Needful Things (Page 116)

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 Assistance 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 deliveryman’s call, but Norris was just gone. Alan had assumed at the time that he must have gone outside to formally arrest Danforth and would return with the Heacl 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 Cumberland 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 God 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 Assistance 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 God’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 shit?"

"Because Hugh’s Buick was standing on four flats. Looked like somebody ripped the shit 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 Nettle Cobb had first splattered mud on her sheets and then thrown rocks through the windows of her house? Any crazier than Nettle 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 him listen. He didn’t do it, because Henry and Hugh and Lester and John-even Wilma and Nettle 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. God damn!"

"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 Cumberland Hospital. Harry Samuels’s second hearse, an old converted Lincoln, had gotten Brian Rusk and would take him to Oxford, pending autopsy. Harry’s better hearse 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 sunglasses 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 [email protected] 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."

4 6 Jesus Christ, Clut-take him over to Ray Van Allen, fast. He’s sixty-two and been smoking Camels all his damn 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."