- of all things - nylon stockings. He must have heard her wrong, but there was no mistaking the tone - sadness and great weariness, as if her failure to find David Brown had taken all the heart out of her. A moment later the connection had broken down completely. He hadn't bothered to call her back because he had given her all the information he had ... precious little, really.
The next day she was dead.
Better tell him to stay away. That much he was sure of.
Now, I have reasons ... to believe that I'm not wanted in Haven.
Tell him to stay away.
I might disappear like David Brown.
Stay away.
Or have an accident like Ruth McCausland.
Away.
He caught up to the old man in the parking lot.
14
Hillman had an old purple Valiant with badly rusted rocker panels. He looked up, driver's-side door open, as Dugan loomed over him.
'I'm coming with you tomorrow.'
Ev's eyes widened. 'You don't even know where I'm going!'
'No. But if I'm with you I won't have to worry that you're going to set half the woods in eastern Maine on fire trying to send me a message like Double-O-Seven.'
Ev looked at him consideringly, and then shook his head. 'I'd feel better having someone with me,' he said, 'especially a guy as big as Gorilla Monsoon who packs a gun. But they ain't stupid in Haven, Officer Dugan. They never were, and I got a feeling that they're a lot less stupid just lately. They expect to see you at her funeral. If they don't, they're going to be suspicious.'
'Christ! I'd like to know how the hell you can stand there babbling all that crazy shit and sound so fucking sane!'
'Maybe because you know too,' Ev said. 'How funny it is. How funny all of these things started in Haven.' Then with a prescience that was startling, he added: 'Or maybe you knew Ruth well enough yourself to sense she'd gotten off-kilter.'
The two men stood looking at each other in the graveled parking lot of the Derry barracks, the sun beating down on them, their shadows, clear and black, slanting out neatly at two o'clock.
'I'll let on tonight that I'm sick,' Dugan said. 'That I've got stomach flu. It's been going around the barracks. What do you think?'
Ev nodded with sudden relief - that relief was so great it was startling. The idea of sneaking back into Haven had frightened him more than he had been willing to let on, especially to himself. He had half-convinced this big cop that something might be going on there; he could see it in his face. Half-convinced wasn't much, maybe, but it was still a giant step forward from where he had been. And of course, he hadn't done it alone; Ruth McCausland had helped.
'All right,' he said, 'but listen to me, Trooper Dugan, and listen good, because our lives could depend on it tomorrow. Don't you call up any of the men who'll be going to the funeral tomorrow and tell them the reason you're not going to be there is just a gag you're running. Call up a few people tonight and tell them you really are just as sick as a dog, that you hope you are going to be able to make it, but you doubt it.'
Dugan frowned. 'Why would you want me to say - 'But suddenly he knew, and his mouth dropped open. The old man stared back at him calmly enough.
'Christ Jesus, are you telling me that you think the people in Haven are mind-readers? That if my men knew I really wasn't sick, the people in town could pick the news right out of their heads?'
'I ain't telling you a thing, Trooper Dugan,' Ev said. 'You are telling me.'
Mr Hillman, I really think that you must be imagining -'
I never expected you'd want to come with me when I came to see you. I wasn't angling for it, either. The most I hoped for was that you'd keep an eye out and see my flare if I got in trouble, and that would at least keep the heat on that nest of snakes down there a while longer. But if you offer a man more, he wants more. Trust me a little further. Please. For Ruth's sake ... if that's what it takes to convince you to come with me, I'm willing to use it. Something else: no matter what, you're going to feel some peculiar things tomorrow.'