Night passage

“Don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want a good cop in town.”

“That’s crazy,” she said. “I think you’re too hard on yourself.”

“I try not to be,” Jesse said.

The food came, and another drink apiece.

“The lobster’s in a damn hot dog roll,” Jesse said.

“I told you.”

“I didn’t think you meant an actual hot dog roll.”

They ate quietly for a few moments. The moon made a long shimmer on the harbor water. There was no wind. The salt smell was strong.

“You still feel co

“Yes. I’m working on it, but I still do.”

“She with someone else now?”

“She’s still living by herself, I think. But she’s in another guy’s bed a lot.”

“And that hurts,” Abby said.

Jesse nodded.

Abby smiled at him and drank from her martini. She wondered if he were passionate, if someone, herself for instance, could get past the containment.

“Maybe it would help if you got even a little,” she said.

Her eyes were very bright, and her body, so neatly and professionally clad, seemed somehow kinetic as she sat across the table.

“Couldn’t hurt,” he said.

Chapter 18

Charlie Buck got out of his Ford Bronco and walked across Route 59 toward the burned-out truck. A portly man with a pleasant face, receding hair, and rimless glasses, he was a detective from the Campbell County Sheriff’s Department. Yellow crime-scene tape defined the place. Half a dozen county vehicles were parked haphazardly around the perimeter of the tape, and more than half a dozen county employees were in the area.

“How many dead?” he said to Ray Vollmer.

“Coroner thinks only one,” Vollmer said. “Remains are a little scrambled.”

“Internal device?” Buck said, looking at the twisted metal skeleton.

“I’d say,” Vollmer answered. “No sign that he ran into anything. Got some bomb-squad people coming in from Casper.”

Buck nodded, looking at the scene along the empty roadway. Occasionally a car would appear and slow to look at the crime scene only to be waved on by one of the deputies stationed on the road for that purpose. Most of the time, however, they were alone with the silent wreckage under the high sky.

“No reason for him to have stopped here,” Buck said.

Vollmer shook his head.

“ ’Less he stopped to take a leak,” he said.

“Even so,” Buck said, “be hard for someone to rig a bomb on your car while you were pissing.”

“Coulda driven by and thrown it,” Vollmer said.

“Which would mean they were following him with a bomb waiting for the moment.”

“Yep.”

“More likely it was rigged earlier, with a timing device.”

“Could be,” Vollmer said. His eyes were wandering over the other deputies who were crisscrossing the area looking for anything that might be useful.

“If it was, would they have any way to know where he’d be when it went off?”

“They must have had a way to know he’d be in the car,” Vollmer said.

“Yeah. You can rig it to start when the ignition goes on. But what if his wife drove it. Could be a matter of weight.”

“So what if the wife and some kids got in.”

“Could be rigged for weight in the driver’s seat.”

“And what if it went off in the middle of Cheye

“Maybe they didn’t care,” Buck said.

“Nice people.”

“Or maybe somebody trailed him at a distance,” Buck said. “And when he got out in the middle of an empty stretch they beeped the bomb like you’d open a garage door.”

“The technology’s there for that,” Vollmer said.

“Yeah. What’s up there.”

“Piece of the truck,” Vollmer said, “and maybe some bits of the driver.” He made a face. “M.E. scraped most of that up and took it with him.”

Buck nodded.

“I’ll take a look,” he said.

He and Vollmer walked up the hill where the mule deer had grazed and looked at the twisted hood and part of the foam-plastic dashboard. He squatted on his heels and looked more closely at the dashboard. Riveted into it was a metal band bearing the serial number of the truck.

“A little luck,” he said to Vollmer, and nodded at the band.

“Take a while to trace it,” Vollmer said.

“We got a while,” Buck said.

Chapter 19

Lou Burke came into Jesse’s office with two cups of coffee. Captain Cat was asleep on top of the file cabinet. He didn’t stir when Burke came in. Burke put one cup down on the desk for Jesse, and took his to the window and looked out.

“Anthony’s cruiser,” Burke said. “He took it home last night after work and parked it in front of his house. Somebody spray-painted the windshield.”

Jesse got up with his coffee and came to the window and stood beside Burke. In the parking lot below was one of the Paradise cruisers. Clumsily sprayed in blue onto the windshield was the word SLUT.

“I had it towed in,” Burke said. “It wouldn’t look good to have Anthony drive it in peeking around the graffiti.”

Jesse sipped some of the coffee and stared down at the cruiser.

“ ‘Slut,’ ” Jesse said. “Maybe it’s personal.”

Burke shrugged and didn’t say anything.

“Have Perkins go over it,” Jesse said. “Probably won’t find much, but it’ll be good practice for him.”

Burke nodded.

“And ask Anthony to come talk to me,” Jesse said.

Burke nodded again and left the office. Jesse stood for a while at the window drinking his coffee. He watched as Peter Perkins, the crime scene specialist, came out with his kit. While Jesse watched, Perkins took pictures of the car and dusted it for prints. He scraped a small sample of the paint off the windshield and dropped it into a small envelope. Probably a hundred people had had access to the cruiser in the last month, Jesse knew. The prints, to the extent there were any usable ones, would mean almost nothing. Still, the department had an evidence specialist; if he didn’t go over the car, what was he getting paid for?

Anthony DeAngelo came into the office and Jesse turned from the window.

“You wanted to see me, Jesse?”

“Yeah. What can you tell me about the paint job?”

“Nothing much. I parked it outside my house, you know where I live, up on Archer Ave, after I got off at eleven last night. We always take the cruiser home on that shift unless we’re turning it over.”

“I know,” Jesse said. “That’s no problem.”

“Anyway I went in, my wife made me a sandwich, and I had a beer and watched the end of the Sox game from Seattle and hit the rack. In the morning I went out and there it was.”

“Talk to any of the neighbors?” Jesse said.

“No, I, to tell you the truth I was a little embarrassed.”

“Yeah, I can see why you would be. On the other hand, be less embarrassing if we catch the perp,” Jesse said. “Could it be personal. I mean, ‘slut’ is sort of a fu

“You saying it could be about my wife or something?”

“No. I’m asking. Your wife got any enemies?”

“No. And she’s no slut either.”

“Had to ask, Anthony.”

“Sure. Probably some kid mad at me for rousting him off the wall, or something. You know what assholes kids are.”

Jesse nodded.

“Ask around,” he said. “See what you learn.”

“Sure, Jesse, I’m sorry it happened.”

“Not your fault,” Jesse said, and DeAngelo left the room.

Talking to Anthony hadn’t told him anything. He hadn’t thought it would. Asking around probably wouldn’t tell him anything either. They would probably never know who sprayed their car, anyway. Hardly the crime of the century. Still, all the buttons had to be pushed, otherwise what were the buttons there for? Lot of motions to go through in police work, Jesse thought. He picked up Captain Cat from the top of the file cabinet and held him in his arms and scratched him thoughtfully behind the ear.