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The Colorado Kid :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 33 из 81Vince had already come back here to start writin his story, and that was when I left, too, telling the people who asked me questions—quite a few had gathered by then, drawn by that stupid yellow tape like ants to spilled sugar—that they could read all about it for just a quarter, which is what theIslander went for in those days.
“Anyway, that was the last time I actually saw Paul Devane, standing there and watchin those two widebodies load the dead man into the hearse. But I happen to know Devane disobeyed O’Shanny’s order not to look in the evidence bag, because he called me at theIslander about sixteen months later. By then he’d given up his forensic science dream and gone back to school to become a lawyer. Good or bad, that particular course correction’s down to A.G. Detectives O’Shanny and Morrison, but it was still Paul Devane who turned the Hammock Beach John Doe into the Colorado Kid, and eventually made it possible for the police to identify him.”
“And we got the scoop,” Vince said. “In large part because Dave Bowie here bought that young man a doughnut and gave him what moneycan’t buy: an understanding ear and a little sympathy.”
“Oh, that’s layin it on a little thick,” Dave said, shifting around in his seat. “I wa’nt with him more than thirty minutes. Maybe threequarters of an hour if you want to add in the time we stood in line at the bakery.”
“Sometimes maybe that’s enough,” Stephanie said.
Dave said, “Ayuh, sometimes maybe it is, and what’s so wrong about that? How long do you think it takes a man to choke to death on a piece of meat, and then be dead forever?”
None of them had an answer to that. On the reach, some rich summer man’s yacht tooted with hollow selfimportance as it approached the Tinnock town dock.
9
“Let Paul Devane alone awhile,” Vince said. “Dave can tell you the rest of that part in a few minutes. I think maybe I ought to tell you about the guttossing first.”
“Ayuh,” Dave said. “It ain’t a story, Steff, but that part’d probably come next if it was.”
Vince said, “Don’t get the idea that Cathcart did the autopsy right away, because he didn’t. There’d been two people killed in the apartment house fire that brought O’Shanny and Morrison to our neck of the woods to begin with, and they came first. Not just because they died first, but because they were murder victims and John Doe looked like being just an accident victim. By the time Cathcartdid get to John Doe, the detectives were gone back to Augusta, and good riddance to them.
“Anyway, that was the last time I actually saw Paul Devane, standing there and watchin those two widebodies load the dead man into the hearse. But I happen to know Devane disobeyed O’Shanny’s order not to look in the evidence bag, because he called me at theIslander about sixteen months later. By then he’d given up his forensic science dream and gone back to school to become a lawyer. Good or bad, that particular course correction’s down to A.G. Detectives O’Shanny and Morrison, but it was still Paul Devane who turned the Hammock Beach John Doe into the Colorado Kid, and eventually made it possible for the police to identify him.”
“And we got the scoop,” Vince said. “In large part because Dave Bowie here bought that young man a doughnut and gave him what moneycan’t buy: an understanding ear and a little sympathy.”
“Oh, that’s layin it on a little thick,” Dave said, shifting around in his seat. “I wa’nt with him more than thirty minutes. Maybe threequarters of an hour if you want to add in the time we stood in line at the bakery.”
“Sometimes maybe that’s enough,” Stephanie said.
Dave said, “Ayuh, sometimes maybe it is, and what’s so wrong about that? How long do you think it takes a man to choke to death on a piece of meat, and then be dead forever?”
None of them had an answer to that. On the reach, some rich summer man’s yacht tooted with hollow selfimportance as it approached the Tinnock town dock.
9
“Let Paul Devane alone awhile,” Vince said. “Dave can tell you the rest of that part in a few minutes. I think maybe I ought to tell you about the guttossing first.”
“Ayuh,” Dave said. “It ain’t a story, Steff, but that part’d probably come next if it was.”
Vince said, “Don’t get the idea that Cathcart did the autopsy right away, because he didn’t. There’d been two people killed in the apartment house fire that brought O’Shanny and Morrison to our neck of the woods to begin with, and they came first. Not just because they died first, but because they were murder victims and John Doe looked like being just an accident victim. By the time Cathcartdid get to John Doe, the detectives were gone back to Augusta, and good riddance to them.