On the TV, it was the same stuff, and they even had the dog’s body being removed from the grave by the two black men. There was a close-up of its body bag, half-deflated, that he had carried from the morgue to the truck that strange, mad day. Hard to believe it was only forty-eight hours ago. It seemed to belong to some other geological era.
“And now this,” said the CNN anchorman, a stern, commanding black man who would have looked comfortable on the bridge of a destroyer. “FBI forensic technicians have confirmed from dental records the identity of the body found in the ruins of Aurora Baptist, near Blue Eye, Arkansas, as that of Bob Lee Swagger, the Marine hero who allegedly shot at the president of the United States and killed the archbishop of El Salvador and has been for five weeks the most wanted man in America. The cause of death was a self-administered gunshot wound through the roof of the mouth and into the brain as the flames closed in.”
So, Nick thought, you put the gun muzzle in your mouth and pulled the trigger.
It was fitting that no man had brought Bob the Nailer down but himself, by his own hand, sealing his secrets off forever.
“Well,” Nick said to nobody in the empty room except the clock, the anchorman, and the can of beer, “we put him away. Hooray for us.”
Julie Fenn held herself tight and somehow got through the day. There was still a wisp of a hope or a prayer or something, some little thing. She drove home through the fiery radiance of the Arizona twilight clinging to it. But that night came the evidence of the dental report, and that was the end. That was that.
And somehow she got through the next day, too. It wasn’t easy but she was a strong woman and she had plenty of years of practice holding things in. But enough was enough. She called in the next day and said she was having family difficulties and would have to have a day or so off. Dr. Martin said that was fine, he understood, though under his voice there was a layer that said he didn’t. She couldn’t care. Dr. Martin was twenty-six; he needed Julie a lot more than Julie needed him. Who would run the clinic if she didn’t?
So she sat in her trailer and tried to cry. She found she could not cry. In some way or other, she had moved beyond crying. She could not weep and she could not feel relief. It had always been possible, from that first second the knock on the door had come and she’d pulled it open to see a man who’d haunted her dreams, whom she’d loved and hated through twenty long years of nights, that her whole life could be pulled apart. She could have been arrested for being an accessory after the fact or something like that; at the very least there’d be that horrible kind of modern fame where every creep in the world thinks he owns you and has a right to your inner life, and you see the same bad picture of yourself in a thousand newspapers, and none of the people trying to talk to you or take your picture give a real damn about you. You’re just that week’s meat.
But to know that wouldn’t happen now, that dead men tell nothing and indict no witnesses, offered no solace at all. She just wanted Bob, her Henry Thoreau with a rifle, the funny way he had said, “He went and lived by himself too.” It had cracked her up, that little proud squeak of knowledge about a New England transcendentalist from the world’s best manhunter.
So nice to have a man around the house.
She turned on the television, because the news was on. NBC. Tom Brokaw looked earnest and troubled tonight. He was telling Bob’s story for the umpteenth time, the tragic story of the Marine hero who was the son of a Marine hero and had gone tragically astray in his bitterness, and yet who had died with such quixotic grandeur that a little part of everybody had to admire him. It was the dog angle that would propel Bob to incredible national celebrity, if he could be, in his current state as America’s most wanted man, even more celebrated.
“And so,” Brokaw concluded, the TV cheap irony tone coming into his syrupy voice, “a man of violence who allegedly killed a bishop has died to commit an innocent animal to a final act of dignity.”
Other stories came on; dog lovers had gathered a petition to make certain the dog was buried where Bob had meant to bury it. There was an interview with some general in the Salvadoran army, taking pleasure that the archbishop’s murderer had paid the ultimate price but somewhat upset that he was acquiring such a patina of sainthood for his kindness to a dead animal when he’d actually killed the animal himself and then the archbishop. He was asked about the Panther Battalion massacre and he said they were making good progress on that investigation.
Next, NBC flashed to Blue Eye and showed an interview with Sam Vincent, a lawyer, and he wondered why the FBI and the state police had to go and kill Bob, since no one had proved in a court of law that Bob was guilty. But the reporter kept wanting to get back to the dog, the dog, the dog, how much Bob had loved the dog.
“Oh,” said Sam, finally, “yep, I s’pose he did, but Bob had a damn practical streak and if the dog were dead, I can’t for the life of me figger out why he went and did such a fool thing.”
The old man blinked into the camera.
“He weren’t no fool,” said Sam Vincent, “and you can put that in the damn bank.” Then he spat into the dirt and walked away.
It puzzled her too, and she turned it over in her head that night, trying to make sense of it. It was a sleepless night. Once, she drifted off, and came awake an hour later in the dark with her head racing with memories.
“Bob? Bob Lee?” she called into the darkness. There was no response. She heard the ticking, the random noise, the sound of a car on the road, and far off in the desert, the cry of a coyote. But there was nothing else. Or was there? She felt something, a presence, or maybe just a sense of being watched. She shivered, and reached under the bed to the Smith & Wesson .32 camp gun, but nothing came of the feeling that night.
Nick sat in front of the tube the whole damned evening, drinking more and seeing nothing. Around eleven, not drunk but slightly blurry, he ambled to bed. That night he had a dream, involving Bob Lee Swagger and Myra and somehow also that terrifying crash down the mountainside, with the green branches beating at the windshield until the windshield went. Then he saw the door post as it came forward and hit him in the skull.
Myra! he screamed in his dream, Myra, I didn’t mean it.
When he got out of the cab and reached for his little .38, he saw Bob Lee Swagger and Myra dancing on the green grass. Myra was barefoot and lively as a country tune. Her whole face radiated pleasure.
Stop or I’ll shoot, he screamed, the little pistol tight in his big hand. Then he fired. In the dream he fired just as surely as in real life he had not, and Myra’s back spurted black blood and she went down, crying, Nick, you killed my spine, you killed my spine. And Howdy Duty was there telling him what a terrible job he’d done, how he’d wrecked his career. And Bob was dancing away into the flames.
Nick sat up, blinking. He was covered with sweat. Someone was screaming. It was himself.
After that, he had trouble getting back to sleep, though he may have dozed some around dawn. He finally awakened for good about eight-thirty in the morning, dissociated and hung over. His head ached; he needed a shave. This was life after the Bureau. Another pointless day stretched before him. He had no will to go on, but he decided out of habit to shower and have a cup of coffee. Then he put on a summer-weight suit and a white shirt, just as if he were going to the office.
I will go to the office, he decided. He had a desk to clear out, farewells to be said, and there was some paperwork to be attended to. It was the one place that made him happy and though the happiness it gave him now was phony, he realized, he could not deny it. All right, I’ll go, he thought. Have to anyway, sooner or later. Might as well be now.
Nick drove downtown and parked in the usual lot and went upstairs by the usual elevator. God, it was so familiar. He couldn’t believe he’d never do this again. He walked in, through the foyer and the door marked GOV’T EMPLOYEES ONLY and down the corridor. In all the offices people were already busy. Clerks filed or worked at computer terminals, secretaries t
yped, special agents bustled about importantly. Nick knew the rhythms of the place, knew exactly what the men’s room smelled like, and which of the three people who tended the coffee machine made the best coffee, and when the supervisory agent would be in and how long he took for lunch and what happened when he came in and what happened when he did not, and who was testifying in court that week and who was not. He knew the fastest way out; he knew where the rifles and the M-16’s were stored for SWAT usage; he knew who was designated SWAT team leader on the Reactive Team that week (it was a rotating duty); he knew who was new to the office and who was due to be shuffled soon, and who was producing and who wasn’t and—subtly different—who was thought to be producing but actually wasn’t.
And he loved every damn bit of it.
He entered the big room where the agents sat at their desks. In a police station it would have been called a Squad Room, but here it was simply known as the bull pen. It was surprisingly empty today, because of course Howdy Duty had drawn primarily on New Orleans agents to staff the big stalk in Arkansas. Nick went to his desk, took his key out and opened it.
On a normal day, this was when he’d take off his pistol and put it in the upper-right drawer. Today he had no pistol.
Instead, he opened the big central drawer. So little to show. A few files from cases he’d vetted for others, a few pencils, a few notepads. That was it. It was so empty.
Ahead of him, tacked on the burlap of the cubicle wall, was a picture of Myra, taken five years ago. It was an extreme close-up and she was smiling in the sunlight. You couldn’t see her disability. She looked like a bright, pretty young woman who had her whole life ahead of her.
On the desk itself was the Annotated Federal Code and the huge green Federal Bureau of Investigation Regulations and Procedures, plus assorted carbonized forms for reporting incidents, for logging investigative reports, for filing for warrants, and a small pile of pink message slips, which, riffled through quickly, revealed nothing at all worth noting.
“Nick?”
He looked up. It was a guy named Fred Sandford, another special agent. Nick didn’t know him well; he hadn’t made the trip to Arkansas.
“Hi ya, Fred.”
“Hey, just wanted to say, was real sorry to hear how it went down out there for you. I’m sure there was nothing you could do.”
“I just did my best,” he said, “and it didn’t quite pan out.”
“Wanted to tell you, my brother is a police chief in Red River, Idaho. You always were a good detective, Nick. I could give him a call. Maybe he’s looking for someone.”
“Ah, thanks. I’m not sure at this point I’m going to stick with law enforcement. Too much hassle for too little satisfaction and too little money.”
“Sure. Got you. If you change your mind—”
“I appreciate it, Fred, really I do. I’m thinking about going back to school, getting my master’s, and maybe taking up teaching. Something nice and quiet.”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
With that, he was alone again. He took the picture off the wall, retrieved his abortive LANZMAN file, hoping that one last scan might reveal a pattern where nothing else had. But it was another big zero. The reason why that poor guy was whacked in that motel room near the airport so horribly all that time ago would remain completely unknown, RamDyne or no RamDyne. Somebody else got away with it. Too bad. You were trying to reach me, and somebody put a big finger on you with about a million bucks worth of electronic gear, and it’s just going to fall through the cracks, like seventy-one percent of the crimes in this country, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
Hap’s secretary, an officious woman named Doris Drabney, came by next. There was no sympathy in her eyes or face, but then there was no sanctimony either. There was simply nothing. “You’ve got some paperwork to sign,” she said.
In spite of himself, Nick was slightly frightened by her.
“You mean about the, um—”
“The suspension, yes. Please stop by my desk on the way out.” And she turned and left.
Nick watched her march off. There was something rigid and jointless in the way she moved. She was one of those people who’d just let the Bureau sink into her life until it filled her whole personality. Until it became her personality. She was a lifer in the worst possible way, so gone in the life no other was even possible.
Well, he thought, that won’t happen to me. God knows what will, but that won’t.
And suddenly he was out of things to do.
He looked down at his meager cardboard box of belongings. Then he looked around for a friend, a colleague, someone to embrace or to give him a look or to signify that he was still loved, or, hell, that he was still alive. But everywhere in the office the other agents seemed preoccupied. A kind of hush had fallen over them.
Yeah, sure, I get it, he thought.
He went to find Doris Drabney, sitting stiffly at her desk.
“Yes, yes, you’ve got, let’s see, you’ve got to sign this and this and … oh, yes, this.”
Numbly he signed the forms. One had to do with his Government Credit Union account, one had to do with his GEICO insurance policy, which would cease to be in effect thirty days from today, and one required a formal acknowledgment that he was being placed on indefinite leave without pay pending a meeting of the review board in re his case blah blah blah.
“Is that it?”
“That’s it. You’ll be notified of the hearing.”
I’m history, he thought.
“And your last paycheck is being held until you return the pistol.”
“What?”
“Nick, that Smith & Wesson Model 1076 you lost during the incident of the speech. That was government property. Remember, you filed a lost-line-of-duty item report. And it was turned down? I sent the response to you in Arkansas. You’re being billed for the pistol. It’s four hundred fifty-five dollars.”
He just looked at her.
It’s probably an ingot mulched in with Bob Swagger’s bones, he thought. Or somewhere in a soggy swamp, or in some ocean somewhere, wherever Bob had been before he died.
He turned to leave.
“Oh, and you’re supposed to see Sally Ellion in Records, too.”
Ach! Sally! She was a slight, pretty, very Southern girl with what people all called “personality”; she’d had a hundred boyfriends in her time, and was always dumping one for another and then the new one. He’d always liked her somehow, even if she scared him a little bit. What on earth could she want now?
“What for?”
“I haven’t the slightest.”
So, it came down to this last thing. He went to find the young woman, who of course was on break, and had to wait for half an hour feeling stupid and preposterous until she came back from the cafeteria. At last she hove into sight, beaming pep, with a small roll in her shoulders as she walked. She’d probably had a date every night in her life, Nick thought; her Saturday nights were one long festival. She probably dated quarterbacks and shortstops. Looking at her, he sank a bit deeper into his depression.
“Hi, uh, Sally, uh, someone said—”
“Nick, hi! Did I keep you waiting? Gosh, I’m sorry. Those fingerprint techs; they just wouldn’t let me get out of the cafeteria.”
Great. He’d been hung up here like a fish on a line, Howard’s newest trophy, for the office to admire, while those lazy clowns were trying to make time with Sal.
“Well, anyway,” she went on. “I have this thing for you. It just came in today. Where have you been? I called out to Arkansas yesterday and they said you’d gone, but you didn’t check in last night.”
“Uh, I sort of awarded myself a night off. You know, a little R and R, for a job well done.”
“Shhhhh,” she said. “Don’t say that out loud. Someone might hear you and not realize you were joking.”
“I’m beyond hurt at this point. Anyway, what’s up, I really have to—”
“Well, it’s o
nly partially official. I wanted to say something to you. I just wanted to tell you how much I admired what you did with your wife. How you stuck with her. I think that’s neat. Not many men would have done such a thing.”
“Oh,” said Nick, taken aback. “Oh, well, it seemed like the kind of thing you sort of had to do, that’s all. You know, I don’t like to quit on things. I like to stick with them. That’s all. Stubborn. Stupid, but stubborn, just like a mule.”
She laughed.
“Well,” she said, “that’s neat. Not many like that. Lots of people just quit on you.”
“Ummm,” Nick grunted, having run into a conversational brick wall and splatted against it. “Yeah. Ummm.”
“Anyhow,” she said, after a minute when it became obvious first of all that she wanted him to say something like, “Gee, why don’t we go out for lunch or a drink sometime?” and second of all that he didn’t begin to possess the vocabulary for such a thing, “anyhow, I thought you might want to know, it came.”
Her eyes were bright and sweet. She was so pretty. It angered him that she should be so pretty on the last day of his career and she was just prattling on about things he didn’t understand.
Nick blinked.
“Huh?”
“You know. Don’t you remember the last time I talked to you?”
He couldn’t begin to put it together again in his head.
“You wanted that file from Washington, but they wouldn’t send it because you weren’t cleared.”
He remembered asking her about it in the hallway at some point or other.
“Yeah?”
“Well, I put you in for the clearance.”
“You put me in?” he asked, incredulously. “But that needs a supervisor’s signature and, uh, I mean—”
“Oh, Mr. Utey signed it. He wasn’t sure what it was, and anyway he was so busy I don’t think he cared and you were his right-hand man and everything.”
It suddenly occurred to him with a stupendous flash that Sally Ellion was so busy being the office’s favorite girl that she hadn’t caught on quite yet to the fact that he’d gotten the sack.