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Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 205 из 425And I’d damn well try.” She looked bewildered. “What could be on them? And if it’s bad, why not just destroy them?”
“Maybe he can’t,” I said. “Maybe he needs them for other reasons.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” John said. “Durgin was bluffing, and that’s what matters.” He hit the heel of his hand lightly against the picnic table. “I think he’s going to drop it. I really do.”
“It’s too early to start thinking like that,” I said at once, but I could tell by Mattie’s face—shining more brightly than ever—that the damage was done.
“Fill him in on what else you’ve been doing,” Mattie told John. “Then I’ve got to get to the library.”
“Where do you send Kyra on your workdays?” I asked. “Mrs. Cullum’s. She lives two miles up the Wasp Hill Road. Also in July there’s V.B.S. from ten until three. That’s Vacation Bible School. Ki loves it, especially the singing and the flannel-board stories about Noah and Moses. The bus drops her off at Arlene’s, and I pick her up around quarter of nine.” She smiled a little wistfully. “By then she’s usually fast asleep on the couch.” John held forth for the next ten minutes or so. He hadn’t been on the case long, but had already started a lot of balls rolling. A fellow in California was gathering facts about Roger Devore and Morris Ridding (“gathering facts” sounded so much better than “snooping”). John was particularly interested in learning about the quality of Roger Devore’s relations with his father, and if Roger was on record concerning his little niece from Maine. John had also mapped out a campaign to learn as much as possible about Max Devore’s movements and activities since he’d come back to TR-90. To that end he had the name of a private investigator, one recommended by Romeo Bissonette, my rent-a-lawyer. As he spoke, paging rapidly through a little notebook he drew from the inside pocket of his suitcoat, I remembered what he’d said about Lady Justice during our telephone conversation: Slap some handcuf25 on that broad’s wrists and some tape over her mouth to go along with the blindjld, rape her and roll her in the mud. That was maybe a bit too strong for what we were doing, but I thought at the very least we were shoving her around a little. I imagined poor Roger Devore up on the stand, having flown three thousand miles in order to be questioned about his sexual preferences. I had to keep reminding myself that his father had put him in that position, not Mattie or me or John Storrow.
“Maybe he can’t,” I said. “Maybe he needs them for other reasons.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” John said. “Durgin was bluffing, and that’s what matters.” He hit the heel of his hand lightly against the picnic table. “I think he’s going to drop it. I really do.”
“It’s too early to start thinking like that,” I said at once, but I could tell by Mattie’s face—shining more brightly than ever—that the damage was done.
“Fill him in on what else you’ve been doing,” Mattie told John. “Then I’ve got to get to the library.”
“Where do you send Kyra on your workdays?” I asked. “Mrs. Cullum’s. She lives two miles up the Wasp Hill Road. Also in July there’s V.B.S. from ten until three. That’s Vacation Bible School. Ki loves it, especially the singing and the flannel-board stories about Noah and Moses. The bus drops her off at Arlene’s, and I pick her up around quarter of nine.” She smiled a little wistfully. “By then she’s usually fast asleep on the couch.” John held forth for the next ten minutes or so. He hadn’t been on the case long, but had already started a lot of balls rolling. A fellow in California was gathering facts about Roger Devore and Morris Ridding (“gathering facts” sounded so much better than “snooping”). John was particularly interested in learning about the quality of Roger Devore’s relations with his father, and if Roger was on record concerning his little niece from Maine. John had also mapped out a campaign to learn as much as possible about Max Devore’s movements and activities since he’d come back to TR-90. To that end he had the name of a private investigator, one recommended by Romeo Bissonette, my rent-a-lawyer. As he spoke, paging rapidly through a little notebook he drew from the inside pocket of his suitcoat, I remembered what he’d said about Lady Justice during our telephone conversation: Slap some handcuf25 on that broad’s wrists and some tape over her mouth to go along with the blindjld, rape her and roll her in the mud. That was maybe a bit too strong for what we were doing, but I thought at the very least we were shoving her around a little. I imagined poor Roger Devore up on the stand, having flown three thousand miles in order to be questioned about his sexual preferences. I had to keep reminding myself that his father had put him in that position, not Mattie or me or John Storrow.