The Outsider

With the clothes and the biological residue, Ralph now has material signs of the doppelgänger. Whatever it is, it has a physical presence that can be explained, even if not by standard forensic science. It is unknown but knowable. This is common among King’s monsters. A majority ultimately have material explanations, even if those explanations include telepathy, telekinesis, aliens or interdimensional portals. Like Poe and Doyle, King rarely relies on wholly supernatural creatures like ghosts, witches, or demons.

Ralph’s fixation on the coincidence of Claude and Terry both being scratched shows that is capable of thinking outside the box. Someone like Jack Hoskins would dismiss both scratches as irrelevant, and even Ralph might have done so if the maddening contradictions of this case hadn’t already pushed him to the limits of his worldview. The fact that he takes note of an apparently irrelevant coincidence speaks to both his level of disturbance and to his determination to know the truth. His response to the yellow shirt, which offers another potential suspect—or at least another piece to the puzzle—is similar. That Ralph connects the yellow shirt with the yellow bra strap and the witness statements suggests that although Ralph’s conscious mind is methodical, meticulous, and material, his subconscious mind is much more flexible, pursuing connections he could never make through conscious effort alone.

Both Ralph and Sablo broach the possibility of the supernatural by attributing the idea to their wives, neither one risking the other’s judgment by appearing to take it seriously. They are feeling each other out, each testing to see how the other will respond to the suggestion. Neither one at this point explicitly believes the supernatural explanation, but it remains in the back of their minds.

Jeannie’s remark about Ralph’s narrow worldview anticipates the Hamlet quote that will appear in Part 9. She is telling Ralph that his worldview has to incorporate the unknown in order for him to solve this case. Ralph still categorically rejects all supernatural explanations. The balance of evidence remains poised between the material and the supernatural. At first, the burned man seems to offer Ralph something concrete to pursue. However, just as the evidence seems about to tip to the side of the material, Ralph finds that the burned man doesn’t show up on videotape, and Jeannie’s suggestion that he might be a vampire leaves Ralph still groping for something conclusive.

This section introduces Holly Gibney, one of the protagonists from King’s Mr. Mercedes series, which also features Bill Hodges. The appearance of a major character at the novel’s midpoint is another of the sharp narrative turns that typify King’s writing. It changes the story from a mystery to the subgenre of detective mystery. This genre has its own rules and conventions, which Holly will adhere to. She particularly fits the trope of the iconoclastic detective with unusual powers of observation. She will soon take the role of Sherlock to Ralph’s Watson. Unlike the most familiar examples of the type—e.g., Sherlock Holmes, C. Auguste Dupin, Hercule Poirot—Holly entertains supernatural as well as material possibilities.