Bag of Bones   ::   Кинг Стивен

“Did he leave a note? Any explanation?”

“Nawp. But you’ll hear folks say he haunts the lake, too. Little towns are most likely full of haunts, but I couldn’t say aye, no, or maybe myself; I ain’t the sensitive type. All I know about your place, Mr. Noo-nan, is that it smells damp no matter how much I try to get it aired out. I ’magine that’s logs. Log buildins don’t go well with lakes. The damp gets into the wood.”

She had set her purse down between her Reeboks; now she bent and picked it up. It was a countrywoman’s purse, black, styleless (except for the gold grommets holding the handles on), and utilitarian. She could have carried a good selection of kitchen appliances in there if she had wanted to.

“I can’t stand here natterin all day long, though, much as I might like to. I got one more place to go before I can call it quits. Summer’s ha’vest time in this part of the world, you know. Now remember to take those clothes in before dark, Mr. Noonan. Don’t let em get all dewy.”

“I won’t.” And I didn’t. But when I went out to take them in, dressed in my bathing trunks and coated with sweat from the oven I’d been working in (I had to get the air conditioner fixed, just had to), I saw that something had altered Mrs. M.’s arrangements. My jeans and shirts now hung around the pole. The underwear and socks, which had been decorously hidden when Mrs. M. drove up the driveway in her old Ford, were now on the outside. It was as if my unseen guest—one of my unseen guests—was saying ha ha ha.

I went to the library the next day, and made renewing my library card my first order of business. Lindy Briggs herself took my four bucks and entered me into the computer, first telling me how sorry she had been to hear about Jo’s death. And, as with Bill, I sensed a certain reproach in her tone, as if I were to blame for such improperly delayed condolences.

I supposed I was.

“Lindy, do you have a town history?” I asked when we had finished the proprieties concerning my wife.

“We have two,” she said, then leaned toward me over the desk, a little woman in a violently patterned sleeveless dress, her hair a gray puffball around her head, her bright eyes swimming behind her bifocals.

In a confidential voice she added, “Neither is much good.”

“Which one is better?” I asked, matching her tone.

“Probably the one by Edward Osteen. He was a summer resident until the mid-fifties and lived here full-time when he retired. He wrote Dark Score Days in 1965 or ’66. He had it privately published because he couldn’t find a commercial house that would take it.