Outsider

by Stephen King

  ‘That doesn’t sound like him,’ Grace said. ‘You’re making him up.’

  The man leaned close to her. Grace shrank back, eyes fixed on her father’s eyes. They were better than the I-love-you voice, but this was still not him.

  ‘I want you to go,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure you do, and people in hell want icewater. Are you sad, Grace? Do you miss your daddy?’

  ‘Yes!’ Grace began to cry. ‘I want you to go! Those aren’t my daddy’s real eyes, you’re just pretending!’

  ‘Don’t expect any sympathy from me,’ the man said. ‘I think it’s good that you’re sad. I hope you’ll be sad for a long time, and cry. Wah-wah-wah, just like a baby.’

  ‘Please go!’

  ‘Baby want her bottle? Baby pee in her didies, get all wet? Baby go wah-wah-wah?’

  ‘Stop it!’

  He sat back. ‘I will if you do one thing for me. Will you do something for me, Grace?’

  ‘What is it?’

  He told her, and then Sarah was shaking her and telling her to come down and have some cake, so it had just been a dream after all, a bad dream, and she didn’t have to do anything, but if she did, that dream might never come back.

  She made herself eat some cake, although she really didn’t want any, and when Mom and Sarah were sitting on the couch and watching some dippy movie, Grace said she didn’t like love-movies and was going upstairs to play Angry Birds. Only she didn’t. She went into her parents’ bedroom (just her mom’s now, and how sad that was) and took her mother’s cell phone off the dresser. The policeman wasn’t in the cell’s contact list, but Mr Gold was. She called him, holding the phone in both hands so it wouldn’t shake. She prayed he would answer, and he did.

  ‘Marcy? What’s up?’

  ‘No, it’s Grace. I’m using my mom’s phone.’

  ‘Why, hello, Grace. It’s nice to hear from you. Why are you calling?’

  ‘Because I didn’t know how to call the detective. The one who arrested my father.’

  ‘Why do you—’

  ‘I have a message for him. A man gave it to me. I know it was probably just a dream, but I’m playing it safe. I’ll tell you and you can tell the detective.’

  ‘What man, Grace? Who gave you the message?’

  ‘The first time I saw him, he had straws for eyes. He says he won’t come back anymore if I give Detective Anderson the message. He tried to make me believe he had my daddy’s eyes, but he didn’t, not really. His face is better now, but he’s still scary. I don’t want him to come back, even if it’s only a dream, so will you tell Detective Anderson?’

  Mom was in the doorway now, silently watching, and Grace thought she would probably get in trouble, but she didn’t care.

  ‘What should I tell him, Grace?’

  ‘To stop. If he doesn’t want something bad to happen, tell him he has to stop.’

  7

  Grace and Sarah sat in the living room, on the couch. Marcy was between them, with an arm around each. Howie Gold sat in the easy chair that had been Terry’s until the world turned upside down. A hassock went with it. Ralph Anderson drew it in front of the couch and sat on it, his legs so long that his knees almost framed his face. He supposed he looked comical, and if that set Grace Maitland a bit at ease, that was all to the good.

  ‘That must have been a scary dream, Grace. Are you sure it was a dream?’

  ‘Of course it was,’ Marcy said. Her face was tight and pale. ‘There was no man in this house. There was no way he could have gotten upstairs without us seeing him.’

  ‘Or heard him, at least,’ Sarah put in, but she sounded timid. Afraid. ‘Our stairs creak like mad.’

  ‘You’re here for one reason, to ease my daughter’s mind,’ Marcy said. ‘Would you please do that?’

  Ralph said, ‘Whatever it was, you know there’s no man here now, don’t you, Grace?’

  ‘Yes.’ She seemed sure of this. ‘He’s gone. He said he would go if I gave you the message. I don’t think he will come back anymore, whether he was a dream or not.’

  Sarah sighed dramatically and said, ‘Isn’t that a relief.’

  ‘Hush, munchkin,’ Marcy said.

  Ralph pulled out his notebook. ‘Tell me what he looked like. This man in your dream. Because I’m a detective, and now I’m sure that’s what it was.’

  Although Marcy Maitland didn’t like him and probably never would, her eyes thanked him for this much, at least.

  ‘Better,’ Grace said. ‘He looked better. His Play-Doh face was gone.’

  ‘That’s what he looked like before,’ Sarah told Ralph. ‘She said.’

  Marcy said, ‘Sarah, go into the kitchen with Mr Gold and get everybody a piece of cake, would you do that?’

  Sarah looked at Ralph. ‘Cake even for him? Do we like him now?’

  ‘Cake for everyone,’ Marcy said, neatly dodging the question. ‘It’s called hospitality. Go on, now.’

  Sarah got off the couch and crossed the room to Howie. ‘I’m getting kicked out.’

  ‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer person,’ Howie said. ‘I will join you in purdah.’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘Never mind, kiddo.’ They went out to the kitchen together.

  ‘Make this brief, please,’ Marcy said to Ralph. ‘You’re only here because Howie said it was important. That it might have something to do with … you know.’

  Ralph nodded without taking his eyes from Grace. ‘This man who had the Play-Doh face the first time he showed up …’

  ‘And straws for eyes,’ Grace said. ‘They stuck out, like in a cartoon, and the black circles people have in their eyes were holes.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ In his notebook, Ralph wrote, Straws for eyes? ‘When you say his face looked like Play-Doh, could it have been because he was burned?’

  She thought about it. ‘No. More like he wasn’t done. Not … you know …’

  ‘Not finished?’ Marcy asked.

  Grace nodded, and put her thumb in her mouth. Ralph thought, This ten-year-old thumb sucker with the wounded face … she’s mine. True, and the seeming clarity of the evidence upon which he had acted would never change that.

  ‘What did he look like today, Grace? The man in your dream.’

  ‘He had short black hair that was sticking up, like a porcupine, and a little beard around his mouth. He had my daddy’s eyes, but they weren’t really his eyes. He had tattoos on his hands and all up his arms. Some were snakes. At first his shirt was green, then it turned to my daddy’s baseball shirt with the golden dragon on it, then it turned into white, like what Mrs Gerson wears when she does my mom’s hair.’

  Ralph glanced at Marcy, who said, ‘I think she means a smock top.’

  ‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘That. But then it turned back into the green shirt, so I know it was a dream. Only …’ Her mouth trembled, and her eyes filled with tears that spilled down her flushed cheeks. ‘Only he said mean things. He said he was glad I was sad. He called me a baby.’

  She turned her face against her mother’s breasts and wept. Marcy looked at Ralph over the top of her head, for a moment not angry at him but only frightened for her daughter. She knows it was more than a dream, Ralph thought. She sees it means something to me.

  When the girl’s crying eased, Ralph said, ‘This is all good, Grace. Thank you for telling me about your dream. All that’s over now, okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said in a tear-hoarsened voice. ‘He’s gone. I did what he said, and he’s gone.’

  ‘We’ll have our cake in here,’ Marcy said. ‘Go help your sister with the plates.’

  Grace ran to do it. When they were alone, Marcy said, ‘It’s been hard on both of them, especially Grace. I’d say that’s all this is, except Howie doesn’t think so, and I don’t think you do, either. Do you?’

  ‘Mrs Maitland … Marcy … I don’t know what to think. Have you checked Grace’s room?’

  ‘Of course. As soon as she told me why she called Howie.’r />
  ‘No sign of an intruder?’

  ‘No. The window was shut, the screen was in place, and what Sarah said about the stairs is true. This is an old house, and there’s a creak in every step.’

  ‘What about her bed? Grace said the man was sitting there.’

  Marcy gave a distracted laugh. ‘Who would know, the way she tosses and turns since …’ She put a hand to her face. ‘This is just so awful.’

  He got up and went to the couch, only meaning to comfort, but she stiffened and drew away. ‘Please don’t sit down. And don’t touch me. You’re here on sufferance, Detective. So just maybe my youngest will sleep tonight without screaming the house down.’

  Ralph was saved a reply when Howie and the Maitland girls came back in, Grace carefully carrying a plate in each hand. Marcy wiped her eyes, the gesture almost too fast to see, and gave Howie and her daughters a brilliant smile. ‘Hooray for cake!’ she said.

  Ralph took his slice and said thank you. He was thinking that he had told Jeannie everything about this fucked-up nightmare of a case, but he wasn’t going to tell her about this little girl’s dream. No, not this.

  8

  Alec Pelley thought he had the number he wanted in his contacts, but when he made the call, he got an announcement saying the number had been disconnected. He found his old black address book (once a faithful companion that had gone with him everywhere, in this computer age relegated to a desk drawer, and one of the lower ones, at that) and tried a different number.

  ‘Finders Keepers,’ said the voice on the other end. Believing that he’d reached an answering machine – a reasonable assumption, considering it was Sunday night – Alec waited for the announcement of office hours, followed by a menu of choices that could be accessed by punching various extensions, and at last the invitation to leave a message after the beep. Instead, sounding a bit querulous, the voice said, ‘Well? Is anyone there?’

  Alec realized that was a voice he knew, although he couldn’t place the name. How long had it been since he’d spoken to the owner of that voice? Two years? Three?

  ‘I’m hanging up n—’

  ‘Don’t. I’m here. My name is Alec Pelley, and I was trying to reach Bill Hodges. I worked with him on a case a few years back, just after I retired from the State Police. There was a bad actor named Oliver Madden who stole an airplane from a Texas oilman named—’

  ‘Dwight Cramm. I remember. And I remember you, Mr Pelley, although we’ve never met. Mr Cramm did not pay us promptly, I’m sorry to say. I had to invoice him at least half a dozen times, and then threaten legal action. I hope you did better.’

  ‘It took a little work,’ Alec said, smiling at the memory. ‘The first check he sent me bounced, but the second one went through all right. You’re Holly, aren’t you? I can’t remember the last name, but Bill spoke very highly of you.’

  ‘Holly Gibney,’ she said.

  ‘Well, it’s very nice to speak with you again, Ms Gibney. I tried Bill’s number, but I guess he’s changed it.’

  Silence.

  ‘Ms Gibney? Did I lose you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m here. Bill died two years ago.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus. I’m very sorry to hear that. Was it his heart?’ Although Alec had only met Hodges once – they had done most of their business by phone and email – he had been on the heavy side.

  ‘Cancer. Pancreatic. Now I run the company with Peter Huntley. He was Bill’s partner when they were on the force.’

  ‘Well, good for you.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not good for me. The business is doing quite well, but I would give it up in a minute to have Bill alive and healthy. Cancer is very poopy.’

  Alec almost thanked her then and ended the call after renewing his condolences. Later on, he wondered how much things would have changed if he had done that. But he remembered something Bill had said about this woman during the business of retrieving Dwight Cramm’s Beech King Air: She’s eccentric, a little obsessive-compulsive, and she’s not big on personal contact, but she never misses a trick. Holly would have made one hell of a police detective.

  ‘I was hoping to hire Bill to do some investigating for me,’ he said, ‘but possibly you could take it on. He really did speak highly of you.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, Mr Pelley, but I doubt if I’m the right person. Mostly what we do at Finders Keepers is chase bail-jumpers and trace missing persons.’ She paused, then added, ‘There is also the fact that we are quite a distance from you, unless you’re calling from somewhere in the northeast.’

  ‘I’m not, but my interest happens to be in Ohio, and it would be inconvenient for me to fly up myself – there are things going on here that I need to stick with. How far are you from Dayton?’

  ‘One moment,’ she said, and then, almost immediately: ‘Two hundred and thirty-two miles, according to MapQuest. Which is a very good program. What is it you need investigated, Mr Pelley? And before you answer, I need to tell you that if it involves any possibility of violence, I really would have to pass on the case. I abhor violence.’

  ‘No violence,’ he said. ‘There was violence – the murder of a child – but it happened down here, and the man who was arrested for the crime is dead. The question is whether or not he was the doer, and answering that involves back-checking a trip he made to Dayton with his family in April.’

  ‘I see, and who would be paying for the company’s services? You?’

  ‘No, an attorney named Howard Gold.’

  ‘To your knowledge, does Attorney Gold pay more promptly than Dwight Cramm?’

  Alec grinned at that. ‘Absolutely.’

  And although the retainer would come from Howie, the entire Finders Keepers fee – assuming Ms Holly Gibney agreed to take on the Dayton investigation – would in the end come from Marcy Maitland, who would be able to afford it. The insurance company wouldn’t like paying out on an accused murderer, but since Terry had never been convicted of anything, they would have no recourse. There was also the wrongful death suit against Flint City that Howie would be lodging on Marcy’s behalf; he had told Alec that the city would probably settle for an amount in the low seven figures. A fat bank account wouldn’t bring her husband back, but it could pay for an investigation, and a home relocation if Marcy decided that was best, and the college educations of two girls when the time came. Money was no cure for sorrow, Alec reflected, but it did allow one to grieve in relative comfort.

  ‘Tell me about this case, Mr Pelley, and I’ll tell you if I can take it on.’

  ‘Doing that will take some time. I can call tomorrow, during office hours, if that would be better for you.’

  ‘Tonight is fine. Just give me a moment to turn off the movie I was watching.’

  ‘I’m interrupting your evening.’

  ‘Not really. I’ve seen Paths of Glory at least a dozen times. It’s one of Mr Kubrick’s finest. Much better than The Shining and Barry Lyndon, in my opinion, but of course he was much younger when he made it. Young artists are much more likely to be risk-takers, in my opinion.’

  ‘I’m not much of a movie buff,’ Alec replied, remembering what Hodges had said: eccentric and a little obsessive-compulsive.

  ‘They brighten the world, that’s what I think. Just one second …’ In the background, the sound of faint movie music ceased. Then she was back. ‘Tell me what you need done in Dayton, Mr Pelley.’

  ‘It’s not just a very long story, it’s a strange one. Let me warn you of that in advance.’

  She laughed, a sound much richer than her usual careful speech. It made her sound younger. ‘Yours won’t be the first strange story I’ve heard, believe me. When I was with Bill … well, never mind that. But if we’re going to be talking for awhile, you might as well call me Holly. I’m going to put you on speaker to free up my hands. Wait … okay, now tell me everything.’

  Thus encouraged, Alec began to talk. Instead of movie music in the background, he heard the steady clitter-clitter-clitte
r of her keyboard as she took notes. And before the conversation was finished, he was glad he hadn’t hung up. She asked good questions, sharp questions. The oddities of the case didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest. It was a goddam shame that Bill Hodges was dead, but Alec thought he might have found a perfectly adequate replacement.

  When he was finally done, he asked, ‘Are you intrigued?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Pelley—’

  ‘Alec. You’re Holly and I’m Alec.’

  ‘All right, Alec. Finders Keepers will take this case. I will send you regular reports either by phone, email, or FaceTime, which I find is far superior to Skype. When I have gotten everything I can, I will send you a complete summary.’

  ‘Thank you. That sounds very—’

  ‘Yes. Now let me give you an account number, so you can transfer the retainer fee to our bank in the amount we discussed.’

  HOLLY

  July 22nd–July 24th

  1

  She put back the office phone (which she always brought home with her, although Pete kidded her about it) on its stand next to her home phone, and sat quiet in front of her computer for perhaps thirty seconds. Then she pushed the button on her Fitbit to check her pulse. Seventy-five, eight to ten beats faster than normal. She wasn’t surprised. Pelley’s story of the Maitland affair had excited and engaged her in a way no case had since finishing with the late (and very horrible) Brady Hartsfield.

  Except that wasn’t exactly right. The truth was she hadn’t been really excited about anything since Bill had died. Pete Huntley was fine, but he was – here in the silence of her nice apartment, she could admit it – a bit of a plodder. He was happy to chase the deadbeats, bail-jumpers, stolen cars, lost pets, and daddies delinquent on child support. And while Holly had told Alec Pelley nothing but the truth – she really did abhor violence, except in movies; it made her tummy hurt – chasing after Hartsfield had made her feel alive in a way nothing had since. That was also true of Morris Bellamy, a crazy literature buff who had killed his favorite writer.