Then there was what Fuzzy had not seen - namely, the back-up car or cars that would have been assigned the Beaumonts if they decided to put on their travelling shoes anyway . . . as they could have done; they weren't, after all, prisoners.
People with brain tumors often do very peculiar things.
If it was Thad's Toronado, and if he had been out at Fuzzy's to get it, and if he had been alone, that led to a conclusion Alan found very unpalatable, because he had taken a qualified liking to Thad. That conclusion was that he had deliberately ditched both his family and his protectors. The state police still should have called me, if that was the case. They'd put out an APB, and they'd know damned well this is one of the places he'd be likely to come. He dialed the Beaumont number. It was picked up on the first ring. A voice he didn't know answered. Which was only to say he could not put a name to the voice. That he was speaking to an officer of the law was something he knew from the first syllable.
'Hello, Beaumont residence.'
Guarded. Ready to drive a wedge of questions into the next gap if the voice happened to be the right one . . . or the wrong one.
What's happened? Pangborn wondered, and on the heels of that: They're dead. Whoever's out there has killed the whole family, as quickly, effortlessly, and with as little mercy as he showed the others. The protection, the interrogations, the traceback equipment . . . it was all for nothing. Not even a hint of these thoughts showed in his voice as he answered.
'This is Alan Pangborn,' he said crisply. 'Sheriff, Castle County. I was calling for Thad Beaumont. To whom am I speaking?'
There was a pause. Then the voice replied, 'This is Steve Harrison, Sheriff. Maine State Police. I was going to call you. Should have done it at least an hour ago. But things here . . . things here are f**ked all the way to the ionosphere. Can I ask why you called?'
Without a pause for thought - that would certainly have changed his response - Alan lied. He did it without asking himself why he was doing it. That would come later.
'I called to check in with Thad,' he said. 'It's been awhile, and I wanted to know how they're doing. I gather there's been trouble.
Trouble so big you wouldn't believe it,' Harrison said grimly. Two of my men are dead. We're pretty sure Beaumont did it.'
We're pretty sure Beaumont did it.
The peculiarity of the acts seems to rise in direct ratio to the intelligence of the man or woman so afflicted.
Alan felt d?j vu not just stealing into his mind but marching over his whole body like an invading army. Thad, it always came back to Thad. Of course. He was intelligent, he was peculiar, and he was, by his own admission, suffering from symptoms which suggested a brain tumor. The boy didn't have a brain tumor at all, you know.
If those tests showed negative, then it's because there's nothing to show. Forget the tumor. The sparrows are what you want to be thinking about now - because the sparrows are flying again.
'What happened?' he asked Trooper Harrison..'He cut Tom Chatterton and lack Eddings dunned near to pieces, that's what happened!'
Harrison shouted, startling Alan with the depth of his fury. 'He's got his family with him, and I want that son of a bitch!'
'What . . . how did he get away?'
'I don't have the time to go into it,' Harrison said. 'It's a sorry f**king story, Sheriff. He was driving a red and gray Chevrolet Suburban, a goddam whale on wheels, but we think he must have ditched it someplace and switched. He's got a summer place down there. You know the locale and the layout, right?'
'Yes,' Alan said. His mind was racing. He looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was a minute or so shy of three-forty. Time. It all came back to time. And he realized he hadn't asked Fuzzy Martin what time it had been when he saw the Toronado rolling out of his barn. It hadn't seemed important at the moment. Now it did. 'What time did you lose him, Trooper Harrison?'
He thought he could feel Harrison fuming at that, but when he answered, he did so without anger or defensiveness. 'Around twelve-thirty. He must have taken awhile to switch cars, if that's what he did, and then he went to his house in Ludlow - '
'Where was he when you lost him? How far away from his house?'
'Sheriff, I'd like to answer all your questions, but there's no time. The point is, if he's headed for his place down there - it seems unlikely, but the guy's crazy, so you never know - he won't have arrived yet, and he'll be there soon. Him and his whole fam'damly. It would be very nice if you and a couple of your men were there to greet him. If something pops, you radio Henry Payton at the Oxford State Police Barracks and we'll send more back-up than you've ever seen in your life. Don't try to apprehend him yourself under any circumstances. We're assuming the wife's been taken hostage, if she's not dead already, and that goes double for the kids.'