Insomnia (12 page)

He sat up, half expecting Ed to shove him down again, almost hoping he would. His anger was coming back. It was surely wrong to critique a madman’s delusional fantasies the way you might a play or a movie – maybe even blasphemous – but Ralph found the idea that Helen had been beaten because of such hackneyed old shit as this infuriating.

Ed didn’t touch him, merely got to his feet and dusted his hands off in businesslike fashion. He seemed to be cooling down again. Radio calls crackled louder as the police cruiser which had backed out of the Red Apple’s lot now glided up to the curb. Ed looked at the cruiser, then back at Ralph, who was getting up himself.

‘You can mock, but it’s true,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s not King Herod, though – it’s the Crimson King. Herod was merely one of his incarnations. The Crimson King jumps from body to body and generation to generation like a kid using stepping-stones to cross a brook, Ralph, always looking for the Messiah. He’s always missed him, but this time it could be different. Because
Derry’s
different. All lines of force have begun to converge here. I know how difficult that is to believe, but it’s true.’

The Crimson King,
Ralph thought.
Oh Helen, I’m so sorry. What a sad thing this is
.

Two men – one in uniform, one in streetclothes, both presumably cops – got out of the police car and approached McGovern. Behind them, down at the store, Ralph spotted two more men, these dressed in white pants and white short-sleeved shirts, coming out of the Red Apple. One had his arm around Helen, who was walking with the fragile care of a post-op patient. The other was holding Natalie.

The paramedics helped Helen into the back of the ambulance. The one with the baby got in after her while the other moved toward the driver’s seat. What Ralph sensed in their movements was competency rather than urgency, and he thought that was good news for Helen. Maybe Ed hadn’t hurt her too badly . . . this time, at least.

The plainclothes cop – burly, broad-shouldered, and wearing his blond mustache and sideburns in a style Ralph thought of as Early American Singles Bar – had approached McGovern, whom he seemed to recognize. There was a big grin on the plainclothes cop’s face.

Ed put an arm over Ralph’s shoulders and pulled him a few steps away from the men on the sidewalk. He also dropped his voice to a bare murmur. ‘Don’t want them to hear us,’ he said.

‘I’m sure you don’t.’

‘These creatures . . . Centurions . . . servants of the Crimson King . . . will stop at nothing. They are relentless.’

‘I’ll bet.’ Ralph glanced over his shoulder in time to see McGovern point at Ed. The burly man nodded calmly. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his chinos. He was still wearing a small, benign smile.

‘This isn’t just about abortion, don’t get that idea! Not anymore. They’re taking the unborn from all kinds of mothers, not just the junkies and the whores – eight days, eight weeks, eight months, it’s all the same to the Centurions. The harvest goes on day and night. The slaughter. I’ve seen the corpses of infants on roofs, Ralph . . . under hedges . . . they’re in the sewers . . . floating in the sewers and in the Kenduskeag down in the Barrens . . .’

His eyes, huge and green, as bright as trumpery emeralds, stared off into the distance.

‘Ralph,’ he whispered, ‘sometimes the world is full of colors. I’ve seen them since
he
came and told me. But now all the colors are turning black.’

‘Since who came and told you, Ed?’

‘We’ll talk about it later,’ Ed replied, speaking out of the corner of his mouth like a con in a prison movie. Under other circumstances it would have been funny.

A big game-show host grin dawned on his face, banishing the madness as convincingly as sunrise banishes night. The change was almost tropical in its suddenness, and creepy as hell, but Ralph found something comforting about it, just the same. Perhaps they – he, McGovern, Lois, all the others on this little stretch of Harris Avenue who knew Ed – would not have to blame themselves too much for not seeing his madness sooner, after all. Because Ed was good; Ed really had his act down. That grin was an Academy Award winner. Even in a bizarre situation like this, it practically demanded that you respond to it.

‘Hey, hi!’ he told the two cops. The burly one had finished his conversation with McGovern, and both of them were advancing across the lawn. ‘Drag up a rock, you guys!’ Ed stepped around Ralph with his hand held out.

The burly plainclothes cop shook it, still smiling his small, benign smile. ‘Edward Deepneau?’ he asked.

‘Right.’ Ed shook hands with the uniformed cop, who looked a trifle bemused, and then returned his attention to the burly man.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant John Leydecker,’ the burly man said. ‘This is Officer Chris Nell. Understand you had a little trouble here, sir.’

‘Well, yes. I guess that’s right. A little trouble. Or, if you want to call a spade a spade, I behaved like a horse’s ass.’ Ed’s embarrassed little chuckle was alarmingly normal. Ralph thought of all the charming psychopaths he’d seen in the movies – George Sanders had always been particularly good at that sort of role – and wondered if it was possible for a smart research chemist to grow a small-city detective who looked as if he had never completely outgrown his
Saturday Night Fever
phase. Ralph was terribly afraid it might be.

‘Helen and I got into an argument about a petition she’d signed,’ Ed was saying, ‘and one thing just led to another. Man, I just can’t believe I hit her.’

He flapped his arms, as if to convey how flustered he was – not to mention confused and ashamed. Leydecker smiled in return. Ralph’s mind returned to the confrontation last summer between Ed and the man in the blue pickup. Ed had called the heavyset man a murderer, had even stroked him one across the face, and still the guy had ended up looking at Ed almost with respect. It had been like a kind of hypnosis, and Ralph thought he was seeing the same force at work here.

‘Things just kinda got out of hand a little, is that what you’re telling me?’ Leydecker asked sympathetically.

‘That’s about the size of it, yeah.’ Ed had to be at least thirty-two, but his wide eyes and innocent expression made him look barely old enough to buy beer.

‘Wait a minute,’ Ralph blurted. ‘You can’t believe him, he’s nuts. And dangerous. He just told me—’

‘This is Mr Roberts, right?’ Leydecker asked McGovern, ignoring Ralph completely.

‘Yes,’ McGovern said, and to Ralph he sounded insufferably pompous. ‘That is Ralph Roberts.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Leydecker at last looked at Ralph. ‘I’ll want to speak to you in a couple of minutes, Mr Roberts, but for the time being I’d like you to stand over there beside your friend and keep quiet. Okay?’

‘But—’

Angrier than ever, Ralph stalked over to where McGovern was standing. This did not seem to upset Leydecker in the least. He turned to Officer Nell. ‘You want to turn off the music, Chris, so we can hear ourselves think?’

‘Yo.’ The uniformed cop went to the boombox, inspected the various knobs and switches, then killed The Who halfway through the song about the blind pinball wizard.

‘I guess I
did
have it cranked a little.’ Ed looked sheepish. ‘Wonder the neighbors didn’t complain.’

‘Oh, well, life goes on,’ Leydecker said. He tilted his small, serene smile up toward the clouds drifting across the blue summer sky.

Wonderful,
Ralph thought.
This guy is a regular Will Rogers
. Ed, however, was nodding as if the detective had produced not just a single pearl of wisdom but a whole string of them.

Leydecker rummaged in his pocket and came out with a little tube of toothpicks. He offered them to Ed, who declined, then shook one out and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Little family argument. Is that what I’m hearing?’

Ed nodded eagerly. He was still smiling his sincere, slightly puzzled smile. ‘More of a discussion, actually. A political—’

‘Uh-huh, uh-huh,’ Leydecker said, nodding and smiling, ‘but before you go any further, Mr Deepneau—’

‘Ed. Please.’

‘Before we go any further, Mr Deepneau, I just kind of want to tell you that anything you say could be used against you – you know, in a court of law. Also that you have a right to an attorney.’

Ed’s friendly but puzzled smile –
Gosh, what did I do? Can you help me figure it out?
– faltered for a moment. The narrow, appraising look replaced it. Ralph glanced at McGovern, and the relief he saw in Bill’s eyes mirrored what he was feeling himself. Leydecker was maybe not such a hick after all.

‘What in God’s name would I want an attorney for?’ Ed asked. He made a half-turn and tried the puzzled smile out on Chris Nell, who was still standing beside the boombox on the porch.

‘I don’t know, and maybe you don’t,’ Leydecker said, still smiling. ‘I’m just telling you that you can have one. And that if you can’t afford one, the City of Derry will provide you with one.’

‘But I don’t—’

Leydecker was nodding and smiling. ‘That’s okay, sure, whatever. But those are your rights. Do you understand your rights as I’ve explained them to you, Mr Deepneau?’

Ed stood stock-still for a moment, his eyes suddenly wide and blank again. To Ralph he looked like a human computer trying to process a huge and complicated wad of input. Then the fact that the snow-job wasn’t working seemed to get through to him. His shoulders sagged. The blankness was replaced by a look of unhappiness too real to doubt . . . but Ralph doubted it, anyway. He
had
to doubt it; he had seen the madness on Ed’s face before Leydecker and Nell arrived. So had Bill McGovern. Yet doubt was not quite the same as disbelief, and Ralph had an idea that on some level Ed honestly regretted beating Helen up.

Yes,
he thought,
just as on some level he honestly believes that these Centurions of his are driving truckloads of fetuses out to the Newport landfill. And that the forces of good and evil are gathering in Derry to play out some drama that’s going on in his mind. Call it
Omen V: In the Court of the Crimson King.

Still, he could not help feeling a reluctant sympathy for Ed Deepneau, who had visited Carolyn faithfully three times a week during her final confinement at Derry Home, who always brought flowers, and always kissed her on the cheek when he left. He had continued giving her that kiss even when the smell of death had begun to surround her, and Carolyn had never failed to clasp his hand and give him a smile of gratitude.
Thank you for remembering that I’m still a human being,
that smile had said.
And thank you for treating me like one
. That was the Ed Ralph had thought of as his friend, and he thought – or maybe only hoped – that that Ed was still in there.

‘I’m in trouble here, aren’t I?’ he asked Leydecker softly.

‘Well, let’s see,’ Leydecker said, still smiling. ‘You knocked out two of your wife’s teeth. Looks like you fractured her cheekbone. I’d bet you my grandfather’s watch she’s got a concussion. Plus selected short subjects – cuts, bruises, and this funny bare patch over her right temple. What’d you try to do? Snatch her bald-headed?’

Ed was silent, his green eyes fixed on Leydecker’s face.

‘She’s going to spend the night in the hospital under observation because some asshole pounded the hell out of her, and everybody seems in agreement that the asshole was you, Mr Deepneau. I look at the blood on your hands and the blood on your glasses, and I got to say I also think it was probably you. So what do
you
think? You look like a bright guy. Do
you
think you’re in trouble?’

‘I’m very sorry I hit her,’ Ed said. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Uh-huh, and if I had a quarter for every time I’ve heard that, I’d never have to buy another drink out of my paycheck. I’m arresting you on a charge of second-degree assault, Mr Deepneau, also known as domestic assault. This charge falls under Maine’s Domestic Violence law. I’d like you to confirm once more that I’ve informed you of your rights.’

‘Yes.’ Ed spoke in a small, unhappy voice. The smile – puzzled or otherwise – was gone. ‘Yes, you did.’

‘We’re going to take you down to the police station and book you,’ Leydecker said. ‘Following that, you can make a telephone call and arrange bail. Chris, put him in the car, would you?’

Nell approached Ed. ‘Are you going to be a problem, Mr Deepneau?’

‘No,’ Ed said in that same small voice, and Ralph saw a tear slip from Ed’s right eye. He wiped it away absently with the heel of his hand. ‘No problem.’

‘Great!’ Nell said heartily, and walked with him to the cruiser.

Ed glanced at Ralph as he crossed the sidewalk. ‘I’m sorry, old boy,’ he said, then got into the back of the car. Before Officer Nell closed the door, Ralph saw there was no handle on the inside of it.

‘Okay,’ Leydecker said, turning to Ralph and holding out his hand. ‘I’m sorry if I seemed a little brusque, Mr Roberts, but sometimes these guys can be volatile. I especially worry about the ones who look sober, because you can never tell what they’ll do. John Leydecker.’

‘I had Johnny as a student when I was teaching at the Community College,’ McGovern said. Now that Ed Deepneau was safely tucked away in the back of the cruiser, he sounded almost giddy with relief. ‘Good student. Did an excellent term paper on the Children’s Crusade.’

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ Ralph said, shaking Leydecker’s hand. ‘And don’t worry. No offense taken.’

‘You were insane to come up here and confront him, you know,’ Leydecker said cheerfully.

‘I was pissed off. I’m
still
pissed off.’

‘I can understand that. And you got away with it – that’s the important thing.’