The Dark Half

haven't done anything. This is fucking outrageous. Just . . . fucking . . . outrageous!

   Now his voice had reached full volume, and both the troopers looked a little abashed. Pangborn did not. He went on staring at Thad in that unsettling way.

  In the other room, one of the twins began to cry.

  'Oh Jesus,' Liz moaned, 'what is this? Tell us!'

  'Go take care of the kids, babe,' Thad said, not unlocking his gaze from Pangborn's.

  'But — '

  'Please,' he said, and then both babies were crying. 'This will be all right.'

    She gave him a final trembling look, her eyes saying Do you promise? and then went into the living room.

  'We want to question you in connection with the murder of Homer Gamache,' the second trooper said.

  Thad broke his hard stare at Pangborn and turned to the trooper.

  'Who?'

   'Homer Gamache,' Pangborn repeated. 'Are you going to tell us the name means nothing to you, Mr Beaumont?'

    'Of course I'm not,' Thad said, astonished. 'Homer takes our trash to the dump when we're in town. Makes some small repairs around the house. He lost an arm in Korea. They gave him the Silver Star — '

'Bronze,' Pangborn said stonily.

'Homer's dead? Who killed him?'

  The troopers now looked at each other, surprised. After grief, astonishment may be the most difficult human emotion to fake effectively.

    The first trooper replied in a curiously gentle voice: 'We have every reason to believe you did, Mr Beaumont. That's why we're here.'

4

Thad looked at him with utter blankness for a moment and then laughed. 'Jesus. Jesus Christ. This is crazy.'

    'Do you want to get a coat, Mr Beaumont?' the other trooper asked. 'Raining pretty hard out there.'

  'I'm not going anywhere with you,' he repeated absently, entirely missing Pangborn's sudden expression of exasperation. Thad was thinking.

  'I'm afraid you are,' Pangborn said, 'one way or the other.'

  'It'll have to be the other, then,' he said, and then came out of himself. 'When did this happen?'

   'Mr Beaumont,' Pangborn said, speaking slowly and enunciating carefully — it was as if he was speaking to a four-year-old, and not a terribly bright one at that. 'We're not here to give you information.'

  Liz came back into the doorway with the babies. All color had drained from her face; her forehead shone like a lamp. 'This is crazy,' she said, looking from Pangborn to the troopers and then back to Pangborn again. 'Crazy. Don't you know that?'

  'Listen,' Thad said, walking over to Liz and putting an arm around her, 'I didn't kill Homer, Sheriff Pangborn, but I understand now why you're so pissed. Come on upstairs to my office. Let's sit down and see if we can't figure this out — '

   'I want you to get your coat,' Pangborn said. He glanced at Liz. 'Forgive my French, but I've had about all the bullshit I can put up with for a rainy Saturday morning. We have you cold.'

    Thad looked at the older of the two state troopers. 'Can you talk some sense to this man? Tell him that he can avoid a whole lot of embarrassment and trouble just by telling me when Homer was killed?' And, as an afterthought: 'And where. If it was in the Rock, and I can't imagine what Homer would be doing up here . . . well, I haven't been out of Ludlow, except to go to the University, in the last two and a half months.' He looked at Liz, who nodded.

The trooper thought it over, and then said: 'Excuse us a moment.'

   The three of them went back down the hallway, the troopers almost appearing to lead Pangborn. They went out the front door. As soon as it was shut, Liz burst into a spate of confused questions. Thad knew her well enough to suspect her terror would have come out as anger — fury, even — at the cops, if not for the news of Homer Gamache's death. As things were, she was on the edge of tears.

  'It's going to be all right,' he said, and kissed her on the check. As an afterthought, he also bussed William and Wendy, who were beginning to look decidedly troubled. 'I think the state troopers already know I'm telling the truth. Pangborn . . . well, he knew Homer. You did, too. He's just pissed as hell.' And from the look and sound of him, he must have what seems like unshakable evidence tying me to the murder, he thought but did not add.

   He walked down the hall and peered out the narrow side window as Liz had done. If not for the situation, what he saw would have been funny. The three of them were standing on the stoop, almost but not quite out of the rain, having a conference. Thad could get the sound of their voices, but not the sense. He thought they looked like ballplayers conferring on the mound during a lateinning rally by the other team. Both state cops were talking to Pangborn, who was shaking his head and replying heatedly.

  Thad went back down the hall.

  'What are they doing?' Liz asked.

    'I don't know,' Thad said, 'but I think the state cops are trying to talk Pangborn into telling me why he's so sure I killed Homer Gamache. Or at least some of the why.'

    'Poor Homer,' she muttered. 'This is like a bad dream.' He took William from her and told her again not to worry.

5

The policemen came in about two minutes later. Pangborn's face was a thundercloud. Thad surmised the two state cops had told him what Pangborn himself already knew but didn't want to admit: the writer was exhibiting none of the tics and twitches they associated with guilt.

  'All right,' Pangborn said. He was trying to avoid surliness, Thad thought, and doing a pretty good job. Not quite succeeding, but doing a pretty good job all the same, considering he was in the presence of his number-one suspect in the murder of a one-armed old man. 'These gentlemen would like me to ask you at least one question here, Mr Beaumont, and so I will. Can you account for your whereabouts during the time period from eleven p.m. on May thirty-first of this year until four a.m. on June first?'

    The Beaumonts exchanged a glance. Thad felt a great weight around his heart loosen. It did not quite fall off, not yet, but he felt as if all the catches holding that weight had been unbuckled. Now all it would take was one good push.

    'Was it?' he murmured to his wife. He thought it was, but it seemed just a little too good to be true.

  'I'm sure it was,' Liz responded. 'The thirty-first, did you say?' She was looking at Pangborn with radiant hope.

  Pangborn looked back suspiciously. 'Yes, ma'am. But I'm afraid your unsubstantiated word won't be — '

  She was ignoring him, counting backward on her fingers. Suddenly she grinned like a schoolgirl. 'Tuesday! Tuesday was the thirty-first!' she cried to her husband. 'It was! Thank God!'

   Pangborn looked puzzled and more suspicious than ever. The troopers looked at each other and then looked back at Liz. 'You want to let us in on it, Mrs Beaumont?' one asked.

  'We had a party here the night of Tuesday the thirty-first!' she replied, and flashed Pangborn a look of triumph and vicious dislike. 'We had a houseful! Didn't we, Thad?'

  'We sure did.'

    'In a case like this, a good alibi itself is cause for suspicion,' Pangborn said, but he looked offbalance.

    'Oh, you silly, arrogant man!' Liz exclaimed. Bright color now flamed in her cheeks. Fear was passing; fury was arriving. She looked at the troopers. 'If my husband doesn't have an alibi for this murder you say he committed, you take him to the police station! If he does, this man says it probably means he did it anyway! What are you, afraid of a little honest work? Why are you here?'

  'Quit, now, Liz,' Thad said quietly. 'They've got good reasons for being here. If Sheriff Pangborn was on a wild-goose chase or running on hunch, I believe he would come alone.'

  Pangborn gave him a sour look, then sighed. 'Tell us about this party, Mr Beaumont.'

  'It was for Tom Carroll,' Thad said. 'Tom has been in the University English Department for nineteen years, and he's been chairman for the last five. He retired on May twenty-seventh, when the academic year officially ended. He's always been a great favorite in the department, known to most of us old war-horses as Gonzo Tom because of his great liking for Hunter Thompson's essays. So we decided to throw a retirement party for him and his wife.'

  'What time did this party end?'

  Thad grinned. 'Well, it was over before four in the morning, but it ran late. When