Needful Things - Stephen King [145]
"Did they meet on that corner by accident?" Norris asked.
"I doubt it. I think Wilma got home, saw the damage, and called Nettle out."
"You mean like in a duel?"
"That's what I mean."
Norris whistled, then stood quietly for a few moments, hands clasped behind his back, looking out into the darkness. "Alan, why are we supposed to attend these goddam autopsies, anyway?" he asked at last.
"Protocol, I guess," Alan said, but it was more than that at least for him. If you were troubled about the look of a case, or the feel of it (as he was troubled by the look and feel of this one), you might see something that would knock your brain out of neutral and into one of the forward gears. You might see a hook to hang your hat on.
"Well, then, I think it's time the county hired a protocol officer," Norris grumbled, and Alan laughed.
He wasn't laughing inside, though, and not just because this was going to hit Polly so hard over the next few days. Something about the case wasn't right. Everything looked all right on top, but down in the place where instinct lived (and sometimes hid), the Martian warlords still seemed to make more sense. At least to Alan.
Hey, come on! Didn't you just lay it out for Norris, A to Z, in the length of time it takes to smoke a cigarette?
Yes, he had. That was part of the trouble. Did two women, even when one was half-nuts and the other was poison-mean, meet on a street-corner and cut each other to ribbons like a couple of hopped-up crack addicts for such simple reasons?
Alan didn't know. And because he didn't know, he flipped the cigarette away and began to go over the whole thing again.
2
For Alan, it began with a call from Andy Clutterbuck. Alan had just turned off the Patriots-jets game (the Patriots were already down by a touchdown and a field goal, and the second quarter was less than three minutes old) and was putting on his coat when the phone rang.
Alan had been intending to go down to Needful Things and see if Mr.
Gaunt was there. It was even possible, Alan supposed, that he might meet Polly there, after all. The call from Clut had changed all that.
Eddie Warburton, Clut said, had been hanging up the phone just as he, Clut, came back from lunch. There was some sort of ruckus going on over in the "tree-street" section of town. Women fighting or something. It might be a good idea, Eddie said, if Clut were to call the Sheriff and tell him about the trouble.
"What in the blue hell is Eddie Warburton doing answering the Sheriff's Office telephone?" Alan asked irritably.
"Well, I guess with the dispatch office empty, he thought-" "He knows the procedure as well as anyone-when dispatch is empty, let The Bastard route the incoming calls."
"I don't know why he answered the phone," Clut said with barely concealed impatience, "but I don't think that's the important thing.
Second call on the incident came in four minutes ago, while I was talking with Eddie. An old lady. I didn't get a name-either she was too upset to give me one or she just didn't want to. Anyhow, she says there's been some sort of serious fight on the corner of Ford and Willow. Two women involved. Caller says they were using knives. She says they're still there."
"Still fighting?"
"No-down, both of them. The fight's over."
"Right." Alan's mind began clicking along faster, like an express train picking up speed. "You logged the call, Clut?"
"You bet I did."
"Good. Seaton's on this afternoon, isn't he? Get him out there right away."
"Already sent him."
"God bless you. Now call the State Police."
"Do you want CID?"
"Not yet. For the time being, just alert them to the situation.
I'll meet you there, Clut."
When he got to the crime scene and saw the extent of the damage, Alan radioed the Oxford Barracks of the State Police and told them to send a Crime Investigation Unit right away two, if they could spare them. By then Clut and Seaton Thomas were standing in front of the