Flight

45

Friday, July 14, 9:25 A.M.

Paul Haycroft ’s Residence

The plan was in motion. Everyone knew their role, their place in the activity that centered on Paul Haycroft’s home. Convincing Chief Hale that a killer worked in his lab hadn’t been easy, but once convinced, Hale had the zeal of a convert. He offered personnel and resources — and made sure that the search warrant, faxed over while they were setting up the operation, was worded so that they were given plenty of latitude.

The entire block was cordoned off and evacuated. There were patrol cars everywhere — as well as vehicles belonging to the bomb squad, the SWAT team, and a medical emergency team. The SWAT team, dressed in full tactical gear, carrying Heckler & Koch assault rifles, had taken up their initial positions. This was their part of the show — and as calm as most of them appeared, Frank knew their adrenaline was pumping.

His own was, even as he stood next to Pete, studying the house while they waited for it to be cleared.

“Big attic area,” he said to Pete.

“I noticed that, too. It’s too big, don’t you think?”

A group from the SWAT team cautiously approached the house carrying an “Arizona toothpick” — a four-foot-long metal device, about two inches in diameter, with a claw on one end and a narrow point at the other. Avoiding the doormat — which might have been a pressure-sensitive trigger for a booby-trapped door — they knocked and shouted their warning.

They did not wait long for a reply. The toothpick made short work of the door and they were in, quickly sweeping through the house. The bomb squad was on their heels, dogs in harness. Within minutes, the leader of the SWAT unit came back out to talk to Frank.

“There’s no one in there, but we’ve found an entrance into the attic that looks as suspicious as hell. It’s not your usual crawl-space access. It’s some kind of specially built door, and it’s got an alarm on it. I’m going to order a portable X-ray so that we can take a look through the roof before we go in that way.”

“How about the vent?”

“Sure,” he said with a smile. “Crude but effective.”

They brought a ladder up to the side of the house, attached one end of a chain to the vent, and hooked the other end to the rear bumper of a patrol car. “Stand back!” a SWAT officer warned, removing the ladder and making sure no one was beneath the vent. He then signaled the driver of the car.

“Wagons ho!” Pete said as the car moved forward and the vent came out of the wall with a bang, bringing stucco, the heavy chain, and a cloud of debris with it — and leaving a rough-edged observation port below the roofline.

The ladder was repositioned. Another SWAT team member climbed it, took a cautious look through the hole, then radioed that the attic was a finished room — it appeared to be an office with a workbench of some kind. Someone brought a fire ax to him and he quickly enlarged the hole.

“Our dogs aren’t hitting on anything on the first floor,” a member of the bomb squad said. “We’ll check out the attic next.”

“Can your dogs climb a ladder?” Frank asked a member of the bomb squad.

“Oh, yeah. Part of their training. Mine doesn’t like it much, but he can do it.”

Frank’s cell phone rang. “I’ll get things started on the ground floor,” Pete said.

Frank nodded to him as he answered the call.

“Frank — it’s Reed. Thought I’d let you know what we have so far. Haycroft was seen at the airport this morning. Got there really early, then aborted a flight. Apparently he drove off after he decided not to fly. He’s got a little Cessna. The chief got a search warrant for it, and Vince is going over it now. Vince says it has some kind of special storage lockers on it.”

“Any news on where Haycroft went after that?”

“No, but we think we know which plates he has on the van this morning — he’s actually using the ones registered to the vehicle. The parking garage at the airport videotapes a vehicle’s license plates as they enter, and the tapes are date and time stamped — it’s a way of preventing people from parking for a week, then claiming they were there for a day and lost their ticket. Vince checked the ones from this morning — a late-model white Chevy van went in at about the time Haycroft was seen there, and sure enough, it was his.”

“That’s a break, anyway. With luck, he won’t believe he needs to change them.”

“There’s more — and, man, I’m glad you’re the one who will have to tell this to the chief, because it’s all going to hit the fan when you do.”

“Tell him what?”

“Freeman says that there are over forty files monitored by the program.”

“Jesus H. Christ.”

“They go back twelve years.”

“Twelve? How can that be? That computer isn’t that old.”

“Haycroft was on the committee that chose the computer hardware and software for the property room. We think he must have kept track of the older cases some other way before the new computers were installed. Maybe he had a program on the old computer, too. However he did it, he had his list of cases, and the property room computer called his whenever anyone looked at the evidence for them.”

“Wouldn’t the evidence control software indicate tampering with the files? Otherwise, we’re way too vulnerable.”

“Apparently there are plenty of safeguards to keep anyone from getting into the evidence control program and making entries or changing anything. But Haycroft never changed any of that data, so no alarms went off. He just rigged a little extra ‘notification program’ that would get word to his computer.”

“If he could get into the property room computer, why didn’t he zap the special program and list of files before he left?”

“That’s the best part — and it’s gonna make you look good with Hale. Flynn said that he took that computer off-line after you were in here on Wednesday night. Guess you had a conversation about it that made him take precautions. By the way, he says to tell you to keep watching out for those ancient Egyptians, whatever that means.”

“So Haycroft was forced to leave his watchdog program behind. What about these files — anything in common?”

“We haven’t gotten very far yet, but after you call Hale, we’ll probably get lots of assistance. I’ve looked at two. That’s not enough to make a study.”

“But you found something.”

“Maybe. They were cases where an anonymous phone call led to discovery of evidence — and then to an arrest.”

“Shit.”

“I had the same reaction.”

“Haycroft was the caller.”

“In the two cases I looked at, the men who were arrested had each previously been in custody on other cases — suspected but ultimately released. This time, they proclaimed their innocence, but the evidence was against them.”

“Lack of evidence on the previous?”

“Sort of. Enough for us, enough for the D.A., but not enough for Judge Curse. Like I said, only two cases, so who knows what I’ll find with the others.”

“Things are hopping here, but as soon as I get a minute, I’ll call Hale.”

“Good luck. I also talked to the bomb squad administrative offices. They looked up the records. You were right — Haycroft was the liaison on the Wendell Leroy Wallace cases. I asked them to put me in touch with the guys who had been on those cases.”

Frank walked along the sidewalk in front of the house as Reed told him about his conversations with four members of the squad who each remembered Haycroft for his avid interest in the cases he worked on.

“He even asked them to let him photocopy Wallace’s notebooks,” Reed said.

“Which I’m sure they took to be a healthy scientific interest,” Frank said, looking up at the high-pitched roof of the house. “Remind me about the other Wallace cases.”

“He blew up three cars, but the bomb squad defused two others — everybody in this company he had a grudge against started taking taxis and riding buses. He also bombed a building — placed explosives in an empty office below the victim’s. He made studies of other kinds of explosives, too. I’ve got the details when you need them.”

“Larson have any further ideas?”

“The guy is useless. He’s seriously pissing me off — he just won’t face it. We still can’t get him to believe this is possible. Even with Chief Hale riding his ass, all he can say is that he trusted Haycroft completely.”

“That may be the problem Randolph saw all those years ago. Or maybe he noticed the anonymous-tip pattern.”

“I’ll bet Haycroft will know.”

“I can’t wait to ask him,” Frank said.

“We did get one other break — the toxicologist says that the Wheeze has been having breakfast with Haycroft at Greenleaf’s and slipping down to the lab for all kinds of other little meetings.”

Frank was speechless.

“No one thinks it’s romantic,” Reed said, “but maybe that’s just because no one other than Vince can think of the Wheeze in the nude.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“No, I’m on the outs with her. Since you’re her golden boy of the moment, why don’t you see what you can learn from her?”

Frank sighed. “Okay, but it will have to wait. Gotta go, Reed. If you have trouble getting through to me, it’s this house of Haycroft’s. I’m looking at the roof and I’d swear he’s done something to try to make it tough for infrared. Who knows what it will do to phone signals?”

The SWAT team leader approached him. “The bomb squad tells me we’re clear up in the attic — but they got an iffy sort of alert from the dogs — mild reaction from one of them around this one area near the workbench. They think material may have been stored up here at some time — probably the stuff he used to make the devices for your car. They want you to test the top of that table for residue.”

“Okay, I’ll make sure it comes with us when we leave.”

“You want to come up the ladder and take a look at the rest of what’s up there?”

“Sure.”

The phone rang again before he reached the ladder.

“Frank! It’s Blake Halloran. I think we have your fire starter on videotape. From a gas station not far from the police department. Not a very good image — but it’s something. A gardener in a white van filling a can with gasoline — only he handles everything the way you do when you don’t want to leave prints.”

“Great,” Frank said. “I think we’ve identified the arsonist.” He told him about Haycroft and made arrangements to have someone pick up a copy of the tape. “Do me a favor and ask your other arson investigators if any of them have ever worked with him, okay?”

The evidence against Haycroft was falling into place. He felt certain they were going to be able to nail him. He started up the ladder.

46

Friday, July 14, 10:35 A.M.

Courthouse Plaza

Paul Haycroft placed a white kitchen garbage bag on the bench before he sat on it. He intensely disliked sitting on such benches, but this one was across from the county courthouse. There were big doings at the courthouse today. The temporary stage was in place, and chairs were already in rows across the plaza. This wasn’t a gathering that would draw much of a crowd from the general public, but there would be plenty of politicians, lawyers, judges, and law enforcement types. A few civic groups, of course. A local high school marching band. Lots of press. The courthouse was not far from the water, but even so, under the July sun, the spectators would be miserable on their plastic folding chairs.

Not so the dignitaries on the stage. He watched as workers raised a white canvas cover over the stage itself. Those on the stage would enjoy its shade. They could drone on and on while their audience broiled.

The sound system, bunting, a podium — gradually, the plaza was being converted into a theater. The audience would enter expecting a dull play. Haycroft smiled. He would prevent everyone from being bored.

He studied the new wing from this safe distance. This was not the first day anyone would enter the building, after all. He had been there on a number of occasions, sometimes openly. He knew that Kerr had been inside the building almost every day for the past few weeks, making sure all would be in order for this day. Desks and bookcases had been moved in, phones were installed, lights were working, security systems were at the ready. So much could be done, though, before security systems were truly at the ready.

Today the building would be officially dedicated, and tomorrow — according to the county’s plans — Judge Lewis Kerr would preside over the first case to be heard there.

At this moment, Kerr would be in his new office on the seventh floor. Haycroft focused his attention on the window of that office and pictured Kerr as clearly as if he had telescopic vision. Kerr on the phone, Kerr rehearsing his speech, Kerr using the final hours of his life to deal with trivialities. His staff busy with last-minute details before the event. He had studied Kerr’s behavior over the years and knew that Kerr would be one of the last people out of the building before the ceremonies.

Kerr, he thought with a smirk, was a theatrical man. He belonged in costume, not judge’s robes. He loved nothing so much as an entrance. Every time Haycroft had observed him in public — at every political dinner, every civic function — Kerr had swept in as the last of the polite arrivals — never precisely late, never taking too much advantage of his host’s or hostess’s tolerance, but always looked for, always anticipated.

Haycroft knew Kerr’s habits and timing as well as if they were doing a trapeze act together. Thirty minutes or so before the beginning of the event, when the organizers would have been gratified and relieved to see the judge, Kerr would send his minions ahead to assure everyone that His Honor was on his way. Kerr would next send Maggie, his clerk, last of all. And with less than five minutes to spare, when the audience was already accustomed to the presence of all the other dignitaries, Kerr would come shining into their midst. He would allow enough time to be shown to his place on the dais and little more. Just in time to cause a little stir.

Yes, Kerr would stay in his office, far above it all, judging nothing so well as his moment.

Haycroft knew exactly where Kerr’s desk was positioned. Perhaps even now Kerr was looking down on the plaza from behind his mirrored window. Or slightly beyond the plaza, to a man sitting on a bench, looking up at him.

Sadly, at this distance Haycroft could not see the reflection of his own face in Kerr’s window. Although he had no difficulty imagining Kerr and his office, he could never imagine his own likeness. That had to be seen for itself.

“Dr. Haycroft?”

He gave a small start and turned to see one of the guards from the old courthouse.

“Hello, Denise,” he said, smiling. He didn’t bother correcting the “doctor.” He had a master’s degree and much more experience than Dr. Larson. If this kind woman wanted to confer a doctorate on him, so be it. She had seen him many times in the older court building. He always made a point of getting to know such persons in any setting. After all, a janitor usually had more keys to city hall than the mayor.

“Whatcha doing out here all by yourself so early? The big to-do won’t start until noon.”

“I’ll be gone then, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, now that’s a shame. They work you too hard in that lab.”

“Actually, I’m on leave and about to go out of town.” He added the lie he’d told Larson. “There’s been a death in my family — an aunt of mine.”

“I’m so sorry!”

Her look of genuine sympathy touched him. “Thank you. It’s made life rather chaotic, I’m afraid. Are you on your morning break?”

“Yes, just on my way to that coffee place across the way. I’m gonna get me a real cup of coffee. You ever drink the awful stuff they serve in the courthouse?”

“No,” he said, horrified.

She laughed.

“Will you be watching the ceremony, Denise?”

“No, you and me, we’ll be the only ones to miss it. I’ll be working.”

“Where?” he asked sharply.

She laughed. “Where? Where do I always work? Somebody has to guard the entrance to the old building — even on a day like today.”

He relaxed and smiled. “Maybe that won’t be such a bad place to be after all.”

She shaded her eyes and looked up at the cloudless sky. “Yes, you may be right. Maybe I’ll make that an iced coffee. You take care, Dr. Haycroft.”

He watched her enter the coffee shop, then stood up and, making sure he did not touch any part of the bag that had touched the bench, threw the bag away. He felt uneasy. He would have preferred not to have been seen here by anyone he knew, but there was no reason to panic. Still, he should be more careful.

He could go back to the van for a time, listen to the radio — any moment now he should be able to hear the reports of the death of Detective Frank Harriman of the Las Piernas Police Department. He looked at his watch and released a breath he did not even realize he had been holding. He had time.

He had a little moment of mistrust in himself. Had he done everything properly? Did he follow Wendell Leroy Wallace’s instructions as he should have?

Of course he had! Was anyone more conscientious than he was? No. The device would go off at the appointed hour. There was nothing to worry about. The great day was here. Kerr, that most unjust of judges, would be gone, as would his monument to his own ego!

Although he was eager to hear about the results of his work at Harriman’s home, he wasn’t sure he could pull himself away from looking at the new courthouse annex. After all, Harriman was undoubtedly already dead. Haycroft could stay here and watch the destruction of the courthouse — see the grand results for himself — all the while knowing that Kerr would be entombed in its rubble.

He debated over this for some time, but decided he would make one last trip to the van now, so that he could satisfy his curiosity about the outcry that would be attached to Harriman’s death. If he waited much longer to do so, he might not ever hear about Harriman, because that rather minor news item would be bumped right off the air by the courthouse debacle.

He must hurry. The first of the little events he had planned for the courthouse was not far away.

47

Friday, July 14, 10:50 A.M.

Las Piernas County Courthouse

“Ms. Kelly and Mr. Lefebvre,” the guard said, smiling at Seth as they passed through the metal detectors. She handed Irene’s purse back to her as it came through the X-ray machine, then gave them each a visitor’s tag. “If you’ll have a seat right over there, Judge Kerr’s clerk will be down in just a moment to escort you up to his office.”

“Thank you,” Seth said.

As they took their seats, Irene thought Seth seemed restless.

“Would you like me to call Jack?” she asked. “You don’t have to be here with me, you know.”

“No, I have to see the judge.”

She raised her brows. “You do?”

“Yes. About a please bargain.”

“A please bargain?” she asked in a strained voice.

“You know, you ask, ‘Pretty please, Judge, will you let me go?’ and you do something nice for him, and it’s a bargain.”

She looked away for just a moment, then said, “Do you think maybe you mean a plea bargain?”

He shrugged.

“Is this about your mom?”

“Yes. I don’t want her to go to jail.”

Irene put an arm around his shoulders. “You know, Seth, she may not be in any trouble at all. And she has a good lawyer — he’s a friend of mine. He’s kept me out of jail a couple of times.”

His eyes widened. “You were arrested?”

“No, thanks to my lawyer. Your mom isn’t under arrest, either. But this is one of those times when you just have to let other people help her.”

He thought about this for a moment, then said, “May I please call her?”

It was not the first time today that he had checked on Elena, and Irene saw this as a sign that he had been more frightened by recent events than he was letting on. “Sure.” She handed him her phone.

He turned it on, pressed the redial button, but it beeped twice without making the call.

“It’s not working,” he said, then read the screen. “It says ‘No Signal.’”

“We’ll try again when we’re outside. Sometimes my phone doesn’t work so well inside buildings.”

Maggie Koopman, the judge’s clerk, arrived and took them up in the new elevator, fawning over Seth in much the same way he had been fawned over all morning but talking to him as if he were a not-too-bright two-year-old. The irritation Irene felt over this distracted her from the mild claustrophobia she felt in any elevator. But when Maggie stepped out of the elevator ahead of them to lead the way, she was allowed some comic relief — Seth turned to her, rolled his eyes, and pantomimed “gag me.” She wondered what Maggie would say if she told her that only Tory Randolph had previously earned this rating.

“Irene, welcome!” Judge Kerr said as they entered the office. “The rest of my staff is already downstairs, but Maggie here stayed behind so that I could take a few minutes to show you around before the ceremonies.” He offered a hand to Seth. “And you must be Seth Lefebvre. I’m Judge Kerr, and I’m glad you were able to come to the party today.”

Like Maggie, Judge Kerr was all smiles, but he seemed to have a better sense of the dignity due a boy of nine. If Kerr wasn’t thrilled about having a kid hanging around at a time like this, he was too smart to show it. He undoubtedly wanted her to write a flattering article about the building and the ceremony — and himself — and probably would have let her bring just about anything short of a wild boar along with her if she had asked.

Seth had immediately gone to the big window. Irene quickly joined him there — she needed to counteract the effects of the elevator. Seth began asking Kerr about the arrangements for the ceremony and the new building. She hoped that the impish streak she had noticed in Seth would not resurface over the next few minutes. They were doing fine until Seth — perhaps building up to his “please bargain” — decided to pay Kerr a compliment.

“That’s a nice dress you have on,” he said.

To her relief, Kerr laughed and thanked him.

Maggie knocked softly on the open door. “Excuse me, Judge Kerr, but the telephones just went dead! Shall I go downstairs to see what the problem is?”

“Of all the confounded nuisances!” the judge said. “Yes, thank you, Maggie.”

“Perhaps we should all go downstairs,” Irene said. “We can always get the tour later.”

“Oh, no,” Maggie said. “You two just got here. Relax — I’ll be right back.”

48

Friday, July 14, 11:00 A.M.

Las Piernas County Courthouse

“You are certain we will be able to reach his offices from this building?” Dane asked.

“Yes, sir. The older building and the new one are connected by a stairwell.”

“And why did you choose this route?”

“Because we have influence over persons in this building, sir. We haven’t yet made arrangements with anyone in the new annex.”

“Perhaps we should have anticipated that need?” Dane suggested.

“I urged Derrick to do so, sir.”

Dane smiled to himself but said nothing.

In that silence, they heard the first sound, a muffled bang.

“Gunfire?” Dane asked.

“No, sir, at least I don’t think so. It didn’t quite have that sound.”

“Do you have your weapons handy?”

“Yes, sir. That’s another reason why we must take the stairs.”

“Because our friends who are guards don’t work near the damned elevators. Yes, I understand. Lead on, Myles.”

49

Friday, July 14, 11:00 A.M.

Paul Haycroft’s Residence

Frank looked through the opening made by the ax. Except for the mess caused by the removal of the vent, the room before him was clean and orderly. File cabinets lined one wall. A workbench was along another. There was nothing on it.

He put on gloves, then stepped inside. Pete came up the ladder after him.

“So far, nothing downstairs — place hardly looks lived in,” Pete said. “To the point of being strange. And two other things — mirrors in every room, and it smells weird — like bathroom spray.” He stepped through the opening in the attic wall. “Will you look at this? I kept thinking all that spray meant there was a body rotting up here for sure. And it’s nothing but an office. All I smell now is a lawsuit.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure it’s only an office,” Frank said. “Not with that alarm system and steel access door.” He moved closer to the file cabinets. “The dates go back twelve years.”

“That’s about when his son died,” Pete said.

“Got your lock picks?”

“I’m better at it than he is,” Pete told the SWAT officer. “My first wife proposed to me after she saw me pick a lock.”

“On what, her chastity belt?” he asked.

But Pete was focusing on his work. Within seconds, he popped the lock on the first cabinet. He opened a drawer — it was filled with carefully labeled folders filed by date.

Frank pulled a few of them out. “Court cases. Transcripts. A few newspaper clippings.” He quickly looked through four of them. The charges varied in each case, from drug dealing to assault, from kidnapping to murder. They all had two things in common — the defense prevailed and Judge Lewis Kerr presided. All the budding confidence of a few moments ago left him, replaced by a sense of dread.

You’ve only looked at a few. Don’t jump to conclusions.

He absently reached to rub his forehead, felt the surface of the glove, and stopped.

“What was the name of the shooter at the bank?” Frank asked.

“What bank?” Pete was concentrating on the other file cabinets. But now he looked up and said, “Oh, you mean the one Lisa got involved with?”

“Right,” Frank said, feeling his hands dampen inside the gloves. “Christ, it’s hot in here.”

The SWAT officer and Pete exchanged a look.

“Carl Sudas,” Pete said. “Prime asshole.” He finished the file cabinet locks and moved on to the desk, which took even less time. “Empty,” he said. “Except for a book. Winging It.”

“By Bray and Killeen,” Frank said. “Look on page ninety-eight. You’ll find Dinterman’s Stunt Flyer.”

“That’s your plane, all right. You can even see where he traced the lines on the plans.”

“Not much by itself, but maybe it will help. Take it as evidence.”

“Paper airplanes?” the SWAT officer asked. “The guy builds a damned fortress for files and a paper airplane factory?”

Frank studied the access door. Haycroft’s ceiling had larger than usual joists — two-by-twelves. There was a gap of about eleven inches between the floor of the attic and the ceiling below it. “Maybe he’s swept it all under the rug. Let’s start over by that workbench.”

Frank lifted a corner of the carpet. “Not tacked down.”

“Bingo,” Pete said as Frank slid a long section of the plywood beneath it away.

Tucked in the spaces between joists were numerous small containers.

Frank gently lifted one. “Look at this. He’s sorted all the nuts and bolts by size, marked the containers.”

“Those are spools of fuse material,” the SWAT officer said, pointing to another section.

“Better let those bomb squad folks take a look at this stuff. They might be able to match up some of the hardware to the devices they defused last night.”

The SWAT officer used his radio to put in a request for a bomb tech.

Frank forced himself to go back to the files. He pulled a few more out and found that these, too, were defense wins in Kerr’s court. He moved to the end cabinet. More of the same.

“Jesus,” Frank said, feeling his stomach knot. “Kerr was the one who cut Sudas loose, right?”

“Yeah, but Hitch blew that case and everyone in Detectives knew it. The department doesn’t like to paint it that way, but that’s the truth.”

But Frank was thinking of Irene, at the courthouse with Seth, visiting the man who was so clearly the object of Haycroft’s obsession — Haycroft loose, nowhere to be found.

“I’ve got to go.”

“What?”

“Call Kerr — tell him he’s Haycroft’s next target.”

“Hoo, baby,” Pete said. “Hold on a minute. A judge? You’re going to tell Judge Curse we’ve got a nut from the lab on a twelve-year-old revenge trip — a guy who’s also been fucking with evidence all that time? Think twice about that one. Besides, I thought Carlson was supposed to handle all the release of information to media and other agencies.”

“Haycroft’s obviously focusing on Kerr. The man’s life might be in danger — and Seth and my wife are with him.”

“What?”

“Irene is interviewing him today. She’s got Seth with her. Never mind — I’ll call.”

“Look, there are guards and metal detectors at the new courthouse, and twice as much law enforcement there today as on any other. Besides, Irene will be watching for him,” Pete said. “If I were you, I’d take a minute to run it past Hale.”

Frank decided that might not be a bad idea — but not because he was seeking Hale’s permission. Hale could mobilize all kinds of personnel. Frank walked to the opening in the wall, where the signal was stronger. But when he made the call, the chief’s secretary said, “He’s not in, Detective Harriman. Shall I take a message?”

“Page him. Tell him it’s extremely urgent — an emergency involving a judge’s life.”

He disconnected and called Irene. To hell with the department. He got her voice mail. “Irene, if you can get out of this appointment with Kerr, please do so. If you’re already with him, warn him — I think Haycroft’s going to try to kill him today — maybe at the ceremony.”

He had no sooner disconnected than the phone rang.

“They found his van,” Reed said. “We’re closing in on the bastard!”

“Where?”

“In an alley near Third and Magnolia.”

“Downtown?” He swallowed hard. “Any sign of him?”

“No, not yet. I’m on my way over there. They told me they took a quick look at the van, but only found a canvas bag with some soap and towels and plastic bags in it. It’s near a church and the library parking lot. The chief ’s down there, and they told him about finding it before I got the call. He’s already sent a dozen guys in to search the library.”

“The chief — oh, Christ—”

“Yes, he’s in some kind of ceremony—”

“Reed, listen to me — we’ve got to get through to Hale immediately. And to Judge Kerr — especially Kerr! They’ve got to clear the plaza. They’ve got to get everybody out of there. Get the bomb squad down there. Now!”

“Frank—”

“Haycroft’s a one-man judge and jury, right? Jesus, Reed — think of who’ll be there! Every attorney, every supervisor, every judge. But especially Kerr. I’m sitting here looking at a shitload of stuff on Kerr. Everything in Haycroft’s files is about him — I think it goes back to the Sudas case, Haycroft’s son’s death.”

“Jesus — I think those files Freeman found on the computer — I think they all had Kerr connected to them, too.”

“Fuck all that, Reed — listen to me — Irene’s at the courthouse interviewing him. She’s there with Seth. Call Kerr and call Hale — and get that plaza cleared!”

Pete came to his feet, anxious now.

Frank hung up, dialed Irene’s cell phone number again. “Come on, Irene, come on, come on, answer it!”

He got her voice mail again. “God damn it!”

The tone sounded. “Irene, please, this is urgent — if you and Seth are at the courthouse, get out now! Get everybody the hell away from there as fast as you can. Get as far away as you can.”

“Go on, go!” Pete shouted to him, tossing him the keys to his car. “I’ll stay here and deal with the search. Get your ass over there.”

“I’ve got to call Kerr’s office—” he said frantically.

“I’ll do that, too,” Pete said in a voice that made him take a deep breath, calm himself a little. “Now go.”

Frank went down the ladder at a speed that had the crew on the ground shouting at him, then ran to the Chevy. He put the light on the roof and peeled out.

50

Friday, July 14, 11:35 A.M.

Courthouse Plaza

Haycroft knew he needed to appear calm.

He was shaking. He was perspiring. He could actually smell his own body odor. He had been jostled and touched again and again by others. The thought nauseated him.

From the sidewalk where he had temporarily stationed himself, he glanced in the window of the sandwich shop behind him. He did not appear calm.

Police had surrounded the van.

It was inconceivable to him. He had nearly been caught then and there. Strolling along, ready to listen to the story of Harriman’s demise. And there was his van, surrounded by black-and-white patrol cars.

How could this be? Had the late Harriman talked more than anticipated?

He stood staring for a moment, then tried not to attract attention as he walked away. He felt as if every eye were watching him, laughing secretly as he headed straight into a trap.

Somehow, he managed to return to the plaza without being seen by the police. And now this, this further ruin.

They streamed around him, hurriedly but calmly leaving. Like cattle drovers trying hard not to stampede their herd, the uniformed officers of the LPPD and the fire department urged the audience to leave. Announcements were being made. He was making himself obvious, he suddenly realized. Standing like a rock in the plaza as the greater and greater rush of hoi polloi flowed past him.

Then came the little thunderclap. The first charge, in the telephone equipment room, had been too small to be heard by anyone who was not near it. This second one, a small charge going off in an elevator shaft, was surprisingly loud. It was just a little device, designed like one he had studied in Wallace’s notes. It had relied on a timer. He was pleased that something was going right.

It freed him to move again, to join the throng that was now panicking, rushing into the street, bringing traffic to a halt. He allowed himself to be carried along by this swell of frightened lawyers and politicians and civil servants, to be deposited by it on the street’s opposite shore. He escaped it by hurrying up into the shelter of the shops that formed the lower floor of the high-rise directly across from the courthouse.

Only a few minutes now.

He would need to steal a car. This was not among his many areas of expertise. He was good with mechanical devices, though, and he understood the principles involved. He had once stolen a boat — could stealing a car be much different? Perhaps he would try it. What other choices did he have? A taxi? The driver would report him. Public transportation? Hah! Might as well shoot himself. They weren’t buses, they were vermin-mobiles.

He walked back to the sidewalk, watching the building, waiting. The police were watching it, too. No one was going in. Better yet, no one was coming out.

He was only seconds away from achieving his dream.

A horn honked. Startled, he looked down to see an old Plymouth sedan pull up alongside the curb. He was about to run when he recognized the driver. The guard from the old courthouse.

“Get in, Dr. Haycroft,” Denise said. “There’s some crazy bomber on the loose around here!”

51

Friday, July 14, 11:35 A.M.

Southbound on Magnolia

He tried to concentrate on his driving while listening to the reports. There had just been a small explosion in the new wing of the courthouse. No one was believed hurt. The police had started clearing the plaza moments before. There had been some panic at the sound of the blast, but for the most part, dispersal was orderly. Officials were still in the process of securing the area. Haycroft had not returned to his van. Both the fire department and the bomb squad had arrived and a command center had been set up — they were getting ready to go about the long process of clearing the building.

But he wouldn’t feel relieved until he talked to Irene.

His cell phone rang.

He answered it and nearly lost control of the car. “Irene?”

“No, Vince — listen, I got those locked compartments open on Haycroft’s Cessna. You would not believe what I found in them. This guy kept these lab notebooks. Experiments. Only the experiments are on people. Or, I should say, how to kill them or set them up for a conviction. The asshole rates himself based on how well he did. Guess who’s in here?”

“The Randolphs.”

“Yes, and Lefebvre. And Bredloe. And you. Second to last.”

“Is the courthouse dedication the last entry?”

“The courthouse? No — but good thinking on that one, Harriman — I hear they managed to clear just about everybody from the plaza before the one in the building went off. I think our boy hit another dud thanks to you.”

“Who’s the last entry?”

“Judge Lewis Kerr.”

“Has he been accounted for?”

“Not yet, but you know, a lot of folks just hightailed it out of there, so—”

“So we don’t know. Watch that plane, Vince — Haycroft may be coming back to it.”

“I’m praying he does,” Vince said.

Frank called the paper and asked for Irene’s boss, John Walters.

“John — has Irene reported in yet from the courthouse?”

“No, not yet. If you hear from her—”

“Was she in the audience?”

“Probably had a front-row seat. She and Seth were the guests of Judge Kerr. I’d give you the number, but the phones are out in Kerr’s office.”

His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Oh, God…”

“Frank? You there?”

“I’ll call you back, John.”

He reached Ocean Boulevard and Magnolia Avenue in spite of a heavy exodus of cars and pedestrians, but at Ocean, traffic came to a halt. The sidewalk on the plaza side of the street was nearly empty. Ahead, he could see fire engines, emergency vehicles, the fire department command center. He drove Pete’s car over the curb, parking it on the sidewalk. He pocketed the phone and began running toward the new building.

He saw a man with a briefcase running in the opposite direction. Frank stepped in front of him. “Judge Kerr’s office — where is it?”

“Get out of my way!”

Frank grabbed him by the lapels. “Where’s Kerr’s office?”

The man paled. Then he saw Frank’s badge and shoulder holster. “You’re a cop. You’re not allowed to do this.”

“You don’t read the newspapers, do you?”

He pointed a shaking finger. “Seventh floor, corner office.”

Frank let him go and ran faster.

He dodged more and more members of his own department. As he got closer to the building, the majority of them were wearing protective gear. They yelled at him to get back, then relented as he held up his ID. A more persistent officer stepped aside when Frank yelled, “Chief’s office.”

The members of the bomb squad weren’t impressed with the “chief” routine and began shouting to the others to stop him.

Halfway across the open space, weaving through the abandoned folding chairs, he looked up at Kerr’s office. All his concentration was centered on it, on the people he knew were within it.

Be safe, Irene, he thought. Be safe, Seth. Please be safe. I’m almost there.

He heard the shouting of the others mixing with the pleading in his mind, both more frantic as he moved forward, the distance between him and the corner office seeming to double with every step, as if each passing second robbed him of progress.

The blast struck like a thunderclap that could take the world apart — all the shouts and pleas lost in the deafening roar of an explosion that shook the ground beneath his feet and thrummed in the marrow of his bones.

In helpless horror he watched as Kerr’s window and a hundred windows near it blasted out and the upper floors of the building crumpled in on one another.

He screamed her name, but even he could not hear it among the other screams, the answering rattle from every building around the plaza, the hard rain of glass and debris that pelted down on them, as if falling from the thick clouds of smoke billowing from the building. Walls and ceilings and floors collapsed, banging down on one another, then lay askew like drunks who had caused one another to stumble. As they fell, bits of concrete shot from them as if from cannons, arcing down into the courtyard with murderous force.

In an instant, he saw the world go out of order, no longer operating as it should, and some part of his mind resisted all the uproar of his senses — the vision of destruction, the ringing in his ears, the choking dust. In defiance of this chaos, his thoughts sought possibilities.

Maybe she got his phone message and never got here.

Maybe they’re already safe, in another part of the city.

Maybe she heard the message and was already making her way back to him.

These thoughts circled through his mind like a toy train on its track, no sooner gone than they returned, while some other, darker knowledge moved him forward, toward a goal that was no longer where he had last seen it, toward a location that had vanished — the knowledge that he must lay aside this resistance, because the very place he could not bear to be was exactly the place he must seek.

52

Friday, July 14, 12:45 P.M.

Courthouse Plaza

The first hour passed in a warped version of time. What he waited and hoped for made the minutes seem too long, what he feared made them pass too quickly.

He knew the statistics. About ninety percent of survivors would be rescued in the first forty-five minutes. He watched in silence, anxiously studying every dazed creature who emerged from the ruins of the building and then every stretcher, and finally, every body bag. These were the “surface victims” — those able to walk out on their own and the ones who could be easily seen by rescuers. The next group must be found by a careful search of the rubble of the building. With luck, survivors would be discovered in the void spaces — pockets formed by the angles of collapse and by objects and materials in the building — a row of filing cabinets might prop up a portion of a fallen ceiling, the area under a sturdy desk might shelter someone from crushing debris.

At one point he became aware that his muscles ached from nothing more than tension, from the strain of keeping his emotions in check — knowing that any loss of control would mean the loss of this horrible privilege of nearness to the scene. At first, rescue workers had tried to force him away and he had missed seeing a few of the injured. But the director of the bomb squad activities was the man who had been at his home just that morning — that long-ago morning — and he took pity on Frank and allowed him to stand near where the first of the injured and the dead were brought out.

He also told the others that Frank had made the warning call, and some thanked him then — because even with such little warning they had gained a few advantages. Before the blast, they had been able to evacuate the courtyard and most of the building, so that relatively few people were in it when the largest device detonated. A fire department battalion chief was on-site, and a command center had already been set up to coordinate the activities of the bomb squad, paramedics, police, firefighters, and the technical rescue team. The first responding unit had been able to shut off the utilities so that the fire damage had been minimal.

The building, they told him, was made of reinforced concrete — if the older building had been bombed, the damage would have been more severe.

Again and again, they told him how much worse it might have been.

He tried to find comfort in that, and couldn’t.

A few of the rescuers and firefighters talked to him briefly as they passed by or while they waited for clearance to enter the building. They tried to give him a word of encouragement, to tell him more about what was going on.

Once the fire was out, the bomb squad went in first. Often bombers left secondary devices — insidiously designed to injure rescue personnel or to slow the rescue process and thereby raise the number of deaths the bomber had “scored.”

While the bomb squad looked for these devices, the Urban Search and Rescue teams — the USAR teams — prepared to enter the building as soon as possible. These technical rescue squads were elite teams of firefighters, as specialized in their work as SWAT teams were in the police department.

Still others interviewed survivors, asking, “Who was in there with you? Was anyone else in the office? Where did you last see this person?” and so on. Some survivors were unable to do more than gaze blankly at their rescuers, while others were frenzied in their desire to be farther away from the place, but most tried to concentrate, to recall the moment before the blast — doing their best to remain calm, to be precise — all while managing their own lingering terror and sudden exhaustion, the high-octane rush of relief and burden of guilt that often came to the rescued. Some were reunited with family members or with coworkers they had thought lost — some who had been little more than acquaintances now weepingly embraced.

Although the fire had been quickly extinguished, a few of the injured and many of the dead were terribly burned. Others had been crushed. Some were unrecognizable — the worst, hardly recognizable as human.

Of each of these, Frank made himself ask the questions:

Could this be Irene? Could this be Seth?

And always answered no, hoping he had not lied to himself.

He continued to watch the stretchers — the noisy, bustling activities of rescue around him going on as if at a great distance — all his awareness focused on this macabre parade, so that he stood like a man waiting at the end of a jetway for a loved one to disembark from some ruinous flight. But the number rapidly dwindled, for the ones the workers could quickly and safely reach had been brought out, and he realized that Irene and Seth would not be among them.

From his own department’s training, Frank knew the basic procedures for “major incidents” — a phrase that seemed so inadequate now — and he forced himself to think through what he had learned in those training sessions. Again and again he tried to think of what he could do, what he must do.

Kerr’s office was on the seventh floor. There was no way to get up to what was left of it except by helicopter or fire truck ladder. He knew a couple of helicopter pilots, and for a time he wondered what they would say if he asked them to risk losing their licenses for interference in this type of crisis situation. But the first numbness was wearing off, and he knew he could not value his own misery above that of others who stood beyond the police barrier tape — moaning and crying, or simply staring up at the ruin with anguished faces — waiting for word of missing friends and family.

Still, there must be something he could do. When he could not think of what that might be, a kind of hollowness carved itself into his chest.

The body of a security guard was found. She had apparently gone to investigate the sound made by the first and smallest explosion, the one that took out the telephones, and had been killed by the second one, the one in the elevator shaft. The rescuers, although taking no joy in her death, could not help but feel excitement — for near her body, and quite undamaged, was a clipboard. The clipboard held a sign-in sheet. From it, they gained a better sense of who, in addition to workers, was in the building when the bombs went off.

For Frank, though, the discovery only confirmed that Seth and Irene had indeed signed in, had been escorted to Kerr’s office on the seventh floor, and had not come out — it denied him his denials, that persistent hope that she had never made it here after all, that she was somewhere else, repairing a flat tire on the Jeep or stuck in line at a bank.

No, they were here. He had known it, of course.

He tried to study the building. He thought of what the various rescue personnel had told him. The east stairwell, the one nearest Kerr’s office, had collapsed completely. The top two floors of the west stairwell had also sustained severe damage, but where the old and new courthouse buildings were attached to each other on the lower five floors, there had been less destruction. From that point downward, the west stairwell was, in fact, two adjoining stairwells, with connecting doors between each flight of the old and new. Each had collapsed in a different way. Portions of the stairways for the second, third, fourth, and fifth floors were inaccessible, but they were not reduced to dust.

The bomb squad suspected that additional charges had been placed near the stairwells to close off escape routes to survivors. Or at least, Frank thought bitterly, to survivors on the seventh floor. The more damaged east stairwell had been the one they thought Judge Kerr would have most likely used.

Another five minutes and he would have been inside. Once inside, it would have been hard to stop him from — from what? he asked himself. From dying in the blast? From being buried in the rubble? If Irene and Seth were trapped in there, what help could he offer, even now?

Word came to him that the bomb squad had cleared the building. The technical rescue operation went into full swing — core teams of four to six members with highly specialized training, each supported by eight to twelve others. Using jacks and lifts and other equipment, they would shore up the collapsed structure, level by level — all the while trying to locate trapped victims, knowing every minute might be one a victim spent bleeding or crushed, suffocating or in pain, the likelihood of survival decreasing.

He should just get the hell out of the way, he told himself. But he couldn’t make himself leave. Not when they were so close. Irene was a survivor. She had proven it again and again. Frank had to wait. He had to be sure.

He thought of how much she hated enclosed spaces. Of all that Seth had already been through. Please, God, don’t let them be terrified. Don’t let them be hurt. Don’t let them be suffering. Don’t let them be…

No, he wouldn’t even think it.

After a time, he wasn’t waiting alone. He wasn’t entirely sure when it had come about, but Reed and Pete found him. Hale, too. Vince was still keeping an eye on the airport, they said, and would have been here if he didn’t want to capture Haycroft so badly. Frank didn’t want to capture him. He wanted to kill him. He would have gladly killed him for what he had seen in the last twenty minutes alone.

Somehow Hale had made it possible for them to remain within this highly restricted area. They did not try to cheer Frank up with talk of miracles or try to buoy him up with false hope. For that, he was grateful. The waiting changed — his tension eased slightly in their presence, although they said little.

Utter helplessness should not be discussed, he thought, even among friends.

No, he told himself. There is something you can do. What?

He closed his eyes and forced himself to think of the scene here an hour or so ago. In a second call to Irene’s boss, he had learned that she had had an appointment to meet with Kerr just before the ceremonies. Kerr was going to show off the new office for a few minutes, then walk down to the dais with them. She would have been there when the first small blast had taken out the telephones, though she might not have heard it, up on the seventh floor. She would have heard the second one — the one that had taken out the elevators.

He was picturing the big window, Seth and Irene looking down at the plaza, seeing everyone seated in anticipation of the ceremony — but no, that’s not what she would have seen. She would have seen people being evacuated.

“Frank?”

He gave a start, then turned to see Reed Collins. Next to Reed, seeking support on his arm, was a weeping woman in her fifties. She was wearing business attire. There was something in Reed’s manner, in his reddened eyes, that made Frank want to stop time. He wanted Reed to stop walking forward with this woman.

He knew what this primly dressed woman was. She was a harbinger.

And he knew what was weighing Reed down. Sympathy.

“No,” he said aloud, but he didn’t move.

“This is Maggie…”

“Maggie Koopman,” she supplied.

“Kerr’s clerk,” Reed said.

“I’m so sorry,” Maggie said. “It’s all my fault!”

Frank looked at Reed.

“She says Irene and Seth were with the judge when the phones got knocked out. She said she told them that they should stay—” Reed stopped, then rephrased it. “She offered to go downstairs to check on the problem, which she was convinced was a new-building glitch.”

“A glitch,” Frank repeated dully, looking at the ruins.

“There was no way of knowing it was anything else,” Reed said. “So she left.”

“And the others stayed.” All these words were turning him to stone. He could feel it happening, from the inside out.

“Yes. She’s sure of it. As it was, she went down to the first floor and then, of course, she wasn’t allowed to remain in the building.”

“I told them!” she said miserably. “I told them, ‘I have to go back! Judge Kerr and a reporter and a little boy are still inside!’”

Frank felt Reed’s hand tighten on his shoulder, and he realized he had swayed on his feet. He tried to steady himself, but found he couldn’t, and reached out for Reed’s shoulder with his own hand, bracing himself.

“I told them, ‘You’ve got to let me go back and get them!’” Maggie Koopman was saying. “They told me officers were going through the building floor by floor, evacuating it, and that they’d make sure the judge and the others were brought out safely. But they didn’t!”

“The guy they sent up to get them was on the east stairwell when the next blast hit,” Reed said.

Frank looked at the ruins of the stairwell.

“No,” he said. “No.”

Pete stayed next to him. Talkative Pete, not saying a word. Reed took Maggie Koopman, mourning a man she had worked with for twenty years — whose death she was convinced she had caused — to where her daughter waited to take her home. Pete still hadn’t said a word by the time Reed came back.

“We’ve left a message on your home phone for Elena,” Reed said. “Unless she’s been near a radio or TV, she probably doesn’t even know this has happened.”

Was it a good thing or a bad thing, not to know? he wondered.

Too damn bad, he told himself. You know. So think!

He closed his eyes and thought of Irene looking down on the plaza, seeing the evacuation. He felt sure that she had done so. She looked out windows, and not only because she was claustrophobic. She was an astute observer. They both worked in professions where one survived by observing others.

So Irene looks out on the plaza and sees the evacuation. A clerk tells her to stay where she is. And Irene — Irene stays put?

“She didn’t stay in that office,” he said aloud.

Reed and Pete exchanged a look.

I know Irene, he thought. What did she do next?

His thoughts were interrupted by the barking of a dog — a German shepherd wearing an orange vest bounded over to greet him.

“Hello, Bingle,” he said. “Am I ever glad to see you.”

“He’s glad to see you, too,” Ben Sheridan said as he caught up with his dog. He was wearing orange coveralls with “SAR” printed on the back. “Bingle wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t let him say hello before we got started.”

“Anna here, too?” Frank asked. Ben’s girlfriend was also a dog handler.

“Our whole search-and-rescue dog team is here.” He paused, then said, “They’ve just briefed us.”

Frank looked up but didn’t see the look of sympathy that Pete and Reed wore now. Did Ben know?

“Yes, I know,” Ben said. “Actually, this little greeting ceremony has another purpose.” He smiled. “I told the team that you and Bingle are old friends. I stretched the truth a bit and said that you had already worked with Bingle on a search and that I wanted you to search with us again.”

Frank felt a rush of gratitude so overwhelming, he couldn’t speak for a moment. He finally managed, “Thanks, Ben.”

“Before you thank me, make sure you want to do it. Aside from the fact that it’s dangerous to be crawling around in a structurally damaged building, this work can be grim — even for a homicide detective. We aren’t expecting many victims, thanks to the evacuation. But many is not zero, and we may not make any live finds. And a person found alive may not make it — it takes time to get them out and the injuries tend to be severe.”

Frank nodded.

“Allow me to be ruthless, Frank. Whether the people they find are dead, alive, crushed, or mutilated, these dogs do this work because it’s a game to them — so I’ll have to respond to Bingle’s finds in a positive way, praising him, playing with him — and you have to get the hell away from him if you think you might start to give him any other kind of response. I don’t want you to deck me if I’m playing Frisbee with my dog a few feet away from your wife’s body. That’s one reason we don’t usually bring relatives along for these searches — it’s asking a lot of you.”

“I understand.”

“Then understand this, too — you can’t just focus on three people. That might be the hardest part.”

“Let me help. Let me do something besides… imagining.”

“All right. We’ll have to hurry — we’re expecting the bomb squad to let us get to work any time now. I’ve brought equipment for you — hard hat, goggles, radio set, work gloves, that kind of thing. Let me see if I can get you a set of coveralls. Nothing we can do about the shoes, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll go barefoot, if that’s what it takes,” Frank said.

Anna, Ben’s girlfriend, was an easygoing, athletic blonde. Still, for all her affability, she had a mind of her own, and Frank wondered if she would be angry when he showed up posing as a SAR dog handler. Like all of the handlers in Ben’s group, she took her work with the dogs seriously. But when he approached the group, she completely backed up Ben’s story. At one point she glanced at him, looking worried, and he realized that he had not factored in her fondness for Irene.

Bingle knew his job so well, Frank had little doubt that his biggest task would be staying out of the dog’s way. Not so long ago, Ben and Bingle had lived with Frank and Irene — in the first months after Ben’s leg was amputated, he had stayed with them. Even after he moved out, they had seen Ben and Bingle often, so Frank’s familiarity with the dog now allowed him to fake his way along to some extent. The dog responded to commands in Spanish, a language Frank spoke fluently. Still, he was glad Ben would be nearby to “read” the dog — to pick up on all the subtleties of the dog’s behavior that were part and parcel of dog and handler communication.

Some members of the SAR team were going through the remains of the new wing of the courthouse, but Ben and Anna and Frank were focusing on the stairwell between the old and new courthouses. Each person had been assigned a specific area to search. Other means of locating the missing would be used as well — but the dogs on this team had a high rate of success, so Frank felt the burden of doing his best to help Bingle.

When Ben told him where they would be working, he had not been able to hide his own anticipation.

“Yes,” Ben said. “If she was up on the seventh floor and is alive now, she’s on that stairway. But remember—”

“There’s a big range covered in ‘alive,’” Frank said, thinking of some of the victims he had already seen.

“Right.”

They entered the darkened older courthouse through a doorway near an undamaged stairwell. This stairwell was some distance from the one they would be searching. They parted from Anna at the first floor. “You and Ben will start on the second floor,” she explained. “I’ll radio you if I need a confirmation.”

Ben explained to him that if a dog alerted — indicated a find — another dog and handler would be brought in to confirm the alert before the next expert team of rescuers was called in. “It’s dangerous and difficult to do the excavation work,” Ben said. “So we want to be fairly sure we’ve got a real find before they start all the work that goes into trying to move slabs of concrete.”

Ben reminded Frank of the basic commands and hand signals and of Bingle’s alerts. “He’ll bark on a live find. Otherwise he’ll howl.”

Frank remembered to speak to Bingle in excited tones, to ask him in Spanish, “¿Estás listo?” — “Are you ready?” The dog looked at him and cocked his head to the side, as if not quite convinced Frank knew what he was doing. Frank remembered the proverb that it is impossible to lie to a dog. But after a moment Bingle seemed to accept that commands were going to come from Frank.

During most of their walk through the empty building, they didn’t need to use flashlights or the lights on their safety helmets and could rely on the light coming in through the windows at the ends of the halls. There was no obvious damage in this part of the older courthouse, but the building would be thoroughly inspected before anyone was allowed to return to offices, chambers, and courtrooms. As they entered the corridor leading to the west stairwell, they were in darkness and turned their flashlights on.

The air here had an odd musty smell to it, and Ben explained that when older buildings suffered damage, this was not unusual. “I’ve heard it’s caused by all the accumulated dust up in ceilings and on pipes and on any other surface that hasn’t been mopped or vacuumed for fifty years.”

Bingle did not seem to be bothered by the dust or the darkness, but they hadn’t gone far down the corridor before Frank sensed a change in the dog. Bingle’s ears were up and pitched forward, he carried his tail erect and walked high on his toes. He seemed to be both focused on something and excited.

Suddenly he looked intently at first Frank, then Ben. Rascal, the dog Ben was handling — one of Anna’s Labradors — was reacting to something, too.

“He’s alerting, isn’t he?” Frank said. “¡Búscalos! Find ’em, Bingle!”

Bingle strained on the lead, now in the spirit of things. They reached the edge of a pile of rubble, and Bingle pushed his nose into a crevice between two pieces of concrete, then lifted his head back.

“Frank,” Ben said suddenly, but he was too late.

Bingle began to howl.

53

Friday, July 14, 1:31 P.M.

Courthouse Stairwell

It could be anyone, he told himself.

He braced himself as he took a closer look, while Ben called Bingle aside and praised the dog lavishly. He was grateful to Ben for taking over that responsibility for him.

Impossible to lie to a dog.

In among the jagged pieces of gray concrete that spilled down the older portion of the stairs, he saw a woman’s black dress shoe. He closed his eyes for a moment, then forced himself to keep looking, letting the light seek the owner of the shoe. It suddenly illuminated a length of dark hair, which he then saw was attached to a loose piece of scalp, which was lying a few inches from a crushed skull and a remarkably pale but unscathed hand.

He fought a wave of nausea. He heard a screaming inside his head and wondered for a brief moment if he had screamed aloud.

Ben was playing with Bingle but watching Frank. Frank heard Ben’s voice catch, even as he kept telling the dog he was handsome and smart. The shepherd paraded past Frank with a floppy toss-toy, then came back and nudged him with it.

“He’s just… he’s only trying to engage you in his game.”

Engage. Frank looked up at Ben suddenly and then forced himself to look again into the crevice. He saw that the hand was a well-manicured left hand with no rings on it. Irene had short nails and was never without her wedding and engagement rings.

“It’s not her,” he choked out. “It’s not Irene.”

They radioed in what little description of the dead woman they could provide and set a marker. Removing the dead was, necessarily, a lower priority than looking for survivors. Anna hadn’t found anyone on the first floor and had already moved up to the third. Once Ben was satisfied there were no other victims on this level, they retraced their way to the intact stairwell and were almost up to the fourth floor when Anna radioed that she needed a confirmation. She could see one male victim, but she was not sure if there was a second — in another area, she was getting a vague alert from Devil, the dog she was handling.

When they arrived, she said, “Shouldn’t be hard to ID the one male. He’s wearing an eye patch.”

“Whitey Dane,” Frank said even before he managed to get a look at him. Dane’s chest had been crushed by a section of wall that had fallen in on him. “What the hell was he doing here?” He looked up at Anna. “Myles Volmer or one of his other bodyguards can’t be too far away.”

Frank saw that on this floor, unlike the one below, the connecting door to the newer stairwell was open, although several chunks of concrete lying across it now made it half its normal size. Bingle seemed interested in this space. So while Ben and Anna worked with Devil and Rascal, Frank cautiously crawled into the remaining opening and flashed his light around. He was relieved not to find a long drop on the other side. He was looking at the landing of the newer stairwell now and saw that it had less debris on it than its counterpart in the older building. It formed a cavern of sorts — the stairs above and below appeared to be impassable, but this space was relatively open, making it the largest “void space” he had seen along the stairwell.

He moved through the opening to the landing on the other side of the door, then helped Bingle scramble through. Bingle was no sooner on the landing than he cocked his head back and forth, as if listening to something. He immediately tried to make it up the stairs, whining when he could not get through, then barking sharply. It echoed loudly in the enclosed space.

“Bingle — ¡Quieto!”

The dog looked back at him, then up at the stairs, whining.

Ben’s face appeared at the opening. “What’s going on?”

“I think there’s someone alive on the next floor up,” Frank said, feeling hope rise. “Bingle hears something up there.”

Ben helped Frank lift the dog back through, and soon they were on their way up to the next floor. Ben radioed the USAR team, asking them to meet them at the stairwell of the fourth floor.

They were moving fast now, hurrying down the last corridor. Bingle suddenly halted, though, and cocked his head again. Rascal did the same, then looked back at Ben. Bingle wagged his tail and made a wavering, high-pitched howling sound.

“No…”

“I don’t think he’s howling,” Ben said quickly. “That’s his singing voice.”

Frank had heard Bingle’s famous crooning — the inspiration for the dog’s name — and didn’t think this had been much like it. He wondered if Ben was merely trying to soften a blow.

Bingle and Rascal moved off again, pulling hard at their leads.

“Anna?” Ben said into the radio. “Hurry.”

Hurry, Frank thought. That isn’t what you say if the victim is dead.

“What kind of alert is singing?” he asked, quickening his pace to keep up with Bingle’s.

“It’s not an alert. It’s just one of his tricks. But sometimes he does it when he hears someone else singing.”

As they neared the entrance to the stairwell, Bingle made the sound again, then looked back at Frank. Frank followed him over the debris in the older stairwell. Here the metal door leading to the newer stairs was closed and blocked, but the dog scratched furiously at it. Barking at the door, and then Frank, and then turning back to Ben to bark at him.

Telling the dog he was marvelous and intelligent, Ben called him back to his side. He commanded him to stop barking, but took out the toss-toy and played quietly with him.

At the stairwell door, Frank immediately heard a distinct, rhythmic tapping sound.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Frank shouted.

There was no answer, but the tapping continued in the same rhythm. Ben was talking into the radio now, telling the USAR team that they had definitely found a live victim and describing the location.

Frank used the end of his flashlight to tap against the door three times.

This time there was a pause in the tapping, and then three taps came back.

Frank tapped again.

A small segment of Morse code came back — three dots, three dashes, three dots — SOS.

Frank tried tapping back in the same code: Are you hurt?

There was a long pause and then the SOS was repeated.

Frank relayed this information to Ben, who passed it along by radio. Frank continued to tap and repeat patterns of tapping, hoping to reassure the trapped person.

Soon the technical rescue team arrived — it had taken them less than four minutes despite the fact that they were also carrying equipment — an exothermic cutting torch, a concrete saw, lift pillows, breathing canisters, first aid supplies, a microphone that could be threaded through small openings, and cribbing wood.

“On to the next floor,” Ben said as the team went to work on cutting the door. “Unless you want to stay here?”

“No, I’ll come along. But—”

“I’ve already asked them to contact you when they learn who it is.”

On the fifth floor, instead of darkness near the stairwell, they found daylight.

The west stairwell bomb had gone off on the seventh floor of the new stairwell, blowing out chunks of concrete that then fell through the roof of the older stairwell — which started at the fifth floor. In addition to forming a crude skylight, the debris completely blocked access between the two stairwells. Dust and dirt from the roof lay everywhere.

But on this floor the dogs had their strongest response yet. Taken near the stairwell separately, all three alerted. Bingle didn’t sing this time, but his interest in getting closer to the new stairwell was plain. Ben frowned, studying the obstacles before them, then said, “Bingle’s the best climber of these three. Let’s see what he wants to show us, Frank. Anna, hold on to Rascal for me, will you? I’ll follow along, Frank, just in case you need help with him.”

As Bingle led them over boulder-sized pieces of concrete and fallen beams, he became more and more excited. Finally he stopped and cocked his head. He stood in the sun near a small opening formed by two large pieces of concrete that had fallen against each other in a tent shape.

For a moment, Frank was afraid the dog was going to try to burrow into the space, but as he came closer, he saw that it was too small even for Bingle to squeeze through. Bingle stuck most of his snout into the opening, snuffling loudly, and began wagging his tail. Abruptly, he pulled his nose out and raised his head up high. Frank braced himself to hear howling, but instead the dog sneezed — then began barking.

Ben had come closer then, too, and once again managed to both praise and reward Bingle while getting him to be quiet. Suddenly, Frank realized why the dogs had been so sure this time — through the opening he could hear the faint sound of a voice.

A familiar voice calling, “Hello! Hello! We’re down here!”

“Irene!” Frank began shouting. “Irene!”

“Frank? In here!” came the faint but clear response. “Oh, Frank! I’m here! Seth and Judge Kerr, too.”

“Irene—” he said, and for a moment couldn’t say anything more. He felt tears on his face and let them fall.

“I’m okay, Frank — Seth, too.”

He heard Ben calling on the radio, asking for more help. He didn’t sound much steadier.

“Are any of you hurt?” Frank asked.

“The judge is hurt the worst. Seth is with him — they ended up a little farther down, but Seth and I can hear each other. Seth says Kerr is breathing, but he’s unconscious.”

“And you?”

“A little bumped around, that’s all. Were you the one who was tapping?”

“Yes. Ben and Bingle and Anna and her dogs are here. Bingle is the star of the day. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“From the moment Seth told me someone was answering his taps, I’ve been doing better and better.”

He continued to talk to her until the second technical team arrived. He moved back into the corridor then, watching as they used inflatable lift pillows to widen the opening and began the work of shoring up the space they’d use to free her.

Ben put a hand on his shoulder. Frank turned to see Anna waiting down the corridor with the dogs. “We’ve got to move along,” Ben said.

Frank glanced back at the rescue team, which was hammering cribbing in place.

“Sure,” he said.

“Oh, no, you stay here. I think we can dispense with your help.”

“I meant what I said—”

“I know you did. But if you haven’t figured out that I risked being kicked off the SAR team just because I couldn’t stand to think of you sitting out in the plaza while I looked for your trouble-prone wife—”

“I was going crazy down there, Ben. I — I don’t know how to thank you—”

“I owe the two of you too much for thanks to be due. Besides, this was good for me — it will help me with the rest of the day.”

He watched them take the dogs down the hall, Ben talking to Bingle in Spanish, Anna to Rascal and Devil in English, working up their enthusiasm, telling them to “find ’em,” knowing that the outcome would seldom be the one that others hoped and waited for.

Frank moved back toward the stairwell, as close as the workers would allow him to come.

For now, he would wait. And silently offer thanks.

54

Friday, July 14, 4:00 P.M.

St. Anne’s Hospital

The doctors said they expected Judge Kerr to make a full recovery, but he would be hospitalized for a while. As the blast hit, he had tried to shield Seth from falling objects but was himself struck on the head by a small piece of concrete. He had lost consciousness and fallen down the stairs, taking Seth with him. A rain of debris had separated them from Irene.

Seth, who had been the first to be rescued, had a few scrapes and bruises. Frank had gone down to the fourth floor again when they brought him out. He held tightly to Frank from the moment he was freed until Elena met them at the hospital.

Irene was scraped and bruised, too, and more extensively. He had winced at all the abrasions on her face and arms and legs, and especially at a swollen spot just above her left eyebrow. “I’m so disappointed. I was trying to get mine in the same place as yours,” she said, tracing a finger lightly along his stitches. “Do you mind if I tell people this happened when I kicked a bad guy’s ass?”

“With this much damage, you’d better say it was a dozen bad guys.”

He had held her gently when she was freed — neither of them able to say a word. She had been terrified, he could tell, although she had put up a brave front for Seth’s sake — talking with him, singing songs with him — Bingle had been singing in response to one of these. They got away from the building as soon as possible, and he was relieved to see the fear gradually recede as she spent time in the open air.

Frank decided to visit Bredloe while Seth and Irene talked with Elena. Although it was hard for him to let either Irene or Seth out of his sight, he was still not comfortable with Elena. He was overdue for a visit to Bredloe in any case.

Bredloe recognized him and said a slow, slurred version of his name. And something that sounded like the word “sorry.”

“No need to be, sir.”

Frank couldn’t make out the next phrase, but Miriam translated. “Yes, there is.”

Miriam told Frank that while her husband was doing much better, the long-term effects of his injuries were still uncertain.

“Hard for you to be patient with it, I know,” Frank said to him.

“Yes. Sometimes almost as frustrating as policework.”

Miriam started to translate, but Frank smiled and said, “I understood that perfectly.”

Because the captain tired quickly, and because he was anxious to return to Irene, Frank kept the visit short.

When he returned to the lobby, Irene was sitting alone. “Where are Seth and Elena?” he asked.

“Waiting outside. I asked them to give us a few minutes. I think they needed a little time to themselves, too.” She tugged him toward a small office. “I asked one of the nurses if we could come in here to talk. She said it would be okay.”

He pulled her gently into his arms, being careful of her bruises, and didn’t let her say a word for a while. “This time,” he said, “this time you really scared the hell out of me.”

“Is that some freaked-out macho-man way of telling me you love me?”

He laughed, then kissed her again. “I’ve got all kinds of ways to do that.”

His cell phone rang. He started to ignore it, but she said, “No rush — answer it.”

It was Vince.

“You want to be in for the kill?” he said. “Haycroft is here.”

“Have you arrested him?”

“Not yet. He’s holding a hostage.”

“Shit,” he said.

“A lady from the courthouse. A guard. Nice woman. Anyway, get on over here, because my money is on the SWAT boys.”

He hung up and explained the situation to Irene.

“Go on,” she said. “I’m fine. A little tired, but fine.”

“I’m not. Not after this afternoon.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

He shook his head, then looked into those blue eyes of hers. “Tonight.”

“Maybe.”

He laughed. “You know, I nearly forgot to tell you how glad I am that you almost never obey orders.”

She looked at him for a long moment and said, “Come home as soon as you can.”

55

Friday, July 14, 4:20 P.M.

Las Piernas Airport

He was inside the Cessna. Denise, bound and gagged, was whimpering in the seat next to his. Good God, didn’t the woman understand what a privilege he had conferred on her? No one was allowed to fly with him!

He must end this standoff, if for no other reason than to be rid of her.

He started the engine, SWAT team or no. Actually, because of them. He let them know that he had set up a sort of reverse “dead-man’s switch.” If he were to be shot and killed, the plane would not shut off — it would, in fact, be uncontrolled, whether taxiing on land or flying in the air. He would smash Ms. Denise here into the side of the hangar, and she and anyone nearby would become crispy critters.

He was tired of listening to the hostage negotiator, Tom Cassidy. He knew all the tricks of Cassidy’s trade, and he wasn’t even interested in tormenting the fellow, as he well could have. As he had been tormented himself. Oh, yes, tormented.

The first thing Cassidy told him was that Harriman wasn’t dead. Cassidy announced this as if it were a good thing, as if there were any doubt he’d be charged with murder anyway. His rage over Harriman’s survival was nearly boundless.

Next he had learned that thanks to Harriman, Judge Lewis Kerr wasn’t dead, either. When he had heard this news, he began to feel a little afraid of Harriman. He could almost believe that Lefebvre had come back to haunt him.

He despised Cassidy for ruining his day in this way. And so he had struck back and lied — told Cassidy that perhaps a person who would do something so heinous as planting bombs in a courthouse wouldn’t stop at destroying just one government building. “If I were you,” he told the big Texan, “I’d wonder if such a criminal had bombs all over town.”

That one had been worth the price of admission!

Now the game grew tiresome, though. It was time he got away, created a new and better life, a whole new identity. He had no difficulty believing he’d get away once he was airborne. Denise would be released only after he had completed his disappearance.

And who was she, really? A little nobody.

But he knew they would allow him to escape — all in order to protect a woman who didn’t know how to put a proper English sentence together. They would never want to be accused of causing her death. That’s what he loved most about their rules. They had to play by them.

Their rules were what kept them from succeeding against crime in the spectacular way he had succeeded. If he were in Tom Cassidy’s position, he would order the snipers to take him out immediately. To hell with anyone killed on the ground as a result.

There was some sort of commotion, and he realized that he had a new guest at his little bon voyage party. Frank Harriman.

When Frank met Vince outside the hangar, he handed him a brown bag. “This is all you need,” he said.

“For what?”

“To catch Haycroft. I’m starting to get to know this son of a bitch.” He told him his strategy.

“Cassidy will never go for it,” Vince said.

“He will. It’s all in the presentation. You ready to put on a show?”

Vince smiled. “Not much of a part, but yeah, sure.”

“Frank Harriman,” Cassidy drawled. “You amaze me. You have a couple of crazy-ass days — fifteen minutes of which would have been enough to get most of us served up on a marble slab — and instead you walk up to me looking ornery.”

“Have a favor to ask, Tom.”

“Yeah?”

“Let him go.”

Cassidy laughed. He ran a hand over his short hair, which — although he was not much older than Frank — was mostly gray. “Oh, brother. You were out in the sun way too long today.”

“Let Haycroft take off with the woman. Just let me say something to him as he taxis to the runway. I think he’ll come back with her.”

“‘Think’ is not good enough. But tell me what you have in mind.”

“You’re about to let him go anyway, aren’t you, Tom?”

“We’ll be following him.”

Frank rolled his eyes.

“He says he’s got more bombs planted around town,” Cassidy said.

“Do you believe him?”

“To be honest, no, I don’t.”

“Your instincts are still good then, Tom, because it doesn’t fit with his obsession with Kerr. And that’s what this guy is all about — that, and protecting his own ass.”

Cassidy calmly studied him for a moment. “So what’s your idea?”

Haycroft watched as the discussion between Cassidy and Harriman became more and more acrimonious. In the end, Cassidy looked utterly defeated.

“Mr. Haycroft?”

God, how he hated that damned drawl!

“Detective Harriman has just informed me that you may have your wish. He claims the district attorney refuses to file against you — I guess the D.A. is saying our department has no real physical evidence against you. Can that possibly be true?”

Haycroft hesitated. This could only mean they hadn’t found anything at the house and had not discovered the problem with the computer program in the property room. Managing a hostage meant that he had not had time to check on his diaries, and with all of the department watching him now, he was not about to reveal where he had hidden them on the plane.

Did they know about the diaries?

No, if they did, he was convinced, Cassidy would have gloated about it, as he had about the survival of Harriman and Kerr.

“If what he says is true,” Haycroft said slowly, “why were you waiting for me here? What led Detective Harriman to me in the first place?”

“Well, Detective Harriman claims it started with you telling him some fib about your son’s photograph, which made him suspicious, and he ultimately realized you had a darned good reason to dislike Judge Kerr. But even though he may be convinced you’re guilty as sin, the irony is this — if the D.A. doesn’t have more to go on than that, some dumb judge like Kerr will toss the case out on its rear end. Isn’t that right?”

“Why, yes, it’s true. But you see, there is this little problem of my having taken a hostage now.”

“Well, this is awfully embarrassing to the department, of course. I’m sure Denise there would be happy to say it was all a joke that she went along with just in order to help you out. You release her, and all is fair and square.”

He looked at Denise, who was nodding furiously.

“I think not. I feel safer with her here, you might say. And I am concerned that Vince Adams must have had a little look-see through my plane while he waited for me, so I don’t really believe I can rely on your story. I will be leaving now.”

He began to taxi out of the hangar. “Haycroft!” a new voice said.

“Detective Harriman, forgive me, but I must be on my way.”

“That’s fine with me, but I just wondered if you really believe your papers are the only thing Vince and I might have messed with on that Cessna today.”

He stopped taxiing, then smiled to himself. “Nice try. It’s running perfectly well.”

“To tell you the truth, I hope you think so.”

“You wouldn’t be trying to tell me that you in some way disabled a plane carrying a hostage?”

“How was I to know there would be one? Besides, sometimes lambs must be sacrificed.”

“But you, dear Frank, are no killer of lambs.”

“Things happen to change a man. You weren’t either, before Kit.”

Haycroft was silent. He allowed the plane to move a little farther forward.

“You should know better than anyone, Haycroft, that, sometimes, the legal ways are not the effective ways. I’ve learned that from you. I applied it to your case, too. You just couldn’t be caught by normal means. So I had to come up with something special.”

“You don’t know the first thing about airplanes,” Haycroft sneered. The plane nosed out of the hangar.

“Vince has a pilot’s license. And I don’t need to tell you that a person can learn a lot when he’s investigating a homicide. For example, the NTSB showed me how little it might take to sabotage a plane.”

“I still don’t believe you.”

“Okay, my conscience is clear. Have a sweet plane ride, just like Lefebvre did all those years ago. And don’t forget to wave to Vince on your way out. He’s just to your left.”

As Haycroft passed, Vince smiled and waved. He was holding an opened five-pound bag of sugar.

“This is nonsense,” Haycroft said, as much to himself as to Frank.

But he thought of Lefebvre’s fall from the sky.

He taxied to the runaway that had been assigned to him that morning.

“Nice try, Frank,” Cassidy whispered to Frank.

“I’ll bet you’ve wondered what it was like for Lefebvre, that last flight,” Frank said, not giving up.

Haycroft was silent.

“I’ll bet you’ve asked yourself, ‘Was he calm when he heard the engine cough and then go silent? Did he panic and scream?’ Now you can find out what you’ll do in that situation. Personally, I’ve got you pegged as a screamer.”

Haycroft let the plane drift a few feet forward.

“Maybe you think you’re such a hot pilot, you’ll be able to land it without power.”

Haycroft increased power so that the engine droned louder.

“But then your emergency locator transmitter won’t work any better than his did.”

The plane did not move farther.

“And you never know what you’ll be flying over when you start to hear that first little sputter. Water, trees, rocky ground. I guess it won’t matter. It will all feel like a brick wall once you actually hit it.”

The plane turned and continued turning. As everyone in the hangar held their breath, Haycroft taxied back. He shut down the plane and climbed out, leaving his hostage within. His hands were over his head. Within seconds, the SWAT team had him down on the floor and Denise was free.

56

Saturday, July 15, 1:00 P.M.

Las Piernas Beach

He watched for a moment before going down the steps to the beach.

Seth and Irene and Jack were playing Frisbee, with Deke and Dunk doing their best to add a little chaos to the game. After a second interception, Jack put Seth on his shoulders. Seth giggled wildly.

Elena sat on a blanket, watching them. He continued down to the beach.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked Elena.

She looked up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun. “I don’t if you don’t.”

They sat in silence for a time, then he said, “Hitch did a little more talking.”

She kept watching her son.

“He said that Dane deposited money in your account by forging your endorsement on a check and threatened to say you had extorted it from him. And Hitch threatened to back him up. That you refused to keep the money, but were afraid no one would believe you.”

“I like your friend Jack,” she said. “He’s good with Seth.”

He looked out at the water. “Jack’s a good man,” he said quietly. “My best friend, really.”

She looked at him in surprise, but didn’t say anything.

“I should have started out by saying I’m sorry,” he said.

“You have nothing to apologize for. I wasn’t much of a cop.”

“There’s more to life than being a cop. You were surprised when I said Jack was my best friend. You thought, ‘Why didn’t he say Pete?’”

“Okay, I admit it, I did.”

“But even though I love Pete like a brother — it often is as if he’s a brother. An annoying one. He’s uneasy around me now, because I got pissed off with him about Lefebvre. But for Pete, being partners means we’ll have to work all that through. For him, just about all of life is about being a cop. I’m not like that, I guess.”

“Why not? You grew up in a cop family, right?”

He nodded. “My dad was more like Pete — true-blue. But I guess I don’t have their zeal. Sometimes, I take a step back, I don’t know that I really do any good.”

“Are you crazy?” she said.

“Take this week. What the hell did I accomplish? Lefebvre is no more alive than he was ten years ago. Whitey Dane is dead — but not because of anything the police did to stop him.”

“I hear Myles Volmer survived.”

“Yes — word is, just before the bomb went off, he stepped out into one of the hallways of the new building to see if he could sneak Dane in to see Kerr. Even if he had been killed, Derrick or some other asshole would take over Dane’s kingdom from here — and I doubt Hitch’s testimony is going to be able to deliver anything to change that.”

“That doesn’t mean that what you did this week is unimportant.”

“Worse than unimportant. Carlson hates me more than ever, Bredloe’s hardly able to speak, and the Wheeze is fawning over me — which is unbearable. We’ll probably lose the lab. The taxpayers just had a new building blown to hell. And as Internal Affairs learns more about Haycroft’s ‘experiment books,’ more lawsuits will be filed and violent offenders released. You ask me, I did more for the forces of evil than good this week.”

“You saved my son’s life in that fire.”

“You would have saved him — you would have gotten out without me. At best, I saved a guinea pig. And maybe if I had just played it the way the department asked me to, there never would have been a fire in your home. You’d have been living there in peace.”

She shook her head. “Whatever else you can say about my existence before that fire, I was not at peace. And I only recently realized how much that was costing Seth. You want to know what good you did this week? Look at my son. Right now. Look at him.”

Seth was searching through the sand. He picked up a flat rock and smiled at Jack. “Have you found one yet?”

“Okay,” Jack said. “I’m ready.”

“You first.”

Jack grinned and skipped his rock.

“Three!” Seth announced. “Now it’s my turn.” His face was a picture of concentration. He threw the rock exactly as Frank had shown him. “Four!”

Before Frank could say anything, they heard a voice call, “Hey, it’s Nereault!”

A group of four boys who appeared to be brothers came running over. Deke and Dunk positioned themselves at Seth’s side.

“They live in our condo complex,” Elena said. “The middle two are twins who are his age.”

They were peppering him with questions about the dogs, the fire at the condo, and asking if My Dog had survived.

“Yes,” Seth said, pointing to Frank, “my friend saved him. But my name isn’t Nereault anymore. It’s Lefebvre.”

“Is that true?” one asked Elena.

“Yes, it has always been true. Lefebvre was Seth’s father’s name.”

“My father was a hero. I’ll show you a videotape one day.”

“Say that name again,” the youngest pleaded.

“Lefebvre,” Seth said slowly. “Lefebvre. Lefebvre.”

“You haven’t done shit this week, have you?” Elena whispered to Frank.

“I forgot to tell you something,” Frank said. “I talked to Joe Koza, our questioned documents examiner, the other day. I asked him about a business card I had bagged at the scene of the crash. Turns out it was yours, with a handwritten number on the back.”

She looked up at him, searching his face.

“Lefebvre had it in his shirt pocket.” He put his hand over his heart. “He carried it right here.”

“Thanks,” she said, and quickly walked away.

Irene came up to him then, saying, “The kids want to watch the video, so I told their mom they could all come up to our place. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” he said, still watching Elena.

Irene followed his gaze and said, “Did you make her cry?”

“No, another cop did,” he said, then smiled as Jack began to follow her.

They led the boys up the stairs. Behind him, he heard a chant, a boy saying “Lefebvre” perfectly, four others getting better at it as they repeated, “Lefebvre, Lefebvre, Lefebvre, Lefebvre…”

The Looking Glass Man stood very still near the center of the cell. He did not want to touch any surface. The cell was filthy. No amount of complaining would improve conditions in this hellhole.

There was one small victory this evening. He had stolen a spoon during dinner. He took it out now and polished it with his shirttail. He polished it, whispering to himself as he did. Then he paused and looked at his reflected image — first convex, then concave.

Not very satisfactory.

Nothing was anymore.

He took hold of the shirttail again. As he polished and polished the spoon, more vigorously this time, he whispered a little louder:

“Lefebvre, Lefebvre, Lefebvre, Lefebvre…”

Acknowledgments

The research for this book required the help of a number of experts whose kindness in offering it should not result in their being blamed for any of my mistakes. I’m especially grateful to fellow author Detective Paul Bishop, Los Angeles Police Department; Officer John Pearsley, Jr., El Cajon Police Department; and Detective Bill Valles of the Long Beach Police Department. My special thanks to Detective Sergeant Ed Cavanaugh, Evidence Control, Long Beach Police Department, for his time and willingness to answer my many questions, and for all he does to keep the LBPD Evidence Control area free of the problems the fictional Sergeant Flynn faces.

Barry A. J. Fisher, author of Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation, director of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Crime Laboratory, and former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, is an inspiring teacher who’s generous with his time to writers and former students.

For the sections concerning Lefebvre’s plane, I am indebted to Jeff Rich, Senior Safety Investigator, National Transportation Safety Board, Southwest Regional Office, and to Manny Raefsky, who spent a career investigating aviation disasters.

SAR and cadaver dog trainer Beth Barkely provided help with passages concerning Bingle (but please don’t assume she’d break the rules Ben Sheridan breaks!) and also with the collapsed building scenes. I also had help regarding Ben and Bingle’s mountain searches — especially the wood rat’s nest — from the members of the Internet Listserv SAR-DOGS, and I thank Leo Delany, Travis County SAR; Fleta Kirk, MARK-9 SAR, Dallas; Bev Peabody, Placer County Sheriff’s SAR K9 Team; and Laura Rathe, California Rescue Dog Association for their assistance.

The technical rescue scenes and information about collapsed buildings grew out of conversations with Mark Ghilarducci, Federal Coordinating Officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a specialist in urban search and rescue; with Bob Caldon, Public Information Officer for the Long Beach Fire Department; and most especially with the help of Captain Jeff Reeb, Long Beach Fire Department.

I appreciate the time and effort given by forensic anthropologists Madeleine Hinkes — who allowed me to picture the crash site much more clearly — Paul Sledzik, Diane France, and Marilyn London; Sandra Cvar for guinea pig sound effects and for helping me catch errors in the manuscript; John G. Fischer for fight scenes; Jonathan Beggs for help with constructing the attic; Melodie Johnson Howe for reconstruction and encouragement. Timbrely Pearsley provided computer information, and Tonya Pearsley gave feedback on early drafts.

Shortly after I named a character Lefebvre, I began to hear five or six different pronunciations of his Quebecois name. Thanks are due to the members of Dorothy L, an Internet Listserv dedicated to mystery fiction, who kindly answered my plea for help with this matter, especially Nicole Leclerc, C. Tessier, Carole Epstein, Catherine, Gail, Marlyn, Nina, and Mary Jane. As Phil Lefebvre explains, there are several ways the owners of the name may say it, and I hope my readers in Quebec will find the one I chose to be believable for his background.

In addition to surviving jobs in television news, the real Marcia Wolfe-Gruber is a dear friend, Video Vixen, and kick in the pants — her husband, Dr. James Gruber, also my friend, and inventor of the Grubescope, answered medical questions.

One evening at the Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, I was introduced to Erin Declan Philbin, a speech and language pathologist who specializes in alternative augmentation communication — and soon enlisted her aid in understanding how Seth Randolph would communicate after his injuries. My thanks to Erin and the MLB.

Thanks also to Scott Carrier of the Los Angeles County Department of the Coroner for his assistance.

Marysue Rucci is an extraordinary editor whose commitment to this book and influence in helping it to outgrow an awkward adolescence have earned her my deepest gratitude and respect.

Tim Burke, you’re still the one.

About the Author

Jan Burke is the recipient of the Edgar Award for Best Novel of 1999 (Bones), the Macavity Award, the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award, and the Romantic Times’s Career Achievement Award for Contemporary Suspense. She lives in Southern California with her husband, Tim, and her dogs, Cappy and Britches. She is currently at work on her next novel. Her Web site is at www.janburke.com.

Also by Jan Burke

Goodnight, Irene

Sweet Dreams, Irene

Dear Irene

Remember Me, Irene

Hocus

Liar

Bones