The Dark Half - Stephen King [89]
'Yes, I admit those things,' Liz said evenly.
'As for what Thad claims happened at his office . . . there are no witnesses to either the blackout or to what he claims to have written down. In fact, he didn't mention the incident to you at all until after Ms Cowley called, did he?'
'No. He did not.'
'And so . . .' He shrugged.
'I have a question for you, Alan.'
'All right.'
'Why would Thad lie? What purpose would it serve?'
'I don't know.' Alan looked at her with complete candor. 'He may not know himself.' He glanced briefly at Thad, then returned his eyes to Liz's. 'He may not even know he is lying. What I'm saying is pretty flat: this is not the sort of thing any police officer could accept without strong proof And there is none.'
'Thad is telling the truth about this. I understand everything you've said, but I want very badly for you to believe he is telling the truth, too. I want that desperately. You see, I lived with George Stark. And I know how Thad was about him as time went on. I'll tell you something that wasn't in People magazine. Thad started talking about getting rid of Stark two books before the last one —'
'Three,' Thad said quietly from his place by the mantel. His craving for a cigarette had become a dry fever. 'I started talking about it after the first one.'
'Okay, three. The magazine article made it sound as though this was a pretty recent thing, and that just wasn't true. That's the point I'm trying to make. If Frederick Clawson hadn't come along and forced my husband's hand, I think Thad would still be talking about getting rid of him in the same way. The way an alcoholic or drug addict tells his family and his friends that he'll quit tomorrow . . . or the next day . . . or the day after that.'
'No,' Thad said. 'Not exactly like that. Right church but the wrong pew.'
He paused, frowning, doing more than thinking. Concentrating. Alan reluctantly gave up the idea that they were lying, or having him on for some weird reason. They were not spending their efforts in order to convince him, or even themselves, but only to articulate how it had been . . . the way men might try to describe a fire-fight long after it was over.
'Look,' Thad said finally. 'Let's drop the subject of the black-outs and the sparrows and the precognitive visions — if that's what they were — for a minute. If you feel you need to, you can talk to my doctor, George Hume, about the physical symptoms. Maybe the head-tests I took yesterday will show something odd when they come back, and even if they don't, the doctor who performed the operation on me when I was a kid may still be alive and able to talk to you about the case. He may know something that could cast some light on this mess. I can't remember his name right off-hand, but I'm sure it's in my medical records. But right now, all of this psychic shit is a side-track.'
This struck Alan as a very odd thing for Thad to say . . . if he had planted the one precognitive note and lied about the other. Someone crazy enough to do such a thing — and crazy enough to forget he'd done it, to actually believe the notes were real manifestations of psychic phenomena — would want to talk about nothing else. Wouldn't he? His head was beginning to ache.
'All right,' he said evenly, 'if what you call 'this psychic shit' is a side-track, then what's the main line?'
'George Stark is the main line,' Thad said, and thought— The line that goes to Endsville, where all rail service terminates. 'Imagine that some stranger moved into your house. Someone you've always been a little bit frightened of, the way Jim Hawkins was always a little bit frightened of the Old Sea-Dog at the Admiral Benbow have you read Treasure Island, Alan?'
He nodded.
'Well, you know the sort of feeling I'm trying to express, then. You're scared of this guy, and you