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'Cause he gets up in the morning,
And he goes to work at nine,
And he comes back home at five-thirty,
Gets the same train every time.
'Cause his world is built round punctuality,
It never fails.
And he's oh, so good,
And he's oh, so fine,
And he's oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
He's a well-respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.
-The Kinks
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August 27, 1967
3:59 pm
"I can't," Soda is saying, imploring Darry, as he steps outside. "I can't drive. You take them." He shoves the keys to the truck into Darry's hands, leaving us standing in the middle of the Riversides' sidewalk.
Darry watches his brother climb into the passenger seat and light a cigarette, waiting to leave the mind-numbing exhaustion that has been his afternoon. Soda avoids looking at us, instead choosing to stare out his window, into the neighbors yard.
"So, where does this leave us?" Darry swallows thickly, his gaze reluctantly torn from Sodapop to me.
The gum in my mouth has long since tired out but something tells me that it is not particularly good etiquette to spit it on the ground. Instead, I tuck it into the side of my gum before speaking to Darry Curtis.
"We hope to get a positive ID on these guys. Blast their sketches across town: TV, paper. See if anyone's seen anything. Scare 'em out of hiding." Benji is inside right now trying to coax a sketch out of the kids and I hope he's making progress.
"And if you don't?"
"One way or another, we'll find him Darrel."
There's a long pause and finally Darry chokes out: "It's the 'another' part that scares me." Guilt at saying this passes across his face and he dares a quick glance at Sodapop.
I quickly deflect this; it's too early for me think about any other possibility than finding Ponyboy alive. It's only been four days. Four days is nothing to me; although, I know it's much more to these boys.
"You need to go home. Let us handle it." I tell Darry.
Darry can't be put off. "Who would take him?"
Seeing the need – the greed – in this young kid to understand, to explain what has happened heartens me, bolsters me. Many times the victims' families depend on us for the answers, when in fact they have them all along or could answer them better than any of us. We just have to put the puzzle together.
"No enemies?"
"No." Darry shrugs. "Unless you count the Socs."
"I don't," I say. "If it had been them we would've sniffed them out in a second."
"And no offense, you aren't exactly Charles Lindbergh." I stick another piece of gum in my mouth to quell the stiff sensation of the piece tucked under my gum.
Darry raises his hands. He shakes his head as I offer him a piece of gum.
"So there's no reason for ransom," I explain. "And revenge and money are two of the main factors in cases like this."
"Tell me," Darry demands. "What you think."
I nod slowly. "It's hard to say...but I think…it's random…if that's what it is."
A tendon pops in Darry's neck. "You still don't think he ran away…"
"I don't. And I hate to keep asking this…but about this jacket-"
"It's not his." Frustrated, Darry takes a step back, his face red. "I'd never buy it for him."
At my puzzled look, Darry explains. "Look, my brother loses stuff, misplaces things. He's young, he forgets a lot…" Here, Darry gives a small, affectionate laugh. "The jacket is too nice to be his. Ponyboy would have put that jacket through the ringer by now."
"I just have to be sure that-"
"Damn it, I'm positive. I'd bet my-" Darry cuts off abruptly, realizing his poor choice of words. Pale, he swallows the lump in his throat, his eyes falling to the ground.
"It all has to be a mistake," he whispers to himself.
Before I can reply, evaluate his words, the front door opens and Benji Miller steps out.
"They got nothing else," he announces, holding up a sketch.
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August 27, 1967
5:01 pm
I have just finished having another conversation with 'Darry' when the door swings open. Blonde thunders down the stairs, quickly followed by Freckle. Blonde grips a newspaper in his left hand.
My eyes widen as I recognize the person on the front page: it's me. It's one of my recent school photos; one I imagine Darry has given to the police.
I guess seeing is finally believing for Blonde because he shakes open the newspaper, holding it up to me. "I bet you think this is pretty funny."
I shouldn't but I can't help it. I smirk. It's the satisfactory equivalent of telling Two-Bit "I told you so" after he swore the bottle of vodka wouldn't do him in, but lo and behold the next morning our toilet bowl never looked so good.
Then, without warning, Blonde strides over and kicks me in the stomach with his boot. Emitting a shocked gasp, I double over, gripping the pipe hard.
"You're getting on my last nerve!" Blonde yells. The worry and anger warring in his voice is evident. He knows he screwed up.
I twist around, my face flushed. "Yeah, I'm not too fond of you either."
Another sharp kick to my stomach. I screw my eyes shut as Blonde says, "Keep talking you little shit."
Blonde turns on Freckle. "How in the hell did this happen?" he roars, swatting Freckle with the newspaper. It'd be almost comical if it weren't for the throbbing in my body.
Freckle fumbles with something in his pockets and then stammers. "Man, I swear I scoped him out." He pulls a few black and white photographs out and shoves them at Blonde. "They looked the same. God damn they looked the same."
"Sure they do. From 20 feet away, anyone can look the same, you idiot!" Blonde yells, slapping the photographs to the ground.
The photos show a boy who could be me. He's shot in semi-profile, wearing our high school's track uniform, as he walks up to a house, which sure ain't ours. Another photo shows him in a brown jacket similar to mine, tossing a football in his yard, again semi-profile.
But it's not me. It's Stanley Ezra and I'm wondering how these guys could have been so stupid and made such a mistake.
Breathing heavily, Blonde stares at me as if my mere presence is making him ill. "Shit. Shit. Shitshitshit."
"You shoulda done it," Freckle says to Blonde, nodding in my direction. "You woulda known if it was him or not."
"No," Blonde bites out coldly. "I wouldn't have." He shoves Freckle roughly. "But I would have damn well made sure I had the right boy."
"Well, what're we gonna do with him now?" Freckle asks.
Blonde just looks at me.
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August 27, 1967
11:19 pm
The ceiling dares me to come up with the answers. Doubting me, challenging me. "I got nothin'," I tell it.
Even now, lying in bed next to my wife, my thoughts are on Ponyboy Curtis. Missing kid cases are never easy and because I'm a betting man I can't stop myself from giving the victim what I think to be their personality, their likes and dislikes, their fears…
It's a game I play, and when I find them, when I meet them, I get to see if I pegged them right. But it's a trick bet; either way I win because they're alive.
I run through what I know. From all accounts, Ponyboy's a shy, quiet, extremely bright child. He lives in a bad neighborhood…dead parents, but fiercely loyal friends.
His brothers are intense. From our first meeting, I already knew they'd do anything for him, whether it be fight, kill or die.
I roll from my back onto my side, painting myself a picture.
If he's alive, I believe him to be tied up, incapacitated somehow. He's afraid but won't show it. He grew up tough – maybe not as tough as his big brother – but he's smart and he's tough enough to keep his head together, maybe even come up with a plan.
However, judging from the situation he was in last year and his parents' death, the boy's not immune to pain. In fact, he's gone through a lot for such a young age and I wonder if this will break him, cause him to shut down and crawl inside, as it does so many others.
I smile to myself in the darkness. But what do I know? I could be dead wrong. This is just an exercise to keep me sane.
"Will?" my wife murmurs. "Are you still up?"
I reach over to pat her hand. "I am. Go back to sleep Connie."
She sits up, smiling slightly. "How can I? Your thoughts are so loud, I can practically hear you."
Connie flicks the tableside lamp on. I wince as the harsh light floods the room. "Go easy on the corneas, hon," I joke.
"Which case are you thinking about?" she asks, beginning our usual ritual: I resist telling her about any case in the beginning, and then on one of these sleepless nights, I spill the beans and earn sleep for my confession.
"The missing kid – Ponyboy Curtis."
Connie tilts her head, blonde hair spilling over her shoulder. "Is he the one who was in that mess a year ago?"
"The one and only." I prop myself up on my elbow. "His friend killed a kid in self defense and he got pulled in all kinds of different directions." I raise an eyebrow. "That name sure sticks with you, don't it?"
She smiles, then asks: "So there's still no luck?"
"Oh, we got a few pieces of the puzzle, but no glue; nothing to hold it together. He's gone. That's about all we know."
"That poor boy," Connie muses, stifling a yawn. "He always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
A trigger is pulled inside of me as my brain makes a distant, long awaited connection. Words Darry Curtis has said float back into my head…
The jacket is too nice to be his…
… Has to be a mistake
Benji interviewing the Curtis's…Classmates remember him wearing a brown jacket…
And then there are the words of my wife…Wrong place…wrong time…
I get it then: Wrong boy.
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August 28, 1967
9:10 am
Darry Curtis answers the door the next morning wearing the same clothes I saw him in yesterday. The light beard on his face does not do him any favors either. He's tired and worn-out.
"I need to talk to you," I say.
Darry hesitates, and I know he is looking at me in my full uniform and wondering what is wrong since I am a plainclothes officer. The formality scares him.
"We have some news on your brother," I say quietly.
He takes a breath and opens the screen door, stepping outside. Before he closes it shut behind him, I glimpse Sodapop asleep on the couch.
Swallowing nervously, he says with a pained expression, "Just tell me."
I catch the weight in his words and know that I have inadvertently worried him. I take my hat off and shake my head, feeling like a shit. "Darrell, no. It's not what you think."
Darry sags against the doorframe, visibly relieved. His blue eyes are dull. "What is it then?"
"You were right," I tell him, pleased, anxious to break the news. "It wasn't your brother's jacket. We found the owner – Stanley Ezra."
Darry frowns, thinking. "Stanley…" He places a face to the name. "They run track together."
"Exactly. And as of 8:45 this morning, I have five members of the track team saying they remember Stanley wearing a brown jacket as well."
After last night, I got the breakthrough I needed. And first thing this morning, I had gone down to Will Rogers High School and asked the questions I already knew the answers to. The uniform I hate to wear got a lot of the track team to talk.
"But I don't understand…" Darry rubs the back of his head, confused. "What does Stanley have to do-"
Re-energized from the break in the case, I launch into explaining. "They accidentally switched jackets, Darrell. They switched jackets and the wrong boy was grabbed. Whoever took your brother, thought he was Stanley Ezra."
Darry covers his mouth with his hand.
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