Part 23 (1/2)

”What kinds of things?”

”Office supplies. Pens, calculators, computers, airline timetables, maps. His friends might have gotten in and out already and removed incriminating paper. They would have no reason to get rid of paper clips. The magazines I found all had subscriber's address labels, so they were his-all guns and naked women.” Stillman paused. ”I'd say that Scully was pretty much what he seemed to be the night we met him: the sort of guy you tell, 'Go get Walker and Stillman,' and he goes out to get Walker and Stillman.”

”So now we're stuck again.”

”Temporarily becalmed,” said Stillman. ”If the other guy in Florida was a sort of relative, it's possible he lived nearby-maybe in Coulter, or in one of these other little towns around here.” He let his eyes rest on Walker for only a half-second before he said, ”Let's find some breakfast.”

Walker began to breathe more evenly as soon as he was back on the Old Concord Road. There were other cars on the highway now, and the bright summer sunlight seemed to lend not exactly benevolence, but at least reality to the world. What he could see now included long views of trees and fields and hills, not just a section of pavement lit by the funnel-shaped beams of his headlights surrounded by vague shapes and shadows. There were flowers growing in patches here and there, and being able to see the detail and complexity of their forms made him less uneasy. Approaching traffic now resolved itself into sequences of cars, and not just the glare of headlights brightening and then disappearing. It even made him feel better that two of the first six cars had out-of-state license plates. This was tourist season, and the uncomfortable feeling he'd had that he and Stillman were the only strangers disappeared.

They found a restaurant just outside South Haverley that had been built to look like an enlarged farmhouse. A few of the dozen cars in the parking lot had plates from Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, or Vermont. When he pulled into a s.p.a.ce and got out of the Explorer, he noticed that the muscles of his shoulders and neck were stiff from the tension of the night and morning, then remembered that he had been awake for twenty-four hours.

They sat beside a window that looked out on the highway, ordered steak and eggs for breakfast, and then watched the traffic continue to build while they ate. When Stillman was signing the charge slip, Walker let himself return to thoughts of the immediate future. They got back into the Explorer and Walker started the engine, moved to the edge of the highway, and signaled for a left turn while he waited for an opening in the traffic.

”You know where we're going?” Stillman asked.

”What choice do we have?” said Walker. ”The case is in Coulter.”

They drove back to the sign that said COULTER COULTER and made the turn. There were two cars ahead of them on the road that sliced between the hills and onto the flat plain beyond, and as each turned to the right, Walker stared at the occupants. The first car held a couple in late middle age and the second a younger couple with children in the back seat. and made the turn. There were two cars ahead of them on the road that sliced between the hills and onto the flat plain beyond, and as each turned to the right, Walker stared at the occupants. The first car held a couple in late middle age and the second a younger couple with children in the back seat.

Walker drove more confidently over the covered bridge this time, and across the fields to the town. Coulter looked different in full daylight. There were people on the street, cars parked in front of the old-fas.h.i.+oned commercial buildings. The public library was not open yet, but there were lights on inside, and two little girls were on the front steps with stacks of books beside them, watching two slightly older boys playing catch with a baseball on the lawn.

They went on past the old church, and Walker could see the blue sign ahead that said POLICE POLICE.

Stillman seemed to read his mind. ”Keep going. I want to see it.”

It was a wide, single-story modern building made of tan bricks that didn't match the reddish color of the older buildings in the area. Walker's second glance made it look even better. The town was about half the size of Wallerton, the little place in Illinois where Ellen Snyder had been murdered. There, the police station had been about half as big, and much older.

”Pull around the corner, and we'll park on the side street,” said Stillman. When they got out and walked back toward Main, Stillman nudged Walker. ”Look at the parking lot.”

Walker looked at the row of police cars. ”Looks like sixteen,” he said.

”I guess we didn't have to worry about car thieves,” said Stillman. ”Let's go for a walk.”

Walker's impression of the place began to grow more specific now that his slower pace let him see details. The town had been laid out in the eighteenth century, when there had been a hope that cities designed on a rational plan would stay that way, and this one had. The streets were on a regular grid. Main Street ran down the middle of town from the bridge, with two parallel streets on each side of it: Federal and New Hamps.h.i.+re on the left, and Const.i.tution and Coulter on the right. The cross streets began with Was.h.i.+ngton, set right above the river on the first high ground. Then came Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and Grant. Walker suspected that Grant Street had been changed from something else, because all the houses on the street seemed to be older than the Civil War. It had probably been a tree, because this was where the names of trees began: Sycamore, Oak, Maple, Birch, Hemlock, and Cherry. The streets all ended in fences that separated the town from old pastures.

The houses were nearly all of the older varieties-wooden ones that seemed to belong in the late eighteenth century, and brick ones with Victorian-style porches and elaborate wooden trim. A few were nearly new, but they were built to the scale of older times, when a family might include eight children and a couple of maiden aunts. As they walked up another street, and another, Walker's impression was confirmed. ”It's a pretty prosperous place.”

”Yeah,” said Stillman. ”I suppose the houses don't tell the whole story. Most of them are a few generations old, when the money could have come from something we can't see anymore because they sold it-lumber, or granite, maybe. Real estate has got to be cheap around here.”

”They take care of the place, though,” said Walker. ”About a third of these houses look as though they've just been painted.” They walked back the way they had come.

A few minutes later, at the next intersection, Walker noticed something at the end of Grant Street that looked different. It was a long, one-story building that appeared to be the work of the same architect who had built the police station. It was plain, tan brick with only tiny windows at the top, just below the roof. The parking lot beside it seemed to be full.

Stillman noticed it too. ”I wonder what that is.”

They walked down the street toward the building, until Walker could make out the stainless-steel letters attached to the brick facade. ” 'New Mill Systems,'” he read.

”Just some kind of business,” said Stillman. ”Let's go back.”

They returned to Main Street. The town didn't look any different from the other small, old places in the area. The single church had a stone set at the corner of it with the date 1787. The library had opened now, and Walker could see through the gla.s.s doors that the girls had already made their way past the librarian's desk to an alcove full of tall, brightly colored books that had to be the children's section. The boys had disappeared. As he pa.s.sed, a pretty young woman with serious-looking gla.s.ses came from behind a counter and knelt on the floor beside one of the girls.

People pa.s.sed by or went into the twenty-five or thirty buildings on Main, and Walker could see that they had little curiosity about a pair of tourists. But when they went into a coffee shop, the elderly man who waited on them said, ”You haven't been in before, have you?” He was staring at Walker.

”No,” said Stillman. He pointed to his Danish pastry. ”If this is any good, you might see more of us.”

The old man looked at Walker. ”You,” he said.

Walker froze.

”You look a lot like the Ellisons. I'll bet you're here to visit.”

”Do I?” said Walker. ”No relation that I know of. We're just here exploring.”

Stillman seemed eager to keep the old man talking. ”How about you? Have you lived in town long?”

”Long? I was born here.”

”Really,” said Stillman. ”That reminds me. I was going to ask somebody, so I'll ask you. I didn't notice a hospital.”

The old man shook his head. ”Never had one. In the old days, the doctor would come out to your house. I was born a couple of blocks from here. No more, though. Now, if your wife is due, you drive her to Keene.”

”The world's a different place,” said Stillman regretfully.

”You can miss those days if you want,” said the old man. ”I sure don't. I got a pacemaker.” He pointed to his chest. He noticed that a young man and woman had stood up from their table and were bringing their bill to the counter. He stepped around the other side to meet them.

Stillman spent the next few minutes eating his pastry and looking around him. Walker could tell he was trying to make eye contact with the people nearby. There were three well-dressed women in their thirties who looked like lawyers, a pair of boys in their late teens who were drinking some kind of whipped fruit concoction, and a pair of men about Stillman's age who seemed to be sitting together to share a newspaper. Stillman seemed to have no luck, so he stood up and gave the old man his bill and some money.

As he pocketed his change, he said, ”I was wondering. The place a couple of blocks over-New Mill Systems. What do they do there?”

”Do?” The old man looked confused, then a little embarra.s.sed. ”Oh, some high-tech stuff. It's way beyond me. I can't program my VCR.” His eyes seemed to stray from Stillman's face and dart over his shoulder.

When Walker turned, he couldn't pick out anyone who was paying attention. The three women were leaning forward talking and laughing, the two middle-aged men were still engrossed in their newspaper, and the boys were just standing up to come toward the counter too. Maybe that had been what had distracted the old man, Walker decided. Teenaged boys were always closely watched.

He followed Stillman into a drugstore and watched him go up the aisles picking out a small bottle of sunscreen and a pack of chewing gum. The only employee in the store was a man in a white coat who was at least as old as the man in the coffee shop, sweeping the floor. He put aside his broom, went behind the counter, and took Stillman's money.

Stillman smiled and said, ”Is this the only drugstore in town?”

”Yes,” said the man. ”Got a big drug habit?”

”No,” said Stillman happily. ”I was looking for those Dr. Scholl's pads for inside your shoes, and I didn't see any.”

The man pointed, his hand shaking a little. ”Over there. That aisle.”

Stillman followed his gesture, then came back with a flat package that he tossed on the counter. ”Thanks,” he said. Then he added, ”I wonder if you could give me directions to New Mill Systems?”

The man's brow furrowed a little and he looked up in the air for a second, as though he were trying to place the name. Then he said, ”That way up Main, turn left at Grant, and you'll already be there. You a salesman or something?”