Outsider

by Stephen King

  ‘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.’

  ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh, okay. And where are you from?’

  ‘Phoenix,’ Merl said without conviction.

  ‘Uh-huh, so how come that’s an Oklahoma plate on this beauty?’

  Merl was silent, out of answers.

  ‘Step out of the car, son, and even though you look about as dangerous as a little yellow dog shitting in a rainstorm, keep your hands where I can see them.’

  Merl got out of the car without too much
regret. It had been a good run. More, really; when you thought of it, it had been a miraculous run. He should have been collared a dozen times since leaving home in late April, but he hadn’t been. Now that he had been, so what? Where had he been going, anyway? Nowhere. Anywhere. Away from the bald bastard.

  ‘What’s your name, kiddo?’

  ‘Merl Cassidy. Merl, short for Merlin.’

  A few early shoppers looked at them, then went on their way into the round-the-clock wonders of Walmart.

  ‘Just like the wizard, uh-huh, okay. You got any ID, Merl?’

  He reached into his back pocket and brought out a cheap wallet with frayed buckskin stitching, a birthday present given to him by his mother when he was eight. Back then it had just been the two of them, and the world had made some sense. Inside the billfold was a five and two ones. From the compartment where he kept a few pictures of his mom, he brought out a laminated card with his photo on it.

  ‘Poughkeepsie Youth Ministry,’ the cop mused. ‘You from New York?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The sir was a thing his stepfather had beaten into him early.

  ‘You from there?’

  ‘No, sir, but close by. A little town called Spuytenkill. That means “a lake that spouts.” At least that’s what my mother told me.’

  ‘Uh-huh, okay, interesting, you learn a new thing every day. How long have you been on the run, Merl?’

  ‘Going on three months, I guess.’

  ‘And who taught you to drive?’

  ‘My uncle Dave. In the fields, mostly. I’m a good driver. Standard or automatic, makes no difference. My uncle Dave, he had a heart attack and died.’

  The cop considered this, tapping the laminated card against one thumbnail, not thuck-thuck-thuck now but tick-tick-tick. On the whole, Merl liked him. At least so far.

  ‘Good driver, uh-huh, you must be to get all the way from New York to this dusty puckered asshole of a border town. How many cars have you stolen, Merl?’

  ‘Three. No, four. This one’s the fourth. Only the first one was a van. From my neighbor down the road.’

  ‘Four,’ the cop said, considering the dirty child standing in front of him. ‘And how did you finance your southward safari, Merl?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘How did you eat? Where did you sleep?’

  ‘Mostly slep in whatever I was driving. And I stole.’ He hung his head. ‘From ladies’ purses, mostly. Sometimes they didn’t see me, but when they did … I can run fast.’ The tears began to come. He had cried quite a bit on what the cop called his southward safari, mostly at night, but those tears had brought no real relief. These did. Merl didn’t know why and didn’t care.

  ‘Three months, four cars,’ the cop said, and tick-tick-tick went Merl’s youth ministry card. ‘What were you running from, kiddo?’

  ‘My stepfather. And if you send me back to that sonofabitch, I’ll run away again, first chance I get.’

  ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh, I get the picture. And how old are you really, Merl?’

  ‘Twelve, but I’ll be thirteen next month.’

  ‘Twelve. I will be dipped in shit and spun backwards. You come with me, Merl. Let’s see what we’re gonna do with you.’

  At the cop shop on Harrison Avenue, while waiting for someone from social services to show up, Merl Cassidy was photographed, deloused, and fingerprinted. The prints went out on the wire. This was just a matter of routine.

  11

  When Ralph got to Flint City’s much smaller cop shop, meaning to call Deborah Grant before picking up a cruiser for the run to Cap City, Bill Samuels was waiting for him. He looked sick. Even the Alfalfa cowlick was drooping.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Ralph asked. Meaning what else?

  ‘Alec Pelley texted me. With a link.’

  He unbuckled his briefcase, brought out his iPad (the big one, of course, the Pro), and powered it up. He tapped a couple of times, then passed it to Ralph. The text from Pelley read, Are you sure you want to pursue a case against T. Maitland? Check this first. The link was beneath. Ralph tapped it.

  What came up was a website for Channel 81: CAP CITY’S PUBLIC ACCESS RESCOURCE! Beneath it was a block of videos showing City Council meetings, a bridge re-opening, a tutorial called YOUR LIBRARY AND HOW TO USE IT, and one called NEW ADDITIONS TO THE CAP CITY ZOO. Ralph looked at Samuels questioningly.

  ‘Scroll down.’

  Ralph did, and found one titled HARLAN COBEN SPEAKS TO TRI-STATE ENGLISH TEACHERS. The PLAY icon was superimposed over a bespectacled woman with hair so arduously sprayed it looked as if you could bounce a baseball off it without hurting the skull beneath. She was at a podium. Behind her was the Sheraton Hotels logo. Ralph brought the video up to full screen.

  ‘Hello, everybody! Welcome! I’m Josephine McDermott, this year’s president of the Tri-State Teachers of English. I’m so happy to be here, and to officially welcome you to our yearly meeting of the minds. Plus, of course, a few adult beverages.’ This brought a murmur of polite laughter. ‘Our attendance this year is particularly good, and while I’d like to think my charming presence has something to do with it’ – more polite laughter – ‘I think it probably has more to do with today’s amazing guest speaker …’

  ‘Maitland was right about one thing,’ Samuels said. ‘The fucking introduction goes on and on. She runs down just about every book the guy ever wrote. Go to nine minutes and thirty seconds. That’s where she winds it up.’

  Ralph slid his finger along the counter at the bottom of the vid, now sure of what he was going to see. He didn’t want to see it, and yet he did. The fascination was undeniable.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to today’s guest speaker, Mr Harlan Coben!’

  From the wings strode a bald gentleman so tall that when he bent to shake hands with Ms McDermott, he looked like a guy greeting a child in a grown-up’s dress. Channel 81 had deemed this event interesting enough to spring for two cameras, and the picture now switched to the audience, which was giving Coben a standing O. And there, at a table near the front, were three men and a woman. Ralph felt his stomach take the express elevator down. He tapped the video, pausing it.

  ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘It’s him. Terry Maitland with Roundhill, Quade, and Grant.’

  ‘Based on the evidence we have in hand, I don’t see how it can be, but it sure as hell looks like him.’

  ‘Bill …’ For a moment Ralph couldn’t go on. He was utterly flabbergasted. ‘Bill, the guy coached my son. It doesn’t just look like him, it is him.’

  ‘Coben speaks for about forty minutes. It’s mostly just him at the podium, but every now and then there are shots of the audience, laughing at some of the witty stuff he says – he’s a witty guy, I’ll give him that – or just listening attentively. Maitland – if it is Maitland – is in most of those shots. But the nail in the coffin is right around minute fifty-six. Go there.’

  Ralph went to minute fifty-four, just to be safe. By then Coben was taking questions from the audience. ‘I never use profanity in my books for profanity’s sake,’ he was saying, ‘but under certain circumstances, it seems absolutely appropriate. A man who hits his thumb with a hammer doesn’t say, “Oh, pickles.”’ Laughter from the audience. ‘I have time for one or two more. How about you, sir?’

  The picture switched from Coben to the next questioner. It was Terry Maitland, in a big fat close-up, and Ralph’s last hope that they were dealing with a double, as Jeannie had suggested, evaporated. ‘Do you always know who did it when you sit down to write, Mr Coben, or is it sometimes a surprise even to you?’

  The picture switched back to Coben, who smiled and said, ‘That’s a very good question.’

  Before he could give a very good answer, Ralph backed up to Terry, standing to ask his question. He stared at the image for twenty seconds, then handed the iPad back to the district attorney.

  ‘Poof,’ Samuels said. ‘There goes our case.’

  ‘DNA’s still pending,’ Ralph said …
or rather, heard himself say. He felt divorced from his own body. He supposed it was how boxers felt just before the ref stopped the fight. ‘And I still need to talk to Deborah Grant. After that I’m going up to Cap City to do some old-school detective work. Get off my ass and knock on doors, like the man said. Talk to people at the hotel, and at the Firepit, where they went to dinner.’ Then, thinking of Jeannie: ‘I want to look into the possibility of forensic evidence, as well.’

  ‘Do you know how unlikely that is in a big city hotel, the best part of a week after the day in question?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘As for the restaurant, it probably won’t even be open.’ Samuels sounded like a kid who’s just been pushed down on the sidewalk by a bigger kid and scraped his knee. Ralph was coming to realize he didn’t like this guy very much. He came across more and more as a quitter.

  ‘If it’s near the hotel, chances are they’ll be open for brunch.’

  Samuels shook his head, still peering at the frozen image of Terry Maitland. ‘Even if we get a DNA match … which I’m starting to doubt … you’ve been in this job long enough to know that juries rarely convict based on DNA and fingerprints. The OJ trial is an excellent case in point.’

  ‘The eye-wits—’

  ‘Gold will demolish them on cross. Stanhope? Old and half-blind. “Isn’t it true you gave up your driver’s license three years ago, Mrs Stanhope?” June Morris? A kid who saw a bloody man from across the street. Scowcroft was drinking, and so was his buddy. Claude Bolton’s got a drug jacket. The best you’ve got is Willow Rainwater, and I’ve got news for you, buddy, in this state people still don’t care much for Indians. Don’t much trust them.’

  ‘But we’re in too deep to back out,’ Ralph said.

  ‘That happens to be the dirty truth.’

  They sat silently for a bit. Ralph’s office door was open, and the station’s main room was almost deserted, as it usually was on Sunday mornings in this small southwestern city. Ralph thought of telling Samuels that the video had jolted them away from the elephant in the room: a child had been murdered, and according to every bit of evidence they had gleaned, they had the man who’d done it. That Maitland appeared to have been seventy miles away was something that had to be addressed and clarified. There could be no rest for either of them until it was.