he did this. "Did you have this cooler with you on Sunday morning, Brian?"
"Yes, sir," Brian said. He wiped his cheeks with the backs of his hands and watched Alan's face warily.
"What was in it?"
Brian said nothing, but Alan thought his lips were trembling.
"What was in it, Brian?"
Brian said a little more nothing.
"Was it full of rocks?"
Slowly and deliberately, Brian shook his head-no.
For the third time, Alan asked: "What was in it?"
"Same thing that's in it now," Brian whispered.
"May I open it and see?"
"Yes, sir," Brian said in his listless voice. "I guess so."
Alan rotated the cover to one side and looked into the cooler.
It was full of baseball cards: Topps, Fleer, Donruss.
"These are my traders. I carry them with me almost everywhere," Brian said.
"You... carry them with you."
"Yes, sir."
"Why, Brian? Why do you cart a cooler filled with baseball cards around with you?"
"I told you-they're traders. You never know when you'll get a chance to make a boss trade with someone. I'm still looking for a Joe Foy-he was on the Impossible Dream team in '67-and a Mike Greenwell rookie card. The Gator's my favorite player." And now Alan thought he saw a faint, fugitive gleam of amusement in the boy's eyes; could almost hear a telepathic voice chanting Fooled ya! Fooledya! But surely that was only him; only his own frustration mocking the boy's voice.
Wasn't it?
Well, what did you expect to find inside that cooler, anyway?
A pile of rocks with notes tied around them? Did you actually think he was on his way to do the same thing to someone else's house?
Yes, he admitted. Part of him had thought exactly that. Brian Rusk, The Pint-Sized Terror of Castle Rock. The Mad Rocker. And the worst part was this: he was pretty sure Brian Rusk knew what was going through his head.
Fooledya! Fooledya, Sheriff.' "Brian, please tell me what's going on around here. If you know, please tell me."
Brian closed the lid of the Playmate cooler and said nothing. It made a soft little snick! in the drowsy autumn afternoon.
"Can't say?"
Brian nodded slowly-meaning, Alan thought, that he was right: he couldn't say.
"Tell me this, at least: are you scared? Are you scared, Brian?"
Brian nodded again, just as slowly.
"Tell me what you're scared of, son. Maybe I can make it go away." He tapped one finger lightly against the badge he wore on the left side of his uniform shirt. "I think that's why they pay me to lug this star around. Because sometimes I can make the scary stuff go away."
"I-" Brian began, and then the police radio Alan had installed beneath the dash of the Town and Country wagon three or four years ago squawked to life.
"Unit One, Unit One, this is base. Do you copy? Over?"
Brian's eyes broke away from Alan's. They turned toward the station wagon and the sound of Sheila Brigham's voice-the voice of authority, the voice of the police. Alan saw that, if the boy had been on the verge of telling him something (and it might only be wishful thinking to believe he had been), he wasn't anymore. His face had closed up like a clamshell.
"You go on home now, Brian. We're going to talk about this... this dream of yours... more later on. Okay?"
"Yes, sir," Brian said. "I guess so."
"In the meantime, think about what I said: most of what being Sheriff's about is making the scary stuff go away."
"I have to go home now, Sheriff. If I don't get home pretty soon, my mom's gonna be mad at me."
Alan nodded. "Well, we don't want that. Go on, Brian."
He watched the boy go. Brian's head was down, and once again he did not seem to be riding the bike so much as trudging along with it between his legs. Something was wrong there, so wrong that Alan's finding out what had happened to Wilma and Nettle seemed secondary to finding out what had put the tired, haunted expression on that kid's face.
The women, after all, were dead and buried. Brian Rusk was still alive.
He went to the tired old station wagon he should have traded a year ago, leaned in, grabbed the Radio Shack mike, and depressed the transmit button. "Yeah, Sheila, this is Unit One. I copy-come on back."
"Henry Payton called for you, Alan," Sheila said. "He told me to tell you it's urgent. He wants me to patch you through to him.
Ten-four?"
"Go for it," Alan said. He felt his pulse pick up.
"It may take a couple of minutes, ten-four?"
"That's fine.