Mrs. Hoffman snickers. “Progressing.”
“But I assure you me and my men are working around the clock to chase down every single scrap of possible evidence. No one will rest until we find out what happened to your daughter.”
“We’re just so worried,” Mr. Hoffman says. “We’re both sick with worry.”
“I understand that,” the sheriff says. “We all do.”
“Jenny Tucker over the hair salon says your guys were checking out the Henderson farm yesterday,” Mrs. Hoffman says. “Wanna tell me why that is?”
The sheriff sighs and shakes his head. “Jenny Tucker’s the biggest gossip in town. You know that.”
“Doesn’t make it not true.”
“No, it doesn’t. But in this case it’s not true. Far as I know, no one’s been out to the Henderson place.”
“Why not?” she presses. “From what I hear he did time in Shawshank when he was younger.”
“Hell, Mrs. Hoffman, half the hard-grit laborers in Castle County served time at one point or another. We can’t go searching all their houses.”
“Tell us this,” she says, cocking her head to the side like an agitated rooster. “And give us a straight answer for a change. What do you have? After a full week of walking around in circles, what do you have?”
Sheriff Ridgewick lets out a deep breath. “We’ve talked about this before. I can’t tell you anything more than I already have. In order to protect the integrity of the investigation—”
Mrs. Hoffman slams a heavy fist down on the table, startling everyone in the room. “Bullshit!”
“Caroline,” Mr. Hoffman says, “maybe we should—”
Mrs. Hoffman turns on her husband, eyes burning. The thick veins in her neck look like they’re going to explode. “They got nuthin’, Frank. Just like I told ya. They ain’t got a goddamn thing.”
Gwendy has been listening to all of this with a sense of disconnected awe, almost as though she were sitting in the front row of a studio audience at an afternoon talk show—but something inside her awakens now. She raises a hand in an effort to take control of the room and says, “Why don’t we all just take a minute and start over again?”
Glaring at Gwendy, Mrs. Hoffman suddenly jerks to her feet, knocking over her chair. “Why don’t ya save that happy horseshit for the folks ’round here who were dumb enough to vote for ya?” She kicks the chair out from under her feet, spittle spraying from the corners of her mouth. “Coming in here with your fancy clothes and five-hundred-dollar boots, trying to shine us on like we’re stupid or somethin’!” Flinging open the door, she storms out.
Gwendy stares after Mrs. Hoffman with her mouth hanging open. “I didn’t mean to… I was just trying…”
Mr. Hoffman stands. “Congresswoman, sheriff, you’ll have to excuse my wife. She’s very upset.”
“It’s no problem at all,” Sheriff Ridgewick says, escorting him to the door. “We understand.”
“I apologize if anything I said made matters worse,” Gwendy says.
Mr. Hoffman shakes his head. “Things can’t get much worse, ma’am.” He looks closely at Gwendy. “Do you have children of your own, Congresswoman?”
Gwendy tries to swallow the lump that rises in her throat. “No. I don’t.”
Mr. Hoffman looks down at the ground and nods, but he doesn’t say anything further. Then he shuffles out of the room.
Sheriff Ridgewick stares after him and turns back to Gwendy. “That went well.”
Gwendy looks around the conference room, unsure of what to do next. It all happened so fast her head is swirling. She finally blurts out, “I bought these boots at Target.”
36
GWENDY MOPES AROUND THE condo for the rest of the afternoon, watching cable news and drinking too much coffee. She left the sheriff’s office hours earlier feeling depressed and incompetent in equal measures, like she let everyone in the room down. She obviously said something to stoke Mrs. Hoffman’s ire, and the sheriff was doing just fine handling the two of them before she went and opened her big mouth. And that smartass comment about her clothes and boots… it bothered Gwendy. It shouldn’t have, she knows that, but it did. Since returning to Castle Rock after all those years away, she’d grown used to the occasional snide dig. It came with the territory. So why did she let it get to her like that?
“Well, don’t just sit there,” she says to the button box. “Figure it out and get back to me.”
The box ignores her. It sits there—on the end table, next to a half-empty mug of coffee and an outdated TV Guide—and answers her with stubborn silence. She grabs the remote and turns up the volume on the television.
President Hamlin stands at the edge of the White House lawn, his arms crossed in defiance, the Marine One helicopter whirring in the background. “…and if they continue to make these threats against the United States of America,” he says, flashing his best tough-guy look at the camera, “we will have no alternative but to fight power with power. This great country will not back down.”
Gwendy watches in disbelief. “Jesus, he thinks he’s in a movie.”
Her cellphone rings. She knows it’s too soon to hear from Ryan again, but she scrambles across the sofa and snatches it up anyway. “Hello?”
“Hey, Gwen. It’s Dad.”
“I was just thinking about you guys,” she says, muting the television. “Need me to bring anything for dinner?”
There’s a slight pause before he answers. “That’s why I’m calling. Would you be terribly upset if we canceled tonight?”
“Of course not,” she says, sitting up. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Mom’s just kind of dragging after her doctor’s appointment this afternoon. To tell you the truth, so am I.”
“Do you want me to pick up something from Pazzano’s and drop it off? I’d be happy to.”
“That’s sweet of you, but no, we’re good. I’m going to reheat some lasagna and we’re hitting the sack early.”
“Okay, but call me if you change your mind. And give Mom my best.”
“I will, honey. Thanks for being such a great daughter.”
“ ’Night, Dad.”
Gwendy hangs up and looks at the Christmas tree standing in the corner. A string of lights has gone out. “Yeah, some great daughter… I completely forgot she even had a doctor’s appointment today.” She gets up and takes a couple of steps into the middle of the room, and then stops. Suddenly, she wants to cry, and not just your garden variety sniffles, either. She feels like dropping to her knees, burying her face in her hands, and sobbing until she passes out.
A tightness growing in her chest, Gwendy slumps onto the sofa again. This is pathetic, she thinks, wiping away tears with the heels of her hands. Absolutely pathetic Maybe a hot bath and a glass of wine will—
And then she looks at the button box.
37
GWENDY CAN’T REMEMBER THE last time she went on two runs in the same day. If she had to guess, she’d say it was the summer when she was twelve years old, the same summer Frankie Stone started calling her Goodyear and she finally decided to do something about her weight. She ran pretty much everywhere that summer—to the corner store to pick up eggs and bread for her mother, to Olive’s house to listen to records and tear through the latest issue of Teen magazine, and of course, every morning (even on Sundays) she ran the Suicide Stairs up to Castle View Park. By the time school started in September, Gwendy had lost almost fifteen pounds of baby fat and the button box was hidden away in the bottom of her bedroom closet. After that, life would never be the same for her.