Shadowfires

upsets him.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “It'll do him good to cool his heels awhile,” Sharp said, and he stalked off, head held high, rolling his big shoulders, looking like a very important man, evidently convinced that his dignity was intact.
    Jerry Peake leaned against the wall of the corridor and watched
the nurses go by, smiling at the pretty ones and engaging them in
brief flirtatious conversation when they were not too busy.
    Sharp stayed away for twenty minutes, giving The Stone a full hour
with Sarah, but when he came back from making his important-probably
nonexistent-phone calls, The Stone had still not appeared. Even a
coward could explode if pushed too far, and Sharp was furious.
    “That lousy dirt-humping hayseed. He can't come in here, reeking of pigshit, and screw up my investigation.”
    He turned away from Peake and started toward Sarah's room.
    Before Sharp took two steps, The Stone came out.
    Peake had wondered whether Felsen Kiel would look as imposing on
second encounter as he had appeared when stepping dramatically into
Sarah's room and interrupting Anson Sharp in an act of molestation. To Peake's
great satisfaction, The Stone was even more imposing than on the
previous occasion. That strong, seamed, weathered face. Those
oversized hands, work-gnarled knuckles. An air of unshakable self-
possession and serenity. Peake watched with a sort of awe as the man
crossed the hallway, as if he were a slab of granite come to life.
    “Gentlemen, I'm sorry to keep you waitin'. But, as
I'm sure you understand, my daughter and I had a lot of catchin' up
to do.”
    “And as you must understand, this is an urgent national
security matter,” Sharp said, though more quietly than he had spoken
earlier.
    Unperturbed, The Stone said, “My daughter says you want to know if
maybe she has some idea where a fella named Leben is hidin' out.”
    “That's right,” Sharp said tightly.
    “She said somethin' about him bein' a
livin' dead man, which I can't quite get clear with her, but maybe
that was just the drugs talkin' through her. You think?”
    “Just the drugs,” Sharp said.
    “Well, she knows of a certain place he might be,” The Stone said.
“The fella owns a cabin above Lake Arrowhead, she says.
It's a sort of secret retreat for him.” He took a folded paper from his shirt pocket. “I've
written down these directions.” He handed the paper to Peake. To
Peake, not to Anson Sharp.
    Peake glanced at The Stone's precise, clear handwriting, then passed the paper to Sharp.
    “You know,” The Stone said, “my Sarah was a good girl up until
three years ago, a fine daughter in every way. Then she fell under
the spell of a sick person who got her onto drugs, put twisted
thoughts in her head. She was only thirteen then, impressionable,
vulnerable, easy pickin'.”
    “Mr. Kiel, we don't have time-”
    The Stone pretended not to hear Sharp, even though he was looking
directly at him. “My wife and I tried our best to find out who it was
that had her spellbound, figured it had to be an older boy at school,
but we could never identify him. Then one day, after a year
durin' which hell moved right into our home, Sarah up and disappeared, ran off to California to 'live
the good life.' That's what she wrote in the note to us, said she
wanted to live the good life and that we were unsophisticated country
people who didn't know anythin' about the world, said we were full of
funny ideas. Like honesty, sobriety, and self-respect, I suppose.
These days, lots of folks think those are funny ideas.”
    “Mr. Kiel-”
    “Anyway,” The Stone continued, “not long after that, I finally
learned who it was corrupted her. A teacher. Can you credit that? A teacher, who's supposed to be a figure of respect. New young history teacher. I demanded the school board investigate him. Most of the other teachers rallied round him to fight any investigation 'cause
these days a lot of
'em seem to think we exist just to keep our mouths shut and pay their salaries no matter what garbage they want to pump into our children's
heads. Two-thirds of the teachers-”
    “Mr. Kiel,” Sharp said more forcefully, “none of this is of any
interest to us, and we-”
    “Oh, it'll be of interest when you hear the whole story,” The Stone said. “I can assure you.”
    Peake knew The Stone was not the kind of man who rambled, knew all
of this had some purpose, and he was eager to see where it was going
to wind up.
    “As I was
sayin',” The Stone