16
"Alan?" Henry Payton called. "Alan, you there?" He sounded like an announcer broadcasting from inside a large empty Saltines box.
"Right here, Henry."
"I got a call from the FBI just half an hour ago," Henry said from inside his cracker-box. "We caught an incredibly lucky break on those prints."
Alan's heartbeat kicked into a higher gear. "The ones on the doorknob of Nettle's house? The partials?"
"Right. We have a tentative match with a fellow right there in town. One prior-petty larceny in 1977. We've also got his service prints."
"Don't keep me hanging-who is it?"
"The name of the individual is Hugh Albert Priest."
"Hugh Priest!" Alan exclaimed. He could not have been more surprised if Payton had named J. Danforth Quayle. To the best of Alan's knowledge, the two men had known Nettle Cobb equally well. "Why would Hugh Priest kill Nettle's dog? Or break Wilma Jerzyck's windows, for that matter?"
"I don't know the gentleman, so I can't say," Henry replied.
"Why don't you pick him up and ask him? In fact, why don't you do it right away, before he gets nervous and decides to visit relatives in Dry Hump, South Dakota?"
"Good idea," Alan said. "I'll talk to you later, Henry. Thanks."
"Just keep me updated, scout-this is supposed to be my case, you know."
"Yeah. I'll talk to you."
There was a sharp metallic sound-bink!-as the connection broke, and then Alan's radio was transmitting the open hum of a telephone line. Alan wondered briefly what Nynex and AT amp;T would think of the games they were playing, then bent to rack the mike. As he did so, the telephone-line hum was broken by Sheila Brigham's voice-her uncharacteristically hesitant voice.
"Sheriff, I have Polly Chalmers on hold. She's asked to be patched through to you as soon as you're available. Ten-four?"
Alan blinked. "Polly?" He was suddenly afraid, the way you're afraid when the telephone rings at three in the morning. Polly had never requested such a service before, and if asked, Alan would have said she never would-it would have gone against her idea of correct behavior, and to Polly, correct behavior was very important.
"What is it, Sheila-did she say? Ten-four."
"No, Sheriff. Ten-four."
No. Of course she hadn't. He had known that, too. Polly didn't spread her business around. The fact that he'd even asked showed how surprised he was.
"Sheriff?"
"Patch her through, Sheila. Ten-four."
"Ten-forty, Sheriff."
Bink!
He stood there in the sunshine, his heart beating too hard and too fast. He didn't like this.
The bink! sound came again, followed by Sheila's voice-distant, almost lost. "Go ahead, Polly-you should be connected."
"Alan?" The voice was so loud he recoiled. It was the voice of a giant... an angry giant. He knew that much already; one word was enough.
"I'm here, Polly-what is it?"
For a moment there was only silence. Somewhere, deep within it, was the faint mutter of other voices on other calls. He had time to wonder if he had lost the connection... time to almost hope he had.
"Alan, I know this line is open," she said, "but you'll know what I'm talking about. How could you? How could you?"
Something was familiar about this conversation. Something.
"Polly, I'm not understanding you-"
"Oh, I think you are," she replied. Her voice was growing thicker, harder to understand, and Alan realized that if she wasn't crying, she soon would be. "It's hard to find out you don't know a person the way you thought you did. It's hard to find out the face you thought you loved is only a mask."
Something familiar, right, and now he knew what it was. This was like the nightmares he'd had following the deaths of Annie and Todd, the nightmares in which he stood on the side of the road and watched them go past in the Scout. They were on their way to die. He knew it, but he was helpless to change it. He tried to wave his arms but they were too heavy. He tried to shout and couldn't remember how to open his mouth. They drove by him as if he were invisible, and this was like that, too-as if he had become invisible to Polly in some weird way.
"Annie-" He realized with horror whose name he had said, and backtracked. "Polly. I don't know what you're talking about, Polly, but-"
"You do!" she screamed at him suddenly. "Don't say you don't when you do! Why couldn't you wait for me to tell you, Alan? And if you couldn't wait, why couldn't you ask? Why did you have to go behind my back? How could you go behind my back?"
He shut his eyes tight in an effort to catch hold of his racing, confused thoughts, but it did no good. A hideous picture came instead: Mike Horton from the Norwayjournal-Register, bent over the newspaper's Bearcat scanner, furiously taking notes in his pidgin shorthand.
"I don't know what it is you think I've done, but you've got it wrong. Let's get together, talk-"