Chapter 10 #4
I climbed the wall, expecting it to give way beneath me, but it didn’t.
And once I was actually in Longview, a wonderful thing happened: the headache began to abate.
I sat on a gravestone beneath an overhanging elm tree, closed my eyes, and checked the pain level.
What had been a screaming 10—maybe even turned up to 11, like a Spinal Tap amplifier—had gone back to 8.
“I think I broke through, Al,” I said. “I think I might be on the other side.”
Still, I moved carefully, alert for more tricks—falling trees, graverobbing thugs, maybe even a flaming meteor. There was nothing. By the time I reached the side-by-side graves marked ALTHEA PIERCE DUNNING and JAMES ALLEN DUNNING, the pain in my head was down to a 5.
I looked around and saw a mausoleum with a familiar name engraved on the pink granite: TRACKER. I went to it and tried the iron gate. In 2011 it would have been locked, but this was 1958 and it swung open easily… although with a horror-movie squall of rusty hinges.
I went inside, kicking my way through a drift of old brittle leaves.
There was a stone meditation bench running up the center of the vault; on either side were stone storage lockers for Trackers going all the way back to 1831.
According to the copper plate on the front of that earliest one, the bones of Monsieur Jean Paul Traiche lay within.
I closed my eyes.
Lay down on the meditation bench and dozed.
Slept.
When I woke up it was close to noon. I went to the front door of the Tracker vault to wait for Dunning… just as Oswald, five years from now, would no doubt wait for the Kennedy motorcade in his shooter’s blind on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
My headache was gone.
11
Dunning’s Pontiac appeared around the same time Red Schoendienst was scoring that day’s winning run for the Milwaukee Braves.
Dunning parked on the closest feeder lane, got out, turned up his collar, then bent back in to get the flower baskets.
He walked down the hill to his parents’ graves carrying one in each hand.
Now that the time had come, I was pretty much okay.
I had gotten on the other side of whatever had been trying to hold me back.
The souvenir pillow was under my coat. My hand was inside.
The wet grass muffled my footsteps. There was no sun to cast my shadow.
He didn’t know I was behind him until I spoke his name. Then he turned around.
“When I’m visiting my folks, I don’t like company,” he said. “Who the hell are you, anyway? And what’s that?” He was looking at the pillow, which I had taken out. I was wearing it like a glove.
I chose to answer the first question only. “My name’s Jake Epping. I came out here to ask you a question.”
“So ask and then leave me alone.” Rain was dripping off the brim of his hat. Mine, too.
“What’s the most important thing in life, Dunning?”
“What?”
“To a man, I mean.”
“What are you, wacky? What’s with the pillow, anyway?”
“Humor me. Answer the question.”
He shrugged. “His family, I suppose.”
“I think so, too,” I said, and pulled the trigger twice.
The first report was a muffled thump, like hitting a rug with a carpet beater.
The second was a little louder. I thought the pillow might catch on fire—I saw that in Godfather 2—but it only smoldered a little.
Dunning fell over, crushing the basket of flowers he’d placed on his father’s grave.
I knelt beside him, my knee squelching up water from the wet earth, placed the torn end of the pillow against his temple, and fired again. Just to make sure.
12
I dragged him into the Tracker mausoleum and dropped the scorched pillow on his face.
When I left, a couple of cars were driving slowly through the cemetery, and a few people were standing under umbrellas at gravesites, but nobody was paying any attention to me.
I walked without haste toward the rock wall, pausing every now and then to look at a grave or monument.
Once I was screened by trees, I jogged back to my Ford.
When I heard cars coming, I slipped into the woods.
On one of those retreats, I buried the gun under a foot of earth and leaves.
The Sunliner was waiting undisturbed where I’d left it, and it started on the first crank.
I drove back to my apartment and listened to the end of the baseball game.
I cried a little, I think. Those were tears of relief, not remorse.
No matter what happened to me, the Dunning family was safe.
I slept like a baby that night.
13
There was plenty about the World Series in Monday’s Derry Daily News, including a nice pic of Schoendienst sliding home with the winning run after a Tony Kubek error.
According to Red Barber’s column, the Bronx Bombers were finished.
“Stick a fork in em,” he opined. “The Yanks are dead, long live the Yanks.”
Nothing about Frank Dunning to start Derry’s workweek, but he was front-page material in Tuesday’s paper, along with a photo that showed him grinning with the-ladies-love-me good cheer. His devilish George Clooney twinkle was all present and accounted for.
BUSINESSMAN FOUND MURDERED IN LOCAL CEMETERY
Dunning Was Prominent in Many Charity Drives
According to the Derry Chief of Police, the department was following up all sorts of good leads and an arrest was expected soon.
Reached by phone, Doris Dunning declared herself to be “shocked and devastated.” There was no mention of the fact that she and the decedent had been living apart.
Various friends and co-workers at the Center Street Market expressed similar shock.
Everyone seemed in agreement that Frank Dunning had been an absolutely terrific guy, and no one could guess why someone would want to shoot him.
Tony Tracker was especially outraged (possibly because the corpse had been found in the family body-bank). “For this guy, they ought to bring back the death penalty,” he said.
On Wednesday, the eighth of October, the Yankees squeezed out a four-to-three win over the Braves at County Stadium; on Thursday they broke a two-two tie in the eighth, scoring four runs and closing the Series out.
On Friday, I went back to the Mermaid Pawn it was his little sister. There were things I wanted to tell her.
That she should go out trick-or-treating on Halloween no matter how sad she felt about her daddy.
That she’d be the prettiest, most magical Indian princess anyone had ever seen, and would come home with a mountain of candy.
That she had at least fifty-three long and busy years ahead of her, and probably many more.
Most of all that someday her brother Harry was going to want to put on a uniform and go for a soldier and she must do her very, very, very best to talk him out of it.
Only kids forget. Every teacher knows this.
And they think they’re going to live forever.
15
It was time to leave Derry, but I had one final little chore to take care of before I went.
I waited until Monday. That afternoon, the thirteenth of October, I threw my valise into the Sunliner’s trunk, then sat behind the wheel long enough to scribble a brief note.
I tucked it into an envelope, sealed it, and printed the recipient’s name on the front.
I drove down to the Low Town, parked, and walked into the Sleepy Silver Dollar.
It was empty except for Pete the bartender, as I had expected.
He was washing glasses and watching Love of Life on the boob tube.
He turned to me reluctantly, keeping one eye on John and Marsha, or whatever their names were.
“What can I get you?”
“Nothing, but you can do me a favor. For which I will compensate you to the tune of five American dollars.”
He looked unimpressed. “Really. What’s the favor?”
I put the envelope on the bar. “Pass this over when the proper party comes in.”
He looked at the name on the front of the envelope. “What do you want with Billy Turcotte? And why don’t you give it to him yourself?”
“It’s a simple enough assignment, Pete. Do you want the five, or not?”
“Sure. Long as it won’t do no harm. Billy’s a good enough soul.”
“It won’t do him any harm. It might even do him some good.”
I put a fin on top of the envelope. Pete made it disappear and went back to his soap opera. I left. Turcotte probably got the envelope. Whether or not he did anything after he read what was inside is another question, one of many to which I will never have answers. This is what I wrote:
Dear Bill—
There is something wrong with your heart.
You must go to the doctor soon, or it will be too late.
You might think this is a joke, but it is not.
You might think I couldn’t know such a thing, but I do.
I know it as surely as you know Frank Dunning murdered your sister Clara and your nephew Mikey. PLEASE BELIEVE ME AND GO TO THE DOCTOR!
A Friend
16
I got into my Sunliner, and as I backed out of the slant parking slot, I saw Mr. Keene’s narrow and mistrustful face peering out at me from the drugstore. I unrolled my window, stuck out my arm, and shot him the bird. Then I drove up Up-Mile Hill and out of Derry for the last time.