And a hard one. And, sometimes, an unlucky one.
The new Sheriff (he had been in office going on eight years, but Alan Pangborn had decided he was going to be âthe new Sheriffâ at least until the year 2000âalways assuming, he told his wife, that he went on running and being elected that long) hadnât been in Castle Rock then; until 1980 he had been in charge of highway enforcement in a small-going-on-medium-sized city in upstate New York, not far from Syracuse.
Looking at Homer Gamacheâs battered body, lying in a ditch beside Route 35, he wished he was still there. It looked like not all of the townâs bad luck had died with Big George Bannerman after all.
Oh, quit itâyou donât wish you were anyplace else on Godâs green earth. Donât say you do, or bad luck will really come down and take a ride on your shoulder. This has been a damned good place for Annie and the boys, and itâs been a damned good place for you, too. So why donât you just get off it?
Good advice. Your head, Pangborn had discovered, was always giving your nerves good advice they couldnât take. They said Yessir , now that you mention it, thatâs just as true as it can be . And then they went right on jumping and sizzling.
Still, he had been due for something like this, hadnât he? During his tour of duty as Sheriff he had scraped the remains of almost forty people off the town roads, broken up fights beyond counting, and been faced with maybe a hundred cases of spouse and child abuseâand those were just the ones reported. But things have a way of evening out; for a town that had sported its very own mass killer not so long ago, he had had an unusually sweet ride when it came to murder. Just four, and only one of the perps had runâJoe Rodway, after he blew his wifeâs brains out. Having had some acquaintance of the lady, Pangborn was almost sorry when he got a telex from the police in Kingston, Rhode Island, saying they had Rodway in custody.
One of the others had been vehicular manslaughter, the remaining two plain cases of second-degree, one with a knife and one with bare knucklesâthe latter a case of spouse abuse that had simply gone too far, having only one odd wrinkle to distinguish it: the wife had beaten the husband to death while he was dead drunk, giving back one final apocalyptic tit for almost twenty years of tat. The womanâs last set of bruises had still been a good, healthy yellow when she was booked. Pangborn hadnât been a bit sorry when the judge let her off with six months in Womenâs Correctional followed by six yearsâ probation. Judge Pender had probably done that only because it would have been impolitic to give the lady what she really deserved, which was a medal.
Small-town murder in real life, he had found, rarely bore any likeness to the small-town murders in Agatha Christie novels, where seven people all took a turn at stabbing wicked old Colonel Storping-Goiter at his country house in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh during a moody winter storm. In real life, Pangborn knew, you almost always arrived to find the perp still standing there, looking down at the mess and wondering what the fuck heâd done; how it had all jittered out of control with such lethal speed. Even if the perp had strolled off, he usually hadnât gone far and there were two or three eyewitnesses who could tell you exactly what had happened, who had done it, and where he had gone. The answer to the last question was usually the nearest bar. As a rule, small-town murder in real life was simple, brutal, and stupid.
As a rule.
But rules are made to be broken. Lightning sometimes does strike twice in the same place, and from time to time murders that happen in small towns are not immediately solvable . . . murders like this one.
Pangborn could have waited.
2
Officer Norris Ridgewick came back from his cruiser, which was parked behind Pangbornâs.
The new Sheriff (he had been in office going on eight years, but Alan Pangborn had decided he was going to be âthe new Sheriffâ at least until the year 2000âalways assuming, he told his wife, that he went on running and being elected that long) hadnât been in Castle Rock then; until 1980 he had been in charge of highway enforcement in a small-going-on-medium-sized city in upstate New York, not far from Syracuse.
Looking at Homer Gamacheâs battered body, lying in a ditch beside Route 35, he wished he was still there. It looked like not all of the townâs bad luck had died with Big George Bannerman after all.
Oh, quit itâyou donât wish you were anyplace else on Godâs green earth. Donât say you do, or bad luck will really come down and take a ride on your shoulder. This has been a damned good place for Annie and the boys, and itâs been a damned good place for you, too. So why donât you just get off it?
Good advice. Your head, Pangborn had discovered, was always giving your nerves good advice they couldnât take. They said Yessir , now that you mention it, thatâs just as true as it can be . And then they went right on jumping and sizzling.
Still, he had been due for something like this, hadnât he? During his tour of duty as Sheriff he had scraped the remains of almost forty people off the town roads, broken up fights beyond counting, and been faced with maybe a hundred cases of spouse and child abuseâand those were just the ones reported. But things have a way of evening out; for a town that had sported its very own mass killer not so long ago, he had had an unusually sweet ride when it came to murder. Just four, and only one of the perps had runâJoe Rodway, after he blew his wifeâs brains out. Having had some acquaintance of the lady, Pangborn was almost sorry when he got a telex from the police in Kingston, Rhode Island, saying they had Rodway in custody.
One of the others had been vehicular manslaughter, the remaining two plain cases of second-degree, one with a knife and one with bare knucklesâthe latter a case of spouse abuse that had simply gone too far, having only one odd wrinkle to distinguish it: the wife had beaten the husband to death while he was dead drunk, giving back one final apocalyptic tit for almost twenty years of tat. The womanâs last set of bruises had still been a good, healthy yellow when she was booked. Pangborn hadnât been a bit sorry when the judge let her off with six months in Womenâs Correctional followed by six yearsâ probation. Judge Pender had probably done that only because it would have been impolitic to give the lady what she really deserved, which was a medal.
Small-town murder in real life, he had found, rarely bore any likeness to the small-town murders in Agatha Christie novels, where seven people all took a turn at stabbing wicked old Colonel Storping-Goiter at his country house in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh during a moody winter storm. In real life, Pangborn knew, you almost always arrived to find the perp still standing there, looking down at the mess and wondering what the fuck heâd done; how it had all jittered out of control with such lethal speed. Even if the perp had strolled off, he usually hadnât gone far and there were two or three eyewitnesses who could tell you exactly what had happened, who had done it, and where he had gone. The answer to the last question was usually the nearest bar. As a rule, small-town murder in real life was simple, brutal, and stupid.
As a rule.
But rules are made to be broken. Lightning sometimes does strike twice in the same place, and from time to time murders that happen in small towns are not immediately solvable . . . murders like this one.
Pangborn could have waited.
2
Officer Norris Ridgewick came back from his cruiser, which was parked behind Pangbornâs.
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