Part 28 (1/2)
”Who killed him?”
Stillman answered, ”Strictly speaking, it was my friend Walker, here.” Walker's jaw tightened, and Stillman hastened to add, ”Purely in self-defense.”
”And he lived in Coulter, you say? What was his name?”
”Scully. James Scully. He lived over on Birch Street.”
Raines grunted, but Walker couldn't tell whether it was puzzlement or a confirmation of a long-held expectation. He looked at Walker. ”Has it crossed your mind that they might be here looking for you?”
”Sure,” said Stillman.
Walker nodded, hiding his surprise. He had never thought of the possibility, and Stillman had never mentioned it. Walker felt foolish. He had allowed the enemy to become a group of nonhuman abstractions, beings who acted only out of logic and efficiency. He had imagined them simply trying to steal the most money and gain the most anonymity because that made simple sense. Motives like hatred and revenge had dropped out of his cogitations. He had fallen into a trap that he had never known existed, and it could have killed him.
The chief persisted with his questions, but Walker's tension was not the fear of incrimination that he had felt when he had been interrogated in other places. He was acutely aware that time was pa.s.sing. He told himself that the chief's glacial pace meant nothing had gone wrong, but behind the voice he kept straining his ears for gunshots. The distance couldn't be more than half a mile, he estimated. The chief had by now perceived that there was no question he could ask that Stillman could not answer instantly and flawlessly but to little purpose, so he directed one now and then to Walker. It was always one that Walker had antic.i.p.ated, because he had become adept at picking out which parts of Stillman's answers the chief would want to rephrase and repeat to Walker to detect a contradiction. When the questions came, he was not alarmed. It was what cops did.
When he heard footsteps outside the door, Walker stiffened. The door swung open and the tall cop stood in the doorway without stepping inside. Raines slipped outside and closed the door behind him. Walker strained his ears, but he could not hear the voices, and Stillman had settled again into his barely animate stolidity, his eyes focused on the wall as though he were unaware of Walker's impatience. After a minute or two, Raines returned. His expression was weary and irritated.
”When you recognized those suspects, they must have recognized you too,” he said. ”They weren't in the coffee shop. Officers have been checking other shops and restaurants for over an hour, but they haven't turned up.” He walked to his desk, took a roll of Life Savers out of the top drawer and put them in his pocket, then walked back to the door. ”I've just sent one team to Scully's house to watch that. But it's not looking real good. There aren't a lot of places in this town where two strangers could hide.” He opened the door and walked out.
35.
For a minute after Chief Raines disappeared, Stillman sat in his state of immobility, staring at the carpet. Then he stood abruptly. ”You heard the man. We're waiting around for nothing.” Walker noticed that when Stillman stepped to the door, he opened it only a crack, then listened before he swung it wide. They stepped quickly through the hinged opening in the counter, then out the rear entrance to the parking lot. Stillman set a quick pace until they had returned to Const.i.tution Avenue. Then he slowed a bit, as though he was forcing his body to convey a kind of leisure.
Walker said, ”If leaving was the right thing to do, why did you peek out the door to be sure n.o.body was looking?”
”Because I didn't want somebody to give me a competing opinion that I had to listen to.”
”Are we going back to Keene?”
”Afraid not,” said Stillman.
”Is there something I'm missing?”
”It took us about five minutes of fast walking from the time we saw those guys on Main Street until we got to the police station. We didn't even stop to get the car, because it would have cost us extra time to circle around those guys and back to Main to get it. So why did they leave?”
”Maybe the chief was right. We saw them, and they saw us.”
Stillman's eyes were narrow and intense. ”Suppose he is right. What would those two guys do?”
”Beats me. Get in their car and leave, I guess. If the car wasn't there when the police arrived, I'd say it's settled.”
”Right. But they're playing the same game we are. They didn't come here because they needed a break from stealing money. They want to get into Scully's house, just as we did, and the cousin's house.”
Walker held Stillman in the corner of his eye. ”How do you know they haven't already done it?”
”Because if we had gotten it done, we wouldn't go down the street and stop for espresso and a Danish afterward. We'd get the h.e.l.l out of here. They're here in daylight, casing the town, just the way we did. They're playing a game with rules that we know. They've stolen a lot of money, and they think there's probably something in a house in this town that implicates them. If they get to it before anybody else does, they win. If we get to it first, they lose. You have to look at the situation and say, 'What would we do?'”
”What would we do?”
”Same thing they did. We'd get in our car and drive off. But this isn't just a question of fraudulent insurance claims, it's murder with special circ.u.mstances. Death penalty. If that were you, would you leave evidence here?”
”I don't suppose I would,” said Walker. ”But if they saw us here, wouldn't they think that we must have come to search Scully's house and his cousin's too?”
”Sure,” said Stillman.
”And we were here first, so wouldn't they think it's too late?”
”Just the opposite. If they had what they came for, they wouldn't be hanging around the coffee shop. If we had what we came for, we wouldn't be loitering around on Main Street either. We'd be gone. If they saw us, then what they saw was proof that it's not too late, but that they've got to make a move very soon. Tonight, after dark.”
Walker was skeptical. ”Tonight? Not tomorrow night?”
”If they saw us, they know how close we are to getting there first. After dark tonight is the first time we could pull a break-in. They'll try to beat us to it.”
”With all those police around?”
”They don't know about the police.”
”How the h.e.l.l can you know that?”
Stillman spoke quietly and patiently. ”Think about what happened. We were walking up Main Street when we saw them getting out of their car. Then what?”
”We went straight up Const.i.tution Avenue to the police station.”
”Right. It took about five or six minutes to walk up there, and another twenty-five for the chief to tell his men to move in. When they did, they didn't see our two guys. They had their descriptions, the make, year, and license number of the car. Besides that, there can't be more than twenty-five people in this town today that the cops haven't seen twice a week since they were born. But the cops didn't see our two guys. I'd say that means our guys were gone before the police got there, wouldn't you?”
”I guess so,” Walker admitted. ”What do you suppose they're doing now?”
Stillman walked on, staring into the distance. ”They're changing clothes, getting a different car, and waiting for dark.”
Walker dreaded the answer to the next question. ”And what are we going to do?”
”Pretty much the same thing: wait for dark.”
Walker put his hands in his pockets and kept going in silence. Stillman looked at him and a small smile came to his lips. ”Don't worry,” he said. ”If we're right about this, there are two addresses they'll have to hit in order to win. If they decide to go to Scully's first, the cops will move in and snap them up.”
”That's not what you're hoping for, is it?” said Walker.
Stillman shook his head. ”No.”
”You're hoping they'll pick the other place,” Walker said. ”What you want to do is spot them somehow, and let them lead us to the other dead man's house.”
Stillman beamed and patted Walker on the shoulder. ”It's not something to be glum about. If they actually get into the house and start searching, all we have to do is call the cops. Even if every single thing went wrong, and we couldn't get the cops, we could sit and wait. As soon as they finish that house, they'll still have to go to Scully's. The cops will put them in a bag.”
For the next few minutes, Walker's mind kept producing questions, then answering them for itself. What if the chief was wrong, and the two men had not recognized him and Stillman? Then they would break into the houses as planned, and probably be less cautious about it. What if they had come to Coulter for some other purpose that he and Stillman had not thought of? Then they would proceed with it-whatever it was-and Walker and Stillman might catch them at it. What if the two men had seen not only Stillman and Walker but also the police? Then they would either risk an attempt to hit the houses anyway, or they would stay away. No matter which choice they made, nothing would be lost if Walker and Stillman waited.
At Oak Street, Walker turned toward Main, but Stillman said, ”Keep going this way.”