“Color?”
“We knew from talking to Carla’s older brother that she’d been wearing a pink Nike sweatshirt the night she was taken. The officer saw something small and pink tumbling across the field and pulled over. At first he thought it was just a plastic grocery bag. Wind blows hard like today, these trees act like a kind of wind tunnel and all kind of crap flies through here. Empty cans. Fast food litter. Plastic bags, paper bags, you name it.”
“Sounds like your officer deserves a raise for checking it out.”
“He’s a good man.” The sheriff looks closely at Gwendy. “All of my men and women are.”
“So what happens next?”
“Evidence is out there now looking at the sweatshirt. Deputy Footman’s pulling in some additional bodies to conduct a search of the surrounding area. You’re welcome to help if you’d like. Half the town will probably show up if we let ’em.”
Gwendy nods her head. “I think I will. I have a hat and gloves in the car.”
“Helluva way to spend the day before Christmas Eve.” He sighs deeply. “Anyway, probably another hour or so before we get started. Might as well get inside and run the heater.” He starts back toward the other men. “There’s coffee and donuts in one of the patrol cars if you want.”
Gwendy doesn’t acknowledge the offer. She’s staring at the snow-covered field, her brow furrowed. “Sheriff … if your deputy found the sweatshirt blowing around on top of the snow, and it just stopped snowing yesterday afternoon sometime, that means the sweatshirt was left sometime in the last …” She thinks. “Sixteen hours, give or take.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Unless it was somewhere under cover and the wind shook it loose after the snow stopped.”
“Huh,” Gwendy says. “I didn’t think of that.”
“All I know is there are no houses within three miles of us and this stretch of road is mainly used by hunters. The sweatshirt either found us by accident or we were meant to find it.” He glances at the men huddled between the cars and then looks back at Gwendy. “My money’s on the second one.”
39
SHERIFF RIDGEWICK IS RIGHT about one thing: half the town of Castle Rock shows up for the search. At least, that’s how it appears to Gwendy as she takes her place in the long, arcing line of locals, most of the women dressed in colorful winter coats and boots, most of the men wearing the standard autumn uniform of an adult New England male—camouflage. As they begin fanning out across the field, Gwendy looks around and sees old folks walking alongside young couples, and young couples walking alongside college and high school kids. Even under these dreary circumstances, the sight brings a brief smile to her face. For all of its dark history and idiosyncrasies, Castle Rock is still a place that takes care of its own.
The sheriff’s instructions to the group are simple enough: walk slowly, side by side, with no more than five or six feet separating you from the person on your right and the person on your left; if you find something, anything, don’t touch it and don’t get too close, call for one of the officers and they’ll come running.
Gwendy stares at the snow-covered terrain in front of her, willing her feet to move deliberately, despite the frigid temperature pushing her to pick up the pace. Her cheeks burn and her eyes water from the constant gusts of wind. For the first time that morning, her thoughts stray to the button box. She knows that eating the chocolate was a mistake, a moment of weakness, and is determined not to allow it to happen again. Sure, it made her feel better last night—okay, it did much more than that, if she’s being perfectly honest with herself. And when she looked in the bathroom mirror this morning—feeling more rested and purer in soul than she’s felt in months—and noticed the dark circles that had taken up residence under her eyes the past few weeks had vanished, all of a sudden the magic chocolates didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.
But then she remembered her finger brushing against the smooth surface of the red button and that little voice whispering inside her head—Be careful what you daydream because that box can hear you thinking—and she shuddered at the memory and tried her best to push it far, far away.
“Gwendy, dear,” a voice says, startling her from her thoughts. “How is your mother doing?”
Gwendy cranes her head forward and looks first to her right, and then to her left. An older woman, a few spots down the line, lifts a gloved hand and waves.
“Mrs. Verrill! I didn’t even see you there.”
The woman smiles back at her. “That’s okay, dear. It’s hard to tell who’s who all bundled up like this.”
“Mom’s doing much better. Thank you for asking. She’s back in the kitchen and ready to kick my father out of the house so she can have some peace and quiet.”
Mrs. Verrill lifts a hand to her mouth and chuckles. “Well, please tell her I said hello and that I would love to stop by and see her sometime.”
“I’ll do that, Mrs. Verrill. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to see you.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Gwendy smiles and returns her focus to the field of untouched snow stretching out before her. She guesses it’s maybe another fifty or sixty yards before they reach the tree line. Then what? she thinks. Do we turn around or plow ahead? She must have missed that part of Sheriff Ridgewick’s—
Sensing that the man walking to her immediate right is staring at her, Gwendy glances in his direction. She’s right; his brown eyes are closely studying her. The man is young, early twenties, and underdressed in an untucked flannel shirt and Buffalo Bills baseball cap. He suddenly grins and looks right past her. “I told you it was her, Pops.”
“Excuse me?” she says, confused.
A quiet voice from her left says, “I thought for sure she was too young to be a governor … or senator.”
Gwendy looks from her left to her right and back again. “I’m … I’m not either one.”
The older man scratches at his unshaven chin. “Then what are ya?”
“I’m a—”
“She’s a congresswoman,” the young man says with a look of embarrassment. “I told you that.”
“I’m afraid you two have lost me,” Gwendy says, exasperated. “Have we met before?”
“No, ma’am. My name is Lucas Browne and that there’s my father.”
“Charlie,” the other man says, placing his hand on his stomach and giving a little bow. “Third generation Castle Rock.”
“Wait a minute, so your name is … Charlie Browne?”
He bows again. “At your service.”
The younger man groans and blushes an even deeper shade of red.
They’re actually kind of charming, Gwendy thinks.
“Anyway, I saw you standing there when the sheriff was talking,” Lucas says. “I nudged my Pops and told him who you were.” He looks at his father with a raised chin. “But he didn’t believe me.”
“I didn’t, I admit it,” he says, hands raised. “I thought you had to be a lot older to work high up in the government like that.”
Gwendy gives him a big smile. “Well, I’ll take that as a compliment. Thank you.”
Beaming, the older man puffs his chest out. “My boy there, he’s the smart one in the family. Two years of college down in Buffalo … before he ran into a bit of trouble. But he’ll go back and finish what he started one day soon. Ain’t that right, son?”
Lucas, suddenly looking like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world right then, nods his head. “Yes, sir. One day.”
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Gwendy says, anxious to move on from the conversation. “It’s always nice to get to know—”
“What’s that?” Lucas asks, pointing at a small dark object emerging from the trees in front of them. A murmur of raised voices travels down the line of searchers. People start pointing. Someone on the far left flank breaks formation and chases after the object, slipping and sprawling face-first in the snow. Several people sarcastically cheer.
At first, Gwendy
thinks it’s a plastic grocery bag, like the sheriff had described earlier. It’s the right size and shape, and it’s riding the wind’s currents, up, down, swirling in tight little circles, tumbling wildly to the ground, and then surfing back up again.
But then, halfway across the open field, the object appears to inexplicably change direction in mid-flight. Banking hard to the right, it heads directly toward her
—and Gwendy flashes back to a blustery golden-hued April afternoon she once spent at the side of a boy she loved, flying kites and holding hands and feeling like their happiness would last forever and—
at that moment, she understands it’s a hat swooping toward her in the whipping wind—a small, neat black hat.
The dark object suddenly veers to the left, hurtling away from her at terrific speed, and for one fleeting, hopeful moment, Gwendy believes she’s wrong, it’s just a grocery bag after all—but then the wind squalls again and it loops back around, coming closer and closer, swerving and somersaulting across the frozen ground directly at her feet—
—where Lucas Browne leaps forward and stomps on it, abruptly halting its long journey.
“Would you look at that?” Charlie Browne says, eyes wide as 1891 silver dollars. He bends down to pick it up.
“Stop!” Gwendy shouts. “Don’t touch it!”
The older man jerks his hand back and looks up at her. “Why not?”
“It … it could be evidence.”
“Oh, yeah,” he says, straightening up and smacking himself a good one on the side of his head.
A small crowd has gathered around them by now.
“What is it?”
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Did you see that sucker move? Almost like someone was working a remote control.”
Deputy Footman sidesteps his way through the group of onlookers. “What’ve you got there?”
“Sorry about that, officer,” Lucas says, removing his boot from the object. “Only way I could stop it.”
The deputy doesn’t say anything. He drops to a knee in the snow and carefully examines the object.
It’s not a grocery bag, of course.
It’s a hat—a small, neat black hat.
Faded with age, tattered and worn around the edges of the brim, a ragged three-inch tear slicing across the top of the crushed dome.
“This thing’s been out here forever,” the deputy says, rising to his feet. “It’s no help to us.” He walks away, and the crowd begins to dissipate.
Gwendy doesn’t move. Biting her lip, she stares down at the black hat, almost hypnotized by the sight of it, unaware that Charlie Browne and his son are watching her. Is Farris sending some kind of a message? Or is he playing games with me? Making up for lost time?
She bends down to get a better look at the filthy hat—and a gust of wind picks it up and swoops it away from her, sending it hurtling toward the road. It climbs and climbs, then plummets to the ground, rolling on its side like a child’s Frisbee for several yards before lifting up and taking flight once again.
Gwendy stands in the middle of the snow-covered field, eyes lifted to the sky, and watches as the black hat disappears into the trees beyond the road. When she turns around, the staggered human chain of searchers has moved on without her.
40
HOMELAND CEMETERY IS THE largest and prettiest of Castle Rock’s three graveyards. There are tall iron gates out front with a lock, but it’s used only twice a year—on graduation night at the high school and on Halloween. Sheriff George Bannerman is buried in Homeland, as is Reginald “Pop” Merrill, one of the town’s most infamous—and unsavory—citizens.
Gwendy drives through the ornate gates just as dusk is settling over the land, and she can’t decide whether the cemetery, with its rolling hills and stone monuments and lengthening shadows, appears tranquil or menacing. Maybe both, she decides, parking along the central lane and getting out. Maybe both.
Knowing where she’s going, she walks a direct route, punching her way through knee-deep snow to a scattering of grave markers that rest atop a steep hillside skirted by a small grove of pine trees. There are smudges of naked earth here where the tree’s thick branches have prevented snow from accumulating below. The treetops sway back and forth overhead, whispering secrets to each other in the cold breeze.
Gwendy stops in front of a small marker in the last row. The trees grow close together, blocking the day’s dying light and casting the ground in shadow, but she knows what’s carved onto the headstone by memory:
OLIVE GRACE KEPNES
1962–1979
Our Loving Angel
She drops to a knee in the snow, only several inches deep here, and traces the grooves with her bare fingertips. As always, she thinks whoever was in charge of the inscription did a pretty shitty job of it. Where were the exact dates of Olive’s birth and death? Those were important days to remember and should have been included. And what did “Our Loving Angel” have to say about the real Olive Kepnes? Nothing. It said nothing at all to keep her memory alive. Why didn’t it mention that Olive had an infectious laugh and knew more about Peter Frampton than anyone else in the world? Or that she was a connoisseur of all types of candy and bad horror movies on late night television? Or that she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up?
Gwendy kneels in the snow—feet numb despite her waterproof boots thanks to hours of fruitless searching earlier in the afternoon—and visits with her old friend until the pools of shadow melt together into one, and then she says goodbye and slowly walks back in the dark to her car.
41
GWENDY LOCKS THE CAR and is halfway up the sidewalk to her condo when she hears footsteps behind her.
She glances over her shoulder, scanning the length of parking lot. At first she doesn’t see anyone, even though she can still hear the hurried footfalls. Then she spots him: a man, lost in the shadows between streetlights, striding toward her. Maybe thirty yards away and moving fast.
Gwendy hurries to the entrance and punches in her security code with shaky fingers. She tries to open the door but it doesn’t budge.
She looks behind her again, panicking now. The man is closer. Maybe fifteen yards away. She can’t be a hundred percent certain in the dark, but it looks like he’s wearing a ski mask, obscuring his face. Just like in her dream.
Gwendy punches in the code again, concentrating on each button. The door buzzes. She flings it open, steps inside, and slams it shut behind her, sprinting up the stairs to the second floor. As she fumbles with her keys outside the door to her condo, she hears someone rattling the entrance door downstairs, trying to get in.
She finally gets the door unlocked and rushes inside. After locking the deadbolt, she hurries to the front window and takes a peek outside.
The parking lot is empty. The man is nowhere in sight.
42
“MORNING, SHEILA,” GWENDY SAYS, a little too eager for the early hour. “I’m here to see Sheriff Ridgewick.”
The scarecrow-thin woman with bright red hair and matching eyeglasses looks up from the magazine she’s reading. “Hey there, Gwendy. Sorry I missed you the other day. Heard there was some fireworks.”
Sheila Brigham has manned the glass-walled dispatch cubicle at the Castle County Sheriff’s Department for going on twenty-five years now. She’s also in charge of the front desk and coffee maker. Sheila started on the job fresh out of community college, when bell-bottoms were all the rage and George Bannerman was patrolling The Rock. She got married and raised a family here, and took good care of Alan Pangborn during his decade-long stint, and, unlike most folks, didn’t let the fire of ’91 scare her away, even though she’d spent nearly three weeks in a hospital bed in the aftermath of that disaster.
“I’m afraid I didn’t inspire much confidence in our elected officials,” Gwendy says.
Sheila waves a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry yourself none about that. Carol Hoffman’s mean as a hornet on a good day—and she doesn’t ha
ve many of those.”
“Still, I feel horrible. That poor woman.”
Sheila makes a grunting sound. “You want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for that husband of hers.”
“Can’t argue with you there.”
She picks up her magazine again. “You can go on back. He’s waiting for you.”
“Thank you. Merry Christmas, Sheila.”
She makes that same grunting sound and returns her attention to reading.
The door to Sheriff Ridgewick’s office is open, so Gwendy walks right in. He’s sitting behind his desk talking on the telephone. He holds up a finger, mouths “one minute,” and gestures for her to sit down. “I understand that, Jay, I do. But we don’t have time. I need it yesterday.” His face darkens. “I don’t care. Just get it done.”
He hangs up and looks at Gwendy. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem,” she says. “Now what’s all the secrecy about? Why couldn’t you just tell me on the phone?”
The sheriff shakes his head. “Don’t like that cellphone of yours. Last thing we need right now is a leak.”
“You’re as paranoid as my father. He’s whipped himself into a frenzy. Thinks all the world’s technology’s going to collapse when the clock strikes midnight next week.”
“Tell that to Tommy Perkins. He claims he picks up a half-dozen cellphone conversations every day on that shortwave of his.”
Gwendy laughs. “Tom Perkins is a dirty-minded, senile old man. You really believe what he says?”
The sheriff shrugs. “How else did he know about Shelly Piper being pregnant before the rest of the town?”
“Probably did the deed himself, the old perv.”
The sheriff’s jaw drops, his mouth forming a perfect O. “Gwendy Peterson.”
“Oh, hush,” she says, waving a hand at him. “And stop stalling, Norris. Is the news that bad?”
The smile fades from his face. “I’m afraid it is.”
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