“He wants to plant a new cornfield here. Some kind of experiment. They’ve narrowed it down to two towns, us and Deeper. The decision’s to be announced next Monday. The man from Kansas State’s due to arrive today and the town is laying out the red carpet for him. Not that everybody’s happy about it, of course.”
“And why is that?”
“Something about the corn they want to test. It’s been fiddled with somehow. I don’t really understand it, to tell you the truth.”
“Well, well,” Pendergast said, and then held out his hand. “But here I am, interrupting the tour with questions.”
Winifred remembered the thread. She bustled forward happily, leading Pendergast to the edge of a wide, dark hole from which even cooler air was rising. “And here is the Bottomless Pit. When Grandfather first arrived, he tossed a stone down and he did not hear it land.” She paused dramatically.
“How did he know the heifer was down there?” Pendergast asked.
She was thrown into a sudden panic. Once again, nobody had asked the question before.
“Why, I don’t know,” she said.
Pendergast smiled, waved his hand. “Do continue.”
They passed on to the Infinity Pool, where Winifred was disappointed that he did not make a wish—the collecting of tossed coins had once been a profitable sideline. From the Pool, the walkway looped back to the Krystal Kathedral where they had begun. She finished her lecture, shook Pendergast’s hand, and was surprised but pleased to find herself generously tipped. Then, slowly, she led the way back up the wooden stairs to the surface world. At the top, the heat struck her like a hammer. She paused again.
“As I mentioned, all tour members are allowed a ten percent discount from the gift shop on the day of their tour.” She hustled back into the shop and was not disappointed when Pendergast followed.
“I should like to see the needlepoint,” he said.
“Of course.” She directed him to the display case, where he spent a great deal of time poring over the work before choosing a beautiful cross-stitched pillowcase. Winifred was especially pleased because it was one she had done herself.
“My dear Great-Aunt Cornelia will adore this,” Pendergast said as he paid for the pillowcase. “She’s an invalid, you see, and can only take pleasure in small things.”
Winifred smiled as she gift-wrapped the parcel. It was so nice having a gentleman like Mr. Pendergast around. And how thoughtful to think of his elderly relation. Winifred was sure Pendergast’s great-aunt would love the pillowcase.
Ten
Corrie Swanson sat on the little folding bunk in the lone holding cell of the Medicine Creek jail, staring at the graffiti that covered the peeling walls. There was quite a lot of it, and despite the variety of inks and handwritings, it was remarkably consistent in subject matter. She could hear the television set blaring in the sheriff’s office up front. It was one of those sick soap operas for housewives with empty lives, complete with quavering organ music and hysterical female sobbing. And she could hear the sheriff moving noisily around the office in his clown shoes, restlessly, like a ferret in a cage, rustling paper and making phone calls. How could such a short man have such big feet? And smoking, too—the place stank. Four more hours and her mom would be sober enough to come down and get her. So here she was, being “taught a lesson”—her mother’s words—listening to the comings and goings of the world’s most ratlike human being. Some lesson. Well, it wasn’t any worse than sitting at home, listening to her mother’s nagging or drunken snoring. And the folding bunk was at least as comfortable as the broken-down mattress in her own bedroom.
She heard a door slam in the outer office, footsteps, muffled greetings. Corrie recognized one of the voices. It was Brad Hazen, the sheriff’s son and her classmate, with his jock friends. They said something about going into the back to check out the TV.
Quickly, she lay down on the bunk and turned her face to the wall.
She heard them moving around the inner office. One of them started changing the television channels, finger held to the button as it clicked through one raspy channel after another: game shows, soaps, cartoons, all divided by loud blasts of white noise.
Search unsuccessful, the shuffling of footsteps and grunted comments began again. Corrie heard them pass the open doorway to the back room, where her cell was located. There was a sudden pause and then Brad spoke in a low undertone. “Hey guys, check out who’s here. Well, well, well.”
She heard them shuffling through the doorway, snickering and whispering. There were at least two of them, maybe three. No doubt Chad was one of them, and probably Biff, too. Brad, Chad, and Biff. The fucking Hardy Boys.
Someone made a low farting sound with his lips. There was suppressed laughter.
“What’s that smell?” It was Brad again. “Somebody step in it?”
More low laughter. “What’d you do this time?”
Corrie spoke without turning around. “Your Deputy Dawg John Q. Ratface left his car running, keys in the ignition, windows down, for half an hour in front of the Wagon Wheel while he refueled on eclairs. How could I resist?”
“My what?”
“Your Ripley’s Believe It or Not amazing chain-smoking eclair-to-shit converting dad.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” The voice was rising.
“Your father,dork.”
Muffled laughter from his two friends.
“What a twat,” Brad said. “At least I’ve gota father. Which is more than I can say for you. And you don’t exactly have much of a mother, either.” He cackled and someone—Chad, probably—made another disgusting sound with his mouth.
“The town slut. She was in this cell just last month, wasn’t she, on a drunk and disorderly. Like mother, like daughter. Guess the apple never falls far from the tree. Or in your case, the shit never falls far from the asshole.”
There was another burst of smothered laughter. Corrie lay still, facing the wall.
Brad resumed his whisper. “Hey, did you read the paper today? Says the murderer might be local. Maybe a devil worshiper. You fit the bill, with that fucked-up purple hair and black eye makeup. Is that what you do at night? Go out and do mumbo-jumbo?”
“That’s right, Brad,” said Corrie, still not turning around. “At the dark of each moon, I bathe in the blood of a newborn lamb and recite the Curse of the Nine Gates, and then I summon Lucifer to wither your dick. If you have one.”
This brought forth another muffled snicker from Brad’s friends, but Brad didn’t join in.
“Bitch,”Brad muttered. He advanced a step and lowered his voice still further. “Look at you. You think you’re so cool, all dressed in black. Well, you’re notcool. You’re a loser. And I’ll bet for once you’re not lying. I’ll bet you dogo out at night for a little animal killing. Or better yet, animal fucking.” He gave a low chuckle. “Because no manwould ever want to screw you, you freak.”
“If I see any menaround here I’ll let you know,” Corrie replied.
She heard the door into the back room open and a sudden silence fell. The sheriff spoke, his voice low, calm, and full of menace.
“Brad? Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“Oh, hi, Dad. We were just talking to Corrie here, that’s all.”
“Is that so?”
“Right.”
“Don’t bullshit me. I know exactly what you were doing.”
There was a tense silence.
“You harass a prisoner of mine again and I’ll book you and lock you up myself. You hear me?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Now get the hell out, you and your friends. You’re late for scrimmage.”
There was the sound of guilty shuffling as Brad and his friends left the cellblock. “You all right, Swanson?” the sheriff asked gruffly.