Salsbury turned from the window. “What?”
Smiling, as amiable as Salsbury had ordered him to be, Bob Thorp said, “These summer storms start and stop half a dozen times before they’re finished. That’s because they bounce back and forth, back and forth between the mountains until they finally find a way out. ”
Thinking of Dawson’s helicopter, Salsbury said, “Since when are you a meteorologist?”
“Well, I’ve lived here all my life, except for my hitch in the service. I’ve seen hundreds of storms like this one, and they—”
“I said it’s over! The storm is over. Finished. Done with. Do you understand?”
Frowning, Thorp said, “The storm is over.”
“I want it to be over,” Salsbury said. “So it is. It’s over if I say it is. Isn’t it?”
“Of course. ”
“All right.”
“It’s over.”
“Dumb cop.”
Thorp said nothing.
“Aren’t you a dumb cop?”
“I’m not dumb.”
“I say you are. You’re dumb. Stupid. Stupid as an ox. Aren’t you, Bob?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“What?”
“That you’re as stupid as an ox.”
“I’m as stupid as an ox.”
Returning to the window, Salsbury stared angrily at the lowering cobalt clouds.
Eventually he said, “Bob, I want you to go to Pauline Vicker’s house.”
Thorp stood up at once.
“I’ve got a room on the second floor, the first door on the right at the head of the stairs. You’ll find a leather briefcase beside the bed. Fetch it for me.”
The four of them went through the crowded stockroom and onto the rear porch of the general store.
Immediately, twenty yards away on the wet emerald-green lawn, a man moved out of the niche formed by two angled rows of lilac bushes. He was a tall, hawk-faced man in horn-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a dark raincoat and holding a double-barreled shotgun.
“Do you know him?” Paul asked.
“Harry Thurston,” Jenny said. “He’s a foreman up at the mill. Lives next door.”
With one hand Rya clutched Paul’s shirt. Her self-confidence and her faith in people had been seriously eroded by what she had seen Bob Thorp do to her brother. Watching the man with the shotgun, trembling, her voice pitched slightly higher than it normally was, she said, “Is he… going to shoot us?”
Paul placed one hand on her shoulder, squeezed gently, reassuringly. “Nobody’s going to be shot.”
As he spoke he ardently wished that he could believe what he was telling her.
Fortunately, Sam Edison sold a line of firearms in addition to groceries, dry goods, drugs, notions and sundries; therefore, they weren’t defenseless. Jenny had a.22 rifle. Sam and Paul were both carrying Smith & Wesson.357 Combat Magnum revolvers loaded with.38 Special cartridges which would produce only half the fierce kick of Magnum ammunition. However, they didn’t want to use the guns, for they were trying to leave the house secretly; they kept the guns at their sides, barrels aimed at the porch floor.
“I’ll handle this,” Sam said. He went across the porch to the wooden steps and started down.
“Hold it right there,” said the man with the shotgun. He came ten yards closer. He pointed the weapon at Sam’s chest, kept his finger on the trigger, and watched all of them with unconcealed anxiety and distrust.
Paul glanced at Jenny.
She was biting her lower lip. She looked as if she wanted to swing up her rifle and level it at Harry Thurston’s head.
That might set off a meaningless but disastrous exchange of gunfire.
He had a mental image of the shotgun booming. Booming again… Flame blossoming from the muzzles…
“Calm,” he said quietly.
Jenny nodded.
At the bottom of the steps, still twenty-five feet from the man with the shotgun, Sam held out a hand in greeting. When Thurston ignored it, Sam said, “Harry?”
Thurston’s shotgun didn’t waver. Neither did his expression. But he said, “Hello, Sam.”
“What are you doing here, Harry?”
“You know,” Thurston said.
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Guarding you,” Thurston said.
“From what?”
“From escaping.”
“You’re here to keep us from escaping from our own house?” Sam grimaced. “Why would we want to escape from our own house? Harry, you aren’t talking sense.”
Thurston frowned. “I’m guarding you,” he said stubbornly.
“For whom?”
“The police. I’ve been deputized.”
“Deputized? By whom?”
“Bob Thorp.”
“When?”
“An hour… hour and a half.”
“Why does Bob want you to keep us in the house?”
“You know why,” Thurston said again.
“I’ve already told you that I don’t know.”
“You’ve done something.”
“What have we done?”
“Something wrong. Illegal.”
“You know us better than that.”
Thurston said nothing.
“Don’t you, Harry?”
Silence.
“What have we done?” Sam insisted.
“I don’t know. ”
“Bob didn’t tell you?”
“I’m just an emergency deputy.”
The shotgun looks nonetheless deadly for that, Paul thought.
“You don’t know what we’re supposed to have done?” Sam asked. “But you’re willing to shoot us if we try to leave?”
“Those are my orders.”
“How long have you known me?”
“Twenty years anyway. ”
“And Jenny?”
“A long time.”
“You’re willing to kill old friends just because someone tells you to?” Sam asked. He was probing, trying to discover the breadth and depth of Salsbury’s control.
Thurston couldn’t answer that question. His eyes flicked from one to the other of them, and he shuffled his feet in the wet grass. He was exceedingly nervous, confused, and exasperated — but he was determined to do what the chief of police had asked of him.
Unable to take his eyes off the finger that was curled tightly around the shotgun trigger, unable to look at Sam when he spoke to him, Paul said, “We better get on with this. I think maybe you’ve pushed him far enough.”
“I think so too,” Sam said tensely. And then to Thurston: “I am the key.”
“I am the lock.”
“Lower the gun, Harry.”
Thurston obeyed.
“Thank God,” Jenny said.
“Come here, Harry.”
Thurston went to Sam.
“I’ll be damned,” Jenny said.
A perfect zombie, Paul thought. A regular little tin soldier… A chill passed along his spine.
Sam said, “Harry, who really told you to come over here and keep a watch on us?”
“Bob Thorp.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“It was Bob Thorp,” Thurston said, perplexed.
“It wasn’t a man named Salsbury?”
“Salsbury? No.”
“Haven’t you met Salsbury?”
“No. Who are you talking about?”
“Maybe he called himself Albert Deighton.”
“Who did?” Thurston asked.
“Salsbury. ”
“I don’t know anyone named Deighton.”
Jenny, Rya, and Paul came down the rain-slick steps and joined the two men.
“Salsbury’s obviously working through Bob Thorp,” Jenny said, “one way or another.”
“What are you people taking about?” Thurston asked.
Sam said, “Harry, I am the key.”
“I am the lock.”
Taking a moment to study Thurston and to decide upon his approach, Sam finally said, “Harry, we are going for a walk up toward Hattie Lange’s house. You won’t try to stop us. Is that clear?”