The Tommyknockers (56 page)

Ev stirred restlessly, rolled over, looked at the ceiling.

Something
had
been in the earth. Bobbi Anderson had found it and she was digging it up, her and that fellow who was staying out at the farm with her. That fellow's name was . . . was . . .

Ev groped, but couldn't come up with it. He remembered the way Beach Jernigan's mouth had thinned when the subject of Bobbi's friend came up one day in the Haven
Lunch. The regulars on coffee break had just observed the man coming out of the market with a bag of groceries. He had a place over in Troy, Beach said; a shacky little place with a woodstove and plastic over the windows.

Someone said he'd heard the fella was educated.

Beach said an education never kept anyone from being no-account.

No one in the Lunch had argued the point, Ev remembered.

Nancy Voss had been equally disapproving. She said Bobbi's friend had shot his wife but had been let off because he was a college professor. “If you got a sheepskin written in Latin words in this country, you can get away with
anything,
” she had said.

They had watched the fellow get into Bobbi's truck and drive back toward the old Garrick place.

“I heard he done majored in drinkin,” old Dave Rutledge said from the end stool that was his special place. “Everyone goes out there says he's most allus drunk as a coon on stump-likker.”

There had been a burst of mean, gossipy country laughter at that. They hadn't liked Bobbi's friend; none had. Why? Because he had shot his wife? Because he drank? Because he was living with a woman he wasn't married to? Ev knew better. There had been men in the Lunch that day who had not just
beaten
their wives but beaten them into entirely new
shapes.
Out here it was part of the code: you were obligated to put one upside the old woman's head if she “got sma'at.” Out here were men who lived on beer from eleven in the morning until six at night and cheap greenfront whiskey from six to midnight and would drink Old Woodsman flydope strained through a snotrag if they couldn't afford whiskey. Men who had the sex lives of rabbits, jumping from hole to hole. . . . And what had his name been?

Ev drifted toward sleep. Saw them standing on the sidewalks, on the lawn of the public library, over by the little park, staring dreamily toward those sounds. Snapped awake again.

What did you find out, Ruth? Why did they murder you?

He tossed onto his left side.

David's alive . . . but to bring him back I have to start in Haven.

He tossed onto his right side.

They'll kill me if I go back. There was once a time when I was almost as well-liked there as Ruth herself . . . least, I always liked to think so. Now they hate me. I saw it in their eyes the night they started looking for David. I took Hilly out because he was sick and needed the doctor, yes . . . but it was damned good to have a reason to go. Maybe they only let me go because David distracted them. Maybe they just wanted to be rid of me. Either way, I was lucky to get out. I'd never get out again. So how can I go back? I can't.

Ev tossed and turned, caught on the horns of two imperatives—he would have to go back to Haven if he wanted to rescue David before David died, but if he went back to Haven he would be killed and buried quickly in someone's back field.

Sometime shortly before midnight, he fell into a troubled doze which quickly deepened into the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion.

He slept later than he had in years, awakening on Tuesday at a quarter past ten. He felt refreshed and whole for the first time in a long while. The sleep had done him a power of good, too: during it he had thought of how he could maybe get back into Haven and out again.
Maybe.
For David's sake, and Hilly's, that was a risk he would take.

He thought he could get in and out of Haven on the day of Ruth McCausland's funeral.

Butch “Monster” Dugan was the biggest man Ev had ever seen. Ev believed that Justin Hurd's father Henry might have been within a shout—Henry had stood six-six, weighed three hundred and eighty pounds, and had shoulders so broad he had to go through most doors sideways—but Ev thought this fellow was a tad bigger. Twenty or thirty pounds lighter, maybe, but that was all.

When Ev shook his hand, he saw that word on him had been getting around. It was in Dugan's face.

“Sit down, Mr. Hillman,” Dugan said, and seated himself in a swivel chair that looked as if it might have been rammed out of a huge oak. “What can I do for you?”

He expects me to start raving,
Ev thought calmly,
just the way we always expected Frank Garrick to start when he caught up to one of us on the street. And I guess I ain't going to disappoint him. But if you step careful, Ev, you may still get your way. You know now where you want to go, anyway.

“Well, maybe you could do something, at that,” Ev said. At least he hadn't been drinking; trying to talk to that reporter after those beers had been a bad mistake. “Paper says you'll be going to Ruth McCausland's funeral tomorrow.”

Dugan nodded. “I'm going. Ruth was a personal friend.”

“And there are others from Derry barracks that'll be going? Paper said her husband was a trooper, and
she
was in the line of policework herself—oh, bein a town constable's no great shakes, I know, but you get what I mean. There
will
be others, won't there?”

Dugan was frowning now, and he had a lot of face to frown with.

“Mr. Hillman, if you have a point to make, I'm not getting it.”
And I'm a busy man this morning, in case you didn't know it,
his face added.
I've got two cops missing, it's starting to look more and more like they ran into some guys jacking deer and the jackers panicked and shot them; I'm in the hot-seat on that one, and on top of it all my old friend Ruth McCausland has died, and I don't have either the time or the patience for bullshit.

“I know you're not. But you will.
Did
she have other friends who'll be going?”

“Yes. Half a dozen or more. I'm going by myself, starting a little early, so I can talk to some people about a related case.”

Ev nodded. “I know about the related case,” he said, “and I guess you know about me. Or think you do.”

“Mr. Hillman—”

“I have talked foolishly, and to the wrong people, and at the wrong times,” Ev said in that same calm voice. “Under other circumstances I would have known better, but I've
been upset. One of my grandsons is missing. The other is in a sort of coma.”

“Yes. I know.”

“I've been so confused I haven't really known if I was comin or goin. So I blabbed to some of the nurses, and then I went up to Bangor and talked to a reporter. Bright. I kind of got the idea you'd heard most of the things I had to say to him.”

“I understand you believe there was some sort of . . . of conspiracy in the matter of David Brown's disappearance—”

Ev had to struggle to keep from laughing. The word was both bizarre and apt. He never would have thought of it himself. Oh, there was a conspiracy going on, all right. One
hell
of a conspiracy.

“Yessir. I believe there was a conspiracy, and I think you've got three cases that are a lot more related than you understand—the disappearance of my grandson, the disappearance of those two troopers, and the death of Ruth McCausland—my friend as well as yours.”

Dugan looked a bit startled . . . and for the first time that dismissive look went out of his eyes. For the first time Ev felt that Dugan was really seeing
him,
Everett Hillman, instead of just some crazy old rip who had blown in to fart away part of his morning.

“Perhaps you'd better give me the gist of what you believe,” Dugan said, and took out a pad of paper.

“No. You can just put that pad away.”

Dugan looked at him silently for a moment. He didn't put the pad away, but he put down the pencil.

“Bright thought I was crazy, and I didn't tell him half of what I thought,” Ev said, “so I ain't going to tell you any. But here's the thing—I think David's still alive. I don't think he's in Haven anymore, but I think if I went back there I might be able to get an idea on where he
is.
Now, I have reasons—pretty good ones, I think—to believe that I'm not wanted in Haven. I have reasons to think that if I went back there under most circumstances, I'd most likely disappear like David Brown. Or have an accident like Ruth.”

Butch Dugan's face changed. “I think,” he said, “I got to ask you to explain that, Mr. Hillman.”

“I ain't going to. I can't. I know what I know, and believe what I believe, but I ain't got a speck of proof. I
know how crazy I must sound, but if you look into my face, you'll know one thing, at least:
I
believe what I'm saying.”

Dugan sighed. “Mr. Hillman, if you were in this business, you'd know how sincere most liars look.” Ev started to say something and Dugan shook his head. “Forget that. Cheap shot. I've only had about six hours' sleep since Sunday night. I'm getting too old for these marathons. Fact is, I
do
believe you're sincere. But you're only making ominous sounds, talking around the edges of things. Sometimes people do that when they're scared, but mostly they do it when edges are all they have. Either way, I haven't got time to woo you. I answered your questions; maybe you'd better state your business.”

“Glad to. I came here for two reasons, Trooper Dugan. First one was to make sure there was going to be a lot of cops in Haven tomorrow. Things are less likely to happen when there are a lot of cops around, don't you agree?”

Dugan said nothing, only looked at Ev expressionlessly.

“Second was to tell you I'll be in Haven tomorrow too. I won't be at Ruth's funeral, though. I'm going to have a Very pistol with me, and if, during that funeral, you or any of your men should see a big old star-shell go off in the sky, you'll know I have run afoul of some of that craziness no one will believe. Do you follow me?”

“You said going back to Haven might be . . . uh, unhealthy for you.” Dugan's face was still blank, but that didn't matter; Ev knew he had gone back to his original idea: Ev was crazy, after all.

“Under most circumstances,
I said. Under
these
circumstances, I think I can get away with it. Ruth was loved in Haven, which is a fact I don't think I have to tell you. Most of the town will turn out to see her into the ground. I don't know if they still loved her when she died, but that don't matter—they'll turn out anyway.”

“How do you figure that?” Dugan asked. “Or is that another one of those things you don't want to talk about?”

“No, I don't mind. It would look
wrong
if they didn't turn out.”

“To who?”

“To you. To the other policemen who were friends to her and her husband. To the pols from the Penobscot County Democratic Committee. Why, 'twouldn't surprise me if Congressman Brennan sent someone up from Augusta—she worked
awful
hard for him when he run for office in Washington. She wasn't just local, y'see, and that's part of what they got to deal with. They're like people who don't want to throw a party but who are stuck doing it just the same. I'm hoping they'll be so busy making things look right—with putting on a good show—that they'll not even know I've been in Haven until I'm gone.”

Butch Dugan crossed his arms over his chest. Ev had been close to the truth—at first, Dugan had indulged himself in the fancy that David Bright, who was usually an accurate interpreter of human behavior, had been wrong this time; Hillman was as sane as
he
was. Now he was mildly disturbed, not because Hillman had turned out to be crazy after all, but because he had turned out to be
really
crazy. And yet . . . there was something oddly persuasive in the old man's calm, reasonable voice and his steady gaze.

“You speak as if everyone in Haven was in on something,” Dugan said, “and I think that's impossible. I want you to know that.”

“Yes, any normal person would say that. That's how they've been able to get away with it this long. Fifty years ago, people felt like the atomic bomb was impossible, and they would have laughed at the idea of TV, let alone a video recorder. Not much changes, Trooper Dugan. Most people see as far as the horizon, and that's all. If someone says there's something over it, people don't listen.”

Ev stood up and extended his hand over Dugan's desk, as if he had every right in the world to expect Dugan to shake it. Which surprised Butch into doing just that.

“Well, I knew when I looked at you that you thought I was nuts,” Ev said with a rueful little smile, “and I guess I've said enough to double the idear. But I've found out what I needed to know, and said what I needed to say. Do an old man a favor, and peek at the sky once in a while. If you see a purple star-shell . . .”

“The woods are dry this summer,” Dugan said, and even as the words came out of his mouth they seemed helpless and oddly unimportant; almost frivolous. He realized he was being drawn helplessly toward belief again.

Dugan cleared his throat and pushed on.

“If you've really got a flare-gun, using it could start a
hell of a forest fire. If you don't have a permit to use such a thing—and I know goddam well you don't—it could get you thrown into jail.”

Ev's grin widened a little, but there was still no humor in it. “If you see the star-shell,” he said, “I got a feeling that being thrown into the pokey up to Bangor is gonna be the least of my worries. Good day to you, Trooper Dugan.”