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Weatherby shrugged "You told me you were a psychiatrist You specialize in children and teenagers, right?"
"So you must know all the answers better than I do Why would she want to kill herself? Could be trouble at home--a father who drinks too irl, a mother who doesn’t want to hear about it Or maybe the kid was just jilted by her boyfriend and thinks the world is conant and decided she couldn’t face her folks with the news There must be hundreds of reasons, and I’m sure you’ve heard most of them in your line of work"
What he said was true, but it didn’tslower, she thought If only I’d been quicker to react, irl wouldn’t be in the hospital now
"She s, too," Weatherby said "Too damned many kids fool around with dope these days I swear, soiven If it isn’t so that can be sed, they’ll sniff it or stick it in a vein This kid you hit h she didn’t even knohere she hen she stepped in front of your car
Now, if that’s the case, are you going to tell me it’s still somehow your fault?"
Carol leaned back in the seat, closed her eyes, and let her breath out with a shudder "God, I don’t knohat to tell you All I know isI feel wrung out"
"That’s perfectly natural, after what you’ve just been through But it isn’t natural to feel guilty about this It wasn’t your fault, so don’t dwell on it Put it behind you and get on with your life"
She opened her eyes, looked at him, and smiled "You know, Officer Weatherby, I have a hunch you’d rinned "Or a terrific bartender"
Carol laughed
"Feeling better?" he asked
"A little bit"
"Promise me you won’t lose any sleep over this"
"I’ll try not to," she said "But I’irl Do you knohich hospital they’ve taken her to?"
"I can find out," he said
"Would you do that forher case If he tells ht, I’ll find it a whole lot easier to take your advice about getting on with my life"
Weatherby picked up the microphone and asked the police dispatcher to find out where the injured girl had been taken
The television antenna!
Standing in the attic, staring up at the roof above his head, Paul laughed out loud when he realized as causing the pounding noise The sound wasn’t co out of the eht for one unsettlingfrom the roof, where the television antenna was anchored They had subscribed to cable TV a year ago, but they hadn’t ree, directional, remote-control model affixed to a heavy brace-plate; the plate was bolted through the shingles and attached directly to a roof beam Apparently, a nut or sohtly, and the as tugging at the antenna, rocking the brace-plate up and down on one of its bolts, sla ly mundane
Or was it?
Thunkthunkthunk
The sound was softer now than ever before, barely
audible above the roar of the rain on the roof, and it was easy to believe that the antenna could be the cause of it Gradually, however, as Paul considered this answer to the puzzle, he began to doubt if it was the correct answer He thought about how loud and violent the pounding had been a few o when he had been in the kitchen: the entire house quivering, the oven door falling open, bottles rattling in the spice rack Could a loose antenna really generate so much noise and vibration?
Thunkthunk
As he stared up at the ceiling, he tried to make himself believe unequivocally in the antenna theory If it was striking a roof beale, so that the ih the entire frame of the house, perhaps a loose antenna could cause the pots and pans to clatter against one another in the kitchen and could s were about to crack After all, if you set up exactly the right vibrations in a steel suspension bridge, you could bring it to ruin in less than a ardless of the nuether And although Paul didn’t believe there was even a re that kind of apocalyptic destruction to a wood-frame house, he knew
that moderate force, applied with calculation and pinpoint accuracy, could have an effect quite out of proportion to the ay expended Besides, the TV antenna had to be the root of the disturbance, for it was the only explanation he had left
The haether He waited for a les overhead
The wind ain, and the antenna would begin to rock on its brace-plate, and the pounding would start once et the extension ladder out of the garage, go up onto the roof, and dismantle the antenna He should have taken care of that chore shortly after they had subscribed to the cable television service Now, because he had delayed, he was going to lose precious writing time--and at one of the most difficult and crucial points in his manuscript That prospect frustrated him and made him nervous
He decided to shave, drive don, and pick up the new set of application papers at the adoption agency The storain If it did, if he could be on the roof by eleven-thirty, he ought to be able to tear down the antenna, then have a bite of lunch, and work on his book all afternoon, barring further interruptions But he suspected there would be further interruptions He had already resigned himself to the fact that it was one of those days
As he left the attic and turned out the lights, the house quivered under another blow
THUNK’
Just one this tie at the hospital looked like an explosion in a cloardrobe The walls were canary yellow; the chairs were bright red; the carpet was orange; the azine racks and end tables were e abstract paintings were done prie--obviously the work of a designer who had read too ical mood theories of color--was supposed to be positive, life-affir It was supposed to lift the spirits of visitors and take theirrelatives In Carol, however, the determinedly cheery decor elicited the opposite reaction froner had intended, It was a frenetic room; it abraded the nerves as effectively as coarse sandpaper would abrade a stick of butter
She sat on one of the red chairs, waiting for the doctor who had treated the injured girl When he came, his stark white lab coat contrasted so boldly with the flashy decor that he appeared to radiate a saintlike aura
Carol rose to meet him, and he asked if she was Mrs Tracy, and he said his name was Sam Hannaport He was tall, very husky, square-faced, florid, in his early fifties He looked as if he would be loud and gruff, perhaps even obnoxious, but in fact he was soft-spoken and seeenuinely concerned about how the accident had affected Carol both physically and emotionally It took her a couple of ht on both counts, and then they sat down on facing red chairs
Hannaport raised his bushy eyebrows and said,
"You look as if you could use a hot bath and a big glassful of warm brandy"
"I was soaked to the skin," she said, "but I’irl?"
"Cuts, contusions, abrasions," he said
"Internal bleeding?"
"Nothing showed up on the tests"