“Did I meet you guys last night?”
“Yes, sir. We were out at the house.”
Crow’s hands were bandaged, and one was hooked to an IV, so they just exchanged nods, and Crow was even careful about that. His head still felt as if it had been used in a soccer match.
“Mr. Crow,” began Ferro, “first, I want to say that on behalf of myself, my partner, and the other law-enforcement officers, I want to thank you and commend you for your bravery and resourcefulness last night.”
“Aw, shucks,” Crow drawled. “’Tweren’t nothing.”
“I’m serious, sir. You managed to save the lives of four people, not to mention yourself, and faced down a man who is widely regarded as extremely dangerous.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No joke, man,” LaMastra agreed, nodding vigorously. “You went up against Karl Ruger and whipped his ass.”
“Truth to tell,” Crow said, rubbing his jaw with a skinned knuckle, “it was kind of a mutual ass-whipping. And quite frankly — isn’t everyone making a bit too much out of that? Okay, so I won a fight. Considering everything else that’s going on, what’s the big deal?”
“Uh-huh,” said Ferro quietly. “Mr. Crow—”
“Look, if you would, just call me Crow. My old man was ‘Mr. Crow’ and he was kind of an asshole. I’m just Crow to everyone.”
“Tell me, Crow,” said Ferro, trying it on, “how is it that you are as dirty a fighter as Karl Ruger? You box?”
Crow shook his head. “Martial arts.”
“Karate?”
“Jujitsu.”
LaMastra brightened. “No kidding? I did some judo in college, and I—”
Ferro looked at him until he stopped talking, and then the detective turned back to Crow. “The mayor and quite a number of the town’s officers have been telling us stories of your exploits. Fighting biker gangs, that sort of thing,” Ferro said in a tone that suggested he didn’t believe much of what he’d heard.
Crow didn’t feel like making a case for himself, and besides, half of what the cop had been told probably was a pack of lies. “People love to exaggerate.”
“Frequently,” Ferro said quietly.
Was the cop baiting him? Crow wondered. “Tell you one thing, though, I never fought anyone tougher. Or faster. Son of a bitch was something else. You can’t imagine how cat-quick this guy is. He’s every bit as dangerous as everyone thinks he is. Maybe more. No remorse, either. He shot Rhoda Thomas and me without any hesitation.”
“He’s killed a lot of people,” LaMastra said. “It’s nothing new to him.”
“It’s nothing to him at all,” Ferro summed up. He tilted his head to one side, appraising Crow. “You know, despite how banged up you are, you’re lucky to be alive and in fairly good working condition.”
“Gosh, I feel like dancing.”
“No, seriously. Ruger has a habit of doing some rather horrible things to the people he doesn’t like.”
“I heard about the whole Cape May thing.”
“Ah. Well, that’s just part of it,” LaMastra said. “He also did a number on one of his buddies. Spoiled him. Tore him to—”
“I think Mr. Crow gets the point.”
“Yeah, Terry Wolfe said something,” Crow agreed. “So, why’d he do it?”
Ferro shrugged. “It’s possible there was a power struggle over who was going to lead the group and Ruger flipped out on his partner.”
“Sounds thin.”
“It is thin, and it’s just a guess. Another guess is that there was some kind of dispute over the money and drugs, which is an idea I can more easily live with. We’re talking about a lot of money, and a very large amount of very expensive cocaine. People have killed each other for just a snort of coke, let alone a fortune in it.”
Crow grunted and shook his head. He felt himself losing interest in the criminal aspect of the case. He believed — knew — that he’d shot Ruger and that the bastard was dead or next to it somewhere in the fields or in the forest just beyond the Guthrie farm. Probably the latter, and in that case his bones would turn to dust before anyone found him. The forest around Dark Hollow was dense, largely impassible, and it seldom gave up its dead. Just to be polite, he said, “So what’s next on the agenda for you guys?”
Ferro waved a hand. “Oh, the investigation is proceeding. We’re pursuing various leads. We have teams out checking all the likely routes of escape….”
“Meaning you have bubkes.”
“Meaning,” Ferro nodded slowly, “that we have bubkes.”
Crow sniffed. “You know you’re never going to find him.”
“Rest assured, sir,” added Ferro, “if Karl Ruger is still in Pine Deep — we will find him.”
Crow open his eyes and studied the cop. “There’s some bad woods out there, Mr. Ferro. You sure about that?”
LaMastra shifted uncomfortably in his seat, coughed, and brushed a fleck of lint from his mud-spattered cuffs. Ferro smiled thinly at Crow. “I am very damn sure about that, Mr. Crow.”
Crow closed his eyes, settled back against the pillow, looked up into his own interior darkness, and thought: Bullshit. You’re never going to find him.
Chapter 21
Dr. Saul Weinstock snapped the cuff of the latex glove against his wrist, adjusted his surgical mask, and strolled into the autopsy suite in the Pinelands Hospital morgue. The CD player was playing John Hammond’s “Wicked Grin,” which Weinstock always considered good cutting music. Also on the changer were two Elvis Costello albums, Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, and the second greatest hits album by the Eagles. It was going to be a long morning.
There were three autopsies stacked. One was a little girl from Crestville, almost certainly a SIDS case, and the other two were tied into what was going on in town. Poor Henry Guthrie, whom Weinstock was going to leave for a colleague to do. His family had been friends with the Guthries since his grandfather’s time, and Weinstock didn’t very much relish imposing the necessary indignities of an autopsy on a man he greatly admired. It felt ghoulish and rather rude.
The third case was before him on a stainless steel table, still in the dark gray zippered body bag, fresh from the crime scene on A-32.
Weinstock took the clipboard off the hook on the side of the table, switched on the tape recorder by stepping on the treadle positioned under one corner of the table.
“This examination is dated September thirtieth, beginning at 1035 hours. This autopsy is carried out by Saul Weinstock, M.D., deputy chief coroner for Bucks County and senior staff physician for Pinelands College Teaching Hospital, and performed under the authority of Judge Evan Doyle, justice of the peace for the Township of Pine Deep. The name of the decedent is believed to be…” He consulted the clipboard, “…one Anthony Michael Macchio, age thirty-seven, a resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
That said, he pulled down the zipper and parted the plastic folds.
Saul Weinstock stood there and stared as the tape rolled on, beholding the handiwork of Tow-Truck Eddie, the Sword of God.
“Holy shit!” he said, and it forever became part of the permanent record of the case.
When Vic got back to Shanahan’s the place was deserted. There should have been five mechanics on shift, including himself. One was down with a cold, one had just not shown up that day, one, Sammy, was out road-testing a car and probably parked somewhere with a sandwich and a cold beer, and the other guy had been called in to the chief’s department for some kind of reinstatement bullshit. It pissed Wingate off, because there were four jobs that absolutely had to be done that day, and one was a valve job that was a real prick. Sammy should have been there working on it, not tooling around in Dr. Crenshaw’s BMW. Road test, my ass, thought Vic. He glanced at the wall clock. Half past two. Shit! There was no way that he was going to get out of there any earlier than six, and maybe not that early.