Salem's Lot

7

By nine-thirty it was over.

Carl Foreman’s funeral wagon had come and taken Mike Ryerson’s body away, and the fact of his passing left the house with him and belonged to the town. Jimmy Cody had gone back to his office; Norbert and the photographer had gone to Portland to talk with the county ME.

Parkins Gillespie stood on the stoop for a moment and watched the hearse trundle slowly up the road, a cigarette dangling between his lips. ‘All the times Mike drove that, I bet he never guessed how soon he’d be ridin’ in the back.’ He turned to Ben. ‘You ain’t leavin’ the Lot just yet, are you? Like you to testify for the coroner’s jury, if that’s okay by you.’

‘No, I’m not leaving.

The constable’s faded blue eyes measured him. ‘I checked you through with the feds and the Maine State Police RI in Augusta,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a clean rep.’

‘That’s good to know,’ Ben said evenly.

‘I hear it around that you’re sparkin’ Bill Norton’s girl.’

‘Guilty,’ Ben said.

‘She’s a fine lass,’ Parkins said without smiling. The hearse was out of sight now; even the hum of its engine had dwindled to a drone that faded altogether. ‘Guess she don’t see much of Floyd Tibbits these days.’

‘Haven’t you some paper work to do, Park?’ Matt prodded gently.

He sighed and cast the butt of his cigarette away. ‘Sure do. Duplicate, triplicate, don’t-punch-spindle-or-mutilate. This job’s been more trouble than a she-bitch with crabs the last couple of weeks. Maybe that old Marsten House has got a curse on it.’

Ben and Matt kept poker faces.

‘Well, s’long.’ He hitched his pants and walked down to his car. He opened the driver’s side door and then turned back to them. ‘You two ain’t holdin’ nothin’ back on me, are you?’

‘Parkins,’ Matt said, ‘there’s nothing to hold back. He’s dead.’

He looked at them a moment longer, the faded eyes sharp and glittering under his hooked brows, and then he sighed. ‘I suppose,’ he said. ‘But it’s awful goddamn funny. The dog, the Glick boy, then t’other Glick boy, now Mike. That’s a year’s run for a pissant little burg like this one. My old grammy used to say things ran in threes, not fours.’ He got in, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway. A moment later he was gone over the hill, trailing one farewell honk.

Matt let out a gusty sigh. ‘That’s over.’

‘Yes,’ Ben said. ‘I’m beat. Are you?’

‘I am, but I feel… weird. You know that word, the way the kids use it?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’ve got another one: spaced out. Like coming down from an acid trip or speed, when even being normal is crazy.’ He scrubbed a hand across his face. ‘God, you must think I’m a lunatic. It all sounds like a madman’s raving in the daylight, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes and no,’ Ben said. He put a diffident hand on Matt’s shoulder. ‘Gillespie is right, you know. There is something going on. And I’m thinking more and more that it has to do with the Marsten House. Other than myself, the people up there are the only new people in town. And I know I haven’t done anything. Is our trip up there tonight still on? The rustic welcome wagon?’

‘If you like.’

‘I do. You go in and get some sleep. I’ll get in touch with Susan and we’ll drop by this evening.’

‘All right.’ He paused. ‘There’s one other thing. It’s been bothering me ever since you mentioned autopsies.’

‘What?’

‘The laugh I heard-or thought I heard-was a child’ s laugh. Horrible and soulless, but still a child’s laugh. Connected to Mike’s story, does that make you think of Danny Glick?’

‘Yes, of course it does.’

‘Do you know what the embalming procedure is?’

‘Not specifically. The blood is drained from the cadaver and replaced with some fluid. They used to use formaldehyde, but I’m sure they’ve got more sophisticated methods now. And the corpse is eviscerated.’

‘I wonder if all that was done to Danny?’ Matt said, looking at him.

‘Do you know Carl Foreman well enough to ask him in confidence?’

‘Yes, I think I could find a way to do that.’

‘Do it, by all means.’

‘I will.’

They looked at each other a moment longer, and the glance that passed between them was friendly but indefinable; on Matt’s part the uneasy defiance of the rational man who has been forced to speak irrationalities, on Ben’s a kind of ill-defined fright of forces he could not understand enough to define.