Somebody Else's Music(98)

In Hollman, they found it on Grandview Avenue, and they found it in full view of at least a hundred people. Kyle Borden hit the brake as soon as he saw them, crowding out over the sidewalks and into the street, heedless of the rain. Gregor leaned forward in his seat and tried to make some sense of what he was looking at.

“What is that?” he said.

“That’s why we called the state police,” Kyle said. “That’s just about everybody in town who could walk up here. Plus some people I don’t recognize. They must be the reporters.”

Gregor was sure there would be reporters. He knew about reporters. He also knew about rubberneckers. This looked as if the whole town had come out in a body to stand on the porch of Country Crafts, and the ones who hadn’t were in the street, waiting, pushing forward every once in a while to see if people would move.

“To hell with this,” Kyle said. He jerked his steering wheel to the right and bumped up onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street, then up onto the lawn of the Hollman Public Library. Gregor felt the wheels of the police car sink a little in mud. “If they don’t like it, they can sue me. Let’s go.”

Gregor snapped off his seat belt and climbed out. His shoes sank into the ground just as the wheels of the police car had. He moved as quickly as he could without falling, off the grass and onto the sidewalk. Kyle came up beside him and cupped his hands. How could people stand in the rain like that? Gregor wondered. Some of them had umbrellas, and some of them had bags or newspapers they were holding up for protection, and some of them had hats, but most of them were bareheaded. Gregor ran a hand through his own hair and water flew out of it as if he had splashed against the surface of a pond.

“This is the Hollman Town Police,” Kyle shouted. “Please move out of the way. Please move out of the way.”

Some people on the edge of the crowd closest to them heard, and turned, and moved away, and that was enough to get them started. They waded in, with Kyle shouting through his hands at intervals and sometimes tapping somebody he knew on the shoulder. It was hard to hear above the rain and even harder to hear above the low hum of people talking. Gregor kept his hands close to his sides and himself as close to Kyle as he could, nodding at people when they stared at him. He had no idea if he was being recognized or not. Nobody talked to him. Nobody he heard said his name.

“This is the Hollman Town Police,” Kyle said, over and over again, as they inched forward. “Please get out of the way.”

They reached the porch before Gregor was expecting to. At the steps, Kyle Borden had to shove a few people away. They wouldn’t move just because he told them to. Gregor would have thought that these people were the reporters, except that some of them so obviously weren’t. One was the middle-aged woman who had waited on him the day before in Mullaney’s, when he had run in for a newspaper. Another was the woman he recognized as the waitress from Hollman Pizza. Kyle pushed at these people without ceremony and reached the door. He turned the knob and found it locked.

“Open up,” he said, pounding on the glass front. Far away, Gregor could hear the cowbell tinkle.

The face of a man appeared in the glass on the other side of the door. It seemed to stare at Kyle for a moment, and then nod. There was a rattling and then the door swung open on blank space.

“Hurry,” Kyle said, grabbing Gregor by the sleeve and pulling him inside. Several people tried to follow. Kyle whipped around and shut the door in their faces. Then he looked up at the man who had opened up for them. “George. What’s going on? What is this?”

“I knew they’d come,” George said. His face was as white as good quality typing paper. “I knew they’d all be here as soon as they heard, and they’d hear. They always hear. Why is that? Why do people behave that way?”

“I don’t know,” Kyle said. “I’ve called the state police. They should be here any moment. They’ll clear the crowd out. Try to tell us what happened here.”

“I don’t know what happened here,” George said. “I just—came home, that’s all. I was showing a house out in Stony Hill and then I, I don’t know, I just thought I’d come home and talk to Emma for a while and sit in the store if she wanted to go out, you know, down to JayMar’s or something and when I came in—” He looked quickly to the back of the shop. “They’re still there, I think. Both of them.”

“Both of them?” Kyle was startled. “There are two bod—people hurt?”

“I called the ambulance, but I know it isn’t any good,” George said. “You can see she’s dead. There are, I don’t know, parts of her—pieces of her—”