Death Benefits

39

From the church steeple, Walker watched people stream up the side streets toward the far end of Main. “There must be two hundred people,” he said. “I can’t believe it. Maybe the police just told everybody that there were two killers hiding in the town. That might get them all out of their houses.”

Stillman squinted as he gazed down at the people in the street. “If they did, I think we can be pretty sure the description they gave doesn’t fit the two guys we saw in the coffee shop.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m having trouble believing this too. I’m developing unsightly bruises from pinching myself.”

Mary sat on the floor and muttered, “Keep doing it. Maybe you’ll find a gun in your pocket.”

“I don’t think firearms would do us much good. If I could just walk up to all of those people and shoot each one in the head, it would still take more ammunition than I can carry.”

She looked up at Walker. “What are they doing now?”

“I’m not sure, exactly,” said Walker. “See if you can figure it out.”

She stood and looked toward the east end of Main Street. There were men in police uniforms running up and down Cherry, the last cross street at the edge of town. They were waving their arms, moving people into a single line, with about six feet between them and their backs to the chain-link fence that separated the town from the empty fields. Mary moved to the next panel, and she could see that the line of citizens continued to the north end of town. When she turned and stepped to the south panel, the roof of the church below her blocked some of her view.

She stood beside Walker. From here she could see the foot of Main Street, where the bridge crossed the river, and the parking lot of the Old Mill Restaurant. That end of town seemed deserted except for the four police cars parked in the lot.

Stillman called them to the eastern side. “The cars are starting to move again.”

Walker and Mary watched as headlights advanced slowly along the line of people. The cars that had been searching side streets moved back to their places and began to creep slowly down in the direction of the river. Then, on some order that could not be heard from here, the long line of people stepped forward.

The people walked straight ahead, across the street, up the lawns on Cherry, along sidewalks and driveways. Doors of houses opened, and the lights came on in the darkened windows, first on ground floors, then on upper floors. From here, people could be seen entering, then moving across lighted windows. Then back doors opened and people streamed out. Garage doors were slid upward, flashlights shone into the interiors, and then the searchers moved on. Others whose courses took them down open streets stopped and shone lights into parked cars and under them, looked up on porches, and searched the shrubbery in front yards. All along the line, the searchers moved forward at about the same pace, the line wavering a bit, but not breaking.

Fifty feet behind the line of citizens, there were men about twenty paces apart with rifles held at the ready across their chests. Occasionally one of them would point or wave an arm, as though he was directing the people in the line ahead to straighten their alignment, or exhorting them not to overlook some possible hiding place.

“It’s a tiger hunt,” said Stillman. “The people in that line are the beaters. The ones behind with the rifles are there in case we bust through the line.” He moved to the panel of louvers on the western side. “They’ll have something big waiting for the tiger at the other end. Let’s see what it is.”

Walker and Mary stood at his shoulders. Far down Main Street they could see the Old Mill, the river, and the opposite bank. The four police cars were still parked by the restaurant, but the activity there seemed to have ceased.

“They don’t have the bridge blocked,” said Mary.

“Looks a bit too inviting, doesn’t it?” said Stillman. “If we wanted to drive out, that would be the way. If we wanted to go on foot, we’d still have to cross the river.”

They watched for several minutes, but the sight did not change. The lights of the Old Mill Restaurant looked bright and warm and welcoming from up here.

Walker moved to the north side, where he could look down below the front of the church onto Main Street. The row of people had reached Oak Street now, and he could sight along the wavering line as it passed. To his right, all the houses glowed with light. Every window was illuminated, every outdoor flood was shining down to cast a circle of white on an area of pavement or turn a lawn day-green.

The lights on the streets to his left began to go on, one by one. “What I’m wondering is what happens when they get to the city limits and haven’t found us,” Walker said.

“We’ll see,” said Stillman. “I’m hoping they’ll figure we got out on foot, and send everybody home to bed.” He had not moved from the west side. His eyes were still on the river.

“Could that happen?” asked Walker.

“I don’t know why not. We reported seeing two murder suspects in town, and the police made a huge effort to organize a manhunt. If we’ve got a complaint, it’s our word against everybody else’s. Our interpretation of events would sound a bit eccentric, to say the least.”

Stillman suddenly bobbed up on his toes to peer out above a higher louver, then settled for a lower one. “Come here,” he said. The others moved in beside him to look to the west. The cars that had been prowling the streets a block in advance of the line of citizens had reached Washington Avenue. The cars all turned onto Washington, and now they were pulling over to park by the curb.

In the riverbed, there seemed to be sudden activity. Flashlights were going on at intervals of fifty feet all along the river, as though a signal was being passed. After a moment, men began to step up the banks to join the ones getting out of cars on Washington.

“That answers my question,” said Stillman. “That’s what the beaters were trying to herd us into. They wanted us to try to cross the river.”

The line of townspeople reached the last row of houses on the near side of Washington Street. The lights in the windows went on. Porch lights threw a glow over the stream of people moving through the yards between the houses and spilling in from Main Street, Constitution, Coulter, Federal, and New Hampshire. They all came together to mill about in Washington Street and along the banks of the river. The long line had now dissolved, and the people looked like the crowd at a carnival.

A police car turned its flashing red and blue lights on and drove slowly along Washington. Walker could hear a faint, echoing amplified voice from a bullhorn, but he could not pick up a word. Men and women who had been in small knots talking turned and stepped aside to let the patrol car pass. Others stepped back onto the sidewalks on either side of the street. The car’s progress was extremely slow, but at last it emerged from the crowd and reached Main. It turned to head away from the river.

Behind the police car, the crowd closed, already beginning to move after it. In a moment, the fast walkers were turning to follow the police car up Main. They streamed up from the direction of the river, some on the sidewalks, others in the middle of Main Street. They walked in pairs or small groups, talking as they went.

Walker put his arm around Mary and watched the people coming up the street. He waited, hoping that some of them would go into houses on Washington and turn off the lights. He held his breath as the central mass of people moved beyond Adams, Jefferson, Franklin. The compact crowd was now stretched out into a long stream, but Walker could tell that nobody was going home.

Mary said quietly, “Not so tight,” and Walker realized that his arm had become tense. He pulled it away from her.

Far below them, there was the creak of a heavy door opening, and then voices. At first Walker tried to convince himself that the sounds were coming from Main Street, but then there was an unmistakable echo, the voices bouncing off the bare walls of an enclosed space. The people were gathering in the church.