Thad nodded. 'I do, anyway.'
'I don't,' Liz said, and they both looked at her, startled. 'I don't believe. I know.'
Alan sighed and stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. 'There's one thing I'd like to know,' he said. 'If this is what you say it is . . . I don't believe it, can't believe it, I suppose you'd say . . . but if it is, what the hell does this guy want? Just revenge?'
'Not at all,' Thad said. 'He wants the same thing you or I would want if we were in his position. He wants not to be dead anymore. That's all he wants. Not to be dead anymore. I'm the only one who might be able to make that happen. And if I can't, or won't . . . well . . . he can at least make sure he isn't lonely..
Chapter Sixteen
George Stark Calling
1
Alan had left to talk to Dr Hume and the FBI agents were just wrapping up their interrogation - if that was the right word for something which seemed so oddly exhausted and desultory - when George Stark rang. The call came less than five minutes after the state police technicians (who called themselves 'wiremen') finally pronounced themselves satisfied with the accessories they had attached to the Beaumont telephones.
They had been disgusted but apparently not very surprised to find that, beneath the state-of-the-art exterior of the Beaumonts' Merlin phones, they were stuck with the town of Ludlow's horse-and-buggy rotary-dial system.
'Man, this is hard to believe,' the wireman whose name was Wes said (in a tone of voice which suggested he really would have expected nothing else out here in East Overshoe). The other wireman, Dave, trudged out to the panel truck to find the proper adapters and any other equipment they might need to put the Beaumonts' telephones in line with law-enforcement as it exists in the latter years of the twentieth century. Wes rolled his eyes and then looked at Thad, as if Thad should have informed him at once that he was still living in the telephone's pioneer era. Neither wireman spared so much as a glance for the FBI men who had flown up to Bangor from
the Boston branch office and then driven heroically through the dangerous wolf-and bear-infested wilderness between Bangor and Ludlow. The FBI men might have existed in an entirely different light-spectrum which state police wiremen could see no more than infrared or X-rays.
'All the phones in town are this way,' Thad said humbly. He was developing a nasty case of acid indigestion. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have made him grouchy and hard to live with. Today, however, he only felt tired and vulnerable and terribly sad. His thoughts kept turning to Rick's father, who lived in Tucson, and Miriam's parents, who lived in San Luis Obispo. What was old Mr Cowley thinking about right now? What were the Penningtons thinking? How, exactly, would these people, often mentioned in conversation but never actually met, be managing? How did one cope, not just with the death of one's child, but with the unexpected death of one's adult child? How did one cope with the simple, irrational fact of murder?
Thad realized he was thinking of the survivors instead of the victims for one simple, gloomy reason: he felt responsible for everything. Why not? If he was not to blame for George Stark, who was? Bobcat Goldthwaite? Alexander Haig? The fact that the outdated rotary-dial system still in use here made his phones unexpectedly difficult to tap was just something else to feel guilty about.
'I think that's everything, Mr Beaumont,' one of the FBI men said. He had been reviewing his notes, apparently as oblivious of Wes and Dave as the two wiremen were of him. Now the agent, whose name was Malone, flipped his notebook closed. It was leather-bound, with his initials discreetly stamped in silver on the lower left-hand corner of the cover. He was dressed in a.conservative gray suit, and his hair was parted ruler-straight on the left. 'Have you got anything else, Bill?'
Bill, aka Agent Prebble, flipped his own notebook - also leatherbound, but sans initials - closed and shook his head. 'Nope. I think that about does it.' Agent Prebble was dressed in a conservative brown suit. His hair was also parted ruler-straight on the left. 'We may have a few more questions later on in the investigation, but we've got what we need for the time being. We'd like to thank you both for your cooperation.' He gave them a big smile, disclosing teeth which were either capped or so perfect they were eerie, and Thad mused: If we were five, I believe he'd give each of us a TODAY WAS A HAPPY-FACE DAY! certificate to take home and show Mommy.
'Not at all,' Liz said in a slow, distracted voice. She was gently massaging her left temple with the tips of her fingers, as if she were experiencing the onset of a really bad headache. Probably, Thad thought, she is.