The Long Sleep Read Online Free PDF Page B

that
way. Anyhow, the only person I know at Southbridge is Cree and I
see her all the time. She wouldn’t send me anything anonymously.
It’s not like I have a secret admirer.”
    “It’s not as if. ” Rhoda stopped and I
stopped and we looked at each other over the flowers.
    “I hate to say it,” she began, and didn’t say
it. She was lugging a couple of grocery bags and went to the
kitchen to set them down.
    I followed her. “If you’re thinking of Evan,”
I said, “he’s in New Hampshire. I know there are telephones and
Internet there, but he can’t do anything long-distance.”
    “He can order flowers.” She started on the
groceries, lining up cans of salmon. “Is there any more word on
your friend who was shot?”
    “He’s still in a coma.” I reached into the
bag. Lentils. Now I could see what we’d be eating the next few
days. Lentils and salmon. I hoped not mixed.
    “I don’t like this,” Rhoda said. “I don’t
like that that bullet was so close to you.”
    “Do you think I like it? It was close
to me but it was Hank who got it.”
    “How can you be sure it was meant for him?”
She was still thinking of Evan.
    “Because of what we talked about at the
newspaper meeting. It was controversial, that’s why he wanted to do
it. Who’d have guessed it was that controversial? You of all
people should know there are a lot of crazies around.”
    Rhoda was a clinical psychologist in private
practice. Her clients weren’t crazy in the psychotic sense. Mostly
just neurotic and unhappy. But that was enough crazy for me.
    The phone rang. I rushed to pick it up but
Rhoda got there first.
    She scowled at it. “Who is this?”
    I could tell from her silence that it was the
same caller as before. And her speaking gave the dirt bag just what
they wanted, a reaction. I gestured for her to hang up.
    She finally did, after she’d asked two more
times. Then she looked at me. “Do you know anything about
this?”
    “It’s been doing it since I got home,” I
said. “They’re just trying to hassle us—mostly me, I guess, so I
didn’t talk to them. You shouldn’t either.”
    She put the phone back on its base. “You’re
saying it was meant for you?”
    “It could be. I defended Hank and his idea.
I’m not blaming him. He knew it was a hot-button issue, but how did
he know anybody would be that psycho?”
    As soon as I said it, I wondered if it could
be one of Rhoda’s crazy—er, unhappy clients.
    The thought ended right there. She would
never in the wide world have given out her home number. So it must
have had to do with what we talked about at the meeting. But we all
left at pretty much the same time. How could anybody get armed and
in place so fast? How could they have known Hank would be getting
into my car?
    She didn’t say any more as we both got dinner
ready for the rest of the family.
    I used to wonder why Ben didn’t have to help
in the kitchen. The truth was, he often did, but mostly his
household duties ran to cutting grass, shoveling snow, and fixing
cars. Better him than me.
    I was setting the table when the phone rang
again. I let the machine answer it that time. They were still
playing music but it wasn’t “Over the Rainbow.” The dirt bag had
gone on to some bouncy, goofy thing with a chorus of voices. I
didn’t recognize it.
    Rhoda picked up the phone and pressed off a
couple of times. “I don’t see why you don’t think it could be
Evan.”
    “But—”
    “I know you said he’s away at school, but
telephone lines reach all over the world.”
    “I know that.”
    “This kind of thing is more playful,” she
said. “It’s more like the things he used to do, rather than someone
who would shoot somebody.”
    “He wasn’t playful,” I reminded her. “He hit me.”
    “Yes, I’m aware of that.” Of course she knew.
It had been ages before my shiner disappeared.
    “He tried to drag me away that time he broke
into the house,” I said.
    She knew that, too. She’d