Gwendy’s Final Task

But even she was shocked—and angered—by the treatment she received upon her subsequent visit to Derry. In the company of the investigating detective, Ward Mitchell, she spent half an hour at the intersection of Witcham and Carter Streets, where Ryan had died. Mitchell at least was polite—she was, after all, a high-profile politician who’d just lost her husband—but he answered her questions without a hint of warmth. Witnesses? None. Ryan’s cell phone? No sign. She thanked him, bid him a happy New Year, and sent him on his way.

She parked her rental in a nearby garage and set off on foot. Stopping at a handful of shops and restaurants, as well as a rundown bar named the Falcon—many of these establishments bearing red-white-and-blue PAUL MAGOWAN FOR SENATE signs in their front windows—she introduced herself to the employees and explained what had happened to her husband just a few weeks earlier. Then she’d pulled out a photograph of Ryan from her purse and showed it to them, politely asking if anyone had happened to see or speak with him.

In response, she’d received any number of ill-mannered grunts and dismissive headshakes. And no one whispered that they were going to vote for her.

Giving up on the local townspeople, Gwendy’s final stop of the afternoon was a return visit to the Derry Police Station, where Detective Mitchell greeted her coolly. “I forgot something—what about surveillance video?”

He shook his head. “No cameras anywhere downtown. Oh, maybe in a few stores, but that’s all of it. This isn’t a nanny state you know, like California.”

“If it had happened in California,” Gwendy said tartly, “you might have a license plate, Detective. Has that occurred to you?”

“Very sorry for your loss, Ms. Peterson,” he said, pulling a pile of paperwork toward him. His cheap sport-coat pulled open and she saw his gun in a shoulder rig. Something else, too. A Magowan campaign button on the breast pocket of his shirt.

“You’ve been a great help, Detective.”

He ignored the sarcasm. “Always glad to assist.”

After describing her unsettling visit to Norris Ridgewick at lunch two days later, Gwendy found herself giving serious consideration to Norris’s suggestion that she hire a private detective to look further into the matter. He even gave her a business card of someone he knew and trusted. She meant to call and set up an appointment, but before she knew it Christmas was there, and New Years Eve, and she had her elderly father to take care of.

Not to mention a Senate campaign to run. Shortly after Ryan’s death, Pete Riley had called to ask her (dread in his voice) if she wanted to declare herself out of the race. “I’d understand if you did. I’d hate it, but I’d understand.”

There were a great many issues that she cared about—Magowan’s pledge to resume clear-cutting the forests up north was a major one—but it was the button box she was thinking about when she replied. “I’m running.”

“Thank God. Just don’t say I’m in it to win it. That didn’t work so well for Hilary.”

She gave a dutiful laugh, although it wasn’t funny. What neither of them said was that the election was less than a year away and early polls had Gwendy Peterson lagging by almost twelve points.

The gray days of winter arrived. The first nor’easter of 2020 blasted Castle Rock during the third week of January, dumping nearly two feet of snow and toppling trees and telephone poles. Most of the town lost power for three days, and a sophomore girl from Castle Rock High lost her right eye in a sledding accident. January turned into February, February into March. The sun rose each morning, and so did Gwendy Peterson. She was too old and out of shape to start jogging again, but she began walking a daily three-and-a-half mile route, usually in the frigid hours just after dawn when the streets were silent and still. She stopped dyeing her hair and let the gray grow out. She also started writing a new book about a haunted town. A thousand words here, five hundred words there, even scribbling a short chapter on a Dunkin’ Donuts napkin during one of her campaign stops. Anything to blunt the keen edge of her grief.

And all of that time, hidden away in a cardboard box marked SEWING SUPPLIES, the button box waited. Sometimes, when the house was as quiet as a church, Gwendy could hear it talking out there in the garage, that faint whisper of something, echoing deep in the corners of her brain. When that happened, she usually told it to shut the hell up and turned up the volume on the television or the radio. Usually.

Did the idea of pressing the red button and blasting the town of Derry (and all those awful people) off the face of the planet ever enter Gwendy’s conscious? As a matter of fact it did, and on more than one occasion. How about the shiny black button? Did she ever think about pressing the old Cancer Button and ending the whole shebang? Was she ever so tempted in her grief? The sorry truth: she was.