LOCAL PSYCHIC IN STRANGLER CASE. “NOVEMBER KILLER” TO BE INVESTIGATED BY SEER. HOAX ADMISSION STORY A FABRICATION, SMITH PROTESTS.
There were two deputies in the outer office, one of them snoozing, the other drinking coffee and looking glumly through a pile of reports.
“His wife kick him out or something?” Bannerman asked sourly, nodding toward the sleeper.
“He just got back from Augusta,” the deputy said. He was little more than a kid himself, and there were dark circles of weariness under his eyes. He glanced over at Johnny curiously.
“Johnny Smith, Frank Dodd. Sleeping beauty over there is Roscoe Fisher.”
Johnny nodded hello.
“Roscoe says the A.G. wants the whole case,” Dodd told Bannerman. His look was angry and defiant and somehow pathetic. “Some Christmas present, huh?”
Bannerman put a hand on the back of Dodd’s neck and shook him gently. “You worry too much, Frank. Also, you’re spending too much time on the case.”
“I just keep thinking there must be something in these reports ...” He shrugged and then flicked them with one finger. “Something.”
“Go home and get some rest, Frank. And take sleeping beauty with you. All we need is for one of those photographers to get a picture of him. They’d run it in the papers with a caption like ‘In Castle Rock the Intensive Investigation Goes On,’ and we’d all be out sweeping streets.”
Bannerman led Johnny into his private office. The desk was awash in paperwork. On the windowsill was a triptych showing Bannerman, his wife, and his daughter Katrina. His degree hung neatly framed on the wall, and beside it, in another frame, the front page of the Castle Rock Call which had announced his election.
“Coffee?” Bannerman asked him, unlocking a file cabinet.
“No thanks. I’ll stick to tea.”
“Mrs. Sugarman guards her tea jealously,” Bannerman said. “Takes it home with her every day, sorry. I’d offer you a tonic, but we’d have to run the gauntlet out there again to get to the machine. Jesus Christ, I wish they’d go home.”
“That’s okay.”
Bannerman came back with a small clasp envelope. “This is it,” he said. He hesitated for a moment, then handed the envelope over.
Johnny held it but did not immediately open it. “As long as you understand that nothing comes guaranteed. I can’t promise. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t.”
Bannerman shrugged tiredly and repeated: “No venture, no gain.”
Johnny undid the clasp and shook an empty Marlboro cigarette box out into his hand. Red and white box. He held it in his left hand and looked at the far wall. Gray wall. Industrial gray wall. Red and white box. Industrial gray box. He put the cigarette package in his other hand, then cupped it in both. He waited for something, anything to come. Nothing did. He held it longer, hoping against hope, ignoring the knowledge that when things came, they came at once.
At last he handed the cigarette box back. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No soap, huh?”
“No.”
There was a perfunctory tap at the door and Roscoe Fisher stuck his head in. He looked a bit shamefaced. “Frank and I are going home, George. I guess you caught me coopin.”
“As long as I don’t catch you doing it in your cruiser,” Bannermann said. “Say hi to Deenie for me.”
“You bet.” Fisher glanced at Johnny for a moment and then closed the door.
“Well,” Bannerman said. “It was worth the try, I guess. I’ll run you back ...”
“I want to go over to the common,” Johnny said abruptly.
“No, that’s no good. It’s under a foot of snow.”
“You can find the place, can’t you?”
“Of course I can. But what’ll it gain?”
“I don’t know. But let’s go across.”
“Those reporters are going to follow us, Johnny. Just as sure as God made little fishes.”
“You said something about a back door.”
“Yeah, but it’s a fire door. Getting in that way is okay, but if we use it to go out, the alarm goes off.”
Johnny whistled through his teeth. “Let them follow along, then.”
Bannermann looked at him thoughtfully for several moments and then nodded. “Okay.”
8
When they came out of the office, the reporters were up and surrounding them immediately. Johnny was reminded of a rundown kennel over in Durham where a strange old woman kept collies. The dogs would all run out at you when you went past with your fishing pole, yapping and snarling and generally scaring the hell out of you. They would nip but not actually bite.