'Salem's Lot(81)

'Yes, I suppose that's it. But I never thought about it in such . . . such harsh terms.'

'I know that, Susan. Let me trace the progression of my thoughts for you, if I can. It may do me some good to sort them out. I can tell from your own face that something has knocked you back a couple of steps. Is that right?'

'Yes . . . but I don't believe, can't - '

'Stop a minute. That word can't blocks up everything. That's where I was stuck. That absolute, goddamned im?perative, word. Can't. I didn't believe Matt, Susan, because such things can't be true. But I couldn't find a hole in his story any way I looked at it. The most obvious conclusion was that he had jumped the tracks somewhere, right?'

'Yes.'

'Did he seem crazy to you?'

'No. No, but - '

'Stop.' He held up his hand. 'You re thinking can't thoughts, aren't you?'

'I suppose I am,' she said.

'He didn't seem crazy or irrational to me, either. And we both know that paranoid fantasies or persecution com?plexes just don't appear overnight. They grow over a period of time. They need careful watering, care, and feeding. Have you ever heard any talk in town about Matt having a screw loose? Ever heard Matt say that someone had the knife out for him? Has he ever been involved with any dubious causes - fluoridation causes brain cancer or Sons of the American Patriots or the NLF? Has he ever expressed an inordinate amount of interest in things such as s6ances or astral projection or reincarnation? Ever been arrested that you know of?'

'No,' she said. 'No to everything. But Ben . . . it hurts me to say this about Matt, even to suggest it, but some people go crazy very quietly. They go crazy inside.'

'I don't think so,' he said quietly. 'There are signs. Sometimes you can't read them before, but you can after?ward. If you were on a jury, would you believe Matt's testimony about a car crash?'

'Yes. . . '

'Would you believe him if he had told you he saw a prowler kill Mike Ryerson?'

'Yes, I guess I would.'

'But not this.'

'Ben, I just can't - '

'There, you said it again.' He saw her ready to protest and held up a forestalling hand. 'I'm not arguing his case, Susan. I'm only laying out my own train of thought. Okay?'

'Okay. Go on.'

'My second thought was that somebody set him up. Someone with bad blood, or a grudge.'

'Yes, that occurred to me.'

'Matt says he has no enemies. I believe him.'

'Everybody has enemies.'

'There are degrees. Don't forget the most important thing - there's a dead man wrapped up in this mess. If someone was out to get Matt, then someone must have murdered Mike Ryerson to do it.'

'Why?'

'Because the whole song and dance doesn't make much sense without a body. And yet, according to Matt's story, he met Mike purely by chance. No one led him to Dell's last Thursday night. There was no anonymous call, no note, no nothing. The coincidence of the meeting was enough to rule out a setup.'

'What does that leave for rational explanations?'

'That Matt dreamed the sounds of the window going up, the laugh, and the sucking sounds. That Mike died of some natural but unknown causes.'

'You don't believe that, either.'

'I don't believe that he dreamed hearing the window go up. It was open. And the outside screen was lying on the lawn. I noticed it and Parkins Gillespie noticed it. And I noticed something else. Matt has latch-type screens on his house - they lock on the outside, not the inside. You can't get them off from the inside unless you pry them off with a screw driver or a paint scraper. Even then it would be tough. It would leave marks. I didn't see any marks. And here's another thing: The ground below that window was relatively soft. If you wanted to take off a second-floor screen, you'd need to use a ladder, and that would leave marks. There weren't any. That's what bothers me the most. A second-floor screen removed from the outside and no ladder marks beneath.'  

They looked at each other somberly.

He resumed: 'I was running this through my head this morning. The more I thought about it, the better Matt's story looked. So I took a chance. I took the can't away for a while. Now, tell me what happened at Matt's last night. If it will knock all this into a cocked hat, no one is going to be happier than I.'

'It doesn't,' she said unhappily. 'It makes it worse. He had just finished telling me about Mike Ryerson. He said he heard someone upstairs. He was scared, but he went.' She folded her hands in her lap and was now holding them tightly, as if they might fly away. 'Nothing else happened for a little while . . . and then Matt called out, something like he was revoking his invitation. Then . . . well, I don't really know how to . . . '

'Go on. Don't agonize over it.'

'I think someone - someone else - made a kind of hissing noise. There was a bump, as if something had fallen.' She looked at him bleakly. 'And then I heard a voice say: I will see you sleep like the dead, teacher. That's word for word. And when I went in later to get a blanket for Matt I found this.'

She took the ring out of her blouse pocket and dropped it into his hand.

Ben turned it over, then tilted it toward the window to let the light pick out the initials. 'MCR. Mike Ryerson?'