Misery Chastain was dead. Paul Sheldon had just killed her — with relief, with joy. Misery had made him rich; she was the heroine of a string of bestsellers. And now he wanted to get on to some real writing. That’s when the car accident happened, and he woke up in pain in a strange bed. But it wasn’t the hospital.
Авторы: King Stephen Edwin
sitting calmly in her holding cell and reading Misery’s Quest. IN MISERY? the caption below asked. NOT THE DRAGON LADY. Annie reads calmly as she wait for the verdict.
And then, on December 16th, banner headlines: DRAGON LADY INNOCENT. In the body of the story a juror who asked not to be identified was quoted. “I had very grave doubt as to her innocence, yes. Unfortunately, I had very reasonable doubts as to her guilt. I hope she will be tried again on one of the other counts. Perhaps the prosecution could make a stronger case on one of those.” They all knew she did it but nobody could prove it. So she slipped through their fingers.
The case wound down over the next three or four pages. The D.A. said Annie surely would be tried on one of the other counts. Three weeks later, he said he never said that. In early February of 1983, the district attorney’s office issued a statement saying that while the cases of infanticide at the Boulder Hospital were still very much alive, the case, against Anne Wilkes was closed.
Slipped through their fingers.
Her husband never testified for either side. Why was that, I wonder?
There were more pages in the book, but he could tell, by the snug way most lay against each other that he was almost done with Annie’s history up to now. Thank God.
The next page was from the Sidewinder Gazette, November 19th, 1984. Hikers had found the mutilated and partly dismembered remains of a young man in the eastern section of Grider Wildlife Preserve. The following week’s paper identified him as Andrew Pomeroy, age twenty-three, of Cold Stream Harbor, New York. Pomeroy had left New York for L.A. in September of the previous year, hitch-hiking. His parents had last heard from him on October 15th. He had called them collect from Julesburg. The body had been found in a dry stream-bed. Police theorized that Pomeroy might actually have been killed near Highway 9 and washed into the Wildlife Preserve during the spring run-off. The coroner’s report said the wounds had been inflicted with an axe.
Paul wondered, not quite idly, how far Grider Wildlife Preserve was from here.
He turned the page and looked at the last clipping — at least so far — and suddenly his breath was gone. It was as if, after wading grimly through the almost unbearable necrology in the foregoing pages, he had come face to face with his own obituary. It wasn’t quite, but…
“But close enough for government work,” he said in a low, hoarse voice.
It was from Newsweek. The “Transitions” column. Listed below the divorce of a TV actress and above the death of a Midwestern steel potentate was this item:
REPORTED MISSING: Paul Sheldon, 42, novelist best known for his series of romances about sexy, bubbleheaded, unsinkable Misery Chastain; by his agent, Bryce Bell. “I think he’s fine,” Bell said, “but I wish he’d get in touch and ease my mind. And his ex-wives wish he’d get in touch and ease their bank accounts.” Sheldon was last seen seven weeks ago in Boulder, Colorado, where he had gone to finish a new novel.
The clipping was two weeks old.
Reported missing, that’s all. Just reported missing. I’m not dead, it’s not like being dead.
But it was like being dead, and suddenly he needed his medication because it wasn’t just his legs that hurt. Everything hurt. He put the book carefully back in its place arid began rolling the wheelchair toward the guest room.
Outside, the wind gusted more strongly than it had yet done, slapping cold rain against the house, and Paul shrank away from it, moaning and afraid, trying desperately hard to hold himself together and not burst into tears.
An hour later, full of dope and drifting off to sleep, the sound of the howling wind now soothing rather than frightening, he thought: I’m not going to escape. No way. What is it Thomas Hardy says in Jude the Obscure? “Someone could have come along and eased the boy’s terror, but nobody did… because nobody does.” Right. Correct. Your ship is not going to come in because there are no boats for nobody. The Lone Ranger is busy making breakfast-cereal commercials and Superman’s making movies in Tinsel Town. You’re on your own, Paulie. Dead flat on your own. But maybe that’s okay. Because maybe you know what the answer is, after all, don’t you?
Yes, of course he did.
If he meant to get out of this, he would have to kill her.
Yes. That’s the answer — the only one there is, I think. So it’s that same old game again, isn’t it? Paulie… Can You?
He answered with no hesitation at all. Yes, I can. His eyes drifted closed. He slept.
