by Dean Koontz
He didn’t have the library to himself any more. A woman in a red dress was looking through the magazine racks. At one of the tables in the center of the room, a chubby, balding priest was reading an enormous book and assiduously taking notes.
Colin walked to one of the two, big, mullioned windows at the east end of the room and sat sideways on the two-foot-deep sill. He stared through the dusty glass, thinking. Beyond the window lay a Roman Catholic cemetery, and at the far end of the graveyard, Our Lady of Sorrows Church watched over the remains of its ascended parishioners.
“Hi there.”
Colin looked up, surprised. It was Heather.
“Oh hi,” he said. He started to get up.
“Don’t move on my account,” she said in a soft, library voice. “I can’t stay long. I have some errands to run for my mother. I just stopped in to pick up a book, and I saw you sitting here.”
She was wearing a maroon T-shirt and white shorts.
“You look terrific,” Colin said, keeping his voice as low as hers.
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“I really mean it.”
“Thank you.”
“Absolutely terrific.”
“You’re embarrassing me.”
“Why? ‘Cause I said you look terrific?”
“Well... in a way, yeah.”
“You mean you’d feel better if I said you looked awful?”
She laughed self-consciously. “No. Of course not. It’s just that... no one ever told me I looked terrific before.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No.”
“No guy ever told you that? What are they—all blind or something?”
She was blushing. “Well, I know I’m not really all that terrific.”
“Sure you are.”
“My mouth’s too big,” she said.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve got a wide mouth.”
“I like it.”
“And my teeth aren’t the greatest.”
“They’re very white.”
“And a couple of them are kind of crooked.”
“Not so that anyone would notice,” Colin said.
“I hate my hands,” she said.
“Huh? Why?”
“My fingers are so stubby. My mother has long, elegant fingers. But mine look like little sausages.”
“That’s silly. You have nice fingers.”
“And my knees are knobby,” she said.
“Your knees are perfect,” he said.
“Just listen to me,” she said nervously. “A boy finally says I look nice, and I try to make him change his mind.”
Colin was amazed to discover that even a pretty girl like Heather could have doubts about herself. He always had thought that those kids he admired—those golden, blue-eyed, strong-limbed California boys and girls—were a race above all others, superior creatures who glided through life with perfect self-confidence, with an unshakable sense of worth and purpose. He was both pleased and displeased to discover this crack in the myth. He suddenly realized that those special, radiant kids were not really very different from him, that they were not so superior as he had thought they were, and this discovery buoyed him. On the other hand, he felt as if he had lost something important—a pleasant illusion that, at times, had warmed him.
“Are you waiting for Roy?” Heather asked.
He shifted uneasily on his windowsill seat. “Uh ... no. I’m just doing some... research.”
“I thought you were looking out the window for Roy.”
“Just resting. Taking a break.”
“I think it’s nice how he shows up every day,” she said.
“Who?”
“Roy.”
“Shows up where?”
“There,” she said, gesturing toward something beyond the window.
Colin looked through the glass, then back at the girl. “You mean he goes to church every day?”
“No. The graveyard. Don’t you know about it?”
“Tell me.”
“Well... I live in the house across the street. The white one with the blue trim. See it?”
“Yeah.”
“Most times when he comes, I see him.”
“What’s he do there?”
“He visits his sister.”
“He has a sister?”
“Had. She’s dead.”
“He never said a word.”
Heather nodded. “I don’t think he likes to talk about it.”
“Not a word.”
“One time I told him it was really nice, you know, how he stopped at her grave so faithfully. He got mad at me.”
“He did?”
“Mad as hell.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Heather said. “At first I thought maybe he still felt the pain of her death. I thought maybe it still hurt him so much he didn’t want to talk about it. But then later it seemed like he was mad because I’d caught him doing something wrong. But he wasn’t doing anything wrong. It’s kind of weird.”
Colin thought about this news for a moment. He stared at the sunny graveyard. “How’d she die?”
“I don’t know. It happened before my time. I mean, we didn’t move to Santa Leona until three years ago. She was dead long before that.”
A sister.
A dead sister.
Somehow, that was the key.
“Well,” Heather said, unaware of the importance of the information she had given him, “I’ve got to be going. My mother gave me a shopping list. She expects me back with everything in an hour or so. She doesn’t like people who are late. She says tardiness is a sign of a sloppy, selfish person. I’ll see you at six o‘clock.”
“I’m sorry we have to go to the early show,” Colin said.
“That’s all right,” she said. “It’s the same movie no matter what time it’s shown.”
“And like I said, I’ve got to be home by nine o‘clock or so, before it gets completely dark. That’s a real drag.”
“No,” she said. “That’s okay, too. You’re not going to be punished forever. The curfew’s only for a month, right? Don’t worry about it. We’ll have fun. See you later.”
“Later,” he said.
He watched her walk across the quiet library. When she was gone, he turned his gaze to the graveyard once more.
A dead sister.
30
Colin had no trouble finding the tombstone; it was like a beacon. It was bigger and shinier and fancier than any other rock in the graveyard. Mr. and Mrs. Borden had spared no expense in the matter. It was a very elaborate stone, done in sections, constructed both of granite and marble, joined together almost seamlessly. Every aspect of it was artfully shaped and highly polished. Wide, beveled letters were cut deep into the richly veined, mirror surface of the marble.
BELINDA JANE BORDEN
According to the date on the marker, she had died more than six years ago, on the last day of April. The monument at the head of the grave was surely several times the size of the body that it memorialized, for Belinda Jane was only five years old when they put her in the ground.
Colin returned to the library and asked Mrs. Larkin for the spool of microfilm that contained the six-year-old, April 30 edition of the News Register.
The story was on page one.
Roy had killed his baby sister.
Not murder.
Just an accident. A horrible accident.
Nothing anyone could have done to prevent it.
An eight-year-old boy finds his father’s car keys on the kitchen counter. He gets it in his head to take a ride around the block. That’ll prove he’s bigger and better than anyone gives him credit for. It’ll prove he’s even big enough to play with Dad’s trains, or at least big enough to sit at Dad’s side and just watch the trains, which is something he’s not permitted to do but which he wants to do very badly. The car is parked in the driveway. The boy puts a pillow on
the seat so that he can see over the steering wheel. But then he discovers that he can’t quite reach the brake or the accelerator. He searches for a tool, and beside the garage he finds a piece of lumber, a three-foot length of two-by-two white pine that is just about exactly what he needs. He figures he can use the lumber to push the pedals that his feet won’t reach. One hand to hold the two-by-two, and one hand for steering. In the car he starts the engine and fumbles with the gearshift. His mother hears. Comes out of the house. She’s in time to see her little girl walk behind the car. She shouts at both the boy and the girl, and each of them waves at her. The boy finally throws the car into reverse as the mother rushes toward him, and at the same instant he thumps the accelerator with the wooden prod. The automobile goes backward. Fast. Just shoots backward. Strikes the child. She goes down hard. Goes down with one short scream. A tire thumps across her fragile skull. Her head bursts like a blood-filled balloon. And when the men in the ambulance arrive, they find the mother sitting on the lawn, legs akimbo, face blank, saying the same thing over and over again. “It just popped. Just popped open. Just like that. Her little head. It just popped.”
Popped.
Popper.
Colin switched off the machine.
He wished he could switch off his mind.
31
He got home a few minutes before five o‘clock.
Weezy walked in one minute later.
“Hello, Skipper.”
“Hi.”
“Have a good day?”
“It was okay.”
“What’d you do?”
“Not much.”
“I’d like to hear about it.”
He sat down on the sofa.
“I went to the library,” he said.
“What time was that?”
“Nine this morning.”
“You were gone when I got up.”
“I went straight to the library.”
“And after that?”
“Nowhere.”
“When did you come home?”
“Just now.”
She frowned.
“You were at the library all day?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on now.”
“I was.”
She paced the middle of the living room.
He stretched out on his back, on the sofa.
“You’re making me angry, Colin.”
“It’s true. I like the library.”
“I’ll restrict you to the house again.”
“Because I went to the library?”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
He closed his eyes.
“Where else did you go?”
He sighed.
“I guess you want a juicy story,” he said.
“I want to know everywhere you went today.”
“Well,” he said, “I went down to the beach.”
“Did you stay away from those kids, like I told you to?”
“I had to meet someone at the beach.”
“Who?”
“A dope pusher I know.”
“What?”
“He deals out of his van at the beach.”
“What are you saying?”
“I bought a mayonnaise jar full of pills.”
“Oh my God.”
“Then I brought the pills back here.”
“Here? Where? Where are they?”
“I split them up into cellophane ten-packs.”
“Where have you hidden them?”
“I took them into town and sold them retail.”
“Oh Jesus. Oh my God. What have you gotten into? What’s wrong with you?”
“I paid five thousand bucks for the dope and sold it for fifteen thousand.”
“Huh?”
“That’s ten thousand clear. Now, if I can make that much profit every day for one month, I can get enough money together to buy a clipper ship and smuggle tons of opium from the Orient.”
He opened his eyes.
She was red-faced.
“What the hell has gotten into you?” she demanded.
“Call Mrs. Larkin,” he said. “She’ll probably still be there.”
“Who is Mrs. Larkin?”
“The librarian. She’ll tell you where I was all day.”
Weezy stared at him for a moment, then went into the kitchen to use the telephone. He couldn’t believe it. She actually called the library. He was humiliated.
When she came back to the living room, she said, “You were at the library all day.”
“Yeah.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“‘Cause I like the library.”
“I mean, why’d you make up that story about buying pills down at the beach?”
“I thought that’s what you wanted to hear.”
“I suppose you think it’s funny.”
“Kind of funny.”
“Well, it’s not.”
She sat down in an armchair.
“All the conversations I’ve had with you during the past week—haven’t any of them sunk in?”
“Every word,” he said.
“I’ve told you that if you want to be trusted, you’ve got to earn that trust. If you want to be treated like an adult, you’ve got to behave like one. You seem to listen, and I let myself hope we’re getting somewhere, and then you pull a silly stunt like this. Do you understand what that does to me?”
“I think I do.”
“This childish thing you did, making up this story about buying pills down at the beach... it just makes me distrust you all the more.”
For a while neither of them spoke.
At last Colin broke the silence. “Are you eating at home tonight?”
“I can‘t, Skipper. I’ve got—”
“—a business engagement.”
“That’s right. But I’ll make your supper before I go.”
“Don’t bother.”
“I don’t want you eating junk.”
“I’ll make a cheese sandwich,” he said. “That’s as good as anything.”
“Have a glass of milk with it.”
“Okay.”
“What are your plans for the evening?”
“Oh, I guess maybe I’ll go to the movies,” he said, purposefully failing to mention Heather.
“Which theater?”
“The Baronet.”
“What’s playing?”
“A horror flick.”
“I wish you’d outgrow that sort of trash.”
He said nothing.
She said, “You’d better not forget your curfew.”
“I’m going to the early show,” Colin said. “It lets out by eight o‘clock, so I’ll be home before dark.”
“I’ll check on you.”
“I know.”
She sighed and stood up. “I’d better shower and change.” She walked to the hallway, then turned and looked at him again. “If you’d behaved differently a little while ago, maybe I wouldn’t find it necessary to check on you.”
“Sorry,” he said. And when he was alone, he said, “Bullshit.”
32
Colin’s first date with Heather was wonderful. Although the horror movie was not as good as he had hoped it would be, the last half hour was very scary; Heather was more frightened than he was, and she leaned toward him, held his hand in the dark, seeking reassurance and security. Colin felt uncharacteristically strong and brave. Sitting in the cool theater, in the velveteen shadows, in the pale, flickering light cast back by the screen, holding his girl’s hand, he thought he knew what heaven must be like.
After the movie, as the sun settled toward the Pacific, Colin walked her home. The air from the ocean was sweet. Overhead, the palms swayed and whispered.
Two blocks from the theater, Heather tripped on a hoved-up piece of the sidewalk. She didn’t fall or even come close to losing her balance, but she said, “Damnit!” She blushed. “I’m so damned clumsy.”
“They shouldn�
�t let the sidewalk deteriorate like that,” Colin said. “Someone could get hurt.”
“Even if they made it perfectly straight and smooth, I’d probably trip on it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’m such a klutz.”
“No, you aren‘t,” he said.
“Yes, I am.” They started to walk again, and she said, “I’d give anything to be just half as graceful as my mother.”
“You are graceful.”
“I’m a klutz. You should see my mother. She doesn’t walk—she glides. If you saw her in a long dress, something long enough to cover her feet, you’d think she wasn’t really walking at all. You’d think she was just floating along on a cushion of air.”
For a minute they walked in silence.
Then Heather sighed and said, “I’m a disappointment to her.” .
“Who?”
“My mother.”
“Why?”
“I don’t measure up.”
“Up to what?”
“To her,” Heather said. “Did you know that my mother was Miss California?”
“You mean like in a beauty contest?”
“Yeah. She won. She won a lot of other contests, too.”
“When was this?”
“She was Miss California seventeen years ago, when she was nineteen.”
“Wow!” Colin said. “That’s really something.”
“When I was a little girl, she entered me in a lot of beauty pageants for children.”
“Yeah? What titles did you win?”
“None,” Heather said.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true.”
“What were the judges—blind? Come on, Heather. You must have won something.”
“No, really. I never placed better than second. And I was usually just third.”
“Usually? You mean most of the time you won either second or third place?”
“I placed second four times. I got third place ten times. And five times I didn’t place at all.”
“But that’s fantastic!” Colin said. “You made it to the top three spots in fourteen out of nineteen tries!”
“In a beauty contest,” Heather said, “the only thing that counts is being No. 1, winning the title. In children’s contests, nearly everyone gets to be No. 2 or No. 3 every once in a while.”