Dean Koontz - From the Corner of His Eye

When the attorney finally came on the line, he sounded put-upon, as though Junior were the equivalent of a troublesome toe that he would like to shoot off.

The big-headed, bulging-eyed, slit-mouthed runt had collected $850,000 from Naomi's death, so the least he could do was provide a little information. He'd probably bill for the time, anyway.

Considering Junior's actions on his last night in Spruce Hills, eleven months ago, he must be cautious now. Without incriminating himself, pretending ignorance, he hoped to learn if his carefully planned scenario, regarding Victoria's death and Vanadium's sudden disappearance, had convinced the authorities-or whether something had gone wrong that might explain the quarter at the diner.

“Mr. Magusson, you once told me that if Detective Vanadium ever bothered me again, you'd have his choke chain yanked. Well, I think you need to talk to someone about that."

Magusson was startled. “You don't mean he's contacted you?"

“Well, someone's harassing me-"

“Vanadium?"

I suspect he's been—"

“You've seen him?” Magusson pressed.

“No, but I-"

“Spoken to him?"

“No, no. But lately—"

“You do know what happened up here, regarding Vanadium?"

“Huh? I guess not,” Junior lied.

“When you called earlier in the year, to ask for a referral to a private investigator down there, the woman had recently turned up dead and Vanadium was gone, but no one put the two together at first."

“Woman?"

“Or at least, if the police knew the truth at that time, they hadn't yet gone public with it. I had no reason to mention it to you back then. I didn't even know Vanadium was missing."

“What're you talking about?"

“Evidence suggests Vanadium killed a woman here, a nurse at the hospital. Lover's quarrel, perhaps. He set her house on fire with her body in it, to cover his tracks, but he must have realized they would still finger him, so he lit out."

“Lit out where?"

“Nobody knows. Hasn't been a sighting. Until you."

“No, I didn't see him,” Junior reminded the attorney. “I just assumed, when this harassment started here-"

“You should call San Francisco police, have them put your place under surveillance and nail him if he turns up."

Since the cops believed that Junior accidentally shot himself while searching for a nonexistent burglar, he was already in their book as an idiot. If he tried to explain how Vanadium had tormented him with the quarter, and how a quarter turned up, of all places, in his cheeseburger, they would figure him for a hopeless hysteric.

Besides, he didn't want the police in San Francisco to know that he'd been suspected, by at least one of their kind, of having killed his wife in Oregon. What if one of the locals was curious enough to request a copy of the case file on Naomi's death, and what if in that file, Vanadium had made reference to Junior waking from a nightmare, fearfully repeating Bartholomew? And then what if Junior eventually located the right Bartholomew and eliminated the little bastard, and then what if the local cop who'd read the case file connected one Bartholomew to the other and started asking questions? Admittedly, that was a stretch. Nevertheless, he hoped to fade from the SFPD's awareness as soon as possible and live henceforth beyond their ken.

“Do you want me to call and confirm how Vanadium was harassing you up here?” asked Magusson.

“Call who?"

“The watch officer, San Francisco PD. To confirm your story."

“No, that's not necessary,” Junior said, trying to sound casual. “Considering what you told me, I'm sure whoever's bothering me here can't be Vanadium. I mean, him being on the run, with plenty of his own troubles, the last thing he'd do is follow me here just to screw with my head a little."

“You never know with these obsessives,” Magusson cautioned.

“No, the more I think about it, the more it feels like this is just kids. Some kids goofing around, that's all. I- guess Vanadium got deeper under my skin than I realized, so when this came up, I couldn't think straight about it."

“Well, if you change your mind, just give me a call."

“Thank you. But I'm sure now it's just kids."

“You didn't seem too surprised?” said Magusson.

“Huh? Surprised about what?"

“About Vanadium killing that nurse and vamoosing. Everyone here was stunned."

“Frankly, I always thought he was mentally unbalanced. I told you as much, sitting there in your office."

“Indeed, you did,” said Magusson. “And I dismissed him as a well intentioned crusader, a holy fool. Looks like you had a better take on him than I did, Mr. Cain."

The attorney's admission surprised Junior. This was probably as close as Magusson would ever get to saying, Maybe you didn't kill your wife, after all, but he was by nature a nasty prick, so even an implied apology was more than Junior had ever expected to receive.

“How's life in the Bay City?” the attorney asked.

Junior didn't make the mistake of thinking that Magusson's new conciliatory attitude meant they were friends, that confidences could be shared or truths exchanged. The money-grubbing toad's only real friend would always be the one he saw in a mirror. If he discovered that Junior was having a great time post-Naomi, Magusson would store the information until he found a way to use it to his advantage.

“Lonely,” Junior said. “I miss ... so much."

“They say the first year's the hardest. Then you find it easier to go on."

“It's almost a year, but if anything, I feel worse,” he lied.

After he hung up, Junior stared at the telephone, deeply uneasy.

He hadn't learned much from the call other than that they hadn't found Vanadium in his Studebaker at the bottom of Quarry Lake.

Since discovering the quarter in his cheeseburger, Junior had been half convinced that the maniac cop survived the bludgeoning. In spite of his grievous wounds, perhaps Vanadium had swum up through a hundred feet of murky water, barely avoiding being drowned.

After his conversation with Magusson, however, Junior realized this fear was irrational. If the detective had miraculously escaped the cold waters of the lake, he would have been in need of emergency medical treatment. He would have staggered or crawled to the county highway in search of help, unaware that Junior had framed him for Victoria's murder, too badly wounded to care about anything but getting medical attention.

If Vanadium was still missing, he was still dead in his eight-cylinder casket.

Which left the quarter.

In the cheeseburger.

Someone had put it there.

If not Vanadium, who?

BARTY TODDLED, Barty walked, and ultimately Barty carried a pie for his mother on one of her delivery days, wary of his balance and solemn with responsibility.

He moved from a crib to a bed of his own, with guardrails, months ahead of the average toddler. Within a week, he requested that the rails be left down.

For eight nights thereafter, Agnes padded the floor with folded blankets on both sides of the boy's bed, insurance against a middle-of-the-night fall. On the eighth morning, she discovered that Barty had returned the blankets to the closet from which she'd gotten them. They were not jammed haphazardly on the shelves-the sure evidence of a child's work-but were folded and stacked as neatly as Agnes herself would have stored them.

The boy never mentioned what he'd done, and his mother ceased worrying about him falling out of bed.

From his first birthday to his third, Barty made worthless all the child-care and child-development books that a first-time mother relied on to know what to expect of her offspring, and when. Barty grew and coped and learned according to his own clock.