtain of rain off to the south, which gave him more hope that Brents game would be rained outand headed off in the direction of his partner.