Of course, he could always hitchhike back home, Glen said.

Even then, Claude mused, maybe something could be arranged. Claude could call, let Glen know Edgar had shown up. They’d installed a phone in the barn that summer-he could just wander out, pick up the handset. And some night when Trudy was out, Glen could swing over. Claude would look the other way. They agreed it wasn’t ideal; it would be better if Glen asked his question before Edgar got home. (Because, Glen thought, what if the answer were something more than “I’m sorry?” Then they’d have to take a ride to the tank in Ashland, go through the whole sorry juvenile justice meat grinder, which, by the way, meant that he walked away with a clean record at eighteen, no matter what. Which some people might find a little unfair.)

Glen had fretted over the logistics of it. How exactly would he get the boy into his car if he were already home? He didn’t think he could just talk Edgar into going for a ride. In fact, he’d probably fight like the dickens to avoid it, and fighting a kid hadn’t been part of the movie in his head. Because what those idiots up in Ashland didn’t understand was that “Ox” Papineau valued finesse over strength. Even in his wrestling days, lunging against three-hundred-pound behemoths with their hands hooked behind his neck, finesse always won out over simple strength. He’d tied guys into knots with finesse. And those skills hadn’t gone to waste, either. Just the other day he’d used them when Mack Holgren, fighting with his wife again, decided to swing on Glen.

Plus, in Glen’s imagination, one of the reasons the boy was willing to talk straight-was willing to talk at all-was that just being in the car made it clear how explaining himself would get him home. Glen wouldn’t say that, of course; that’s why it was finesse.

But if the boy was already home…

Glen had been puzzling aloud on that one when Claude grinned a funny, nasty little grin and held out a freshly uncapped bottle of beer. Something about the gesture set Glen at ease, because if there was one thing Claude Sawtelle understood, it was the nature of camaraderie. Claude leaned back in his chair. He took a long swallow of beer and looked over at Glen.

“Have I ever explained to you,” he said, “about Prestone?”

WHEN CLAUDE CALLED THAT NIGHT all he’d said was that Edgar had left a note on their kitchen table. Claude didn’t know if the kid had stolen a car or what. Most likely he’d hitchhiked home and was hiding in the woods somewhere. The note said he was coming back the next day, so if Glen was going to ask his question like they’d talked about, he needed to get on the stick.

Then he was faced with it: all those times he’d imagined Edgar sitting in the back of the squad car. During the day. In the country. In town. Now it looked like it was going to be out in the country, and at night.

If he acted on it at all. With the opportunity staring him in the face, Glen wasn’t sure it was such a hot idea. Claude had pretty much read his thoughts.

“Sounds kind of dumb now, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Glen admitted. “Oddball thing to do, at least.”

“Well, no one would blame you if you didn’t,” Claude said. “You’re the only one who has to live with it, either way. It’s just, I’ve been thinking, and I don’t see how it could work once he’s home. If you’ve ever seen Trudy when she’s riled up-”

“-oh, yes.”

“Then you know what would happen. When we talked, it seemed like you could just come over and take him, but now I’m thinking we were unrealistic. Could be, if you want a chance to talk with him, this is it.”

Glen admitted he probably was right about that as well.

“So. What do you think, then?” Claude asked.

Glen was quiet for a long time. “Did he say where he was going?”

“No. Just, ‘I ate while you were gone. I’ll be back tomorrow.’ I’m looking at the note right now.”

“What did you tell Trudy?”

“What do you think I told her?”

“Oh. Well, it can’t hurt to take a little drive around, I guess.”

Then Claude hung up and Glen stood, receiver in hand, listening to the off-hook stutter tone begin. He thought about the Prestone trick that Claude had explained, something he’d never heard of, but of course Prestone was almost pure ether. And Glen knew just where there was a supply of true, medical-grade ether. That made him smile, because he liked the idea of one-upping Claude just a little bit. Somewhere along the line, Glen had acquired a beat-up old whiskey flask, a good-sized one with a pull-off top, and he pocketed that now and headed out the door.

He parked the cruiser in the grass around back of the shop, unlocked the side door, and walked past the shrouded furniture and examination tables. He opened the door to the little closet pharmacy. He didn’t have to look around. In his mind’s eye he’d already located what he wanted, up on the top shelf: three tins, sitting in a row, each topped by a squat mushroom-shaped cap. The labels were printed in cream and brown:

Ether Squibb

For Anesthesia U. S. P.

1/4 lb.

POISON

Below that, in broad green script, the words “Copper protected!” were inscribed. Glen was a little surprised Claude hadn’t commented on those little cans the night he’d perused the pharmacy. They were an oddity, for certain, and Claude didn’t miss much. But then, Claude hadn’t grown up a veterinarian’s son. Perhaps he didn’t know what he was seeing.

Glen pulled a can off the shelf and gathered a few other supplies and took them outside, locking the door behind. The stuff was potent-you didn’t want to mess with it indoors unless you had the ventilation equipment roaring, or you could knock yourself into outer space. He pulled the whiskey flask from his back pocket, twisted off the cap, then punctured the mushroom cap on the ether with the cruiser’s ignition key and began pouring the ether into the flask. It dripped and gulped out, silvery clear as water. He set the tin down and widened the hole, but even then, without a funnel, it took a good long time before he was done.

He wasn’t so dumb as to think the whiskey flask wouldn’t leak vapor, but he knew a little trick from his pop. He’d snagged a surgical rubber glove on the way out, and now he stretched it over the neck of the flask and twisted the cap down, pinching the material tight. Then he peeled away the excess until just a little skirt of rubber remained below the cap.

He waved the flask under his nose. The good thing about ether was you could smell right away if it got loose on you. But his improvised rubber glove seal worked fine. Only the faintest whiff came to him, the residue of a single drip, quickly evaporating off the warm metal. A flowery petroleum odor that tingled in the back of his sinuses. He pitched the ether tin into the woods and carried the flask two-fingered to the squad car and set it on the passenger side of the broad front seat.

GLEN KNEW THOSE BACK ROADS pretty well. If he kept an eye out, he thought, he might come across the kid walking along the road or cutting through a field. He could also cruise the roads near their place looking for suspiciously parked vehicles. If it wasn’t a couple of high school kids necking, it might be Edgar, sleeping in a car he’d stolen.

He tried approaching from the south first, but there was no Edgar walking along, no cars parked in any of the dozen little pull-offs that hunters liked to use. At the hill near the Sawtelles’, Glen made a three-point turn and headed back to the highway, then came around from the north. All he saw was Jasper Dillon’s truck, broken down near the old Mellen cemetery, where it had sat for the better part of two weeks. He stopped and shone his flashlight across the dusty bed of the truck and through the window, in case Edgar was using the truck as shelter for the night, but the only thing the cab contained was a greasy toolbox and two crushed packages of Marlboros. He walked back to the squad car and pulled away. Then he was coming up on the Sawtelles’ yard, close enough to see the light at the top of their orchard. He parked about fifty yards back from where the woods cleared, pocketed the flask, a couple of rags and a flashlight, and set off.