The Dead Zone(88)

'Go to it,' Bannerman said. 'Man, I love good chili. My ulcer hollers bloody hell about it. Fuck you, ulcer, I say. Down the hatch.'

They were quiet for a moment. Johnny worked on his chili and Bannerman watched him curiously. He sup-posed Smith could have found out he had a dog named Rusty. He even could have found out that Rusty was old and nearly blind. Take it a step farther: if he knew Katrina's name, he might have done that 'something like Cathy but that's not quite it' routine just to add the right touch of hesitant realism. But why? And none of that explained that queer, zapped feeling he'd gotten in his head when Smith touched his hand. If it was a con, it was a damned good one.

Outside, the wind gusted to a low shriek that seemed to rock the small building on its foundations. A flying veil of snow lashed the Pondicherry Bowling Lanes across the street.

'Listen to that,' Bannerman said. 'Supposed to keep up all night. Don't tell me the winters're getting milder.'

'Have you got something?' Johnny asked. 'Something that belonged to the guy you're looking for?'

'We think we might,' Bannerman said, and then shook his head. 'But it's pretty thin,'

'Tell me.'

Bannerman laid it out for him. The grammar school and the library sat facing each other across the town common. It was standard operating procedure to send students across when they needed a book for a project or a report. The teacher gave them a pass and the librarian initialed it before sending them back. Near the center of the common, the land dipped slightly. On the west side of the dip was the town bandstand. In the dip itself were two dozen benches where people sat during band concerts and football rallies in the fall.

'We think he just sat himself down and waited for a kid to come along. He would have been out of sight from both sides of the common. But the footpath runs along the north side of the dip, close to those benches.'

Bannerman shook his head slowly.

'What makes it worse is that the Frechette woman was killed right on the bandstand. I am going to face a shit-storm about that at town meeting in March - that is, if I'm still around in March. Well, I can show them a memo I wrote to the town manager, requesting adult crossing guards on the common during school hours. Not that it was this killer that I was worried about, Christ, no. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he'd go back to the same spot a second time.'

'The town manager turned down the crossing guards?'

'Not enough money,' Bannerman said. 'Of course, he can spread the blame around to the town selectmen, and they'll try to spread it back on me, and the grass will grow on Mary Kate Hendrasen's grave and ...' He paused for a moment, or perhaps choked on what he was saying. Johnny gazed at his lowered head sympathetically.

'It might not have made any difference anyhow,' Bannerman went on in a dryer voice. 'Most of the crossing guards we use are women, and this f**k we're after doesn't seem to care how old or young they are.'

'But you think he waited on one of those benches?'

Bannerman did. They had found an even dozen fresh cigarette butts near the end of one of the benches, and four more behind the bandstand itself, along with an empty box. Marlboros, unfortunately - the second or third most popular brand in the country. The cellophane on the box had been dusted for prints and had yielded none at all.

'None at all?' Johnny said. 'That's a little funny, isn't it?'

'Why do you say so?'

'Well, you'd guess the killer was wearing gloves even if he wasn't thinking about prints - it was cold out -, but you'd think the guy that sold him the cigarettes ...

Bannerman grinned. 'You've got a head for this work,' he said, 'but you're not a smoker.'

'No,' Johnny said. 'I used to smoke a few cigarettes when I was in college, but I lost the habit after my accident.

'A man keeps his cigarettes in his breast pocket. Take them out, get a cigarette, put the pack back. If you're wearing gloves and not leaving fresh prints every time you get a butt, what you're doing is polishing that cellophane wrapper? Get it? And you missed one other thing, Johnny. Need me to tell you?'

Johnny thought it over and then said, 'Maybe the pack of cigarettes came out of a carton. And those cartons are packed by machine.'

'That's it,' Bannerman said. 'You are good at this.'

'What about the tax stamp on the package?'

'Maine,' Bannerman said.

'So if the killer and the smoker were the same man... Johnny said thoughtfully.

Bannerman shrugged. 'Sure, there's the technical possibility that they weren't. But I've tried to imagine who else would want to sit on a bench in the town common on a cold, cloudy winter morning long enough to smoke twelve or sixteen cigarettes, and I come up a blank.'

Johnny sipped his tea. 'None of the other kids that crossed saw anything?'

'Nothing,' Bannerman said. 'I've talked to every kid that had a library pass this morning.'

'That's a lot weirder than the fingerprint business. Doesn't it strike you that way?'

'It strikes me as goddam scary. Look, the guy is sitting there, and what he's waiting for is one kid one girl - by herself. He can hear the kids as they come along. And each time he fades back behind the bandstand...'

'Tracks,' Johnny said.