Part 27 (1/2)

”I suppose so,” said Walker. ”Forget that idea. What about making a list of people who have no visible means of support?”

”You mean like the idea I had about checking their health insurance in the drugstore?”

”It's not as elegant, but we only need to eliminate thirty-seven now. We go in every door on Main. Write down the men who work as waiters or store clerks or cops: anybody who has a name tag, or anybody whose name is on an office directory. That should eliminate a few of the ones you couldn't reach by telephone. They were out working when you called.” He squinted. ”A big step would be to somehow get a list of employees at New Mill Systems.”

”I tried New Mill this morning. I called and asked for the personnel manager. Some guy came on, so I said I was from the New Hamps.h.i.+re Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I asked for a list of employees broken down by age, s.e.x, and race.”

”Race?” said Walker. ”I haven't seen a pair of brown eyes since I got here, let alone brown skin.”

”What do you want from me? I asked the guy what he expected to hear. No dice. He said the company employs fewer than a hundred people, and has been certified exempt from reporting requirements.”

”Is that true?” asked Walker. ”Are companies like that exempt from discrimination laws?”

”How the h.e.l.l do I know what the law is in New Hamps.h.i.+re? It doesn't matter anyway. I'm not going to take him to court. The list I wanted would have been of people who didn't do anything wrong.”

Walker's eyes settled on the sidewalk as he contemplated the problem. ”Thirty-eight men ....”

”We've been in New Hamps.h.i.+re for three days, and none of the devious ways has worked. What I think we've got to do is start taking some chances.”

”Start?”

”Yeah. Risk drawing attention to ourselves. Ask direct questions of anybody who will talk to us. 'Do you know James Scully? Who does he hang out with?'”

”I think you're right,” said Walker. ”It would probably go faster if we split up and talked to as many-”

”Maybe not,” said Stillman.

Walker looked up and stared at him. His eyes were squinting ahead. ”But you just said-”

”Look,” said Stillman.

Walker turned his eyes to follow Stillman's gaze. Far up the street, two men were getting out of a car parked along Main Street across from the coffee shop. Walker studied them, not quite daring to make a decision yet, straining his eyes and waiting for them to turn their heads so he could see their faces.

Stillman tugged his arm lightly to divert him into an alcove that shaded the entrance to a clothing store, and the movement of Walker's body made him come to his senses. Waiting in plain sight for them to turn around would be insane. What they appeared to be were the two men who had pretended to be cops in the alley in Pasadena, but he wasn't sure. He was positive he knew their faces, their postures, and their walks. In his shock and alarm he had studied them, imprinted them on his memory that night.

”Your eyes are better than mine,” Stillman said. ”Stand here.” Stillman nudged him near the corner of the display window where he could look up the street through both panes of gla.s.s. ”You won't stand out between those mannequins. Steady. Don't move, just look.”

Walker obeyed. He stood absolutely still, staring, holding his breath. One of the men had moved out of sight along the side of the car, toward the front. The other was at the trunk. He leaned over, opened the trunk, and bent down to get something out. Then he stood erect again, slammed the lid, and turned. Walker could see the movement of the shoulders, then the dark hair. The man looked up the street to check for traffic before he stepped away from the car. Then he looked down toward Walker, and Walker saw the bushy mustache. The two men trotted across the street. Walker stepped back.

”It's them,” said Walker. ”They're here.”

34.

Stillman's eyes were gleaming. ”Well, now that is a real gift from above,” he murmured.

”Should we follow them?” asked Walker.

”I think we'd better concentrate on making sure we don't b.u.mp into them. We have to a.s.sume their memory for faces is as good as ours.”

Stillman stepped to the edge of the alcove where Walker had stood, then slowly moved his body to the right to see more and more of the sidewalk along the row of old buildings. When he had one eye beyond the corner of the display window, he said, ”They went into the coffee shop,” and stepped out.

They turned away from the place where they had seen the two men and strode briskly toward the end of the row of buildings. Stillman said, ”Let's get across the street down there by the bridge, then head along the river to the next street.”

Walker led the way to Was.h.i.+ngton Street, where Main narrowed to funnel traffic onto the bridge, then glanced back toward the coffee shop before he ventured across. He and Stillman reached the other side quickly, and it took them only a few more steps to reach the curb, cross the sidewalk, and slip out of sight behind the bulk of the big building on the corner. He waited for Stillman to catch up. ”What are we doing-getting the car?”

”It's parked on Main, remember? We can't get to it without putting ourselves in sight of the coffee shop,” Stillman said. ”But I guess I'm finally going to get to say something that you'll be happy to hear. Those two, thanks to us, are already wanted for questioning in connection with a homicide investigation. Also for a.s.sault. We're going to the police station to get their a.s.ses thrown in jail.”

Walker noticed that his heart must have been beating hard since he had seen the two men. It was beating hard now, and it didn't slow, but it wasn't preparing him to contend for his life. ”I can hardly believe it,” he said.

”It's almost over,” said Stillman. ”Once we get the police to put down their coffee cups, our whole reason for being here is going to begin to fade. About all we're going to have to do is say, 'Yep, those are the ones.' We'll find out some real names, the cops here will hold them, and the authorities all over the place will have time to start dreaming up the charges that mean something.”

Walker was frowning. ”Why do you suppose they're here at all?”

”I'm not sure,” said Stillman. ”If I needed a theory to keep me warm, I would guess it's for the same reason we're here. They want to get a good look at Jimmy Scully's house, to see if he left anything lying around that leads to them.” They reached the corner of the first street parallel with Main, which was called Const.i.tution Avenue. As they turned and started up the street, he said, ”Come to think of it, I was forgetting about the other guy, the one who had similar DNA to Scully. There's his house, too. We still don't know who he was, but they do. We were under the impression that he might have lived around here, and it could be we were right.”

Walker touched Stillman's arm. ”Wait. What if they leave before we get to the station? We should go back to Main and get the license number of their car.”

”New Hamps.h.i.+re plate, NXV-76989.”

”Pretty good,” said Walker.

”Presence of mind,” said Stillman. ”Work on it. In this business, you can't get by on afterthought.”

”Good thing I'm not in this business.” Walker held Stillman in the corner of his eye, but his reaction was invisible.

They walked with the same quick, long strides up Const.i.tution Avenue, under old maple and oak trees that merged above the road to form a canopy over the pavement and kept them in uninterrupted shade until they came to a cross street, then closed over them again until the next one. Walker noted their progress impatiently as they crossed Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Grant, then the streets named after trees: Sycamore, Oak, Maple, Birch, Hemlock. The houses along Const.i.tution were nearly all from a period that had been referred to loosely in Ohio as colonial-mostly white, with two rows of shuttered windows, a center entrance with a pedimented doorway, and chimneys at both ends. It was a strange place to be doing what he was doing now: rus.h.i.+ng to the police station to get some murderers arrested.

He could see that he and Stillmen were coming to the side street where they had parked yesterday to look at the police station. He said, ”Is there anything I should know before we tell them? Anything I should keep to myself?”

Stillman answered, ”I'll do the lying, and you swear to it. While we were in Miami, we got an anonymous tip that one of these guys lived around Keene. We haven't done any investigating since we got here-just looked around in these little towns to get our bearings-and we just happened to see those two.”

”The cops are going to buy that?”

”We've only been in Keene two nights, and we can prove it. No cop is going to think that's a long time not to accomplish anything.”

They headed for the back doors that opened onto the parking lot. Stillman nodded toward the row of s.h.i.+ny patrol cars. ”Fifteen today. Ought to be enough for our purposes.”

The doors opened onto a short, bare white hallway with doors on either side. To the right, Walker could see that one of the doors was steel, and had an impressive electronic lock with a numbered keypad. He supposed that it led to a cellblock, and this must be the entrance the police used to bring a suspect in from a patrol car. It would preserve the tranquillity of upper Main Street. In a short time, he thought, those two men would be taking a trip through that doorway.

The corridor opened onto a large reception area, with a low wooden counter along the whole left side, and several plain, unmarked doors along the walls behind it. On the right side of the room were squat, heavy wooden benches that were bolted to the floor.

Two uniformed policemen were sitting at desks behind the counter. One of them was in his late thirties with blond hair that was cut too short on the sides, revealing the ridges and b.u.mps of his skull. The other was shorter and had a dark mustache waxed at the ends to turn upward and small, close-set blue eyes. Walker was pleased with them: they were just frightening enough to inspire confidence.

Stillman walked up to the counter, and they both stood up. The smaller one hung back and leaned against a desk, watchful, while the tall one stepped forward. Stillman said, ”Good afternoon, officers.” His voice was loud and his words clearly enunciated.

The policeman at the counter said, ”Yes, sir,” and the other folded his arms and waited.