In the depot things also appeared to be settling down. Several passengers had sustained minor injuries in the panic to rush off the bus, but they were being treated by EMTs. For a time tempers had flared. People seated in front hadn’t seen what happened and were annoyed by the delay. Traumatized folks toward the rear refused to reboard until the bus was thoroughly searched and no other snakes were discovered. Raymer had found the whole scene dispiriting, a tableau of human selfishness, and when two Schuyler cops arrived, he was happy for them to take charge.
Two ambulances had been summoned. William Smith had been loaded into the first, and it had already departed. No siren, nor any need for one. Raymer had stayed with the man as he convulsed, getting off the bus only when that stopped abruptly, midspasm, and he felt his stomach rise. The second ambulance was for the woman Raymer had steamrolled on the platform. He remembered only jostling her, but witnesses reported that he’d knocked her completely off her feet with what they described as a forearm shiver. Raymer had glimpsed her swollen, dazed face as the gurney was eased into the second ambulance. No sooner had it backed out, siren blaring, than Justin’s animal-control van pulled into the same space. Taking note of the box sitting on the curb, he came over to Raymer’s SUV. “That my snake?” he said, squatting down next to it.
“Make it so,” Raymer told him.
Justin checked the clasps, then carried the box to the van, where he put on rubber gloves and grabbed a pair of long-handled tongs before opening it. When the snake curled into a multicolored ball around the metal shafts, Raymer had to look away.
“Okay, then,” Justin said when he returned. “I’ll go through the coach to make sure there’s not another snake.”
“There isn’t,” Raymer told him.
“I know, but it’s the protocol. And it’ll make the passengers feel better. Stick around, all right?”
Raymer promised he would. At which point he must have dozed off, because he jolted awake when Charice’s voice crackled over the radio. “Chief?” she said, sounding frantic. “You there?”
Don’t answer, Dougie advised. He’d been silent since they were both on the bus, and Raymer had even dared hope he might be gone, but no such luck. Let her stew.
“Something just came over the Schuyler police scanner. A disturbance at the bus station? Is that you?”
Raymer reached for the handset. You do and I’ll bite you myself, Dougie cautioned.
Oh, please. Raymer’s hand was poised over the receiver. With whose mouth?
Okay, fine. I can’t literally bite you.
“They’re reporting Bath’s chief of police is on the scene,” Charice was saying. “There’s been a fatality? Please tell me that’s not you.”
I really have to take this.
Wrong. The fact that she wants to talk to you doesn’t necessarily mean you want to talk to her.
But I do want to talk to her.
No, let’s be honest. You want to see the tattoo on her ass. For once in your life, play your cards right.
Raymer saw that Justin was returning. “Is it true?” he said, going back into his crouch. “What somebody told me inside? You picked the snake up with your bare hand and put it back in the box?”
Dougie chortled at this. Yeah, right. He picked it up.
Raymer ignored him, preferring to converse with an actual human being. “Not very smart, I admit.”
“Well,” Justin said, “FYI? What you grabbed was a coral snake. One of the most lethal reptiles in the world.”
“How come it didn’t bite me right when he opened the box? It had the chance.”
Justin shrugged. “Educated guess? The box was in the guy’s lap, right? Next to the AC vent? The cold air probably lowered its internal temperature. It took a couple seconds for it to become alert. Otherwise…”
“Right,” Raymer said, feeling his stomach churn again.
“You probably don’t care about my opinion, but that was a hell of a job you did on that bus.”
Dougie snorted.
“What’ll happen to the snake?”
“Well, corals are very valuable. Some herpetologist will want it.”
“Chief?” Charice was on the radio again.
Justin straightened up. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
Raymer nodded and picked up the handset. No objection from Dougie this time. “Charice?”
“Thank God,” she said, sounding genuinely relieved, maybe even a little bit more than relieved, and Raymer smiled. “Are you okay?”
“Define ‘okay.’ ”
“Unharmed.”
“I’m good. The mysterious William Smith, however, is no longer among the living.”
“The snake dude? You found him?”
“He was our hit-and-run driver from last night.”
Her voice became quiet now, almost reverential. “You had to shoot him?”
“No, he had a snake on the bus, and it bit him.”
“Who says there’s no justice?”
When Raymer offered no response, she said, “Chief? Are you going to turn this good thing into a bad thing?”
“A man died, Charice.”
“Yeah. A very bad man.”
“Also, I hurt a woman. She got in my way, and I knocked her down. They just took her away in an ambulance.”
“But you didn’t mean to.”
“No, but I’m still a menace. I’m losing what’s left of my mind. There’s a voice in my head telling me what to do.”
“Don’t listen to it.”
“Not an option,” he told her, beginning to understand that, like it or not, he was stuck with Dougie. Short of being struck by lightning a second time — and the odds against this were famously long — he had no idea how this alter ego might be banished. “Besides. This voice? It’s smarter than I am. It told me to go to the bus station. And I never would’ve found Gaghan in the woods without its help.”
“Chief? This voice? If it’s in your head, it’s you. You can’t be smarter than you.”
“It’s telling me not to trust you, Charice.”
This seemed to bring her up short. “Me?” she said.
“Can I trust you, Charice? You’re not in cahoots with Gus, are you? Because—”
“It’s you I work for, not the damn mayor. You.”
“Tell Jerome if he wants my job, he can have it.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Charice?”
“Yes, Chief?”
“I’m sorry if I’ve stood in your way. On the job. You’re my best officer. It’s just…I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I know. You said already you’re in love with me.”
“You keep leaving out the maybe,” he told her. Then, looking up, he added, “Uh-oh.”
“What’s that mean? ‘Uh-oh’?”
“The News Channel 6 van just pulled in.”
“Good,” she said. “Go take a bow. You nabbed a criminal. Removed a public menace. Solved two cases.”
“I’d just say something stupid. I’m not happy until you’re happy. That sort of thing.”
“Actually?” Charice pointed out. “You said it right that time.”
“See?” he said, turning the key in the ignition. “Even when I’m right, I’m wrong.”
“Please tell me you’ll go out to Hilldale. The mayor’s calling every fifteen minutes…”
After the word “Hilldale” her voice gradually faded into the ambient buzzing in his ears. What he’d been trying to recall earlier, its signal too weak to pull in, was nagging at him again, the connection stronger now.