pistol. He was several inches shorter and probably eighty pounds lighter, but Bannerman backed up a step—as he had done on the common. Johnny’s cheeks had flushed a dull red. His lips were drawn back slightly from his teeth.
“No, you’re right, you calling me doesn’t mean shit in a tin bucket,” he said. “But you don’t want it to be Dodd, do you? It can be somebody else, then we’ll at least look into it, but it can’t be good old Frank Dodd. Because Frank’s upstanding, Frank takes care of his mother, Frank looks up to good old Sheriff George Bannerman, oh, Frank’s bloody Christ down from the cross except when he’s raping and strangling old ladies and little girls, and.it could have been your daughter, Bannerman, don’t you understand it could have been your own dau ...”
Bannerman hit him. At the last moment he pulled the punch, but it was still hard enough to knock Johnny backward; he stumbled over the leg of a chair and then sprawled on the floor. Blood trickled from his cheek where Bannerman’s Police Academy ring had grazed him.
“You had that coming,” Bannerman said, but there was no real conviction in his voice. It occurred to him that for the first time in his life he had hit a cripple—or the next thing to a cripple.
Johnny’s head felt light and full of bells. His voice seemed to belong to someone else, a radio announcer or a B.movie actor. “You ought to get down on your knees and thank God that he really didn’t leave any clues, because you would have overlooked them, feeling like you do about Dodd. And then you could have held yourself responsible in Mary Kate Hendrasen’s death, as an accessory.”
“That is nothing but a damnable lie,” Bannerman said slowly and clearly. “I’d arrest my own brother if he was the guy doing this. Get up off the floor. I’m sorry I hit you.”
He helped Johnny to his feet and looked at the scrape on his cheek.
“I’ll get the first-aid kit and put some iodine on that.”
“Forget it,” Johnny said. The anger had left his voice. “I guess I kind of sprang it on you, didn’t I?”
“I’m telling you, it can’t be Frank. You’re not a publicity hound, okay. I was wrong about that. Heat of the moment, okay? But your vibes or your astral plane or whatever it is sure gave you a bum steer this time.”
“Then check,” Johnny said. He caught Bannerman’s eyes with his own and held them. “Check it out. Show me I got it wrong.” He swallowed. “Check the times and dates against Frank’s work schedule. Can you do that?”
Grudgingly, Bannerman said, “The time cards in the back closet there go back fourteen or fifteen years. I guess I could check it.”
“Then do it.”
“Mister ...” He paused. “Johnny, if you knew Frank, you’d laugh at yourself. I mean it. It’s not just me, you ask anybody ...”
“If I’m wrong, I’ll be glad to admit it.”
“This is crazy,” Bannerman muttered, but he went to the storage closet where the old time cards were kept and opened the door.
11
Two hours passed. It was now nearly one o’clock in the morning. Johnny had called his father and told him he would find a place to sleep in Castle Rock; the storm had leveled off at a single furious pitch, and driving back would be next to impossible.
“What’s going on over there?” Herb asked. “Can you tell me?”
“I better not over the phone, Dad.”
“All right, Johnny. Don’t exhaust yourself.”
“No.”
But he was exhausted. He was more tired than he could remember being since those early days in physical therapy with Eileen Magown. A nice woman, he thought randomly. A nice friendly woman, at least until I told her that her house was burning down. After that she had become distant and awkward. She had thanked him, sure, but—had she ever touched him after that? Actually touched him? Johnny didn’t think so. And it would be the same with Bannerman when this thing was over. Too bad. Like Eileen, he was a fine man. But people get very nervous around people who can just touch things and know all about them.
“It doesn’t prove a thing,” Bannerman was saying now. There was a sulky, little-boy rebelliousness in his voice that rattled. But he was too tired.
They were looking down at a rough chart Johnny had made on the back of a circular for used state police interceptors. Stacked untidily by Bannerman’s desk were