Стивен Кинг - Later

Before we get to the path and the bench that wasn’t there, I need to tell you some other stuff I found out later. She was telling the truth about how Therriault finally tripped over his dick, but she kept talking about we. We this and we that, but Liz wasn’t a part of the Thumper task force. She had been part of the second task force, the one that ended in the big departmental shakeup when everybody was running around like chickens with their heads cut off, but by 2013 all Liz Dutton had left in the NYPD was a toehold, and only that much because cops have a kickass union. The rest of her was already out the door. Internal Affairs was circling like buzzards around fresh roadkill, and on the day she picked me up from school, she wouldn’t have been put on a task force dedicated to catching serial litterbugs. She needed a miracle, and I was supposed to be it.

“By today,” she went on, “every cop in the boroughs had Kenneth Therriault’s name and description. Every way out of the city was being monitored by human eyeballs as well as cameras—and as I’m sure you know, there’s plenty of cameras. Nailing this guy, dead or alive, became our number one priority, because we were afraid he might decide to go out in a blaze of glory. Maybe setting off a bomb in front of Saks Fifth Avenue, or in Grand Central. Only he did us a favor.”

She stopped and pointed at a spot beside the path. I noticed the grass was beaten down, as if a lot of people had been standing there.

“He came into the park, he sat down on a bench, and he blew his brains out with a Ruger .45 ACP.”

I looked at the spot, awestruck.

“The bench is at the NYPD Forensics Lab in Jamaica, but this is where he did it. So here’s the big question. Do you see him? Is he here?”

I looked around. I had no clue what Kenneth Alan Therriault looked like, but if he’d blown his brains out, I didn’t think I could miss him. I saw some kids throwing a Frisbee for their dog to chase (the dog was off his leash, a Central Park no-no), I saw a couple of lady runners, a couple of ’boarders, and a couple of old guys further down the path reading newspapers, but I didn’t see any guy with a hole in his head, and I told her that.

“Fuck,” Liz said. “Well, all right. We’ve got two more chances, at least that I can see. He worked as an orderly at City of Angels Hospital on 70th—quite a comedown from his construction days, but he was in his seventies—and the apartment building where he lived is in Queens. Which do you think, Champ?”

“I think I want to go home. He might be anyplace.”

“Really? Didn’t you say they hang around places where they spent time when they were alive? Before they, I don’t know, pop off for good?”

I couldn’t remember if I’d said that to her, exactly, but it was true. Still, I was feeling more and more like Ramona Sheinberg. Kidnapped, in other words. “Why bother? He’s dead, right? Case closed.”

“Not quite.” She bent down to look me in the eye. She didn’t have to bend so far in 2013, because I was getting taller. Nowhere near the six feet I am now, but a couple of inches. “There was a note pinned to his shirt. It said, There’s one more, and it is a big one. Fuck you and see you in hell . It was signed THUMPER .”

Well, that kind of changed things.

We went to City of Angels first, because it was closer. There was no guy with a hole in his head out front, just some smokers, so we went in through the Emergency Room entrance. A lot of people were sitting around in there, and one guy was bleeding from the head. The wound looked like a laceration to me rather than a bullet hole, and he was younger than Liz said Kenneth Therriault was, but I asked Liz if she could see him, just to be sure. She said she could.

We went to the desk, where Liz showed her badge and identified herself as an NYPD detective. She asked if there was a room where the custodians put their stuff and changed their clothes for their shifts. The lady at the desk said there was, but the other police had already been there and cleaned out Therriault’s locker. Liz asked if they were still there and the lady said no, the last of them left hours ago.

“I’d like to grab a quick peek, anyway,” Liz said. “Tell me how to get there.”

The lady said to take the elevator down to B level and turn right. Then she smiled at me and said, “Are you helping your mom in her investigations today, young man?”

I thought of saying Well, she’s not my mom, but I guess I am helping because she hopes that if Mr. Therriault is still hanging around, I’ll see him . Of course that wouldn’t fly, so I was stuck.

Liz wasn’t. She explained that the school nurse thought I might have mono, so this seemed like a chance to get me checked out and visit Therriault’s place of work at the same time. Two birds with one stone type of deal.

“You’d probably do better with your own doctor,” the desk lady said. “This place is a madhouse today. You’ll wait for hours.”

“That’s probably best,” Liz agreed. I thought how natural she sounded, and what a smooth liar she was. I couldn’t decide if I was grossed out or admiring. I guess a little of both.

The desk lady leaned forward. I was fascinated by how her extremely large bazams shoved her papers forward. It made me think of an icebreaker boat I’d seen in a movie. She lowered her voice. “Everyone was shocked, let me tell you. Ken was the oldest of all the orderlies, and the nicest. Hardworking and willing to please. If someone asked him to do something, he was always happy to do it. And with a smile. To think we were working with a killer ! Do you know what it proves?”

Liz shook her head, clearly impatient for us to be on our way.

“That you never know,” the desk lady said. She spoke like someone who’s imparting a great truth. “You just never know!”

“He was good at covering up, all right,” Liz said, and I thought, It takes one to know one .

In the elevator, I asked, “If you’re on a task force, how come you’re not with the task force?”

“Don’t be dumb, Champ. Was I supposed to take you to the task force? Having to make up a story about you at the desk was bad enough.” The elevator stopped. “If anyone asks about you, remember why you’re here.”

“Mono.”

“Right.”

But there was no one to ask. The custodian’s room was empty. It had yellow tape saying POLICE INVESTIGATION KEEP OUT across the door. Liz and I ducked under it, her holding my hand. There were benches, a few chairs, and about two dozen lockers. Also a fridge, a microwave, and a toaster oven. There was an open box of Pop Tarts by the toaster oven, and I thought I wouldn’t have minded a Pop Tart just then. But there was no Kenneth Therriault.

The lockers had names stuck to them in DymoTape. Liz opened Therriault’s, using a handkerchief because of the leftover fingerprint powder. She did it slowly, like she expected him to be hiding inside like the boogeyman in a kid’s closet. Therriault was sort of a boogeyman, but he wasn’t in there. It was empty. The cops took everything.

Liz said fuck again. I looked at my phone to check the time. It was twenty past three.

“I know, I know,” she said. Her shoulders were slumped, and although I resented the way she’d just scooped me up and taken me away, I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her. I remembered Mr. Thomas saying my mom looked older, and now I thought my mom’s lost friend looked older, too. Thinner. And I had to admit I also felt some admiration, because she was trying to do the right thing and save lives. She was like the hero of a movie, the lone wolf who means to solve the case on her own. Maybe she did care about the innocent people who might be vaporized in Thumper’s last bomb. Probably she did. But I know now she was also concerned with saving her job. I don’t like to think it was her major concern, but in light of what happened later—I’ll get to it—I have to think it was.