As for catching Gaudette, Flynn could help with that as well. He had talked to Gaudette’s friends and family in Manchester; he had talked to a couple of the guys whom Gaudette had worked for. Everyone liked him, which didn’t mean much—Flynn had met murderers who’d been the most popular guys on their blocks. And serial killers were often charmers—fellows who could talk their way into your living room. Still, Flynn hadn’t figured Gaudette for a killer and he wondered if these yokels had heard of Francis LaBrecque, because that’s what interested Flynn most: just where LaBrecque was hanging his hat and what sort of tricks he was up to.
Flynn had left home at eleven and it was now one-thirty and he’d only just passed Concord—normally a one-hour drive. Soon it would be getting dark, although all the cars had their headlights on already. The only pleasure was in watching the big sport utility vehicles whipping past him—the Explorers and Broncos and Wagoneers—then seeing them stuck in a ditch a few miles farther up the road with their owners staring at them stupidly, as if a portion of the true cross had turned out to be plastic. The salt trucks were out, of course, and the plows, but it was snowing so hard that the road got covered again in no time: two inches, four inches, six inches. And it occurred to Leo Flynn that the smart thing would be to pull off as soon as he could and buy some chains.
Three hours later, Flynn was still driving north. By now it was dark and the fat flakes seemed to fling the brilliance of his headlights back into his face. Through the snow-blanketed silence he could just hear the clink-clink of the chains he had bought south of Laconia. They had cost an arm and a leg, but they were cheaper than having his car towed out of a ditch or dealing with the ulcer that throbbed every time his car skidded, spun, slipped, or swerved. Now, though he was still creeping along, he was doing it in relative safety. Also, as far as he could figure from the radio, the snow would keep up all night and through Sunday, and at some point Flynn would have to drive home. “Major New England storm” was how the deejays described it with pride.
At the Brewster exit, Flynn slowed to a crawl and crept down the off-ramp. He hadn’t phoned the police station, because he wanted his arrival to be a surprise, but now he was thinking that everything he had done that day had been stupid. He should have called. He should have stayed in Boston. He should have done what he could do on the computers, which meant telling one of the nerds what he needed, since the only thing Leo Flynn knew how to do on a computer was play solitaire. He passed a Sunoco station just off the exit—a yellow glow in the murk. The orange revolving light of a plow eased past and he could see the sparks from where its great blade scraped the pavement. Only a few other cars were on the road, a few Jeeps and four-by-fours. He could hear the other guys on his homicide team saying to him on Monday, “You nuts? You did what?” Well, if he learned nothing new, then he’d keep his mouth shut. No reason to let others know that he had been this foolish.
It was six o’clock by the time Flynn got to Brewster. He’d asked for directions to the police station, which turned out to be a two-room shack next to a diner. The police station was dark and a note was tacked to the door that said, “Back at six.” On the same note was a message reading, “Please call me as soon as possible—Hawthorne.” The diner was closed. Flynn sat in his car and kept the windshield wipers going so he could see. It occurred to him that he should have bought boots at the same time he’d bought the chains. He wore a pair of low black shoes with leather soles. As he waited, Flynn listened to the radio announcements of canceled bingo games, dances, basketball games, lectures at the college, and church meetings, until he came to think that the entire state was shutting down.
Chief Moulton turned up forty-five minutes later wearing a heavy blue parka and a matching cap. He was driving a black Blazer with oversized tires. Moulton didn’t look like a cop, Flynn thought, more like a lumberjack. They shook hands outside the police station, then Moulton led the way in. Already snow got into Flynn’s shoes and he tried to dig it out with a finger. He and Moulton were about the same age, which was in Moulton’s favor because Flynn didn’t trust anyone under fifty anymore. They didn’t have the prerequisite historical knowledge.
“You drove all the way up from Boston today?” asked Moulton. His voice had a buttoned quality, as if he were trying to hide the humor in it.
Flynn tried to arrange his face into an expression that indicated he was perfectly happy about driving through a snowstorm. “It took a while. Anyway, it was my day off.”
Before they were settled in Moulton’s small office, the chief tried to call Hawthorne. He dialed the number, listened, then pushed the button down and dialed again. After a moment, he said, “Looks like the phones are out at Bishop’s Hill. I tried him earlier and left a message.”
Flynn knew nothing about Hawthorne or Bishop’s Hill but he attempted to look philosophical. Then he told Moulton about the three other killings, trying not to surprise him too much. After all, small-town cops didn’t have a lot of experience with murder.
“I’d already got reports on them from the state police,” said Moulton. “Lieutenant Sloan was telling me about them this morning, but I’m glad to have the details.”
“What about Francis LaBrecque?” asked Flynn. “Do you know anything about him? He’s the cousin of this guy Gaudette that you’re looking for.”
“Not looking for him anymore. A trapper found him in the Baker River before the storm hit—all frozen in the ice except for the heel of his shoe. We had a devil of a time cutting him loose. Poor guy had been turned into a giant ice cube. Anyway, we sent him down to Plymouth. We thought he might be in the neighborhood because his car showed up yesterday. Somebody drove it way down a logging road and left it.”
“What about LaBrecque?” asked Flynn, feeling some of his thunder had been diminished.
“I don’t know anything about any LaBrecque,” said Moulton. “But there’s a Frank LeBrun working at Bishop’s Hill. He’s a cousin of Gaudette’s as well. He bakes bread.”
—
Kate began to worry when she couldn’t get through to Bishop’s Hill on the phone. Her own lights had been flickering since five o’clock and she wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d gone out. All it took was for a branch to break a wire; in a storm like this, entire trees had been known to topple. And if the wires were broken in several places, they could take hours to fix.
Hawthorne had called from Plymouth early in the afternoon to see if she wanted anything from the supermarket. She might not be able to get to a store because of the weather. He had Jessica with him and they were about to drive back to Bishop’s Hill. And he had mentioned seeing LeBrun in town.
“I’d like to stop and talk to Chief Moulton in Brewster. LeBrun wrecked Evings’s office. Maybe I should talk to LeBrun as well.”
“Jessica told you about that?”
“Yes, but she won’t give me any details.”
That was when Kate began to worry. She herself didn’t like LeBrun, didn’t like his jokes, didn’t like how he looked at her, didn’t like his friendship with Jessica. Now Hawthorne wanted to go back to the school to talk to him. Kate thought that Hawthorne believed too much in talk, just as he put too much trust in his four-wheel-drive Subaru, that it would take him anywhere no matter how deep the snow got. She recalled how ready LeBrun had been to beat up Chip in the parking lot. What was talk to LeBrun? Nothing but telling jokes and being evasive. For that matter, what was talk to Hamilton Burke and the others who wanted to wreck the school? Only a vehicle of deception, something to make their untruths palatable. And the gossip and slander—all of it had been talk. Hawthorne’s innocence almost amused her. He came from a world where talk had value, where people told the truth as best they could. And although it exasperated Kate, it was also something she liked about him. Hawthorne believed that people were better for having the information, while the dishonest, mediocre, and fearful wanted concealment. Bishop’s Hill was full of subjects that people preferred not to discuss—the school’s decline, the pilfering, the bad teaching, the fact that the previous headmaster had gotten a fifteen-year-old girl pregnant. These were subjects best left in the dark.