Copycat

"He's not here, sir," the woman said.

"What?"

"It was getting late so he decided to get a hotel room for the night."

"Which one's he staying at?"

"I think it's the Sutton I

"You have the number?"

"I do, sure. But he's not there right now."

"Where is he?"

"He went out to di

Twenty minutes from town, driving at ninety.

Altman tried again to call Fletcher but the sergeant wasn't answering. There wasn't much Altman could do except try to reason with the sergeant, have him give himself up, plead with him not to kill Carter, too. He prayed that the cop hadn't already done so.

Another try. Still no answer.

Heskidded the squad car through the intersection at Route 202, nearly sideswiping one of the ubiquitous dairy tankers in these parts.

"Okay, that was exciting," Randall whispered, removing his sweaty palm from the dashboard as the truck's horn brayed in angry protest behind them.

Altman was about to call Fletcher's phone again when a voice clattered over the car's radio. "All units. Reports of shots fired on Route One-twenty-eight just west of Ralph's Grocery. Repeat, shots fired. All units respond."

"You think that's them?"

"We're three minutes away. We're about to find out." Altman pushed the accelerator to the floor and they broke into three-digit speed.

After a brief, harrowing ride, the squad car crested a hill. Randall called breathlessly, "Look!"

Altman could see Bob Fletcher's police interceptor half on, half off the road. He skidded to a stop nearby and the two officers jumped out. Wallace's car-which had been hitching an illegal ride on their light bar and siren-braked to a stop fifty feet behind them and the reporter, too, jumped out, ignoring the detective's shout to stay down.

Altman felt Randall grip his arm. The young officer was pointing at the shoulder about fifty feet away. In the dim light, they could just make out the form of Andrew Carter lying facedown in the dust.

Oh no! They weren't in time; the sergeant had added the author to the list of his victims.

"Look out for Fletcher," he whispered to a spooked Josh Randall. "He's around here someplace and we know he's armed."

Altman ran toward the author's body. As he did, he happened to glance to his left and gasped. There was Bob Fletcher on the ground, holding a shotgun.

He shouted to Randall, "Look out!" and dropped flat. But as he swung the gun toward Fletcher he noted that the sergeant wasn't moving. The detective hit the man with his flashlight beam. Fletcher's eyes were glazed over and there were two bullet holes in his chest.

Wallace was crouching over Carter. The reporter called, "He's alive!"

The detective rose, pulled the scattergun out of Fletcher's lifeless hands, and trotted over to the author. The man's face was bloody and streaked with dirt, his clothes torn. Lying on the ground nearby was a black revolver, the sort that Fletcher had carried.

"Are you shot?"

Carter winced and blinked.

"Andy? Are you shot?"

In response, the author shook his head. "No. But I think I broke my arm. I can't feel anything in my fingers."

"There's an ambulance on its way. Just stay where you are. Don't try to get up."

"My leg… man, it hurts."

"Just stay still, Andy. Don't move Tellme what happened."

Gasping, Carter said, "Fletcher said let's go to di

"Ah."

"Right," Carter continued. "He said he hadn't read it. He lied to us. That meant he had to be the strangler. And he was taking me someplace to kill me." Carter coughed and laid his head back on the ground. A moment later he continued, "When he slowed down to turn into that side road I grabbed his pistol and jumped out of the car. I thought I could run into the forest and hide. But I hurt myself landing and couldn't get up. Fletcher stopped and got the shotgun out of the trunk. He came after me and I fired a couple of

timesand then passed out "He looked at the body up the road.

He whispered, "I didn't want to kill him. I didn't have any choice."

Over a crest in the road Altman could see flashing lights and hear sirens, growing steadily louder. As Randall ran toward them, gesturing wildly, Altman collected the weapons. He glanced at Bob Fletcher's body. Murdering Howard Desmond and trying to murder Andy Carter-well, those had been to cover up his original crimes. But what had been the sergeant's motive for killing the two women in Greenville last year? Maybe the anger at being left by his wife had boiled over. Maybe he'd had a secret affair with one of the victims, which had turned sour, and he'd decided to stage her death as a random act of violence.

And maybe, Altman reflected, unlike in a mystery novel, they'd never know what had driven the man to step over the edge into the dark world of the killers he'd once hunted.

The doctors kept Andrew Carter in the hospital overnight, though it seemed that the flying leap from the car-as dramatic and frightening as it probably seemed to him-hadn't caused any serious damage.

The next morning he checked out of Greenville Memorial and stopped by the police department to say goodbye to Altman and Randall and to sign a formal statement about the events of the previous night.

"Got the latest from Forensics," Altman said, and explained that Fletcher's prints were all over the bayonet and thata search of the sergeant's house revealed several items-stockings and lingerie- that had been taken from the homes of the victims, leaving no doubt that Fletcher was the Greenville Strangler. Most people in town, certainly everyone in the police department, were shocked at this news. But Quentin Altman had to admit that one of the things he'd learned in his twenty-plus years of being a cop was that you never really knew what was in anybody's heart but your own.

He chatted with the author for a few moments but their conversation quickly became merely the superficial exchange between two men whose sole reason for contact no longer existed, and Carter finally looked at his watch, saying that he'd better be going. Altman walked him outside.

They were leaving the police station when Gordon Wallace loped up to them. "Hot off the presses." He handed a copy of theTribune to Carter. On the front page was Wallace's story about the solving of the Greenville Strangler case. "Keep that," Wallace said."A souvenir."

Thanking him, Carter folded the paper up, slipped it under his arm, and walked to his car.

Altman observed that the author seemed in somewhat better spirits than when he'd arrived. The melancholy remained in his eyes, but the detective sensed that he'd found a bit of i

Just before the man climbed into his Toyota, Altman called out, "Oh, one thing, Andy-how's that book of yours end? Do the police ever find the hunter?"

Carter caught himself as he was about to answer. He gave a grin. "You know, Detective, if you want to find that out, I'm afraid you're just going to have to buy yourself a copy." He dropped into the front seat, fired the car up, and pulled into the street, offering a brief wave goodbye.