فصل 07 - بخش 01

7

Troy Ramage opened one of the rear doors of the unmarked car. Terry looked over his shoulder and saw Marcy behind them, halted at the edge of the parking lot, her face a study in agonized bewilderment. Behind her came the Call photographer, snapping pictures even as he jogged across the grass. Those won’t be worth a damn, Terry thought, and with a certain amount of satisfaction. To Marcy he shouted, ‘Call Howie Gold! Tell him I’ve been arrested! Tell him—’

Then Yates had his hand on top of Terry’s head, pushing him down and in. ‘Slide over, slide over. And keep your hands in your lap while I fasten your seatbelt.’

Terry slid over. He kept his hands in his lap. Through the windshield he could see the ballfield’s big electronic scoreboard. His wife had led the fund drive for that two years before. She was standing there, and he would never forget the expression on her face. It was the look of some woman in a third world country, watching as her village burned.

Then Ramage was behind the wheel, Ralph Anderson was in the passenger seat, and even before Ralph could get his door closed, the unmarked was backing out of the handicap space with a chirp of the tires. Ramage turned tight, spinning the wheel with the heel of his hand, then headed for Tinsley Avenue. They rode sans siren, but a blue bubble-light stuck to the dashboard began to swing and flash. Terry realized that the car smelled of Mexican food. Strange, the things you noticed when your day – your life – suddenly went over a cliff you hadn’t even known was there. He leaned forward.

‘Ralph, listen to me.’

Ralph was looking straight ahead. His hands were clenched tightly together. ‘You can talk all you want down at the station.’

‘Hell, let him tell it,’ Ramage said. ‘Save us all some time.’

‘Shut up, Troy,’ Ralph said. Still watching the road unroll. Terry could see two tendons standing out on the back of his neck, making the number 11.

‘Ralph, I don’t know what led you to me, or why you’d want to arrest me in front of half the town, but you’re totally off the rails.’

‘So say they all,’ Tom Yates remarked from beside him in a just-passing-the-time voice. ‘Keep those hands in your lap, Maitland. Don’t even scratch your nose.’

Terry’s head was clearing now – not a lot, but a little – and he was careful to do as Officer Yates (his name was pinned to his uniform shirt) had instructed. Yates looked as if he’d like an excuse to take a poke at his prisoner, cuffs or no cuffs.

Someone had been eating enchiladas in this car, Terry was sure of it. Probably from Se?or Joe’s. It was a favorite of his daughters, who always laughed a lot during the meal – hell, they all did – and accused each other of farting on their way home. ‘Listen to me, Ralph. Please.’

He sighed. ‘Okay, I’m listening.’

‘We all are,’ Ramage said. ‘Open ears, buddy, open ears.’

‘Frank Peterson was killed on Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon. It was in the papers, it was on the news. I was in Cap City on Tuesday, Tuesday night, and most of Wednesday. Didn’t get back until nine or nine thirty on Wednesday night. Gavin Frick, Barry Houlihan, and Lukesh Patel – Baibir’s father – practiced the boys both days.’

For a moment there was silence in the car, not even interrupted by the radio, which had been turned off. Terry had a golden moment in which he believed – yes, absolutely – that Ralph would now tell the big cop behind the wheel to pull over. Then he would turn to Terry with wide, embarrassed eyes and say, Oh Christ, we really goofed, didn’t we?

What Ralph said, still without turning around, was, ‘Ah. Comes the famous alibi.’

‘What? I don’t understand what you m—’

‘You’re a smart guy, Terry. I knew that from the first time I met you, back when you were coaching Derek in Little League. If you didn’t confess outright – which I was hoping for, but didn’t really expect – I was pretty sure you’d offer some kind of alibi.’ He turned around at last, and the face Terry looked into was that of an absolute stranger. ‘And I’m equally sure we’ll knock it down. Because we’ve got you for this. We absolutely do.’

‘What were you doing in Cap City, Coach?’ Yates asked, and all at once the man who had told Terry to not even scratch his nose sounded friendly, interested. Terry almost told him what he had been doing there, then decided against it. Thinking was beginning to replace reacting, and he realized this car, with its fading aroma of enchiladas, was enemy territory. It was time to shut up until Howie Gold arrived at the station. The two of them could sort this mess out together. It shouldn’t take long.

He realized something else, as well. He was angry, probably angrier than he’d ever been in his life, and as they turned onto Main Street and headed for the Flint City police station, he made himself a promise: come fall, maybe even sooner, the man in the front seat, the one he’d considered a friend, was going to be looking for a new job. Possibly as a bank guard in Tulsa or Amarillo.