Dunlap turned the reel and read more of the microfilm. Once again, except for how events were slanted, this was much the same as what he'd read in files back in his New York office. The roundup, the expulsion, and the slowly settling peace. Then there was a difference, local items on how much it cost the town to clean the garbage from the park, to put in new windows, and to scrape the slogans off the walls. There were letters praising how authorities had handled things, attempts to understand a strange and changing world, confusion and bewilderment. Only one dissent, no name, saying that the town had been too hasty, that "instead of beating on those kids we should have tried to understand them." Maybe so, but if there had been others who agreed with that, there was no published sign of it. The overwhelming sense was of a town that still had not recovered from its shock. Weird beaded costumes, long hair, beards and what all, they were one thing, although Dunlap guessed that local people with their cowboy clothes and gingham dresses had seemed just as strange to all those West-coast hippies as the hippies seemed to them. Dope and shiftlessness and filth, though, they were something else, something that the town could neither understand nor tolerate. A woman wrote in, angered by two infants she had seen, dirty-faced and crying, diapers unchanged, while the mother stretched out on the grass and looked away. Another woman wrote that all she'd seen some children eat was half-cooked rice and moldy cheese and milk which with the specks of straw inside had clearly not been pasteurized, and where on earth they'd got that kind of milk she didn't know, but what was going on? The dope had really done the trick, though. They had evidently smoked it clear out in the open, almost flaunting it, and Dunlap, going through the items in the paper, was surprised that no one was arrested. Sure, he understood that too, he guessed. To pick up one, you'd have to take them all. Otherwise you punished one and let the others get away. The jail was likely far too small, the trouble just not worth the cost of feeding them. Better just to clear out the lot of them. Which is what they did.
Then Dunlap read some issues of the paper where there wasn't any mention of what happened. Things were getting back to normal. So the townsfolk were pretending. That was just about the time the newsmen and photographers decided that the story was played out and started leaving. They weren't present for what happened next, the murder, headlines straight across the page. At last.
THIRTEEN
The door creaked open. Dunlap swung. A man stepped into view, outlined by the hallway light that spilled in. He was tall and gangly, wearing suspenders, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his white hair haloed by the light behind him, the man in charge of microfilm whom Dunlap had talked to earlier. "I'm sorry, sir. We close at five." The words were hushed as if this truly were a morgue, the almost-empty room echoing.
Dunlap stared at him and breathed. Then he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. He looked at his watch. Ten to five. He'd started shortly after two, so taken up by what he read that he hadn't realized how quickly the time was going.
Abruptly he felt tired.
"What time do you open in the morning?"
"Eight o'clock. We close at noon." The room echoed again.
Dunlap lit a cigarette and nodded. "Thanks." He'd been afraid that the newspaper's office wouldn't be open on Saturday. He stood and put his jacket on, glancing at the notes he'd made, surprised that there were so many of them, unaware he'd made them. He put the microfilm back into its box, stacked it on the other boxes, snapped the light off on the reader, picked the boxes up, and walked across the room to hand them over. 'Thanks," he repeated, and with his camera, tape recorder, and his notes, he went out past the man and down the hall.
On the street, Dunlap had to squint again. The sun was low, descending toward the mountains, but the glare was as bad as earlier. In contrast with the air-conditioned building he'd just left, the air out here was close and humid, and he started sweating almost immediately. There were people going past, walking home from work, lots more traffic on the street. He glanced at several women, young and tall with soft, loose-fitting dresses that nonetheless suggested hips and breasts, and shook his head. He turned and walked up toward the right. As much as he remembered, that was where the two big buildings with all the trees had been when he'd arrived on the bus at noon. He looked and saw the trees in the distance, and he kept walking. The trees seemed five blocks away at least, and he was wondering if the effort would be worth it. Mostly he was hot and tired, and his hands shook so bad that he knew he'd have to stop soon for a drink. But reading through that microfilm had perked his interest, and he didn't want to stay here any longer than he had to, so he'd take a chance, and if the office up there were still open, maybe he could save some time. Maybe, but the trees seemed just as far away, the more he walked, and several times he almost weakened, glancing at the bars.
Then he stood across from all those trees, the big, stone, pillared courthouse, and the brick, three-story building that he guessed would be the police station. He crossed the street toward them, reaching the shadow of the trees and feeling cool beneath them as the siren started wailing and a cruiser shot out from the corner of the building, racing down a side street, emergency lights flashing, barely stopping at the main street as the big man in there swerved the cruiser sharply to the left and, tires squealing, rushed down through the center of the town.
Dunlap watched him go. This was more like home. There were people all along the sidewalk stopped and watching. There were cars that pulled close to the sidewalk while the cruiser wailed quickly past. Then the cruiser was so far along that Dun-lap couldn't see it anymore. He heard the siren rising, falling, becoming fainter. Then he couldn't hear it, and after he noticed that the traffic and pedestrians were going on about their business, he started up the sidewalk toward the police station's entrance.
There was rich, well-tended lawn on each side of the walkway. From the shadow of the trees, he guessed. The sun could not get in and scorch it. He was thinking of the brown grass on the rangeland, thinking of the cruiser, what in this small town would merit such commotion. Probably an accident, he thought. A bad one, rush hour and all that. He reached the stairs that led up to the entrance, brick just like the portico and walls, old and dark and weathered. He went in. There were stairs that led down to the basement, stairs that led up to a vestibule, wide and tall and spacious, treelike plants in pots along the walls, doors that led off on each side. The place gave off the not-unpleasant must that comes with many years. He saw a door wide open, saw the sign on top, police chief, nathan slaughter, and he entered.
The room was bright: white walls, lights across the ceiling. To the left, he saw a heavy, gray-haired woman at a desk that supported a bulky, two-way radio. At first, she didn't notice him. All she did was sit there, staring at the radio. He moved, and then she turned to him.
"Yes, sir, may I help?"
Dunlap glanced across the empty room and doubted it. "I'm looking for the chief."
"Sorry. He's not in." The woman stared at the radio again.
"Well, my name's Dunlap. Mr. Parsons sent me over."
"You're the reporter from New York?"
He nodded.
"Mr. Slaughter had a call about you, but he couldn't wait. Something came up, and he had to get there."
Sure, the cop who raced out in that cruiser, Dunlap thought. As the woman stared at the radio yet again, he couldn't tell if she was being rude or was merely preoccupied. "I don't suppose you know when he'll be back."