'Now do you understand why I held it back?' he asked.
'Yes . . . I think so.'
'What would he have said? Our practical sheriff from Maine's smallest county, who puts his faith in computer print-outs from A.S.R. and I. and eyewitness testimony? Our sheriff who found it more plausible that I might be hiding a twin brother than that someone has somehow discovered how to duplicate fingerprints? What would he have said to this?'
'I . . . I don't know.' She was struggling to bring herself back, to haul herself out of the shockwave. He had seen her do it before, but that did not lessen his admiration for her. 'I don't know what he would have said, Thad.'
'Me either. I think at the very worst, he might assume some foreknowledge of the crime. It's probably more likely he'd believe I ran up here and wrote that after he left tonight.'
'Why would you do a thing like that? Why?'
'I think insanity would be the first assumption,' Thad said dryly. 'I think a cop like Pangborn would be a lot more likely to believe insanity than to accept an occurrence which seems to have no explanation outside the paranormal. But if you think I'm wrong to hold this back until I have a chance to make something of it myself - and I might be - say so. We can call the Castle Rock sheriff's office and leave a message for him.'
She shook her head. 'I don't know. I've heard - on some talk-show or other, I guess - about psychic links . . . '
'Do you believe in them?'
'I never had any reason to think much about the idea one way or the other,' she said. 'Now I guess I do.' She reached over and picked up the sheet with the words scrawled on it. 'You wrote it with one of George's pencils,' she said.
'It was the closest thing to hand, that's all,' he said testily. He thought briefly of the Scripto pen and then shut it out of his mind. 'And they aren't George's pencils and never were. They're mine. I'm getting goddam tired of referring to him as a separate person. It's lost any marginal cuteness it might once have had.'
'Yet you used one of his phrases today, too - 'lie me an alibi.' I never heard you use it before, outside of a book. Was that just coincidence?'
He started to tell her that it was, of course it was, and stopped. It probably was, but in light of what he had written on that sheet of paper, how could he know for sure?
'I don't know.'
'Were you in a trance, Thad? Were you in a trance when you wrote this?'
Slowly, reluctantly, he replied: 'Yes. I think I was.'
'Is this all that happened? Or was there more?'.'I can't remember,' he said, and then added even more reluctantly: 'I think I might have said
something, but I really can't remember.'
She looked at him for a long time and said, 'Let's go to bed.'
'Do you think we'll sleep, Liz?'
She laughed forlornly.
3
But twenty minutes later he was actually drifting away when Liz's voice brought him back. 'You have to go to the doctor,' she said. 'On Monday.'
'There are no headaches this time,' he protested. 'Just the bird-sounds. And that weird thing I wrote.' He paused, then added hopefully: 'You don't suppose it could just be a coincidence?'
'I don't know what it is,' Liz said, 'but I've got to tell you, Thad, that coincidence is very low on my list.'
For some reason this struck them both as funny and they lay in bed, giggling as softly as they could, so as not to wake the babies, and holding each other. It was all right between them again, anyway - there was not much Thad felt he could be sure of just now, but that was one thing. It was all right. The storm had passed. The sorry old bones had been buried again, at least for the time being.
'I'll make the appointment,' she said when their giggles had dried up.
'No,' he said. 'I'll do it.'
'And you won't indulge in any creative forgetting?'
'No. I'll do it first thing Monday. Honest John.'
'All right, then.' She sighed. 'It'll be a goddam miracle if I get any sleep.' But five minutes later she was breathing softly and regularly, and not five minutes after that, Thad was asleep himself. 4