Salem's Lot

14

Parkins Gillespie was standing on the front step of the brick Municipal Building, looking through his high-powered Zeiss binoculars when Nolly Gardener drove up in the town’s police car and got out, hitching up his belt and picking out his seat at the same time.

‘What’s up, Park?’ he asked, walking up the steps.

Parkins gave him the glasses wordlessly and flicked one callused thumb at the Marsten House.

Nolly looked. He saw that old Packard, and parked in front of it, a new tan Buick. The gain on the binoculars wasn’t quite high enough to pick off the plate number. He lowered his glasses. ‘That’s Doc Cody’s car, ain’t it?’

‘Yes, I believe it is.’ Parkins inserted a Pall Mall between his lips and scratched a kitchen match on the brick wall behind him.

‘I never seen a car up there except that Packard.’

‘Yes, that’s so,’ Parkins said meditatively.

‘Think we ought to go up there and have a look?’ Nolly spoke with a marked lack of his usual enthusiasm. He had been a lawman for five years and was still entranced with his own position.

‘No,’ Parkins said, ‘I believe we’ll just leave her alone.’ He took his watch out of his vest and clicked up the scrolled silver cover like a trainman checking an express. Just 3:41. He checked his watch against the clock on the town hall and then tucked it back into place.

‘How’d all that co-me out with Floyd Tibbits and the little McDougall baby?’ Nolly asked.

‘Dunno.’

‘Oh,’ Nolly said, momentarily nonplussed. Parkins was always taciturn but this was a new high for him. He looked through the glasses again: no change.

‘Town seems quiet today,’ Nolly volunteered.

‘Yes,’ Parkins said. He looked across Jointner Avenue and the park with his faded blue eyes. Both the avenue and the park were deserted. They had been deserted most of the day. There was a remarkable lack of mothers strolling babies or idlers around the War Memorial.

‘Funny things been happening,’ Nolly ventured.

‘Yes,’ Parkins said, considering.

As a last gasp, Nolly fell back on the one bit of conversational bait that Parkins had never failed to rise to: the weather. ‘Clouding up,’ he said. ‘Be rain by tonight.’

Parkins studied the sky. There were mackerel scales directly overhead and a building bar of clouds to the southwest. ‘Yes,’ he said, and threw the stub of his cigarette away.

‘Park, you feelin’ all right?’

Parkins Gillespie considered it.

‘Nope,’ he said.

‘Well, what in hell’s the matter.

‘I believe,’ Gillespie said, ‘that I’m scared shitless.’

‘What?’ Nolly floundered. ‘Of what?’

‘Dunno,’ Parkins said, and took his binoculars back. He began to scan the Marsten House again while Nolly stood speechless beside him.