The Outsider-Stephen King

  And maybe to steal a van, Ralph thought.

  It was possible, Merlin Cassidy and the Maitland family certainly could have been in Dayton at the same time, but it seemed farfetched. Even if that had happened, there was the question of how Terry had gotten the van back to Flint City. Or why he would have bothered. There were plenty of vehicles to be stolen in the FC metro area; Barbara Nearing's Subaru was a case in point.

  "Probably ate out a few times, didn't you?" Ralph asked.

  Howie sat forward at that, but said nothing for the moment.

  "We had a fair amount of room service, Sarah and Grace loved it, but sure, we ate out. Assuming the hotel restaurant counts as out."

  "Did you happen to eat at a place called Tommy and Tuppence?"

  "No. I'd remember a restaurant with a name like that. We ate at IHOP one night, and I think twice at Cracker Barrel. Why?"

  "No reason," Ralph said.

  Howie gave him a smile that said he knew better, but settled back. Alec sat with his arms crossed over his chest, his face expressionless.

  "Is that everything?" Marcy asked. "Because I'm tired of this. And I'm tired of you."

  "Did anything out of the ordinary happen while you were in Dayton? Anything at all? One of your daughters getting lost for a little while, Terry saying he'd met an old friend, you meeting an old friend, maybe a package delivery--"

  "A flying saucer?" Howie asked. "How about a man in a trenchcoat with a message in code? Or the Rockettes dancing in the parking lot?"

  "Not helpful, counselor. Believe it or not, I'm trying to be part of the solution here."

  "There was nothing." Marcy got up and began collecting coffee cups. "Terry visited his father, we had a nice vacation, we flew home. We didn't eat at Tommy and whatever it was, and we didn't steal a van. Now I'd like you to--"

  "Daddy got a cut."

  They all turned to the door. Sarah Maitland was standing there, looking pale and wan and much too thin in her jeans and Rangers tee-shirt.

  "Sarah, what are you doing down here?" Marcy put the cups on the counter and went to the girl. "I told you and your sister to stay upstairs until we were done talking."

  "Grace is already asleep," Sarah said. "She was awake last night with more stupid nightmares about the man with straws for eyes. I hope she doesn't have any tonight. If she wakes up, you should give her a shot of Benadryl."

  "I'm sure she'll sleep through. Go on, now."

  But Sarah stood her ground. She was looking at Ralph, not with her mother's dislike and distrust, but with a kind of concentrated curiosity that made Ralph uncomfortable. He held her gaze, but it was difficult.

  "My mother says you got my dad killed," Sarah said. "Is that true?"

  "No." Then the apology came at last, and to his surprise, it was almost effortless. "But I played a part, and for that I'm deeply sorry. I made a mistake I'll carry with me for the rest of my life."

  "Probably that's good," Sarah said. "Probably you deserve to." And to her mother: "I'll go upstairs now, but if Grace starts yelling in the middle of the night, I'm going to sleep in her room."

  "Before you go, Sarah, can you tell me about the cut?" Ralph asked.

  "It happened when he visited his father," Sarah said. "A nurse fixed it up right after it happened. She put on that Betadine stuff and a Band-Aid. It was okay. He said it didn't hurt."

  "Upstairs, you," Marcy said.

  "Okay." They watched her pad to the stairs in her bare feet. When she got there, she turned back. "That Tommy and Tuppence restaurant was right up the street from our hotel. When we went to the art museum in the rent-a-dent, I saw the sign."

  19

  "Tell me about the cut," Ralph said.

  Marcy put her hands on her hips. "Why? So you can make it into some kind of big deal? Because it wasn't."

  "He's asking because it's the only thing he's got," Alec said. "But I'm interested, too."

  "If you're too tired--" Howie began.

  "No, that's all right. It wasn't a big deal, just a scrape, really. Was that the second time he visited his father?" She lowered her head, frowning. "No, it was the last time, because we flew home the next morning. When Terry left his father's room, he smacked into an orderly. He said neither of them was looking where he was going. It would have been no more than bump and excuse me, but a janitor had just finished mopping the floor, and it was still wet. The orderly slipped and grabbed Terry's arm, but went down anyway. Terry helped him up, asked if he was all right, and the guy said he was. Ter was halfway down the hall before he saw his wrist was bleeding. One of the orderly's nails must have gotten him when he grabbed Terry, trying to stay on his feet. A nurse disinfected it and put on a Band-Aid, like Sarah said. And that's the whole story. Does it solve the case for you?"

  "No," Ralph said. But it wasn't like the yellow bra strap. This was a connection--a confluence, to use Jeannie's word--he thought he could nail down, but he would need Yune Sablo's help. He stood up. "Thanks for your time, Marcy."

  She favored him with a cold smile. "That's Mrs. Maitland to you."

  "Understood. And Howard, thanks for setting this up." He extended his hand to the lawyer. For a moment it just hung there, but in the end, Howie shook it.

  "I'll walk you out," Alec said.

  "I think I can find my way."

  "I'm sure you can, but since I walked you in, it makes a nice balance."

  They crossed the living room and went down the short hall. Alec opened the door. Ralph stepped out, and was surprised when Alec stepped out after him.

  "What was it about the cut?"

  Ralph eyed him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "I think you do. Your face changed."

  "A little acid indigestion. I'm prone to it, and that was a tough meeting. Although not as tough as the way the girl looked at me. I felt like a bug on a slide."

  Alec closed the door behind them. Ralph was two steps down, but because of his height, the two men were still almost eye to eye. "Going to tell you something," Alec said.

  "All right." Ralph braced himself.

  "That arrest was fucked. Fucked to the sky. I'm sure you know that now."

  "I don't think I need another scolding tonight." Ralph started to turn away.

  "I'm not done."

  Ralph turned back, head lowered, feet slightly spread. It was a fighter's stance.

  "I don't have any kids. Marie couldn't. But if I'd had a son your boy's age, and if I had solid proof that a homicidal sexual deviant had been important to him, someone he looked up to, I might have done the same thing, or worse. What I'm saying is that I understand why you lost perspective."

  "All right," Ralph said. "It doesn't make things better, but thanks."

  "If you change your mind about telling me what it was about the cut, give me a call. Maybe we're all on the same side here."

  "Goodnight, Alec."

  "Goodnight, Detective. Stay safe."

  20

  He was telling Jeannie how it went when his phone rang. It was Yune. "Can we talk tomorrow, Ralph? There was something weird in that barn where the kid found the clothes Maitland was wearing in the railway station. More than one thing, actually."

  "Tell me now."

  "No. I'm going home. I'm tired. And I need to think about this."

  "Okay, tomorrow. Where?"

  "Someplace quiet and out of the way. I can't afford to be seen talking to you. You're on administrative leave, and I'm off the case. Actually, there is no case. Not with Maitland dead."

  "What's going to happen with the clothes?"

  "They're going to Cap City for forensics examination. After that, they'll be turned over to the Flint County Sheriff's Department."

  "Are you kidding? They should be with the rest of the Maitland evidence. Besides which, Dick Doolin can't blow his own nose without an instruction manual."

  "That may be true, but Canning Township is county, not city, which makes it the sheriff's jurisdiction. I heard Chief Geller was s
ending a detective out, but just as a courtesy."

  "Hoskins."

  "Yeah, that was the name. He's not here yet, and by the time he makes it, everyone will be gone. Maybe he got lost."

  More likely stopped somewhere for a few pops, Ralph thought.

  Yune said, "Those clothes will end up in an evidence box at the sheriff's department, and they'll still be there when the twenty-second century dawns. No one gives a shit. The feeling is Maitland did it, Maitland's dead, let's move on."

  "I'm not ready to do that," Ralph said, and smiled when Jeannie, sitting on the sofa, made fists and popped two thumbs up. "Are you?"

  "Would I be talking to you if I was? Where should we meet tomorrow?"

  "There's a little coffee shop near the train station in Dubrow. O'Malley's Irish Spoon, it's called. Can you find it?"

  "No doubt."

  "Ten o'clock?"

  "Sounds good. If I have to roll on something, I'll call and reschedule."

  "You have all the witness statements, right?"

  "On my laptop."

  "Make sure you bring it. All my stuff is at the station, and I'm not supposed to be there. Got a lot to tell you."

  "Same here," Yune said. "We may crack this yet, Ralph, but I don't know if we'll like what we find. This is a pretty deep forest."

  Actually, Ralph thought as he ended the call, it's a cantaloupe. And the damn thing is full of maggots.

  21

  Jack Hoskins stopped at Gentlemen, Please on his way to the Elfman property. He ordered a vodka-tonic, which he felt he deserved after being called back from his vacation early. He gulped it, then ordered another, which he sipped. There were two strippers on stage, both still fully dressed (which in Gentlemen meant they were wearing bras and panties), but humping at each other in a lazy way that gave Jack a moderate boner.

  When he took out his wallet to pay, the bartender waved it away. "On the house."

  "Thanks." Jack dropped a tip on the bar and left, feeling in a marginally better mood. As he got moving again, he took a roll of breath mints from the glovebox and crunched a couple. People said vodka was odorless, but that was bullshit.

  The ranch road had been strung off with yellow police tape--county, not city. Hoskins got out, pulled up one of the stakes the tape was tied to, drove through, and replaced the stake. Fucking pain in the ass, he thought, and the ass-pain only deepened when he arrived at a cluster of ramshackle buildings--a barn and three sheds--to discover no one was there. He tried to call in, wanting to share his frustration with someone, even if it was only Sandy McGill, who he regarded as a prissy twat of the first order. All he got was static on the radio, and of course there was no cell service out here in South Jerkoff.

  He grabbed his long-barreled flashlight and got out, mostly to stretch his legs; there was nothing to be done here. It was a fool's errand, and he was the fool. A hard wind was blowing, hot breath that would be a brushfire's best friend if one got started. There was a grove of cottonwoods clustered around an old water pump. Their leaves danced and rustled, their shadows racing across the ground in the moonlight.

  There was more yellow tape stretched across the entrance to the barn where the clothes had been found. Bagged and on their way to Cap City by now, of course, but it was still creepy to think that Maitland had come here at some point after killing the kid.

  In a way, Jack thought, I'm retracing his path. Past the boat landing where he changed out of his bloody clothes, then to Gentlemen, Please. He went to Dubrow from the titty-bar, but then he must have circled back to . . . here.

  The open barn door was like a gaping mouth. Hoskins didn't want to go near it, not out here in the middle of nowhere and not on his own. Maitland was dead and there were no such things as ghosts, but he still didn't want to go near it. So he made himself do just that, step by slow step, until he could shine his light inside.

  Someone was standing at the rear of the barn.

  Jack uttered a soft cry, reached for his sidearm, and realized he wasn't wearing it. The Glock was in the small Gardall safe he kept in his truck. He dropped the flashlight. He bent and scooped it up, feeling the vodka surging around in his head, not enough to make him drunk, just enough to make him feel woozy and unsteady on his feet.

  He shone the light back into the barn, and laughed. There was no man, just the hame of an old harness, nearly busted into two pieces.

  Time to get out of here. Maybe stop at Gentlemen's for one more drink, then home and straight to b--

  There was someone behind him, and this was no illusion. He could see the shadow, long and thin. And . . . was that breathing?

  In a second, he's going to grab me. I need to drop and roll.

  Only he couldn't. He was frozen. Why hadn't he turned around when he saw the scene was deserted? Why hadn't he gotten his gun out of the safe? Why had he ever gotten out of the truck in the first place? Jack suddenly understood that he was going to die at the end of a dirt road in Canning Township.

  That was when he was touched. Caressed on the back of his neck by a hand as hot as a hot water bottle. He tried to scream and couldn't. His chest was locked up like the Glock in its safe. Now another hand would join the first and the choking would begin.

  Only the hand pulled back. Not the fingers, though. They moved back and forth--lightly, just the tips--playing across his skin and leaving trails of heat.

  Jack didn't know how long he stood there, unable to move. It might have been twenty seconds; it might have been two minutes. The wind blew, tousling his hair and caressing his neck like those fingers. The shadows of the cottonwoods schooled across the dirt and weeds like fleeing fish. The person--or the thing--stood behind him, its shadow long and thin. Touching and caressing.

  Then both the fingertips and the shadow were gone.

  Jack wheeled around, and this time the scream came out, long and loud, when the tail of his sportcoat belled out behind him in the wind and made a flapping sound. He stared at--

  Nothing.

  Just a few abandoned buildings and an acre or so of dirt.

  No one was there. No one had ever been there. No one in the barn; just a busted hame. No fingers on the back of his sweaty neck; just the wind. He returned to his truck in big strides, looking back over his shoulder once, twice, three times. He got in, cringing when a wind-driven shadow raced across the rearview mirror, and started the engine. He drove back down the ranch road at fifty miles an hour, past the old graveyard and the abandoned ranchhouse, not pausing at the yellow tape this time but simply driving through it. He swerved onto Highway 79, tires squalling, and headed back toward FC. By the time he passed the city limits, he had convinced himself nothing had happened out there at that abandoned barn. The throbbing at the nape of his neck also meant nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  YELLOW

  July 21st-July 22nd

  1

  At ten o'clock on Saturday morning, O'Malley's Irish Spoon was as close to deserted as it ever got. Two geezers sat near the front with mugs of coffee beside them and a chessboard between them. The only waitress was staring, transfixed, at a small TV over the counter, where an infomercial was playing. The item on sale appeared to be some sort of golf club.

  Yunel Sablo was sitting at a table toward the rear, dressed in faded jeans and a tee-shirt tight enough to show off his admirable musculature (Ralph had not had admirable musculature since 2007 or so). He was also watching the TV, but when he saw Ralph, he raised a hand and beckoned.

  As he sat down, Yune said: "I don't know why the waitress is so interested in that particular club."

  "Women don't golf? What kind of male chauvinist world are you living in, amigo?"

  "I know women golf, but that particular club is hollow. The idea is if you get caught short on the fourteenth hole, you can piss in it. There's even a little apron included that you can flip over your junk. Thing like that wouldn't work for a woman."

  The waitress came over to take their order. Ralph asked for scrambled egg
s and rye toast, looking at the menu rather than her, lest he burst into laughter. That was one urge he hadn't expected to struggle against this morning, and a small, strained giggle escaped him, anyway. It was the thought of the apron that did it.

  The waitress didn't need to be a mind reader. "Yeah, it might have its funny side," she said. "Unless, that is, your husband's a golf nut with a prostate the size of a grapefruit and you don't know what to get him for his birthday."

  Ralph met Yune's eyes, and that tipped them both over. They burst into hearty roars of hilarity that made the chess players look around disapprovingly.

  "You going to order anything, honey," the waitress asked Yune, "or just drink coffee and laugh about the Comfort Nine Iron?"

  Yune ordered huevos rancheros. When she was gone, he said, "It's a strange world, ese, full of strange things. Don't you think so?"

  "Given what we're here to talk about, I'd have to agree. What was strange out there in Canning Township?"

  "Plenty."

  Yune had a leather shoulder-bag, the sort of thing Ralph had heard Jack Hoskins refer to (slightingly) as a man-purse. From it he took an iPad Mini in a battered case that had seen a lot of hard traveling. Ralph had noticed more and more cops carrying these gadgets, and guessed that by 2020, 2025 at the latest, they might entirely replace the traditional cop's notebook. Well, the world moved on. You either moved with it, or got left behind. On the whole, he would rather have one of those for his birthday than a Comfort Nine Iron.

  Yune tapped a couple of buttons and brought up his notes. "Kid named Douglas Elfman found the discarded clothes late yesterday afternoon. Recognized the horse's head belt buckle from a news report. Called his dad, who got in touch with the SP right away. I got there with the crime van around quarter to six. The jeans, who knows, bluejeans just about grow on trees, but I recognized the buckle right away. Look for yourself."

  He tapped the screen again, and a close-up of the buckle filled the screen. Ralph had no doubt it was the same one that Terry had been wearing in the security cam footage from the Vogel Transportation Center in Dubrow.