"I'm going to call McNeil," he said. "You can listen in if you want to."
She did not stir, did not make a sound, lay there like a corpse in rigor.
"You're welcome to listen to every word," he said. "I'm just going to see if he's home. That's all it is."
It was worse than talking to a wall; one had no expectation of response from a wall.
"I'd make the call from in here, but…" He shrugged, aware that she could not see his gesture. He did not know why he didn't make the call from the bedroom.
"Are you coming? I know you're awake."
She still did not move. Tee gave himself permission to leave, still easing quietly out the door, maintaining her charade that she was asleep.
Ginny's door was closed. Tee considered opening it, giving himself another glimpse of his sleeping angel, something to lighten his heart in the gloom that had prevailed for the past several days. With infinite care he turned her doorknob, and found it locked, a puzzling development. As far as he knew, Ginny did not lock her door, had not done so since a screaming argument with her mother over a year ago. Tee had gone to his daughter to comfort her and found the door secured against him. Enraged at being suddenly sealed off from her, he had threatened to remove the door entirely if it was ever locked again, and to his knowledge, it had not been. In return he had sworn to respect her privacy by always knocking and awaiting a response before entering.
This had presented no problem, since she was always glad to see him, even if she gave him only fleeting attention because of the telephone glued to her ear.
There was no light coming from under the door, no sound emerging from the room. Tee decided that it was not the hour or the occasion to press the issue.
In the kitchen he waited a few moments to hear if Marge was coming, before closing the door and picking up the phone. He let it ring fifteen times before hanging up.
Moving now with a sense of urgency, Tee returned to the bedroom and dressed. Marge did not move at all although he was making no effort to be quiet.
"I'm going out," he said, pulling on his shoes. "McNeil wasn't home."
He looked at the heavy utility belt atop his dresser and debated whether he wanted it-the gun went with the belt. If he had the gun, there was a chance he might use it. After a hesitation he strapped the belt around his waist and left the house.
Metzger sounded startled to receive a call, and Tee wondered ifhe he had been asleep.
"What are you doing up, Chief?"
"I'm looking for McNeil," said Tee. "Have you seen him?"
"Tonight?"
"Yes, tonight. Since you've been on duty."
"No, but I wasn't really looking for him."
"You'd recognize McNeil, wouldn't you, Metzger? You wouldn't have to be looking for him especially in order to see him, would you?"
"No sir. I haven't seen him at all. Have you tried calling him?"
"Give me some credit."
"Yes sir. Do you want me to drive by his house?"
"Do you think he might be in the backyard, studying the moon?"
"The moon?"
"Just let me know if you see him, all right? Don't stop him, don't talk to him, don't follow him, just let me know. Will you do that, Metzger?"
"You bet… How come, sir?"
"Personal reasons, all right? And don't mention to him, or t o anybody else, that I was looking for him, understand?"
"Yes sir."
"Metzger, you do know his private car, don't you? You'll recognize it if you see it."
"Sure thing, you bet, Chief." Tee returned the speaker to the dashboard of his cruiser. It's because we don't pay them enough, he reflected, thinking of Metzger. If we could just get the town to raise their salaries, maybe we could attract better men.
It seemed a futile exercise, trolling the midnight streets of Clamden in search of McNeil. There were 195 miles of road in the town-even assuming he was in the town and not in one of the five other communities that bordered itand yet Tee felt that he had to do something, try something, stir things up. The fine-grained sifting of the FBI was probably efficient in the long run, creating evidence from fibers and sloughed-off flakes of skin, but Tee needed to stop him now. This was his town, the victims were his people, under his custody, and the problem-for Tee-was immediate. The FBI and the state police might compile all of their bits and scraps into an impressive pile of evidence that would ultimately convict, but Tee needed action to stop Johnny first. There were times when he could not understand how Becker could function within such a painstaking organization. His friend was bold and decisive, intuitive and quick. In all things quick, lightning-fast as his own honed reflexes. Tee wondered how he could tolerate the plodding ways of the Bureau.
Becker had seemed greatly distracted for the last several days and would not tell Tee why, but he had lost all sympathy with Tee's theory that McNeil was Johnny Appleseed, or indeed that McNeil merited any further investigation whatever, which made Tee all the more determined to pursue his suspicions-his conviction, reallyon his own.
Despite having scorned Metzger's suggestion, Tee swung by McNeil's house first, going to see… what, he did not know-McNeil coming perhaps, McNeil going, McNeil in any activity.
But there was something at McNeil's house, or rather the absence of something. His car was not there. Tee looked into the garage and saw that the automobile was gone, but the purloined golf trophy was still there, the tip of the golfer's club glinting in the beam of Tee's flashlight. McNeil hadn't moved it, but why should he? He was content that it was secure. Embo Idened, Tee walked around the outside of the house to the bedroom and peered in the window. He could make out a form on the bed but could not identify it. After debating with himself for a moment, he pointed the flashlight and snapped on the beam very briefly.
Mrs. McNeil lay on her back, her mouth open, her limbs splayed across the bed, encroaching on McNeil's side as well as her own. It was hard to tell for sure over the drone of the air conditioner, but Tee thought he heard her snore. He wondered how Mrs. McNeil did it. Marge was awake as soon as he opened his eyelids, much less gone for the night.
He put thoughts of Marge out of his mind and returned to his car and began his long cruise of the night. If McNeil was in his own car now and not the anonymous Caprice, he was vulnerable. Tee might have passed the Caprice any number of times in the past few years, ignoring it where it was parked, scarcely noting it as it drove right past him, a body in the trunk, McNeil laughing to himself behind the tinted windshield. The thought infuriated Tee, but now McNeil had nowhere to hide. If he continued to act as Johnny Appleseed until he replaced the Caprice, he was exposed and Tee would find him, or at least do all he could to try.
Becker had been certain that Johnny would continue his ways, that they meant too much to him to abandon them just because of inconvenience, or even a threat to his security.
From McNeil's house he turned south and worked every street, every cul-de-sac, every private road, patrolling only slowly enough to be sure that he did not miss anything. There were any number of long, hidden driveways that twisted their way through trees and up hills, sometimes forking off to several houses but still unmarked and omitted from the maps. At this time of night it would be simple for Johnny to take his car halfway up such a drive, park it to the side, completely out of sight from either the road or the houses, and walk to his assignation.