"Well, someone fill me in," the governor demanded.
Trader wanted to offer many false details, but he knew how the governor would react to their sudden language barrier. The press secretary indicated through sign language that Andy should relay the day's events to Crimm, which Andy did.
"What's your recommendation?" the governor asked Andy after being subjected to the story, which seemed lacking in veracity and rationality.
"I agree in taking no chances," Andy replied. "Keep security tight, sir, but this matter needs to be thoroughly investigated. Frankly, I am concerned that there are important facts we don't know, despite Mr. Trader's alleged eyewitness account. No offense," he directed this at Trader, "but what you supposedly saw and what actually happened may not match up. I have two questions, for example: What happened to the bucket? And did anyone else happen to see the shooting?"
Trader replied through hand signals that the bucket was at large and the only other witnesses may have been the crabs and the trout. Trader felt certain this would settle the matter.
"If the bucket is at large," Andy pointed out, "then this might suggest that you let the crabs and trout go before the altercation occurred. Because you certainly wouldn't witness someone burning up and then think to toss the crabs and the trout in the river, now would you?"
Trader shook his head no as he recalled the crabs and trout sailing through the air in a cascade of tap water. They splashed into the river and then he and the fisherman began to fight and say ugly things to each other. Trader must have set the bucket back on the ground, or perhaps the fisherman did. By now the police would have found the bucket and taken it in as evidence. He wasn't sure why, but he had a bad feeling that the bucket was going to cause him a problem.
The governor lit up a Cuban cigar. "Tell me," he said to Andy. "If we could locate the crabs and trout, would that help us?"
"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard," Regina retorted. "What good would they do, and how would you know they're the same ones we let go?"
"DNA," Andy replied. "If they left any cellular material in the bucket, even just a trace, it could be matched back to them. For example, people don't realize how many cells their eyes shed. You rub your eyes and have eye cells all over your fingers and then you touch something and deposit these cells. Every living creature has unique DNA, except identical twins."
"So maybe the crabs' eyes shed cells in the bucket?" The governor was fascinated. "How do you know all this?"
"I've always been interested in forensic science and criminal investigations, Governor. My father was a police officer in Charlotte."
"What is he now?"
"He got killed in the line of duty, sir."
This touched the governor deeply. He had always wanted a son and was not at all impressed with his daughters and rarely enjoyed their company. In truth, Bedford Crimm was starved for someone sensible and non-female to talk to, and he had forgotten that he was concerned that Andy and his wife might have an affair.
"Let's pour a little brandy and smoke," he said as he turned a magnified watery eye on Andy. "Do you play pool?"
"Not very often, sir," Andy replied.
"But what about this awful man on the loose?" Mrs. Crimm worried.
"Tell one of the other troopers the story," the governor ordered Andy to tell Trader. "Tell him to get the rest of the EPU on the case and let's have the National Guard fly around, checking for that car with New York plates, and perhaps have a presence downtown, too."
"You may want to consider having us set up checkpoints at the tollbooths, too," Andy suggested. "In case this alleged Hispanic serial killer tries to leave the city," he added with a hint of disdain as he stared Trader right in the eye. The press secretary glanced away.
"Excellent idea," the governor agreed, increasingly impressed with this young man. "We need to locate the crabs and the trout. Tell Trader to start looking since he's the one who saw them last."
"Sir, you can tell him yourself," Andy politely said. "He can hear, he just can't talk or at least wants us to think he can't. And I might suggest we have a more objective person look for any witnesses."
Andy had no doubt that should Trader find the crabs and trout, he would make sure they were never seen again. The fat, mendacious pirate-press secretary would probably boil them alive and eat them, Andy thought with disgust as he anticipated the governor's reaction when he read the essay he intended to post as soon as he could find a computer. He gave Trader a harsh, threatening look.
"Stay away from the crabs and trout," Andy warned him.
He waited until Trader limped off before taking the First Lady aside for a private word with her.
"Listen," Andy said. "I hate to impose on you or intrude upon your privacy in any way, First Lady Crimm, but it looks like it may be a long night and I'm wondering if I could borrow a computer for just a minute so I can check something."
"Why certainly," she replied, and she couldn't wait to lead him upstairs to her private parlor where she spent many secret, delicious hours sitting at her antique Chinese desk, shopping the Internet.
She felt a tingle of salacious excitement as she led Andy up the stairs and sat him down in her chair.
"Do you need me to show you how anything works?" she asked, leaning over him and brushing her big, trussed-up bosom against the back of his head.
"No thank you," Andy said as her perfume excited an allergic reaction and he began to sneeze. "If you can just leave me for a moment. I'm afraid this is classified police work and for my eyes only, ma'am." He sneezed three more times.
"What are they doing up there?" the governor jealously asked, looking in the direction of upstairs. "What in thunder are they up to? Who's sneezing?" he demanded as his wife smeared her lipstick a bit and mussed up her stiff hair as she made her way back downstairs.
Andy posted his next essay, which he had finished early that morning. The timing could not be better, and he got up from the desk just as Regina lumbered into the parlor and demanded to know what he was doing.
"Mama's all messed up like you two were making out," she delicately offered. "And it's just a good thing Papa can't see what she looks like!"
"She wasn't messed up a minute ago," Andy replied. "She just showed me to the computer and left. And she looked exactly as she did when we were all at the dinner table."
"What are you doing in here?" Regina's tiny eyes were bright with suspicion. "I bet you're Trooper Truth, aren't you!"
"What a thing to think," Andy said.
"Prove you're not!"
"It's rather difficult to prove a negative," Andy replied as Regina squeezed her way past him and sat before the keyboard.
She logged on to the Trooper Truth website and made a startled sound when she noticed there was a brand-new essay. She clicked on it immediately.
"See," Andy said. "You tell me. Is it possible Trooper Truth could be off writing a new essay and yet be here with the First Family for a light supper at the same time?"
"Well, I guess you're right," Regina said as she eagerly began to read.
Her story begins with her birth in County Cork, Ireland, on March 8, 1700, the illegitimate daughter of a successful Irish lawyer named William Cormac and his wife's maid, whose name never made it into the records. When the scandalous tryst was revealed, William had no choice but to flee from Ireland with his new family and settle in Charleston, South Carolina, where he no doubt befriended Blackbeard and corrupt politicians. Soon enough, William became a very wealthy merchant and lived on a plantation just outside the city.