Needful Things - Stephen King [150]
"Well, go on home. You have my permission. Did you power up The Bastard?"
The Bastard was the machine which switched calls to Alan's home when no dispatcher was on duty at the station. If no one picked up at Alan's after four rings, The Bastard cut in and told callers to dial the State Police in Oxford. It was a jury-rig system that wouldn't have worked in a big city, but in Castle County, which had the smallest population of all Maine's sixteen counties, it worked fine.
"It's on."
"Good. I have a feeling that Alan might not have been going straight home."
Sandy raised her eyebrows knowingly.
"Hear anything from Lieutenant Payton?" Norris asked.
"Not a thing." She paused. "Was it awful, Norris? I mean those two women?"
"It was pretty awful, all right," he agreed. His civies were hung neatly on a hanger he had hooked over a filing-cabinet handle. He removed it and started for the men's room. It had been his habit to change in and out of his uniforms at work for the last three years or so, although the changes rarely came at such an outrageous hour as this. "Go home, Sandy-I'll lock up when I'm done."
He pushed through the bathroom door and hooked the hanger over the top of the door to the toilet stall. He was unbuttoning his uniform shirt when there was a light knock on the door.
"Norris?" Sandy called.
"I think I'm the only one here," he called back.
"I almost forgot-someone left a present for you. It's on your desk."
Norris paused in the act of unbuckling his pants. "A present?
Who from?"
"I don't know-the place really was a madhouse. But it's got a card on it. Also a bow. It must be your secret lover."
"My lover's so secret even I don't know about her," Norris said with real regret. He stepped out of his pants and laid them over the stall door while he put on his jeans.
Outside, Sandy McMillan smiled with a touch of malice. "Mr.
Keeton was by tonight," she said. "Maybe he left it. Maybe it's a kiss-and-make-up present."
Norris laughed. "That'll be the day."
"Well, make sure you tell me tomorrow-I'm dying to know.
It's a pretty package. Goodnight, Norris."
"Night."
Who could have left me a present? he wondered, zipping up his fly.
6
Sandy left, pulling the collar of her coat up as she went out-the night was very cold, reminding her that winter was on its way. Cyndi Rose Martin, the lawyer's wife, was one of the many people she had seen that night-Cyndi Rose had turned up early in the evening.
Sandy never thought of mentioning her to Norris, however; he did not move in the Martins' more rarefied social and professional circles.
Cyndi Rose said she was looking for her husband, which made a certain amount of sense to Sandy (although the evening had been so harum-scarum that Sandy probably wouldn't have thought it odd if the woman had said she was looking for Mikhail Baryshnikov), because Albert Martin did some of the town's legal work.
Sandy said she hadn't seen Mr. Martin that evening, although Cyndi Rose w?-s welcome to check upstairs and see if he was in with Mr.
Keeton, if she wanted. Cyndi Rose said she thought she would do that, as long as she was here. By then the switchboard was lit up like a Christmas tree again, and Sandy did not see Cyndi Rose take the rectangular package with the bright foil paper and the blue velvet bow from her large handbag and put it on Norris Ridgewick's desk. Her pretty face had been lit with a smile as she did it, but the smile itself was not pretty at all. It was, in fact, rather cruel.
7
Norris heard the outer door shut and, dimly, the sound of Sandy starting her car. He tucked his shirt into his jeans, stepped into his loafers, and arranged his uniform carefully on its hanger. He sniffed the shirt at the armpits and decided it didn't have to go