Daddy's Little Girl Read Online Free Page B

her, Sheriff?”
    But Wayman apparently wasn’t one for false optimism. All he said was, “We’re sure going to try. We’re sure going to try.”

2
    From the bathroom Beth Daye brought paper towels soaked in cold water. The Sentinel, among many other inconveniences, lacked hot water, thanks to a heating unit that had blinked out even before her husband had died.
    With the towels, she wiped the blood from Richard’s hand, the viscous stuff staining the towels a pink color instantly.
    Richard, smelling as always of sweat and dirty clothes, sat bolt-straight in the hardbacked chair, watching Beth with fascination. His dark eyes danced with excitement as she finished the job, tossing the soaked towels in a wastepaper can.
    Then Beth examined his hands closely, to see if he had suffered any cuts or wounds.
    Nothing.
    Richard had come across something bloody and gotten the blood on himself. She had observed the man for enough years to know that he wasn’t violent, wouldn’t inflict harm on any living thing. But obviously somebody or something else had, and Richard had found it.
    “Richard,” she said, “I want to talk to you.”
    After long moments, his eyes raised to hers and he focused on her face. Almost instantly he began to cry.
    She realized then that her voice had sounded harsh within the confines of the quiet little office. She had frightened him. He was always afraid of displeasing people, which was why it was so cruel for others to pick on him.
    She leaned over and touched his shoulder, her senses repelled by the smell of him. She hoped there was a heaven and that in that fine place there was a special place just for Richard, one in which he would be clean and happy and at peace.
    “Richard.”
    “Yes,” he said. He had always sounded, to Beth, like a deaf and dumb person who had just learned to speak, as if each syllable were an enormous boulder that had to be pushed up a hill by a frail body.
    “You know what the word blood means, don’t you, Richard?”
    He pointed a dirty finger at his nose. “Sometimes I get nose blood.”
    “Yes. Yes, very good.”
    He looked proud of himself.
    “You had blood on your hands tonight.”
    He nodded. The happiness was gone from the dark eyes. He seemed on the verge of crying again. “Blood.”
    “Where did you get the blood, Richard?”
    He did not appear to understand her question.
    She tried again, more carefully. “Richard, your hand.” She pointed to his hand. “Tonight when you came in here you had blood on your hand.” She pointed to his nose. “Nose blood, you remember?”
    He nodded. “Yes. Nose blood.”
    “Very good, Richard. Where did you get the blood tonight?”
    He shrugged. “Blood is bad.”
    “Sometimes, yes.”
    “Nose blood hurts. Scares me.”
    “Yes, nosebleeds can be very scary.”
    “Drink,” Richard said. “Thirsty.”
    Beth hopped down from the edge of the desk and went into the bathroom and got him a paper cup of cold water. She brought it back and handed it to him. Watching him drink or eat anything was fascinating for her. He slurped, he slopped, and with the abandon of an infant. His dark eyes grew large and round with appreciation for good-tasting things. Water did not evoke that much of a reaction in him. He handed her the paper cup delicately, as if it were priceless china.
    She took it from him, letting her hand linger on his, watching his reaction to her kindness.
    “Where did you get the blood, Richard, do you remember?”
    He stared at her. Dumbly.
    “Where did you go tonight, Richard?”
    He told her. Haltingly. In bits and pieces. Dinner in the basement of St. Katherine’s. A walk downtown for a Dairy Queen. A stroll along the riverbank. “Pretty lights,” Richard said, referring to the power plant on the opposite bank.
    “Yes, very pretty,” she agreed.
    He went on in his limping voice, describing his walk back downtown to where the movie theater was letting out and the people were all “dressed up