JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 419 из 425“I’ve got a few more questions—okay?”
“If you can’t stay up until the wee hours on Boxing Day morning,” I said, “I guess you never can. Fire away.”
“What did you tell the police?”
“I didn’t have to tell them much of anything. Footman talked enough to suit them—too much to suit Norris Ridgewick. Footman said that he and Osgood—it was Osgood driving the car, Devore’s pet broker—did the drive-by because Devore had made threats about what would happen to them if they didn’t. The State cops also found a copy of a wire-transfer among Devore’s effects at Warrington’s. Two million dollars to an account in the Grand Caymans. The name scribbled on the copy is Randolph Footman. Randolph is George’s middle name. Mr. Footman is now residing in Shawshank State Prison.”
“What about Rogette?”
“Well, Whitmore was her mother’s maiden name, but I think it’s safe to say that Rogette’s heart belonged to Daddy. She had leukemia, was diagnosed in 1996. In people her age—she was only fifty-seven when she died, by the way—it’s fatal in two cases out of every three, but she was doing the chemo. Hence the wig.”
“Why did she try to kill Kyra? I don’t understand that. If you broke Sara Tidwell’s hold on this earthly plane of ours when you dissolved her bones, the curse should have… why are you looking at me that way?”
“You’d understand if you’d ever met Devore,” I said. “This is the man who lit the whole fucking TR on fire as a way of saying goodbye when he headed west to sunny California. I thought of him the second I pulled the wig off, thought they’d swapped identities somehow. Then I thought Oh no, it’s her all right, it’s Rogette, she’s just lost her hair somehow.”
“And you were right. The chemo.”
“I was also wrong. I know more about ghosts than I did, Frank. Maybe the most important thing is that what you see first, what you think first… that’s what’s usually true. It was him that day. Devore. He came back at the end. I’m sure of it. At the end it wasn’t about Sara, not for him.
At the end it wasn’t even about Kyra. At the end it was about Scooter Larribee’s sled.” Silence between us. For a few moments it was so deep that I could actually hear the house breathing. You can hear that, you know. If you really listen. That’s something else I know now. “Christ,” he said at last. “I don’t think Devore came east from California to kill her,” I said. “That wasn’t the original plan.
“If you can’t stay up until the wee hours on Boxing Day morning,” I said, “I guess you never can. Fire away.”
“What did you tell the police?”
“I didn’t have to tell them much of anything. Footman talked enough to suit them—too much to suit Norris Ridgewick. Footman said that he and Osgood—it was Osgood driving the car, Devore’s pet broker—did the drive-by because Devore had made threats about what would happen to them if they didn’t. The State cops also found a copy of a wire-transfer among Devore’s effects at Warrington’s. Two million dollars to an account in the Grand Caymans. The name scribbled on the copy is Randolph Footman. Randolph is George’s middle name. Mr. Footman is now residing in Shawshank State Prison.”
“What about Rogette?”
“Well, Whitmore was her mother’s maiden name, but I think it’s safe to say that Rogette’s heart belonged to Daddy. She had leukemia, was diagnosed in 1996. In people her age—she was only fifty-seven when she died, by the way—it’s fatal in two cases out of every three, but she was doing the chemo. Hence the wig.”
“Why did she try to kill Kyra? I don’t understand that. If you broke Sara Tidwell’s hold on this earthly plane of ours when you dissolved her bones, the curse should have… why are you looking at me that way?”
“You’d understand if you’d ever met Devore,” I said. “This is the man who lit the whole fucking TR on fire as a way of saying goodbye when he headed west to sunny California. I thought of him the second I pulled the wig off, thought they’d swapped identities somehow. Then I thought Oh no, it’s her all right, it’s Rogette, she’s just lost her hair somehow.”
“And you were right. The chemo.”
“I was also wrong. I know more about ghosts than I did, Frank. Maybe the most important thing is that what you see first, what you think first… that’s what’s usually true. It was him that day. Devore. He came back at the end. I’m sure of it. At the end it wasn’t about Sara, not for him.
At the end it wasn’t even about Kyra. At the end it was about Scooter Larribee’s sled.” Silence between us. For a few moments it was so deep that I could actually hear the house breathing. You can hear that, you know. If you really listen. That’s something else I know now. “Christ,” he said at last. “I don’t think Devore came east from California to kill her,” I said. “That wasn’t the original plan.