by Stephen King
He had to stop thinking this way and get some sleep, and he had to stop feeling ashamed of himself because someone else—Ralph Anderson, to be specific—had made a horrible mistake. These things always looked worse in the small hours, that was what he had to remember. And given his current position, in a cell and wearing a baggy brown uniform with DOC on the back of the shirt, it was inevitable that his fears would grow as big as the floats in a holiday parade. Things would look better in the morning. He was sure of it.
Yes.
But still, the shame.
Terry covered his eyes.
7
Howie Gold slipped from bed at six thirty on Sunday morning, not because there was anything he could do at that hour, and not from personal preference. Like many men in their early sixties, his prostate had grown along with his IRA, and his bladder seemed to have shrunk along with his sexual aspirations. Once he was awake, his brain slipped from park into drive, and going back to sleep was an impossibility.
He left Elaine to dream what he hoped were pleasant dreams, and padded barefoot into the kitchen to start the coffee and check his phone, which he’d silenced and left on the counter before going to bed. He had a text from Alec Pelley, delivered at 1:12 AM.
Howie drank his coffee, and was eating a bowl of Raisin Bran when Elaine came into the kitchen, knotting the belt of her robe and yawning. “What’s up, powderpuff?”
“Time will tell. In the meantime, do you want some scrambled eggs?”
“Breakfast, he offers me.” She was pouring her own cup of coffee. “Since it’s not Valentine’s Day or my birthday, should I find that suspicious?”
“I’m killing time. Got a text from Alec, but I can’t call him until seven.”
“Good news or bad?”
“No idea. So do you want some eggs?”
“Yes. Two. Fried, not scrambled.”
“You know I always break the yolks.”
“Since I get to sit and watch, I will restrain my criticism. Wheat toast, please.”
For a wonder, only one of the yolks broke. As he set the plate in front of her, she said, “If Terry Maitland killed that child, the world has gone insane.”
“The world is insane,” Howie said, “but he didn’t do it. He has an alibi as strong as the S on Superman’s chest.”
“Why did they arrest him, then?”
“Because they believe they have proof as strong as the S on Superman’s chest.”
She considered this. “Unstoppable force meets immovable object?”
“There is no such thing, sweetheart.”
He looked at his watch. Five minutes of seven. Close enough. He called Alec’s cell.
His investigator answered on the third ring. “You’re early, and I’m shaving. Can you call back in five minutes? At seven, in other words, as I suggested?”
“No,” Howie said, “but I’ll wait until you wipe the shaving cream off the phone side of your face, how’s that?”
“You’re a tough boss,” Alec said, but he sounded good-humored in spite of the hour, and in spite of being interrupted at a task most men preferred to do while occupied by nothing but their own thoughts. Which gave Howie hope. He had a lot to work with already, but he could always use more.
“Is it good news or bad news?”
“Give me a second, will you? I’m getting this shit all over my phone.”
It was more like five, but then Alec was back. “The news is good, boss. Good for us and bad for the DA. Very bad.”
“You saw the security footage? How much is there, and from how many cameras?”
“I saw the footage, and there’s plenty.” Alec paused, and when he spoke again, Howie knew he was smiling; he could hear it in the man’s voice. “But there’s something better. Much better.”
8
Jeanette Anderson rose at quarter of seven and found her husband’s side of the bed empty. The kitchen smelled of fresh coffee, but Ralph wasn’t there, either. She looked out the window and saw him sitting at the picnic table in the backyard, still in his striped pajamas and sipping from the joke cup Derek had given him last Father’s Day. On the side, in big blue letters, it said YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT UNTIL I DRINK MY COFFEE. She got her own cup, went out to him, and kissed his cheek. The day was going to be a hot one, but now this early morning was cool and quiet and pleasant.
“Can’t let go of it, can you?” she asked.
“None of us will be letting go of this one,” he said. “Not for awhile.”
“It’s Sunday,” she said. “Day of rest. And you need it. I don’t like the way you look. According to an article I read in the New York Times Health section last week, you have entered heart attack country.”
“That’s cheering.”
She sighed. “What’s first on your list?”
“Checking with that other teacher, Deborah Grant. Just a t to cross. I have no doubt she’ll confirm that Terry was on the trip to Cap City, although there’s always a chance that she noticed something off about him that Roundhill and Quade missed. Women can be more observant.”
Jeannie considered this idea doubtful, perhaps even sexist, but it wasn’t the time to say so. She reverted to their discussion of the night before, instead. “Terry was here. He did do it. What you need is some forensic evidence from there. I guess DNA is out of the question, but fingerprints?”
“We can dust the room where he and Quade stayed, but they checked out Wednesday morning, and the room will have been cleaned and occupied since then. Almost certainly more than once.”
“But it’s still possible, isn’t it? Some hotel maids are conscientious, but plenty just make the beds and wipe the rings and smudges off the coffee table and call it good. What if you found Mr. Quade’s fingerprints, but not Terry Maitland’s?”
He liked the flush of Junior Detective excitement on her face, and wished he didn’t have to dampen it. “It wouldn’t prove anything, hon. Howie Gold would tell the jury they couldn’t convict anyone on the absence of prints, and he’d be right.”
She considered this. “Okay, but I still think you should gather prints from that room, and identify as many as possible. Can you do that?”
“Yes. And it’s a good idea.” It was at least another t to cross. “I’ll find out which room it was, and try to have the Sheraton move out whoever is in there now. I think they’ll cooperate, given the play this is going to have in the media. We’ll dust it top to bottom and side to side. But what I really want is to see the security footage from the days that convention was in session, and since Detective Sablo—he’s the State Police’s lead on this—won’t be back until later today, I’m going to take a run up there myself. I’ll be hours behind Gold’s investigator, but that can’t be helped.”
She put a hand over his. “Just promise me you’ll stop every once in a while and acknowledge the day, honey. It’s the only one you’ll have until tomorrow.”
He smiled at her, squeezed her hand, then let go. “I keep thinking about the vehicles he used, the one he used to kidnap the Peterson boy and the one he left town in.”
“The Econoline van and the Subaru.”
“Uh-huh. The Subaru doesn’t bother me much. That one was a straight steal from a municipal parking lot, and we’ve seen plenty of similar thefts since 2012 or so. The new keyless ignitions are the car thief’s best friend, because when you stop somewhere, thinking about whatever errands you have to run or what you’re going to put on for supper, you don’t see your keys dangling from the ignition. It’s easy to leave the electronic fob behind, especially if you’re wearing earbuds or yakking on your phone, and don’t hear the car chiming at you to take them. The Subaru’s owner—Barbara Nearing—left her fob in the cup holder and the parking ticket on the dashboard when she went to work at eight. Car was gone when she came back at five.”
“The attendant doesn’t remember who drove it out?”
“No, and that’s not surprising. It’s a big garage, five levels, there are peopl
e coming and going all the time. There’s a camera at the exit, but the footage gets wiped every forty-eight hours. The van, though . . .”
“What about the van?”
“It belonged to a part-time carpenter and handyman named Carl Jellison, who lives in Spuytenkill, New York, a little town between Poughkeepsie and New Paltz. He took his keys, but there was a spare in a little magnetic box under the rear bumper. Someone found the box and drove the van away. Bill Samuels’s theory is that the thief drove it from mid-state New York to Cap City . . . or Dubrow . . . or maybe right here to FC . . . and then left it with that spare key still in the ignition. Terry found it, re-stole it, and stashed it somewhere. Maybe in a barn or shed outside of town. God knows there are plenty of abandoned farms since everything went blooey in 2008. He ditched the van behind Shorty’s Pub with the key still in it, hoping—not unreasonably—that someone would steal it a third time.”
“Only no one did,” Jeannie said. “So you have the van in impound, and you have the key. Which has a Terry Maitland thumbprint on it.”
Ralph nodded. “We actually have a ton of prints. That thing’s ten years old and hasn’t been cleaned for at least the last five, if ever. Some of the prints we’ve eliminated—Jellison, his son, his wife, two guys who worked for him. Had those by Thursday afternoon, courtesy of the New York State Police, and God bless them. Some states, most states, we’d still be waiting. We’ve also got Terry Maitland’s and Frank Peterson’s, of course. Four of Peterson’s were on the inside of the passenger door. That’s a greasy area, and they’re as clear as fresh-minted pennies. I’m thinking those were made in the Figgis Park parking lot, when Terry was trying to pull him out of the passenger seat and the kid was trying to resist.”
Jeannie winced.
“There are others from the van we’re still waiting on; they’ve been out on the wire since last Wednesday. We may get hits, we may not. We assume some of them belong to the original car thief, up in Spuytenkill. The others could belong to anyone from friends of Jellison’s to hitchhikers the car thief picked up. But the freshest ones, other than the boy’s, are Maitland’s. The original thief doesn’t matter, but I would like to know where he dumped the van.” He paused, then added, “It makes no sense, you know.”
“Not wiping away the prints?”
“Not just that. How about stealing the van and the Subaru in the first place? Why steal vehicles to use while you do your dirt if you’re going to flash your face to anyone who cares to look at it?”
Jeannie listened to this with growing dismay. As his wife, she couldn’t ask the questions that his prompted: If you had such doubts, why in God’s name did you act the way you did? And why so fast? Yes, she had encouraged him, and so maybe she owned a little of this current trouble, but she hadn’t had all the information. A cheap out, but mine own, she thought . . . and winced again.
As if reading her mind (and after almost twenty-five years of marriage, he could probably do that), he said, “This isn’t all buyer’s remorse, you know—don’t get that idea. Bill Samuels and I talked about it. He says it doesn’t have to make sense. He says Terry did it the way he did because he went crazy. That the impulse to do it—the need to do it, for all I know, although you’d never get me to put it that way in court—kept building up and up. There have been similar cases. Bill says, ‘Oh yes, he planned to do something, and he put some of the pieces in place, but when he saw Frank Peterson last Tuesday, pushing that bike with the broken chain, all the planning went out the window. The top blew off, and Dr. Jekyll turned into Mr. Hyde.’ ”
“A sexual sadist in a full-blown frenzy,” she murmured. “Terry Maitland. Coach T.”
“It made sense then and it makes sense now,” he said, almost belligerently.
Maybe, she could have replied, but what about after, honey? What about when it was over, and he was sated? Did you and Bill consider that? How come he still didn’t wipe his fingerprints, and went right on showing his face?
“There was something under the driver’s seat of the van,” Ralph said.
“Really? What?”
“A scrap of paper. Part of a take-out menu, maybe. Probably means nothing, but I want to take a good close look at it. Pretty sure it was checked into evidence.” He threw what remained of his coffee into the grass and stood up. “What I want more is a look at the Sheraton security footage for last Tuesday and Wednesday. Also any footage from the restaurant where he says that bunch of teachers went to dinner.”
“If you get a good look at his face in any of the footage, send me a screen-grab.” And when he raised his eyebrows: “I’ve known Terry as long as you have, and if that wasn’t him in Cap City, I’ll know.” She smiled. “After all, women are more observant than men. You said so yourself.”
9
Sarah and Grace Maitland ate almost no breakfast, which didn’t disturb Marcy so much as the unaccustomed absence of phones and mini-tablets from their immediate vicinity. The police had let them keep their electronics, but after a few quick looks, Sarah and Grace left their gadgets in their bedrooms. Whatever news or social chatter they had found was nothing either girl wanted to pursue. And after her own quick look out the living room window, where she saw two news vans and a Flint City PD cruiser parked at the curb, Marcy pulled the curtains. How long was this day going to be? And what in God’s name was she going to do with it?
Howie Gold answered that for her. He called at quarter past eight, sounding remarkably upbeat.
“We’re going to see Terry this afternoon. Together. Ordinarily, visitors have to be requested by the inmate twenty-four hours in advance and pre-approved, but I was able to cut through that. The one thing I couldn’t get past was the non-contact thing. He’s on a maximum security hold. It means talking to him through glass, but it’s better than the way it looks in the movies. You’ll see.”
“Okay.” Feeling breathless. “What time?”
“I’ll pick you up at one thirty. You should have his best suit, plus a nice dark tie. For the arraignment. And you can bring him something nice to eat. Nuts, fruit, candy. Put it in a see-through bag, okay?”
“Okay. What about the girls? Should I—”
“No, the girls stay home. County is no place for them. Find someone to sit with them, in case the press guys get pushy. And tell them all is well.”
She didn’t know if she could find anyone—she hated to impose on Jamie after last night. Surely if she spoke to the cop in the cruiser out front, he would keep the press off the lawn. Wouldn’t he?
“Is all well? Is it really?”
“I think it is. Alec Pelley just busted a jumbo-sized piñata in Cap City, and all the prizes fell into our laps. I’m going to send you a link to something. Up to you whether or not you share it with your chickadees, but I know I would, if they were mine.”
Five minutes later, Marcy was seated on the couch, with Sarah on one side and Grace on the other. They were looking at Sarah’s mini-tablet. Terry’s desktop or one of the laptops would have been better, but the police had taken those. The tablet was good enough, as it turned out. Soon all three of them were laughing and screaming with joy and giving each other high fives.
This isn’t just light at the end of the tunnel, Marcy thought, it’s a whole damn rainbow.
10
Thuck-thuck-thuck.
At first Merl Cassidy thought he was hearing it in a dream, one of the bad ones where his stepfather was getting ready to tune up on him. The bald bastard had a way of rapping on the kitchen table, first with his knuckles, then with his whole fist, as he asked the preparatory questions that led up to that evening’s beating: Where were you? Why do you bother wearing that watch if you’re always going to be late for supper? Why don’t you ever help your mother? Why do you bother bringing those books home if you’re never going to do any fucking homework? His mother might try to protest, but she was ignored. If she tried to intervene, she was pushed away. Then the fist that had been hitting the table with ever increasing
force would start hitting him.
Thuck-thuck-thuck.
Merl opened his eyes to get away from the dream, and had just a moment to savor the irony: he was fifteen hundred miles away from that bullying asshole, fifteen hundred at least . . . and still as close as any night’s sleep. Not that he’d gotten a full night; he rarely had since running away from home.
Thuck-thuck-thuck.
It was a cop, tapping with his nightstick. Patient. Now making a cranking gesture with his free hand: roll it down.
For a moment Merl had no idea where he was, but when he looked through the windshield at the big-box store looming across what seemed like a mile of mostly empty parking lot, it snapped into place. El Paso. This was El Paso. The Buick he was driving was almost out of gas, and he was almost out of money. He had pulled into the Walmart Supercenter lot to catch a few hours’ sleep. Maybe in the morning he would have an idea of what to do next. Only now there probably was no next.
Thuck-thuck-thuck.
He rolled down the window. “Good morning, Officer. I was driving late, and I pulled in to get a little sleep. I thought it would be all right to coop a little here. If I was wrong, I’m sorry.”
“Uh-huh, that’s actually admirable,” said the cop, and when he smiled, Merl had a moment of hope. It was a friendly smile. “Lots of people do it. Only most of them don’t look fourteen years old.”
“I’m eighteen, just small for my age.” But he felt an immense weariness that had nothing to do with the short sleep he’d had over the last weeks.
“Uh-huh, and people are always mistaking me for Tom Hanks. Some even ask for my autograph. Let’s see your license and registration.”
One more effort, as weak as the final twitch of a dying man’s foot. “They were in my coat. Someone stole it while I was in the restroom. At McDonald’s, this was.”