“Sounds like that rock must have busted his false teeth as well's his head,” I says. “Too bad-Joe was partial to em, and I don't know how Lucien Mercier's gonna make him look just right for the viewin without em.”
McAuliffe's lips drew back when I said that n I got a good look at his teeth. No dentures there. I s'pose he meant it to look like a smile, but it didn't. Not a bit.
“Yes,” he says, showin me both rows of his neat little teeth all the way to the gumline. “Yes, that's my conclusion, as well-those porcelain shards are from his lower plate. Now, Mrs St George-do you have any idea of how that rock might have come to strike your husband just as he was on the verge of escaping the well?”
One… two. three.
“Nope,” I says. “Do you?”
“Yes,” he says. “I rather suspect someone pulled it out of the earth and smashed it cruelly and wi” malice aforethought into his upturned, pleading face.”
Wasn't nobody said anything after that. I wanted to, God knows; I wanted to jump in as quick as ever I could n say, “It wasn't me. Maybe somebody did it, but it wasn't me. “ I couldn't, though, because I was back in the blackberry tangles and this time there was friggin wells everyplace.
Instead of talkin I just sat there lookin at him, but I could feel the sweat tryin to break out on me again and I could feel my clasped hands wantin to lock down on each other. The fingernails'd turn white if they did that… and he'd notice. McAuliffe was a man built to notice such things; it'd be another chink to shine his version of the Battiscan Light into. I tried to think of Vera, and how she woulda looked at him-as if he was only a little dab of dogshit on one of her shoes-but with his eyes borin into me like they was just then, it didn't seem to do any good. Before, it'd been like she was almost there in the room with me, but it wasn't like that anymore. Now there was no one there but me n that neat little Scots doctor, who probably fancied himself just like the amateur detectives in the magazine stories (and whose testimony had already sent over a dozen people up n down the coast to jail, I found out later), and I could feel myself gettin closer n closer to openin my mouth n blurtin somethin out. And the hell of it was, Andy, I didn't have the slightest idear what it'd be when it finally came. I could hear the clock on Garrett's desk tickin-it had a big hollow sound.
And I was gonna say somethin when the one person I'd forgot-Garrett Thibodeau-spoke up instead. He spoke in a worried, fast voice, and I realized he couldn't stand no more of that silence, either-he musta thought it was gonna go on until somebody had to scream just to relieve the tension.
“Now John,” he says, “I thought we agreed that, if Joe pulled on that stone just right, it could have come out on its own and-,
“Mon, will ye not shut op!” McAuliffe yelled at him in a high, frustrated sort of voice, and I relaxed. It was all over. I knew it, and I believe that little Scotsman knew it, too. It was like the two us had been in a black room together, and him ticklin my face with what might have been a razor-blade… n then clumsy old Constable Thibodeau stubbed his toe, fell against the window, and the shade went up with a bang n a rattle, lettin in the daylight, and I seen it was only a feather he'd been touchin me with, after all.
Garrett muttered somethin about how there was no call for McAuliffe to talk to him that way, but the doc didn't pay him no mind. He turned back to me and said “Well, Mrs St George?” in a hard way, like he had me in a corner, but by then we both knew better. All he could do was hope I'd make a mistake… but I had three kids to think about, and havin kids makes you careful.
“I've told you what I know,” I says. “He got drunk while we were waitin for the eclipse. I made him a sandwich, thinkin it might sober him up a little, but it didn't. He got yellin, then he choked me n batted me around a little, so I went up to Russian Meadow. When I come back, he was gone. I thought he'd gone off with one of his friends, but he was down the well all the time. I s'pose he was tryin to take a short-cut out to the road. He might even have been lookin for me, wantin to apologize. That's somethin I won't never know… n maybe it's just as well. “ I give him a good hard look. “You might try a little of that medicine yourself, Dr McAuliffe.”
“Never mind yer advice, madam,” McAuliffe says, and those spots of color in his cheeks was burnin higher n hotter'n ever. “Are ye glad he's dead? Tell me that!”
“What in holy tarnal hell has that got to do with what happened to him?” I ast. “Jesus Christ, what's wrong with you?”
