77

HE WANTED SOMEONE TO BE WITH HIM WHEN HE WENT down to the police station. Rachel he didn’t want to drag into the darkness of it all over again. And he didn’t want Bobby along, Bobby, who, as much as David loved him, was a dubious witness. And not Morrie, who, David was almost certain, would advise him against what he intended to do.

So he went to Dr. Parker, who, all that time ago, had brought him ice for his face when Buddy had attacked him, had understood what David was up against, without David having to elaborate.

“I’m a little anxious,” David told him, in his office.

David had stopped by at the end of the day, just before the office closed.

“It’s about that mess at Dysart, and what happened . . . you know, up north.”

Dr. Parker, he’d been surprised to see, had come to Max’s funeral, had sat in the back.

Just that.

David explained about the telephone call he’d overheard and the sheet of paper he’d taken. He explained about all of it. Dr. Parker set his elbows on the white Formica of his desktop, cradled his dark head in his hands, his skin nearly blue-black, a whorl of gray in his otherwise ebony hair.

“You don’t think I should go,” David said.

Dr. Parker stood, took his coat off the coatrack, set his hat on his head, as if infinitely weary.

He put his wide hand on David’s back and directed him toward the door, shutting off the lights, and as they both passed through the door, he said, “No, I didn’t say that at all,” and with a certain tenderness, pressed David’s shoulder.

“But this is nothing,” the officer said, holding the sheet of paper up. “You have a name here, a phone number, and you claim it was Penry in the booth, making the call, but what proof is there the call was made? That there’s any real connection?”

Dr. Parker studied David from across the table, a shadow of a smile there.

“He called Throgmorton collect. It’ll be on his phone bill. Throgmorton accepted the call, he had to have, or Penry wouldn’t have been talking to him.”

At this the officer craned his head around, glanced at the detective across the table. The room was suddenly hot, and the light in it sharp. Still, when the officer glanced back over at David, there was this confusion in his face, but excitement.

“Why do you think that? That it was a collect call?”

“I got into the booth after Penry did,” David said. “He didn’t close the door because the light would come on, and I didn’t do that, either. You felt too . . . vulnerable, too . . . exposed, all lit up in the dark like that.”

The officer leaned into the table. “But why do you think he placed a collect—”

“When I got into the booth, I was worried Penry was still around with Munson. It had to have been Munson who started roughing Penry up when I was waiting, so . . .” David glanced down at his hands, then over at Dr. Parker, who just nodded, and David said, glancing back across the table at the officer, “It made me nervous, see? And when I put my coins in, to call, the machine made so much noise you couldn’t miss it. I mean, that racket nearly sent me running from that booth, it was that noisy. That’s what I didn’t hear when Penry got into the booth, and why Throgmorton on the other end—”

“You don’t know that it was Throgmorton—”

“He said ‘Throgmorton,’ when he was on.”

“Right, you already told me that,” the officer said. “But that doesn’t mean it was Throgmorton.”

David kicked back in his chair.

“But you can check that, see what calls came collect to Throgmorton’s house,” Dr. Parker said.

“Sure,” the officer replied. “We can do that if the call was collect.”

“But see,” David said, “that’s why whoever it was on the phone was furious. But Penry called collect because he didn’t want anyone to see he was there making that call. I mean, he couldn’t be walking around with all that change in his pocket, could he? And he’d already called from that phone, and knew it was noisy. And if Munson, or Stacey Lawton had found him out—”

The officer across the table stood, then nodded to the detective.

“We’ll try not to involve you,” the detective said. He’d been silent throughout the whole hour. He ran his left thumbnail around the nail on the ring finger of his right hand, then, his eyes narrowed, looked up at David.

“You’ll testify, if it comes to that?”

David had his hand set over the piece of paper on the table, the one Penry’d written on. He slid it in the direction of the detective.

“You get your evidence first,” he said.