“Sorry, Alan. They just let the phone lay there on the desk.
Lucky I came over to check, or you’d still be waiting. Darned old Staties don’t care one bit about us.”
“Don’t worry about it, Clut. Has anyone collared Keeton yet?”
“Well… I don’t know how to tell you this, Alan, but. -.”
Alan felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach and closed his eyes.
He had been right; it wasn’t over.
“Just tell me,” he said. “Never mind the protocol.”
“Buster-Danforth, I mean@rove home and used a screwdriver to knock the doorhandle off his Cadillac. You know, where he was cuffed.”
“I know,” Alan agreed. His eyes were still shut.
“Well… he killed his wife, Alan. With a hammer. It wasn’t a State cop that found her, because the Staties weren’t much interested in Buster up to twenty minutes ago. It was Seat Thomas. He drove by Buster’s house to double check. He reported in what he found, and got back here not five minutes ago. He’s having chest pains, he says, and I’m not surprised. He told me that Buster took her face ’bout right off. Said there’s guts and hair everyplace. There’s a platoon or so of Payton’s bluejackets up there on the View now.
I put Seat in your office. Figured he better sit down before he fell down.”
4 6 Jesus Christ, Clut-take him over to Ray Van Allen, fast. He’s sixty-two and been smoking Camels all his damn life.”
“Ray went to Oxford, Alan. He’s trying to help the doctors patch up Henry Beaufort.”
“His P.A. then-what’s his name? Frankel. Everett Frankel.”
“Not around. I tried both the office and his house.”
“Well, what does his wife say?”
“Ev’s a bachelor, Alan.”
“Oh. Christ.” Someone had scrawled a bit of graffiti over the telephone. Don’t worry, be happy, it said. Alan considered this sourly.
“I can take him to the hospital myself,” Clut offered.
“I need you right where you are,” Alan said. “Have the reporters and TV people shown up?”
“Yeah. The place is crawling with them.”
“Well, check on Seat as soon as we’re done here. If he doesn’t feel any better, here’s what you do: go out front, grab a reporter who looks halfway bright to you, deputize him, and have him drive Seat over here to Northern Cumberland.”
“Okay.” Clut hesitated, then burst out: “I wanted to go over to the Keeton place, but the State Police… they won’t let me onto the crime-scene! How do you like that, Alan? Those bastards won’t let a County Deputy Sheriff onto the crime-scene!”
“I know how you feel. I don’t like it much myself. But they’re doing their job. Can you see Seat from where you are, Clut?”
“Yuh.”
“Well? Is he alive?”
“He’s sitting behind your desk, smoking a cigarette and looking at this month’s Rural Law Enforcement.”
“Right,” Alan said. He felt like laughing or crying or doing both at the same time. “That figures. Has Polly Chalmers called, Clut?”
“N… wait a minute, here’s the log. I thought it was gone. She did call, Alan. Just before three-thirty.”
Alan grimaced. “I know about that one. Anything later?”
“Not that I see here, but that doesn’t mean much. With Sheila gone and these darned old State Bears clumping around, who can tell for sure?”
“Thanks, Clut. Is there anything else I should know?”
“Yeah, a couple of things.”
“Shoot.”
“They’ve got the gun Hugh used to shoot Henry, but David Friedman from State Police Ballistics says he doesn’t know what it is. An automatic pistol of some kind, but the guy said he’s never seen one quite like it.”
“Are you sure it was David Friedman?” Alan asked. “Friedman, yeah-that was the guy’s name.”
“He must know. Dave Friedman’s a walking Shooter’s Bible.”
“He doesn’t, though. I stood right there while he was talking to your pal Payton. He said it’s a little like a German Mauser, but it lacked the normal markings and the slide was different. I think they sent it to Augusta with about a ton of other evidence.”
“What else?”
“They found an anonymous note in Henry Beaufort’s yard,” Clut said. “It was crumpled into a ball beside his car-you know that classic T-Bird of his? It was vandalized, too. just like Hugh’s.”
Alan felt as if a large soft hand had just whacked him across the face. “What did the note say, Clut?”
“Just a minute.” He heard a faint whick-whick sound as Clut paged through his notebook. “Here it is. ’don’t you ever cut me off and then keep my car-keys you damn frog."’ “Frog?”
“That’s what it says.” Clut giggled nervously. “The word ’ever’
and the word ’frog’ have got lines drawn under them.”
“And you say the car was vandalized?”
“That’s right. Tires slashed, just like Hugh’s. And a big long scratch down the passenger side. Ouch!”
“Okay,” Alan said, “here’s something else for you to do. Go to the barber shop, and then to the billiard parlor if you need to. Find out who it was Henry cut off this week or last.”
“But the State Police-”
“Fuck the State Police!” Alan said feelingly. “It’s our town. We know who to ask and where to find them. Do you want to tell me you can’t lay hands on someone who’ll know this story in just about five minutes?”
“Of course not,” Clut said. “I saw Charlie Fortin when I came back from Castle Hill, noodling with a bunch of guys in front of the Western Auto. If Henry was bumping heads with somebody, Charlie will know who. Hell, the Tiger’s Charlie’s home away from home.”
“Yes. But were the State Police questioning him?”
“Well… no.”
“No. So you question him. But I think we both already know the answer, don’t we?”
“Hugh Priest,” Clut said. “it has the unmistakable clang of a ringer to me,” Alan said. He thought, This is maybe not so different from Henry Payton’s first guess after all. “Okay, Alan. I’ll get on it.”
“And call me back the minute you know for sure. The second.” He gave Clut the number, then made him recite it back so he could be sure Clut had copied it down correctly. “I will,” Clut said, and then burst out furiously, “What’s going on, Alan? Goddammit, what’s going on around here?”
“I don’t know.” Alan felt very old, very tired… and angry. No longer angry at Payton for shunting him off the case, but angry at whoever was responsible for these gruesome fireworks. And he felt more and more sure that, when they got to the bottom of it, they would discover that a single agency had been at work all along.
Wilma and Nettle. Henry and Hugh. Lester and John. Someone had wired them together like packets of high explosive. “I don’t know, Clut, but we’re going to find out.”
He hung up and dialled Polly’s number again. His urge to make things right with her, to understand what had happened to make her so furious with him, was fading. The replacement feeling which had begun to creep over him was even less comforting: a deep, unfocused dread; a growing feeling that she was in danger.
Ring, ring, ring… but no answer.
Polly, I love you and we need to talk. Please pick up the phone.
Polly, I love you and we need to talk. Please pick up the phone.
Polly, I love you the litany ran around in his head like a wind-up toy.
He wanted to call Clut back and ask him to check on her right away, before he did anything else, but couldn’t. That would be very wrong when there might be other packets of explosive still waiting to explode in The Rock.