Needful Things Part 62

"Because they've got their hands full," Alan said, "and because they don't know the town the way I do."

"I see." She turned to go again.

"Miss Hendrie."

"Sheriff, I'm short-handed this evening and very b-"

"Brian Rusk wasn't the only Castle Rock fatality today. There were at least three others. Another man, the owner of the local tavern, has been taken to the hospital in Norway with gunshot trauma. He may live, but it's going to be touch and go with him for the next thirty-six hours or so. And I have a hunch the killing isn't done."

He had finally succeeded in capturing all of her attention.

"You believe Sean Rusk knows something about this?"

"He may know why his brother killed himself. If he does, that may open up the rest of it. So if he wakes up, will you tell me?"

She hesitated, then said, "That depends on his mental state when he does, Sheriff. I'm not going to allow you to make a hysterical little boy's condition worse, no matter what is going on in your town."

"I understand."

"Do you? Good." She gave him a look which said, Just sit there and don't make trouble for me, then, Just sit there and don't make trouble for me, then, and went back behind the high desk. She sat down, and he could hear her putting bottles and boxes on the med-cart. and went back behind the high desk. She sat down, and he could hear her putting bottles and boxes on the med-cart.

Alan got up, went to the pay phone in the hall, and dialled Polly's number again. And once again it simply rang on and on. He dialled You Sew and Sew, got the answering machine, and racked the phone. He went back to his chair, sat in it, and stared at the Mother Goose mural some more.

You forgot to ask me one question, Miss Hendrie, Alan thought. You forgot to ask me why I'm here if there's so much going on in the seat of the county I was elected to preserve and protect. You forgot to ask me why I'm not leading the investigation while some less essential officer-old Seat Thomas, for instance-sits here, waiting for Sean Rusk to wake up. You forgot to ask those things, Miss Hendrie, and I know a secret. I'm glad glad you forgot. That's the secret. you forgot. That's the secret.

The reason was as simple as it was humiliating. Except in Portland and Bangor, murder belonged not to the Sheriff's Office but to the State Police. Henry Payton had winked at that in the wake of Nettie and Wilma's duel, but he was not winking anymore. He couldn't afford to. Representatives of every southern Maine newspaper and TV station were either in Castle Rock right now or on their way. They would be joined by their colleagues from all over the state before very much longer... and if this really was not over, as Alan suspected, they would shortly be joined by more media people from points south.

That was the simple reality of the situation, but it didn't change the way Alan felt. He felt like a pitcher who can't get the job done and is sent to the showers by the coach. It was an indescribably s.h.i.tty way to feel. He sat in front of Simple Simon and once again began to add up the score.

Lester Pratt, dead. He had come to the Sheriff's Office in a jealous frenzy and had attacked John LaPointe. It was over his girl, apparently, although John had told Alan before the ambulance came that he had not dated Sally Ratcliffe in over a year. "I only thaw her to thpeek to wunth in awhile on the thtreet, and even then thee cut me dead motht of the time. Thee dethided I'm one of the h.e.l.lbound." He had touched his broken nose and winced. "Right now I feel feel h.e.l.lbound." h.e.l.lbound."

John was now hospitalized in Norway with a broken nose, a fractured jaw, and possible internal injuries.

Sheila Brigham was also in the hospital. Shock.

Hugh Priest and Billy Tupper were both dead. That news had come in just as Sheila was beginning to fall apart. The call came from a beer deliveryman, who'd had the sense to call Medical a.s.sistance before calling the Sheriff. The man had been almost as hysterical as Sheila Brigham, and Alan hadn't blamed him. By then he had been feeling pretty hysterical himself.

Henry Beaufort, in critical condition as a result of multiple gunshot wounds.

Norris Ridgewick, missing... and that somehow hurt the most.

Alan had looked around for him after receiving the delivery-man's call, but Norris was just gone. Alan had a.s.sumed at the time that he must have gone outside to formally arrest Danforth and would return with the Head Selectman in tow, but events shortly proved that no one had arrested Keeton. Alan supposed the Staties would arrest him if they ran across him while they pursued other lines of investigation, but otherwise, no. They had more important things to do. In the meantime, Norris was just gone. Wherever he was, he'd gotten there on foot; when Alan left town, Norris's VW had still been lying on its side in the middle of Lower Main Street.

The witnesses said Buster had crawled into his Cadillac through the window and simply driven away. The only person who had tried to stop him had paid a steep price. Scott Garson was hospitalized here at Northern c.u.mberland with a broken jaw, broken cheekbone, broken wrist, and three broken fingers. It could have been worse; the bystanders claimed Buster had actively tried to run the man down as he lay in the street.

Lenny Partridge, broken collarbone and G.o.d knew how many broken ribs, was also here someplace. Andy Clutterbuck had weighed in with news of this fresh disaster while Alan was still trying to comprehend the fact that the town's Head Selectman was now a fugitive from justice handcuffed to a big red Cadillac. Hugh Priest had apparently stopped Lenny, tossed him across the road, and driven away in the old man's car. Alan supposed they would find Lenny's car in the parking lot of The Mellow Tiger, since Hugh had bitten the dust there.

And, of course, there was Brian Rusk, who had eaten a bullet at the ripe old age of eleven. Clut had barely begun to tell his tale when the phone rang again. Sheila was gone by then, and Alan had picked up on the voice of a screaming, hysterical little boy-Sean Rusk, who had dialled the number on the bright orange sticker beside the kitchen telephone.

All in all, Medical a.s.sistance ambulances and Rescue Services units from four different towns had made afternoon stops in Castle Rock.

Now, sitting with his back to Simple Simon and the pie-man, watching the plastic birds as they swung and dipped around their spindle, Alan turned once more to Hugh and Lenny Partridge. Their confrontation was hardly the biggest to take place in Castle Rock today, but it was one of the oddest... and Alan sensed that a key to this business might be hidden in its very oddity.

"Why in G.o.d's name didn't Hugh take his own car, if he had a hard-on for Henry Beaufort?" Alan had asked Clut, running his hands through hair which was already wildly disarranged. "Why bother with Lenny's old piece of s.h.i.t?"

"Because Hugh's Buick was standing on four flats. Looked like somebody ripped the s.h.i.t out of them with a knife." Clut had shrugged, looking uneasily at the shambles the Sheriff's Office had become. "Maybe he thought Henry Beaufort did it."

Yes, Alan thought now. Maybe so. It was crazy, but was it any crazier than Wilma Jerzyck thinking Nettie Cobb had first splattered mud on her sheets and then thrown rocks through the windows of her house? Any crazier than Nettie thinking Wilma had killed her dog?

Before he had a chance to question Clut any further, Henry Payton had come in and told Alan, as kindly as he could, that he was taking the case. Alan nodded. "There's one thing you need to find out, Henry, as soon as you can."

"What's that, Alan?" Henry had asked, but Alan saw with a sinking feeling that Henry was listening to him with only half an ear. His old friend-the first real friend Alan had made in the wider law-enforcement community after winning the job as Sheriff, and a very valuable friend he had turned out to be-was already concentrating on other things. How he would deploy his forces, given the wide spread of the incidents, was probably chief among them.

"You need to find out if Henry Beaufort was as angry at Hugh Priest as Hugh apparently was at him. You can't ask him now, I understand he's unconscious, but when he wakes up-"

"Will do," Henry said, and clapped Alan on the shoulder. "Will do." Then, raising his voice: "Brooks! Morrison! Over here!"

Alan watched him move off and thought of going after him. Of grabbing him and making making him listen. He didn't do it, because Henry and Hugh and Lester and John-even Wilma and Nettie-were beginning to lose any feeling of real importance to him. The dead were dead; the wounded were being looked after; the crimes had been committed. him listen. He didn't do it, because Henry and Hugh and Lester and John-even Wilma and Nettie-were beginning to lose any feeling of real importance to him. The dead were dead; the wounded were being looked after; the crimes had been committed.

Except Alan had a terrible, sneaking suspicion that the real crime was still going on.

When Henry had walked away to brief his men, Alan had called Clut over once again. The Deputy came with his hands stuffed into his pockets and a morose look on his face. "We been replaced, Alan," he said. "Taken right out of the picture. G.o.d d.a.m.n!" d.a.m.n!"

"Not entirely," Alan said, hoping he sounded as if he really believed this. "You're going to be my liaison here, Clut."

"Where are you going?"

"To the Rusk house."

But when he got there, both Brian and Sean Rusk were gone. The ambulance which was taking care of the unfortunate Scott Garson had swung by to pick up Sean; they were on their way to Northern c.u.mberland Hospital. Harry Samuels's second hea.r.s.e, an old converted Lincoln, had gotten Brian Rusk and would take him to Oxford, pending autopsy. Harry's better hea.r.s.e-the one he referred to as "the company car"-had already left for the same place with Hugh and Billy Tupper.

Alan thought, The bodies will be stacked in that tiny morgue over there like cordwood.

It was when he got to the Rusk home that Alan realized-in his gut as well as in his head-how completely he had been taken out of the play. Two of Henry's C.I.D. men were there ahead of him, and they made it clear that Alan could hang around only as long as he didn't try to stick in an oar and help them row. He had stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment, watching them, feeling about as useful as a third wheel on a motor-scooter. Cora Rusk's responses were slow, almost doped. Alan thought it might be shock, or perhaps the ambulance attendants who were transporting her remaining son to the hospital had given her some prescription mercy before they left. She reminded him eerily of the way Norris had looked as he had crawled from the window of his overturned VW. Whether it was because of a tranquilizer or just shock, the detectives weren't getting much of value from her. She wasn't quite weeping, but she was clearly unable to concentrate on their questions enough to make helpful responses. She didn't know anything, she told them; she had been upstairs, taking a nap. Poor Brian, she kept saying. Poor, poor Brian. But she expressed this sentiment in a drone which Alan found creepy, and she kept toying with a pair of old sungla.s.ses which lay beside her on the kitchen table. One of the bows had been mended with adhesive tape, and one of the lenses was cracked.

Alan had left in disgust and come here, to the hospital.

Now he got up and went to the pay telephone down the hall in the main lobby. He tried Polly again, got no answer, and then dialled the Sheriff's Office. The voice which answered growled, "State Police," and Alan felt a childish surge of jealousy. He identified himself and asked for Clut. After a wait of almost five minutes, Clut came on the line.

"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-drove 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."

"Jesus Christ, Clut-take him over to Ray Van Allen, fast. He's sixty-two and been smoking Camels all his d.a.m.n 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, Don't worry, be happy, it said. Alan considered this sourly. 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 c.u.mberland."

"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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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. 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 must know. Dave Friedman's a walking know. Dave Friedman's a walking Shooter's Bible." 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 cla.s.sic 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 whick-whick sound as Clut paged through his notebook. "Here it is. 'Don't you sound as Clut paged through his notebook. "Here it is. 'Don't you ever ever cut me off and then keep my car-keys you d.a.m.n frog.' " cut me off and then keep my car-keys you d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.senger 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-"

"f.u.c.k the State Police!" Alan said feelingly. "It's the State Police!" Alan said feelingly. "It's our 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?" 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 b.u.mping heads with somebody, Charlie will know who. h.e.l.l, the Tiger's Charlie's home away from home."

"Yes. But were the State Police questioning him?"

"Well... no."

"No. So you you question him. But I think we both already know the answer, don't we?" 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.