The Dark Half Page 24

  "Not only that, you win the glassware for six and the free trip to Kittery. "

  "That's the craziest thing I ever heard," Liz said flatly.

  Thad laughed without much humor. "The whole thing is crazy. They thought I might have changed my voice, like Rich Little . . . or Mel Blanc. The idea is that I made a tape in my George Stark voice, building in pauses where I could reply, in front of witnesses, in my own voice. Of course I'd have to buy a gadget that could hook a cassette tape-recorder into a pay telephone. There are such things, aren't there, Alan?"

  "You bet. Available at fine electronics supply houses everywhere, or just dial the 800 number that will appear on your screen, operators are standing by. "

  "Right. The only other thing I'd need would be an accomplice-someone I trusted who would go to Penn Station, attach the tape-player to a phone in the bank which looked like it was doing the least business, and dial my house at the proper time. Then--" He broke off. "How was the call paid for? I forgot about that. It wasn't collect. "

  "Your telephone credit card number was used," Alan said. "You obviously gave it to your accomplice. "

  "Yeah, obviously. I only had to do two things once this shuck-and-jive got started. One was to make sure I answered the telephone myself. The other was to remember my lines and plug them into the correct pauses. I did very well, wouldn' t you say, Alan?"

  "Yeah. Fantastic. "

  "My accomplice hangs up the telephone when the script says he should. He unhooks the tape-player from the phone, tucks it under his arm--"

  "Hell, slips it into his pocket," Alan said. "The stuff they've got now is so good even the CIA buys at Radio Shack. "

  "Okay, he slips it into his pocket and just walks away. The result is a conversation where I am both seen and heard to be talking to a man five hundred miles away, a man who sounds different--who sounds, in fact, just the tiniest bit Southern-fried--but has the same voice-print as I do. It's the fingerprints all over again, only better." He looked at Alan for confirmation.

  "On second thought," Alan said, "make that an all-expense-paid trip to Portsmouth. "

  "Thank you. "

  "Don't mention it. "

  "That's not just crazy," Liz said, "it's utterly incredible. I think all those people should have their heads--"

  While her attention was diverted, the twins finally succeeded in knocking their own heads together and began to cry lustily. Liz picked up William. Thad rescued Wendy.

  When the crisis passed, Alan said, "It's incredible, all right. You know it, I know it, and they know it, too. But Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes say at least one thing that still holds true in crime detection: when you eliminate all the impossible explanations, whatever is left is your answer . . . no matter how improbable it may be. "

  "I think the original was a little more elegant," Thad said.

  Alan grinned. "Screw you. "

  "You two may find this funny, but I don't," Liz said. "Thad would have to be crazy to do something like that. Of course, the police may think we're both crazy. "

  "They don't think any such thing," Alan replied gravely, "at least not at this point, and they won't, as long as you go on keeping your wilder tales to yourselves. "

  "What about you, Alan?" Thad asked. "We've spilled all the wild tales to you--what do you think?"

  "Not that you're crazy. All of this would be a lot simpler if I did believe it. I don't know what's going on. "

  "What did you get from Dr. Hume?" Liz wanted to know.

  "The name of the doctor who operated on Thad when he was a kid," Alan said. "It's Hugh Pritchard--does that ring a bell, Thad?"

  Thad frowned and thought it over At last he said, "I think it does . . . but I might only be kidding myself. It was a long time ago. "

  Liz was leaning forward, bright-eyed; William goggled at Alan from the safety of his mother's lap. "What did Pritchard tell you?" she asked.

  "Nothing. I got his answering machine--which allows me to deduce that the man is still alive--and that's all. I left a message. "

  Liz settled back in her chair, clearly disappointed.

  "What about my tests?" Thad asked. "Did Hume have anything back? Or wouldn't he tell you?"

  "He said that when he had the results, you'd be the first to know," Alan said. He grinned. "Dr. Hume seemed rather offended at the idea of telling a County Sheriff anything. "

  "That's George Hume," Thad said, and smiled. "Crusty is his middle name. "

  Alan shifted in his seat.

  "Would you like something to drink, Alan?" Liz asked. "A beer or a Pepsi?"

  "No thanks. Let's go back to what the State Police do and do not believe. They don't believe either of you is involved, but they reserve the right to believe you might be. They know they can't hang last night's and this morning's work on you, Thad. An accomplice, maybe--the same one, hypothetically, who would have worked the tape-recorder gag--but not you. You were here. "

  "What about Darla Gates?" Thad asked quietly. "The girl who worked in the comptroller's office?"

  "Dead. Mutilated pretty badly, as be suggested, but shot once through the head first. She didn't suffer. "

  "That's a lie. "

  Alan blinked at him.

  "He didn't let her off so cheaply. Not after what he did to Clawson. After all, she was the original stoolie, wasn't she? Clawson dangled some money in front of her--it couldn't have been very much, judging from the state of Clawson's finances--and she obliged by letting the cat out of the bag. So don't tell me he shot her before he cut her and that she didn't suffer. "

  "All right," Alan said. "It wasn't like that. Do you want to know how it really was?"

  "No," Liz said immediately.

  There was a moment of heavy silence in the room. Even the twins seemed to feel it; they looked at each other with what seemed to be great Solemnity. At last Thad asked, "Let me ask you again: what do you believe ? What do you believe now?"

  "I don't have a theory. I know you didn't tape Stark's end of the conversation, because the enhancer didn't detect any tape-hiss, and when you jack up the audio, you can hear the Penn Station loudspeaker announcing that the Pilgrim to Boston is now ready for boarding on Track Number Three. The Pilgrim did board on Track Three this afternoon. Boarding started at two-thirty-six p. m., and that's right in line with your little chat. But I didn't even need that. If the conversation had been taped on Stark's end, either you or Liz would have asked me what the enhancing process showed as soon as I brought it up. Neither of you did. "

  "All this and you still don't believe it, do you?" Thad said. "I mean, it's got you rocking and rolling--enough so you really are trying to chase down Dr. Pritchard--but you really can't get all the way to the middle of what's happening, can you?" He sounded frustrated and harried even to himself.

  "The guy himself admitted he wasn't Stark. "

  "Oh yes. He was very sincere about it, too." Thad laughed.

  "You act as though that doesn't surprise you. "

  "It doesn't. Does it surprise you?"

  "Frankly, yes. It does. After going to such great pains to establish the fact that you and he share the same fingerprints, the same voice-prints--"

  "Alan, stop a second," Thad said.

  Alan did, looking at Thad inquiringly.

  "I told you this morning that I thought George Stark was doing these things. Not an accomplice of mine, not a psycho who has somehow managed to invent a way to wear other people's fingerprints--between his murderous fits and identity fugues, that is--and you didn't believe me. Do you now?"

  "No, Thad. I wish I could tell you differently, but the best I can do is this: I believe that you believe." He shifted his gaze to take in Liz. "Both of you. "

  "I'll settle for the truth, since anything less is apt to get me killed," Thad said, "and my family along with me, more likely than not At this point it does my heart good just to hear you say you don't have a theory. It's not much, but it's a step forward. What I was trying to show you is that the fi
ngerprints and voice-prints don't make a difference, and Stark knows it. You can talk all you want about throwing away the impossible and accepting whatever is left, no matter how improbable, but it doesn't work that way. You don't accept Stark, and he's what's left when you eliminate the rest. Let me put it this way, Alan: if you had this much evidence of a tumor in your brain, you would go into the hospital and have an operation, even if the odds were good you'd not come out alive. "

  Alan opened his mouth, shook his head, and snapped it shut again. Other than the clock and the soft babble and coo of the twins, there was no sound in the living room, where Thad was rapidly coming to feel he had spent his entire adult life.

  "On one hand you have enough hard evidence to make a strong circumstantial court case," Thad resumed softly. "On the other, you have the unsubstantiated assertion of a voice on the phone that he's 'come to his senses, ' that he 'knows who he is now. ' Yet you're going to ignore the evidence in favor of the assertion. "

  "No, Thad. That's not true. I'm not accepting any assertions right now--not yours, not your wife's, and least of all the ones made by the man who called on the phone. All my options are still open. "

  Thad jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the window. Beyond the gently wavering drapes, they could see the State Police car that belonged to the Troopers who were watching the Beaumont house.

  "What about them? Are all their options still open? I wish to Christ you were staying here, Alan--I'd take you over an army of State Troopers, because you've at least got one eye half-open. Theirs are stuck shut. "

  "Thad--"

  "Never mind," Thad said. "It's true. You know it . . . and he knows it, too. He'll wait. And when everybody decides it's over and the Beaumonts are safe, when all the police fold their tents and move on, George Stark will come here. "

  He paused, his face a dark and complicated study. Alan saw regret, determination, and fear at work in that face.

  "I'm going to tell you something now--I'm going to tell both of you. I know exactly what he wants. He wants me to write another novel under the Stark byline--probably another novel about Alexis Machine. I don't know if I could do that, but if I thought it would do any good, I'd try. I'd trash The Golden Dog and start tonight. "

  "Thad, no!" Liz cried.

  "Don't worry," he said. "It would kill me. Don't ask me how I know that; I just do. But if my death was the end of it, I still might try. But I don't think it would be. Because I don't really think he is a man at all. "

  Alan was silent.

  "So!" Thad said, speaking with the air of a man bringing an important piece of business to a close. "That's where matters stand. I can't, I won't, I mustn't. That means he'll come. And when he comes, God knows what will happen. "

  "Thad," Alan said uncomfortably, "you need a little perspective on this, that's all. And when you get it, most of it will just . . . blow away. Like a milkweed puff. Like a bad dream in the morning. "

  "It isn't perspective we need," Liz said. They looked at her and saw she was crying silently. Not a lot, but the tears were there. "What we need is for someone to turn him off. "

  6

  Alan returned to Castle Rock early the next morning, arriving home shortly before two o'clock. He crept into the house as quietly as possible, noticing that Annie had once again neglected to activate the burglar alarm. He didn't like to hassle her about it--her migraines had become more frequent lately--but he supposed he would have to, sooner or later.

  He started upstairs, shoes held in one hand, moving with a smoothness that made him seem almost to float. His body possessed a deep grace, the exact opposite of Thad Beaumont's clumsiness, which Alan rarely showed; his flesh seemed to know some arcane secret of motion which his mind found somehow embarrassing. Now, in this silence, there was no need to hide it, and he moved with a shadowy ease that was almost macabre.

  Halfway up the stairs he paused . . . and went back down again. He had a small den off the living room, not much more than a broom-closet furnished with a desk and some bookshelves, but adequate for his needs. He tried not to bring his work home with him. He did not always succeed in this, but he tried very hard.

  He closed the door, turned on the light, and looked at the telephone.

  You're not really going to do this, are you? he asked himself. I mean, it's almost midnight, Rocky Mountain Time, and this guy is not just a retired doctor, he's a retired NEUROSURGEON. You wake him up and he's apt to chew you a new asshole.

  Then Alan thought of Liz Beaumont's eyes--her dark, frightened eyes--and decided he was going to do it. Perhaps it would even do some good; a call in the dead of night would establish the fact that this was serious business, and get Dr. Pritchard thinking. Then Alan could call him back at a more reasonable hour.

  Who knows, he thought without much hope (but with a trace of humor), maybe he MISSES getting calls in the middle of the night.

  Alan took the scrap of paper from the pocket of his uniform blouse and dialed Hugh Pritchard's number in Fort Laramie. He did it standing up, setting himself for a blast of anger from that gravelly voice.

  He need not have worried; the answering machine cut in after the same fraction of a ring, and delivered the same message.

  He hung up thoughtfully and sat down behind his desk. The gooseneck lamp cast a round circle of light on the desk's surface, and Alan began to make a series of shadow animals in its glow--a rabbit, a dog, a hawk, even a passable kangaroo. His hands possessed that same deep grace which owned the rest of his body when he was alone and at rest; beneath those eerily flexible fingers, the animals seemed to march in a parade through the tiny spotlight cast by the hooded lamp, one flowing into the next. This little diversion had never failed to fascinate and amuse his children, and it often set his own mind at rest when it was troubled.

  It didn't work now.

  Dr. Hugh Pritchard is dead. Stark got him, too.

  That was impossible, of course; he supposed he could swallow a ghost if someone put a gun to his head, but not some malignant Superman of a ghost who crossed whole continents in a single bound. He could think of several good reasons why someone might turn on his answering machine at night. Not the least of them was to keep from being disturbed by late-calling strangers such as Sheriff Alan J. Pangborn, of Castle Rock, Maine.

  Yeah, but he's dead. He and his wife, too. What was her name? Helga. "I'm probably playing golf; God knows what Helga's up to." But I know what Helga's up to; I know what you're both up to. You're up to your cut throats in blood, that's what I think, and there's a message written on your living-room wall out there in Big Sky Country. It says THE SPARROWS ARE FLYING AGAIN.

  Alan Pangborn shuddered. It was crazy, but he shuddered anyway. It twisted through him like a wire.

  He dialed Wyoming Directory Assistance, got the number for the Fort Laramie Sheriff's Office, and made another call. He was answered by a dispatcher who sounded half-asleep. Alan identified himself, told the dispatcher whom he had been trying to contact and where he lived, and then asked if they had Dr. Pritchard and his wife in their vacation file. If the doctor and his wife had gone off on holiday--and it was getting to be that season--they would probably have informed the local law and asked them to keep an eye on the house while it was empty.

  "Well," Dispatch said, "why don't you give me your number? I'll call you back with the information. "

  Alan sighed. This was just more standard operating procedure. More bullshit, not to put too fine a point on it. The guy didn't want to give out the information until he was sure Alan was what he said he was.

  "No," he said. "I'm calling from home, and it's the middle of the night--"

  "It's not exactly high noon here, Sheriff Pangborn," Dispatch answered laconically.

  Alan sighed. "I'm sure that's true," he said, "and I'm also sure that your wife and kids aren't asleep upstairs. Do this, my friend: call the Maine State Police Barracks in Oxford, Maine--I'll give you the number--and verify my name. They can give you my LAWS ID number. I
'll call back in ten minutes or so, and we can exchange passwords. "

  "Shoot it to me," Dispatch said, but he didn't sound happy about it. Alan guessed he might have taken the man away from the late show or maybe this month's Penthouse.

  "What's this about?" Dispatch asked after he had read back the Oxford State Police Barracks phone number.

  "Murder investigation," Alan said, "and it's hot. I'm not calling you for my health, pal." He hung up.

  He sat behind his desk and made shadow animals and waited for the minute hand to circle the face of the dock ten times. It seemed very slow. It had only gone around five times when the study door opened and Annie came in. She was wearing her pink robe and looked somehow ghostly to him; he felt that shudder wanting to work through him again, as if he had looked into the future and seen something there which was unpleasant. Nasty, even.

  How would I feel if it was me he was after? he wondered suddenly. Me and Annie and Toby and Todd? How would I feel if I knew who he was . . . and nobody would believe me?

  "Alan? What are you doing, sitting down here so late?"

  He smiled, got up, kissed her easily. "Just waiting for the drugs to wear off," he said.

  "No, really--is it this Beaumont business?"

  "Yeah. I've been trying to chase down a doctor who may know something about it. I keep getting his answering machine, so I called the Sheriff's Office to see if he's in their vacation file. The man on the other end is supposedly checking my bona fides. " He looked at Annie with careful concern. "How are you, honey? Headache tonight?"

  "No," she said, "but I heard you come in." She smiled. "You're the world's quietest man when you want to be, Alan, but you can't do a thing about your car. "

  He hugged her.

  "Do you want a cup of tea?" she asked.

  "God, no. A glass of milk, if you want to get one. "

  She left him alone and came back a minute later with the milk. "What's Mr. Beaumont like?" she asked. "I've seen him around town, and his wife comes into the shop once in awhile, but I've never spoken to him." The shop was You Sew and Sew, owned and operated by a woman named Polly Chalmers. Annie Pangborn had worked there part-time for four years.