by Stephen King
In his mind, Ralph could hear his wife telling him that forensic evidence from Cap City was the missing piece, the Golden Ticket. If Terry was here, she’d said – meaning in Flint City, committing murder – then the double must have been there. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
‘None of it makes sense,’ he muttered, looking at the monitor. On it was a frozen image of a man who certainly looked like Terry Maitland, caught laughing about something as he stood in the autograph line with his department head, Roundhill.
‘Pardon?’ asked the hotel dick who had shown him the footage.
‘Nothing.’
‘Can I show you anything else?’
‘No, but thanks.’ This had been a fool’s errand. The Channel 81 tape of the lecture had pretty much rendered the security footage moot, anyway, because it was Terry during the Q-and-A. No one could doubt it.
Except in one corner of his mind, Ralph still did. The way Terry had stood to ask his question, as if he’d known that a camera would be on him … it was just so goddam perfect. Was it possible that the whole thing was a set-up? An amazing but ultimately explicable act of legerdemain? Ralph didn’t see how it could be, but he didn’t know how David Copperfield had walked through the Great Wall of China, and Ralph had seen that on TV. If it was so, Terry Maitland wasn’t just a murderer, he was a murderer who was laughing at them.
‘Detective, just a heads-up,’ said the hotel dick. ‘I’ve got a note from Harley Bright – he’s the boss – saying all the stuff you just looked at is supposed to be saved for a lawyer named Howard Gold.’
‘I don’t care what you do with it,’ Ralph said. ‘Mail it off to Sarah Palin in Whistledick, Alaska, for all I care. I’m going home.’ Yes. Good idea. Go home, sit in his backyard with Jeannie, split a six with her – four for him, two for her. And try not to go crazy thinking about this goddam paradox.
The dick walked him to the door of the security office. ‘News says you got the guy who killed that kid.’
‘News says a lot of things. Thank you for your time, sir.’
‘Always a pleasure to help the police.’
If only you had, Ralph thought.
He halted on the far side of the lobby, hand out to push the revolving door, struck by a thought. There was one other place he should check, as long as he was here. According to Terry, Debbie Grant had booked for the women’s room as soon as Coben’s lecture ended, and she had been gone a long time. I went down to the newsstand with Ev and Billy, Terry had said. She met us there.
The newsstand, it turned out, was a kind of auxiliary gift shop. An overly made-up woman with graying hair was behind the counter, rearranging bits of inexpensive jewelry. Ralph showed her his ID and asked her if she had been working the previous Tuesday afternoon.
‘Honey,’ she said, ‘I work here every day, unless I’m sick. I don’t get anything extra from the books and magazines, but when it comes to this jewelry and the souvenir coffee cups, I’m on commission.’
‘Would you remember this man? He was here last Tuesday with a bunch of English teachers, for a lecture.’ He showed her Terry’s picture.
‘Sure, I remember him. He asked about the Flint County book. First one to do that in Jesus knows how long. I didn’t stock it, the darn thing was here when I started running this place back in 2010. I should take it down, I guess, but replace it with what? Anything way above or way below eye-level doesn’t move, you find that out quick running a place like this. At least the stuff down low is cheap. That top shelf is your expensive stuff with photographs and glossy pages.’
‘What book are we talking about, Ms—’ He looked at her name-tag. ‘Ms Levelle?’
‘That one,’ she said, pointing. ‘A Pictorial History of Flint County, Douree County, and Canning Township. Jawbreaker title, huh?’
He turned and saw two racks of reading material next to a shelf of souvenir cups and plates. One rack held magazines; the other held a mixture of paperback and current hardcover fiction. On the top shelf of the latter were half a dozen larger volumes, what Jeannie would have called coffee table books. They were shrink-wrapped so that browsers couldn’t smudge the pages or dog-ear the corners. Ralph walked over and looked up at them. Terry, who had a good three inches on him, wouldn’t have had to look up, or stand on tiptoe to take one of them down.
He started to reach for the book she’d mentioned, then changed his mind. He turned back to Ms Levelle. ‘Tell me what you remember.’
‘What, about that guy? Nothing much to tell. The gift shop got way busy after the lecture broke, I remember that, but I only got a trickle of custom. You know why, don’t you?’
Ralph shook his head, trying to be patient. There was something here, all right, and he thought – hoped – he knew what it was.
‘They didn’t want to lose their place in line, of course, and they all had the new book by Mr Coben to read while they waited. But these three gentlemen did come in, and one of them – the fat one – bought that new Lisa Gardner hardback. The other two just browsed. Then a lady poked her head in and said she was all set, so they left. To get their autographs, I suppose.’
‘But one of them – the tall one – expressed an interest in the Flint County book.’
‘Yes, but I think it was the Canning Township part of the title that caught his eye. Did he say his family lived there for a long time?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ralph said. ‘You tell me.’
‘Pretty sure he did. He took it down, but when he saw the pricetag – seventy-nine ninety-nine – he put it back on the shelf.’
And whoomp, there it was. ‘Has anyone looked at that book since? Taken it down and handled it?’
‘That one? You’re kidding.’
Ralph went to the rack, stood on his toes, and took down the shrink-wrapped book. He held it by the sides, using his palms. On the front was a sepia-toned photograph of a long-ago funeral procession. Six cowboys, all wearing battered hats and holstered pistols, were carrying a plank coffin into a dusty cemetery. A preacher (also wearing a holstered gun) was waiting for them at the head of an open grave with a Bible in his hands.
Ms Levelle brightened considerably. ‘You actually want to buy that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, hand it over so I can scan it.’
‘I don’t think so.’ He held the book up with the bar code stickered to the shrink-wrap facing her, and she beeped it.
‘That’s eighty-four fourteen with the tax, but we’ll call it eighty-four even.’
Ralph set the book carefully on end to hand over his credit card. He tucked his receipt into his breast pocket, then once again picked the book up using just his palms, holding it out like a chalice.
‘He handled it,’ he said, less to make sure of her than to confirm his own absurd luck. ‘You’re sure the man in the picture I showed you handled this book.’
‘Took it down and said that cover picture was taken in Canning Township. Then he looked at the price and put it back. Just like I told you. Is it evidence, or something?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ralph said, looking down at the antique mourners gracing the cover. ‘But I’m going to find out.’
16
Frank Peterson’s body had been released to the Donelli Brothers Funeral Home on Thursday afternoon. Arlene Peterson had arranged for this and everything else, including the obituary, the flowers, the Friday morning memorial service, the funeral itself, the graveside service, and the Saturday evening gathering of friends and family. It had to be her. Fred was useless at making any kind of social arrangements at the best of times.
But this time it has to be me, Fred told himself when he and Ollie got home from the hospital. It has to be, because there is no one else. And that guy from Donelli will help me. They’re experts at this. Only how was he supposed to pay for a second funeral, so soon after the first? Would insurance cover it? He didn’t know. Arlene had handled all that stuff, too. They had a deal: he made the money and she paid the bills. He wo
uld have to look through her desk for the insurance paperwork. The thought of it made him tired.
They sat in the living room. Ollie turned on the television. There was a soccer match on. They watched it awhile, although neither of them really cared for the game; they were pro football guys. At last Fred got up, trudged into the hall, and brought back Arlene’s old red address book. He turned to the Ds, and yes, there was Donelli Brothers, but her usual neat script was shaky, and why not? She wouldn’t have noted down the number of a funeral parlor before Frank died, now would she? The Petersons were supposed to have years before needing to worry about burial rites. Years.
Looking at the address book, its red leather faded and scuffed, Fred thought of all the times he had seen it in her hands, jotting down return addresses from envelopes in the old days, from the Internet more recently. He began to cry.
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I just can’t. Not so soon after Frankie.’
On TV, the announcer screamed ‘GOAL!’ and the players in the red shirts started to jump all over each other. Ollie turned it off and held out his hand.
‘I’ll do it.’
Fred looked at him, eyes red and streaming.
Ollie nodded. ‘It’s okay, Dad. Really. I’ll take care of it, the whole deal. Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down?’
And although Fred knew it was probably wrong to leave his seventeen-year-old son with this burden, he did just that. He promised himself he would carry his share of the weight in time, but right now he needed to take a nap. He was really very tired.
17
Alec Pelley wasn’t able to break free of his own family commitments that Sunday until three thirty. It was after five when he reached the Cap City Sheraton, but the afternoon sun was still burning a hole in the sky. He parked in the hotel turnaround, slipped the parking valet a ten, and told him to keep his car close. In the newsstand, Lorette Levelle was once more rearranging her bits of jewelry. Alec’s visit there was brief. He went back outside, leaned against his Explorer, and called Howie Gold.
‘I beat Anderson to the security footage – plus the TV tape – but he beat me to the book. And bought it. I guess you’d have to call that a wash.’
‘Fuck,’ Howie said. ‘How did he even know about it?’
‘I don’t think he did. I think it was a combination of luck and old-fashioned police work. The woman who works in the newsstand says a guy took it down on the day of Coben’s lecture, saw the pricetag – almost eighty bucks – and put it back. Didn’t seem to know the guy was Maitland, so I guess she doesn’t watch the news. She told Anderson, and Anderson bought the book. She says he walked out holding it by the sides, and with the palms of his hands.’
‘Hoping to raise prints that don’t match Terry’s,’ Howie said, ‘thus suggesting that whoever handled that book was not Terry. Won’t work. God knows how many people may have taken that book down and handled it.’
‘The woman who runs the newsstand would beg to disagree. She says that one just sat up there, month in and month out.’
‘Makes no difference.’ Howie didn’t sound worried, which left Alec free to worry for both of them. It wasn’t much, but it was something. A small flaw in a case that had been shaping up as pretty as a painting in a museum. A possible flaw, he reminded himself, and Howie could easily work around it; juries didn’t care much about what wasn’t there.
‘Just wanted you to know, boss. It’s what you pay me for.’
‘Okay, now I know. You’ll be there for the arraignment tomorrow, right?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ Alec said. ‘Did you talk to Samuels about bail?’
‘I did. The conversation was brief. He said he would fight it with every fiber of his being. His very words.’
‘Jesus, does the guy have an off button?’
‘A good question.’
‘Will you get it anyway?’
‘I have a good chance. Nothing’s a sure thing, but I’m almost positive.’
‘If you do, tell Maitland not to take any neighborhood strolls. Lots of people keep a home protection weapon handy, and right now he’s the least popular guy in Flint City.’
‘He’ll be restricted to his home, and you can be sure the cops will be keeping the house under surveillance.’ Howie sighed. ‘A shame about that book.’
Alec ended the call and jumped back in his car. He wanted to be home in plenty of time to make popcorn before Game of Thrones.
18
Ralph Anderson and State Police Detective Yunel Sablo met with the Flint County DA that evening in the den of Bill Samuels’s home on the city’s north side, an almost-posh neighborhood of large houses that aspired to McMansion status and didn’t quite make it. Outside, Samuels’s two girls were chasing each other through the backyard sprinkler as dusk slowly dissolved into dark. Samuels’s ex-wife had stayed around to cook dinner for them. Samuels had been in fine fettle all through the meal, often patting his ex’s hand and even holding it for brief periods, to which she did not seem to object. Pretty chummy for a couple living in splitsville, Ralph thought, and good for them. But now dinner was finished, the ex was packing up the girls’ things, and Ralph had an idea that DA Samuels’s good mood would soon be finished, too.
A Pictorial History of Flint County, Douree County, and Canning Township sat on the den’s coffee table. It was in a clear plastic Baggie, taken from one of Ralph’s kitchen drawers and slipped carefully over the book. The funeral cortege now looked blurry, because the shrink-wrap had been dusted with fingerprint powder. A single print – a thumb – stood out on the book’s front cover, near the spine. It was as clear as the date on a new penny.
‘There are four more good ones on the back,’ Ralph said. ‘It’s how you pick up a heavy book – thumb in front, fingers on the back, slightly splayed, to support. I would have printed it right there in Cap City, but I didn’t have Terry’s prints for comparison purposes. So I grabbed what I needed at the station and did it at home.’
Samuels elevated his brows. ‘You took his print-card out of evidence?’
‘Nah, photocopied it.’
‘Don’t keep us in suspense,’ Sablo said.
‘I won’t,’ Ralph said. ‘They match. The prints on this book belong to Terry Maitland.’
The Mr Sunshine who’d sat beside his ex at the dinner table disappeared. Mr Gonna Rain A Bitch took his place. ‘You can’t be sure of that without a computer match.’
‘Bill, I was doing this before there was such a thing.’ Back in the days when you were still trying to look up girls’ skirts in high school study hall. ‘They’re Maitland’s prints, and computer comparison will confirm it. Look at these.’
He took a small bundle of cards from the inner pocket of his sportcoat and laid them out in two rows on the coffee table. ‘Here are Terry’s prints from his booking last night. And here are Terry’s prints from the shrink-wrap. Now you tell me.’
Samuels and Sablo leaned forward, looking from the row of cards on the left to the ones on the right. Sablo sat back first. ‘I buy it.’
‘I won’t without a computer comparison,’ Samuels said. The words came out sounding stilted because his jaw was jutting. Under other circumstances, that might have been funny.
Ralph made no immediate reply. He was curious about Bill Samuels, and hopeful (he was hopeful by nature) that his earlier judgement about the man – that he might cut and run if faced with a really spirited counterattack – had been wrong. Samuels’s ex-wife still held him in some regard, that had been obvious, and the little girls loved him bigtime, but such evidence only spoke to one facet of a man’s character. A guy at home wasn’t necessarily the same guy at work, especially when the fellow in question was ambitious and faced with a sudden obstacle that might nip all his big plans in the bud. These things mattered to Ralph. They mattered a great deal, because he and Samuels were bound together by this case, win or lose.
‘It’s impossible,’ Samuels said, one hand going to brush down the cowlick, but t
onight the cowlick wasn’t there. Tonight it was behaving. ‘He can’t have been in two places at the same time.’
‘Yet so it appears,’ Sablo said. ‘Until today, there was no forensic evidence in Cap City. Now there is.’
Samuels brightened momentarily. ‘Maybe he handled the book at some prior date. Preparing his alibi. All part of the set-up.’ Apparently forgetting his previous assessment that the murder of Frank Peterson had been the impulse act of a man who could no longer control his urges.
‘The idea can’t be discounted,’ Ralph said, ‘but I’ve seen a lot of prints, and these look fairly fresh. The quality of the friction ridge detail is very good. That wouldn’t be the case if these had been made weeks or months ago.’
Speaking almost too softly to hear, Sablo said, ‘’Mano, it’s like you took a hit on twelve and got a face-card.’
‘What?’ Samuels snapped his head around.
‘Blackjack,’ Ralph said. ‘He’s saying it would have been better if we hadn’t found it. If we’d just stood pat.’
They considered this. When Samuels spoke, he sounded almost pleasant – a man just passing the time. ‘Here’s a hypothetical for you. What if you had dusted down that shrink-wrap and found nothing? Or just a few unidentifiable blurs?’
‘We wouldn’t be better off,’ Sablo said, ‘but we wouldn’t be worse off.’
Samuels nodded. ‘In that case – hypothetically speaking – Ralph would just be a guy who’d bought a fairly expensive book. He wouldn’t throw it away, he’d call it a good idea that didn’t pan out and put it on his shelf. After stripping off the shrink-wrap and throwing it away, of course.’
Sablo looked from Samuels to Ralph, his face giving nothing away.
‘And these fingerprint cards?’ Ralph asked. ‘What about them?’
‘What cards?’ Samuels asked. ‘I don’t see any cards. Do you, Yune?’
