（外文电子版资料）SK.FromBuick.doc

PAGE PAGE 46 NOW: Sandy Curt Wilcoxs boy came around the barracks a lot the year after his father died, I mean a lot, but nobody ever told him get out the way or asked him what in hail he was doing there again. We understood what he was doing: trying to hold on to the memory of his father. Cops know a lot about the psychology of grief; most of us know more about it than we want to. That was Ned Wilcoxs senior year at Statler High. He must have quit off the football team; when it came time for choosing, he picked D Troop instead. Hard to imagine a kid doing that, choosing unpaid choring over all those Friday night games and Saturday night parties, but thats what he did. I dont think any of us talked to him about that choice, but we respected him for it. He had decided the time had come to put the games away, thats all. Grown men are frequently incapable of making such decisions; Ned made his at an age when he still couldnt buy a legal drink. Or a legal pack of smokes, for that matter. I think his dad would have been proud. Know it, actually. Given how much the boy was around, I suppose it was inevitable hed see what was out in Shed B, and ask someone what it was and what it was doing there. I was the one he was most likely to ask, because Id been his fathers closest friend. Closest one that was still a Trooper, at least. I think maybe I wanted it to happen. Kill or cure, the oldtimers used to say. Give that curious cat a serious dose of satisfaction. What happened to Curtis Wilcox was simple. A veteran county drunk, one Curt himself knew well and had arrested six or eight times, took his life. The drunk, Bradley Roach, didnt mean to hurt anyone; drunks so rarely do. That doesnt keep you from wanting to kick their numb asses all the way to Rocksburg, of course. Toward the end of a hot July afternoon in the year oh-one, Curtis pulled over one of those big sixteen-wheelers, an interstate landcruiser that had left the fourlane because its driver was hoping for a home