Living Witness(122)

“I don’t care,” he said again. “I don’t care what Lynne does about her. I don’t care if the whole town knows about it. The whole town knows, anyway. There aren’t any secrets in places like this. I don’t care.”

Franklin could hear Louise behind him, shifting from one foot to the other, hesitating, not knowing what to do. He didn’t care about that, either. He looked out across Main Street and wondered suddenly what went on in the head of a man like Gregor Demarkian. They said he’d been in the FBI; that he’d met Presidents, if only in an official capacity; that he was going to marry some rich woman from the Main Line who’d gotten even richer writing stupid novels about elves and unicorns. That was the kind of thing Marcey knew. That was the kind of thing she threw in his face at every opportunity.

“You with your crap about how God wants you to prosper,” she would say, spilling lemonade all over the table because she’d taken too much of that stuff to keep her muscles under control. “God wants you to prosper. God wants you to fulfill your dreams. He wants them to prosper more than you, doesn’t he? He wants them to get so rich they can swallow you whole.”

“Franklin,” Louise said yet again, sounding desperate now. “Franklin, you’ve got to—”

“I don’t got to do anything,” Franklin said, moving away from the window. “I don’t. I don’t have to deal with this. Tell Lynne I don’t give a shit if I come home and find Marcey dead on the bathroom floor. It’s where she wants to be anyway, it’s where she’s wanted to be for years. I’m going out.”

“You don’t really mean this,” Louise said, “you know you don’t. If something happens, you’ll regret it.”

“No, I won’t,” Franklin said, and he made his way through the pyramids of tires to the store’s glass front door. Everything about the Hale ’n’ Hardy was glass. Everything was display. You had to put things out there and make them look tempting. You had to get people in the mood to buy. You had to go after them, day after day, week after week, with a smile pasted across your face and a tone of voice that said that your customer was the most wonderful human being who ever graced the planet, your customer was God, your customer was so wonderful he couldn’t really do without this stuff you were selling him, he ought to buy more of it, he ought to buy more and more of it, he ought to buy so much of it that his garage at home was filled with tires he would never use.

Franklin stepped out onto the sidewalk. The vans were still in place, but the cameramen were packing up. Gregor Demarkian had finished talking. People all over the country, maybe even people all over the world, would have heard him speak.

The wind was coming down Main Street like a bowling ball in a bowling alley. Franklin realized he’d forgotten his parka and his hat.





2




Gary Albright had never seen an impromptu press conference or a press conference of any kind, from behind the scenes. He decided that the process interested him very much. If this had been a formal press conference, there would have been a table with microphones. Since this was just off the cuff, Gregor Demarkian had made a point of standing still and with his hands at his sides. The trick was to assume an air of authority, to look like someone official, which Gregor Demarkian definitely was. Dale Vardan was also someone official, but he never looked it. He always came off as if he were intimidated by the reporters. The art of looking like you were not intimidated would be a good one to learn.

The reporters had not been interested in asking Gary questions, and Gary had not minded. He was not someone who needed to be front and center. He was not interested in being famous. He watched Gregor Demarkian talk, and then he watched the cameramen put their equipment away, and then he looked up and saw Franklin Hale coming at him across the street.

“Franklin,” he said.

Franklin brushed past him. None of the reporters or camera people noticed him. Gary was glad of that. He went into the police station the way he would have gone into the Snow Hill Diner, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if the last thing on his mind was doing something important. Gary thought that maybe it was not important. It was hard to remember that other things were going on in Snow Hill these days besides the murders. Maybe Franklin had had a shoplifter in his store. Maybe Marcey had been caught stealing stuff again from the IGA.

Gary looked at the vans. They were nearly all packed up. The reporters were wandering down the street toward the diner. He wondered what their lives were like at home. Sarah probably knew something about it, from women’s magazines, but it was not the kind of story he paid attention to. He didn’t really pay attention to much except sports and the presidential elections. Even the Congress and the Senate couldn’t hold his attention for long, although he’d been interested enough when he’d had Rick Santorum to vote for. Men like Santorum didn’t last long in politics. Godly men didn’t last long at anything that required them to be popular. That was what Christ had promised. He would bring not peace, but a sword, and His disciples would have to suffer and die for His sake. That was something Gary did understand. It was why he had liked the Marines as much as he had. It was not that he wanted to suffer—nobody wanted to suffer. But he knew that the Suffering Servant was the only one that counted.