Стивен Кинг - The Outsider

Detective Anderson: Why is that?

Bolton: Some guys—Hells Angels and Devils Disciples, mostly—used to grow out one of their pinky nails. I’ve seen some as long as those Chinese emperors used to have. Some of the bikers even decorate ’em with decals, like the ladies do on theirs. They call it their coke nail.

After the arrest at the baseball field there was no possibility of Ralph playing the good cop in a good cop/bad cop scenario, so he simply stood leaning against the wall of the interview room, looking on. He was prepared for another of those accusing stares, but Terry only glanced at him briefly, and with no expression at all, before turning his attention to Bill Samuels, who had taken a seat in one of the three chairs on the other side of the table.

Studying Samuels now, Ralph began to get an idea of how he had risen so high so quickly. While the two of them were standing on the other side of the one-way glass, the DA had simply looked a bit young for the job. Now, facing Frankie Peterson’s rapist and killer, he looked even younger, like a law office intern who had (due to some mixup, probably) landed this interview with a big-time perp. Even the little Alfalfa cowlick sticking up from the back of his head added to the role the man had slipped into: untried youth, just happy to be here. You can tell me anything, said those wide, interested eyes, because I’ll believe it. This is my first time playing with the big boys, and I just don’t know any better.

“Hello, Mr. Maitland,” Samuels said. “I work in the county DA’s office.”

Good start , Ralph thought. You are the county DA’s office.

“You’re wasting your time,” Terry said. “I’m not going to talk to you until my lawyer gets here. I will say that I see a sizeable wrongful arrest suit in your future.”

“I understand that you’re upset, in your position, anyone would be. Maybe we can iron it out right here. Can you just tell me where you were when the Peterson boy was killed? That was on last Tuesday afternoon. If you were somewhere else, then—”

“I was,” Terry said, “but I intend to discuss that with my lawyer before I discuss it with you. His name is Howard Gold. When he gets here, I’ll want to talk to him privately. I assume that’s my right? Since I’m presumed innocent until proven guilty?”

Quick recovery , Ralph thought. A career criminal couldn’t have done it better.

“It is indeed,” Samuels said. “But if you haven’t done anything—”

“Don’t try, Mr. Samuels. You didn’t bring me here because you’re a nice guy.”

“Actually, I am,” Samuels said earnestly. “If there’s been a mistake, I’m as interested in getting it straightened out as you are.”

“You have some hair sticking up in back,” Terry said. “Might want to do something about that. It makes you look like Alfalfa in the old comedies I used to watch when I was a kid.”

Ralph didn’t even come close to laughing, but one corner of his mouth twitched. That he couldn’t help.

Momentarily put off-balance, Samuels raised a hand to smooth down the cowlick. It laid flat for a moment, then sprang back up.

“Are you sure you don’t want to clear this up?” Samuels leaned forward, his earnest expression suggesting that Terry was making a bad mistake.

“I’m sure,” Terry said. “And I’m sure about the suit, too. I don’t think there’s a settlement large enough to pay for what you sorry sons of bitches did tonight—not just to me, but to my wife and girls—but I intend to find out.”

Samuels sat where he was for a moment longer—leaning forward, innocently hopeful eyes locked on Terry’s—and then he stood up. The innocent look disappeared. “Okay. Fine. You can confer with your lawyer, Mr. Maitland, that’s your right. No audio, no video, we’ll even draw the curtain. If you two are quick about it, maybe we can get this squared away tonight. I’ve got an early tee time in the morning.”

Terry looked as if he had misheard. “Golf?”

“Golf. It’s a game where you try to knock the little ball into the cup. I’m not very good at it, but I’m very good at this game, Mr. Maitland. And as the estimable Mr. Gold will tell you, we can hold you here for forty-eight hours without charging you. It won’t actually be that long. If we can’t clarify this, we’ll take you for arraignment bright and early on Monday morning. Your arrest will be statewide news by then, so there will be plenty of coverage. I’m sure the photographers will get your good side.”

Having gotten what he assumed was the last word, Samuels almost strutted to the door (Ralph guessed Terry’s comment about the cowlick still rankled). Before he could open it, Terry said, “Hey, Ralph.”

Ralph turned. Terry looked calm, which was extraordinary under the circumstances. Or maybe not. Sometimes the really cold ones, the sociopaths, found that calm after the initial shock, and buckled down for the long haul. Ralph had seen it before.

“I’m not going to discuss any of this until Howie gets here, but I want to tell you one thing.”

“Go ahead.” That was Samuels, trying not to sound eager, but his face fell at what Terry said next.

“Derek was the best drag bunter I ever had.”

“Oh, no,” Ralph said. He could hear the rage trembling in his voice, a kind of vibrato. “Don’t go there. I don’t want to hear my son’s name come out of your mouth. Not tonight, not ever.”

Terry nodded. “I can relate, because I never wanted to be arrested in front of my wife and daughters and a thousand other people, many of them my neighbors. So never mind what you don’t want to hear. Just listen a minute. I think you owe me that for doing it the nasty way.”

Ralph opened the door, but Samuels put a hand on his arm, shook his head, and raised his eyes slightly to the camera in the corner with its small red light. Ralph closed the door again and turned back to Terry, crossing his arms over his chest. He had an idea that Terry’s idea of payback for the public arrest was going to hurt, but he knew Samuels was right. A suspect talking was always better than a suspect clamming up until his lawyer arrived. Because one thing had a way of leading to another.

Terry said, “Derek couldn’t have been more than four-ten or -eleven back in Little League. I’ve seen him since—tried to get him to play for City last year, as a matter of fact—and he’s grown six inches since then. He’ll be taller than you by the time he graduates from high school, I bet.”

Ralph waited.

“He was a shrimp, but he was never afraid in the batter’s box. A lot of them are, but Derek would stand in even against the kids who’d wind up and fling the ball with no idea of where it was going. Got hit half a dozen times, but he never gave in.”

It was the truth. Ralph had seen the bruises after some of the games, when D peeled off his uniform: on the butt, on the thigh, on the arm, on the shoulder. Once there had been a perfect black and blue circle on the nape of his neck. Those hits had driven Jeanette crazy, and the batting helmet Derek wore didn’t comfort her; every time D stepped into the batter’s box, she had gripped Ralph’s arm almost hard enough to bring blood, afraid the kid would eventually take one between the eyes and wind up in a coma. Ralph assured her it wouldn’t happen, but he had been almost as glad as Jeannie was when Derek decided tennis was more his game. The balls were softer.

Terry leaned forward, actually smiling a little.

“A kid that short usually gets a lot of walks—as a matter of fact, that’s sort of what I was hoping for tonight, when I let Trevor Michaels bat for himself—but Derek wasn’t going to get cheated. He’d flail at just about anything—inside, outside, over his head or in the dirt. Some of the kids started calling him Whiffer Anderson, then one of them changed it to Swiffer, like the mop, and that stuck. At least for awhile.”