he wanted. The man told him it sounded as if he really ought to take a ride up to Bangor and talk to the folks at Downeast ScubaDive. Ev explained that a scuba tank was the last thing he wanted; he was interested in as much dry-land portability as he could get. He and the fellow talked a while longer, and Ev left after signing a thirty-six-hour rental agreement, with a rather specialized piece of equipment. The fellow at Maine Med Supplies stood at the door watching him go, scratching his head.
15
The nurse read the note by Hilly's bed.
Hilly -
I may not see you for a while now, but I just wanted to tell you I think you'll get over this bad patch, and if I can help you do it, I guess I will be just about the happiest grampa in the world. I believe David is still alive, and I don't think it's your fault that he got lost in the first place. I love you, Hilly, and I hope to see you soon.
Gramp
But he never saw Hilly Brown again.
BOOK II. TALES OF HAVEN Chapter 9. The Funeral
1
From nine o'clock on, out-of-towners who had known or worked with Ruth McCausland began to come into Haven Village. Soon almost every parking space along Main Street was taken. The Haven Lunch did a brisk business. Beach kept busy short-ordering eggs, bacon, sausages, and home-fries. He brewed pot after pot of coffee. Representative Brennan hadn't come, but he had sent a close aide. Should have come y'self, Joe, Beach thought with a little sunken smile. Might have got a whole slew of new ideas 'bout how to run the gov'mint.
The day dawned brisk and clear, more like late September than late July. The sky was bright blue, the temperature a moderate sixty-eight degrees, the wind out of the west at about twenty miles an hour. Once more there were outsiders in Haven, and once more Haven had gotten lucky weather for them. And soon it wouldn't matter whether they were lucky or not, the townsfolk told each other without speaking; soon they would be in charge of their own luck.
A good day, you would have said; the best kind of New England summer's day, the sort the tourists come for. A day to prick the appetite fully alive. Those who came to Haven from out of town ordered hearty breakfasts, as people with lively appetites are apt to do, but Beach noted that most of those breakfasts came back only half-eaten. The newcomers lost their appetites quickly; the light went out of their eyes, and they began to look, for the most part, sallow and a little sick.
The Lunch was crowded, but conversation lagged.
Must be that the air here in our little town don't quite agree with you folks, Beach thought. He imagined going into the storeroom, where the device he had used to get rid of the two nosy cops was hidden under a pile of tablecloths. He imagined bringing it out here, a great big deadly bazooka, and just washing his lunchroom clean of all these outsiders with a purifying blast of green fire.
No; not now. Not yet. Soon it wouldn't matter. Next month. But for now ...
He looked down at the plate he was scraping and saw a tooth in someone's scrambled eggs.
Tommyknockers coming, my friends, Beach thought. Only when they finally get here, I don't think they'll even bother knocking; I think they'll just blow the fucking door right down.
Beach's grin widened. He scraped the tooth off the plate with the rest of the garbage.
2
Dugan could be silent when he wanted, and this morning that was what he wanted. Apparently it was what the old man wanted, too. Dugan had gotten to Ev Hillman's apartment building on Lower Main promptly at eight, and had found a Jeep Cherokee standing at the curb behind the old party's Valiant. There was a big gunnysack in the back, its top tied with hayrope.
'Did you rent this in Bangor?'
'Leased it at Derry AMC,' Ev said.
'Must have been expensive.'
"Twasn't too dear.'
That ended the conversation. They arrived somewhere near the AlbionHaven town line an hour and forty minutes later. We'll be doing a bit Of backroading, the old man had said, and if that wasn't a classic understatement, Butch didn't know what was. He had been driving in this part of Maine for almost twenty years, and before today had thought he knew it like the back of his hand. Now he knew