Torn between a desire to believe Emma Thorp and a growing conviction that Rya was telling the truth, Paul Annendale climbed the steps to the stoop at the back of the Thorp house.
Putting a hand on his shoulder, pressing with fingers like talons, Sam said, “Wait.”
Paul turned. The wind mussed his hair, blew it into his eyes. “Wait for what?”
“This is breaking and entering.”
“The door’s open.”
“That doesn’t change anything,” Sam said, letting go of him. “Besides, it’s open because Rya broke it open.”
Aware that Sam was trying to reason with him for his own good but nonetheless impatient, Paul said, “What in the hell am I supposed to do, Sam? Call the cops? Or maybe pull some strings, use my connections, put a call through to the chief of police, and have him investigate himself?”
“We could call the state police.”
“The body might not even be here.”
“If they could avoid it, they wouldn’t move a corpse in broad daylight.”
“Maybe there is no corpse, not here, not anywhere.”
“I hope to God you’re right.”
“Come on, Paul. Let’s call the state police.”
“You said they’d need as much as two hours to get here. If the body still is in this house-well, it most likely won’t be here two hours from now.”
“But this is all so improbable! Why on earth would Bob want to murder Mark?”
“You heard what Rya said. That sociologist ordered him to kill. That Albert Deighton.”
“She didn’t know it was Deighton,” Sam said.
“Sam, you’re the one who recognized him from her description.”
“Okay. Granted. But why would Emma go to a church luncheon and card game just after watching her husband kill a defenseless child? How could she? And how could a boy like Jeremy witness a brutal murder and then lie to you so smoothly?”
“They’re your neighbors. You tell me.”
“That’s just the point,” Sam insisted. “They’re my neighbors. They have been all their lives. Nearly all their lives. I know them well. As well as I know anyone. And I’m telling you, Paul, they simply aren’t capable of this sort of thing.”
Paul put one hand to his belly. His stomach spasmed with cramps. The memory of what he had seen in that bucket-the thickening blood and the strands of hair that were the same color as Mark’s hair-had affected him physically as well as emotionally. Or perhaps the emotional impact had been so devastating, so overwhelming that a sharp physical revulsion could not help but follow. “You’ve known these people under ordinary circumstances, during ordinary times. But I swear, Sam, there’s something extraordinary happening in this town. First Rya’s story. Mark’s disappearance. The bloody rags. And on top of that, Buddy comes around with this story of strange men at the reservoir in the dead of night-just a few days before the whole town suffered from a curious, unexplained epidemic-”
Sam blinked in surprise. “You think the chills are connected with this, with-”
A deafening crack of thunder interrupted him.
As the sky grew quiet, Sam said, “Buddy’s not a very reliable witness.”
“You believed him, didn’t you?”
“I believe he saw something strange, yes. Whether or not it was precisely what Buddy thinks it was-”
“Oh, I know he didn’t see skin divers. Skin divers don’t wear hip boots. What he saw-I think maybe he saw two men with empty chemical dispersion tanks.”
“Someone contaminated the reservoir?” Sam asked incredulously.
“Looks that way to me.”
“Who? The government?”
“Maybe. Or maybe terrorists. Or even a private company.”
“But why?”
“To see if the contaminate did what it was supposed to do.”
Sam said, “Contaminated the reservoir . . . with what?” He frowned. “Something that turns sane men into psychopaths who will kill when told to?”
Paul began to shake.
“We haven’t found him yet,” Sam said quickly. “Don’t lose hope. We haven’t found him dead.”
“Sam – . . Oh God, Sam, I think we will. I really think we will.” He was close to tears, but he knew that, for the time being, they were a luxury that he couldn’t allow himself to have. He cleared his throat. “And I’ll bet this sociologist, Deighton, is involved with the men Buddy saw. He’s not here to study Black River. He knows what was put in the reservoir, and he’s in town only to see what effect that substance has on the people here.”