The three remaining members of the Camel Club simply looked at each other.
"Screw him," exclaimed Reuben. "So how do we find Oliver?"
She gazed at him. "The fox is on the hunt, right?"
"Right. So?"
"So we follow the fox."
"You have a plan?"
"I always have a plan."
"Annabelle, girl, I love you."
CHAPTER 24
STONE WAS ABOUT TO APPROACH Danny Riker when someone else appeared from the other side of the graveyard. Stone shrank down behind the stone wall as the man stepped clear of the shadows and into the moonlight. At first, Stone thought the big fellow was going to attack Danny, so stealthy was his approach. Indeed, Stone was preparing to spring out when the other man gently touched Danny on the shoulder.
"Come on, boy, no good you being here."
Danny looked up into the face of Sheriff Tyree, who bent down to help him up.
"Not right. Ain't right," Danny sputtered, as he leaned against the large frame of the lawman.
"A lot in life isn't fair, Danny. But you can't let it eat you up, boy."
"I want to die."
Tyree slapped Danny across the face. "Don't let me never hear you say that again, Danny. The girl's dead. Nothing you can do will bring her back."
He pointed at the dirt. "You call that fair?"
"You get your head on straight. She had a choice. She killed herself. This ain't doing nobody any good. Now you want me to give you a ride home?"
Danny wiped his face and shook his head. "You're a stupid man if you think that," he snapped.
Tyree studied him. "You know something I don't?"
"I know lots you don't. So what? Ain't worth shit what I know."
"I mean about Debby?"
Danny dropped his head and his defiant tone. "No. I don't know nothing. Just talking is all. Talking and saying nothing, really."
"You said I was stupid if I believed that. What, that she killed herself?"
"You putting words in my mouth now, Sheriff," Danny said, his face whitening a bit.
"I just want to hear what you have to say."
In response, Danny turned and walked off.
"Danny, you come back here."
"Stop yelling, Sheriff, you'll wake the dead."
"Right now, boy."
"I'm not a boy, Tyree, in case you hadn't noticed." Danny turned to look at him. "And unless you want to put a bullet in my back, I'm going home."
Tyree laid a hand on top of his pistol as Stone stooped as low as he could. He didn't want to give either man a chance to spot him.
He waited for Danny to disappear down the road and then watched as Tyree stalked back to his patrol car parked nearby and drove back toward town.
Should I just leave now? Why wait until morning?
Yet Stone walked to town and got a room at the tiny house Danny had recommended. He climbed the stairs, put his bag away and sat on the soft bed and stared out the window toward the main street of Divine.
What he'd seen at the graveyard had puzzled him. Had Danny been in love with Debby Randolph? Had she killed herself? Why had Danny left and then come back?
"It's not my problem," Stone finally said aloud, surprising himself with the force of the words. He checked his watch. It was nearly ten o'clock. He had a small transistor radio in his bag. He pulled it out and turned it on. It took some twisting of the tuner knob, but he finally found a station that had a national news roundup program at the top of the hour. He sat back on his bed. The murders weren't the lead story, but they were a close second to another salmonella outbreak in some vegetables.
The announcer's voice seemed breathless as he recounted the latest on the high-level D.C. killings.
"The FBI and Homeland Security have combined their efforts in this investigation. The murders of Senator Roger Simpson and intelligence head Carter Gray are definitely connected and are apparently tied to events from decades ago when both men worked at the CIA. The killer is reportedly a former colleague of the two men and was believed to have died years ago. Authorities are watching all airports, train and bus stations and border crossings. We will bring you more developments as they break in what is shaping up to be the manhunt of the decade."
Stone turned off the radio, rose and stared out the window once more. They hadn't announced the name of the killer, but they might as well have.
They know it was John Carr and they know what I look like and they have every escape route bottled up.
He had never really dwelled on his eventual capture. He even imagined that he might make it to New Orleans, start a new life and live out the rest of his years in peaceful obscurity. But that was apparently not to be. The one thing that bothered him was that everyone would believe him to be a criminal. Was revenge always wrong? Was righting an injustice outside the law never condonable? He knew the answer to those questions. He would never have the luxury of facing a judge and jury. They would never let him because then he could tell his side of the story. No, that could never be allowed.
Stone put on his jacket. He needed air. He needed to think. Could he even leave Divine now? He should call Reuben, but he would have to wait until tomorrow. Now he just wanted to walk in the darkness and peace of Divine. And think.
He reached the main street, turned right and walked at a brisk pace. He soon left the little downtown area behind. The trees grew thicker and the lights of the small houses that dotted the perimeter of Divine finally disappeared.
Five minutes later Stone had decided to turn back when the scream reached him. It was from up ahead. It was a man. And he sounded beyond terrified.
Stone started to run.
CHAPTER 25
AFTER LEAVING Leroy's place in Maryland Knox did not drive home. One question had been bothering him so badly that he had to have an answer. He headed not for Langley, but for a nondescript building in the heart of Washington. He'd called ahead and was admitted without issue, what with his military background and government credentials.
He entered a vast room filled with long, scarred tables where gray-haired men, probably grizzled vets of past wars, along with some bow-tied historians, sat reading through piles of yellowed documents. It was windowless and seemed nearly airless as well. As Knox looked around, the one emotion he sensed was misery. This place contained the recorded and too brief lives and violent deaths of far more people than one would ever want to think about.
The main collection center for U.S. Army records was in St. Louis. Unless you were next of kin, to get access to an enlisted person's complete service record there required either that person's permission or a court order. However, Knox had learned something unknown to most people: The St. Louis facility didn't have all the records. There were some in D.C.-and, indeed, copies of some of the ones housed in St. Louis. And they weren't simply records of enlisted personnel. Here were housed documents chronicling America 's wars. That was why many historians came here to do research, many with FOIA requests in hand, since the military only reluctantly revealed anything about itself.
Many of the records he wanted to look at had not been computerized yet, but some had. Still, after Knox showed his creds, the attendant was able to pull the boxes he wanted very quickly and showed him how to access the computerized files. His butt parked in front of a PC, Knox started with the digital ones first, flicking from screen to screen. He had a hunch and he wanted to see if it was true. What had been bugging him was why Macklin Hayes would want to get to John Carr so badly. If Carr had killed Simpson and Gray, he was now on the run. He was not going to hold a press conference and start blabbing about secrets from the past. Knox could understand Hayes wanting him to nail Carr before the police did. If the cops caught up to Carr he might start talking in exchange for a deal. But Hayes had also said that the cops had been put on a short leash on this investigation, giving Knox, in essence, a clear field in which to operate. And even if the police somehow got to Carr first, the CIA could, like Hayes had said, just swoop in and take him away under cover of national security interests. Carr would never even reach a press conference or make a phone call to his lawyer.