The Kemco plant receded behind them.
Boone looked at him in the rearview mirror. “How did you do?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, crawling back up in front, giving her the camera as she drove. “I hope there was enough light.”
“You had it wide open, didn’t you? There was plenty of available light. I’m sure they’ll come out.”
Crane hoped so. It was a clear night, with stars and a moon; that and the lights of Kemco itself should’ve made for some good shots.
“What now?” he asked.
“Wait half an hour and go back.”
She pulled over to the side again; they were about a mile down from Kemco, now. She turned the motor off.
“Don’t we have enough already?” Crane asked.
“You’re kidding. We’re just getting started.”
“If you say so.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Of course I’m nervous. I’m scared shitless. Aren’t you?”
“Somewhat. There’s really nothing to worry about.”
“You must not’ve seen the three-hundred-pound trucker that climbed out of that rig.”
“Nobody spotted us. Nobody’s going to spot us.”
“Next on the program, I suppose, is some shots of the truck pulling out of Kemco, loaded up.”
“Right.”
“Surely we’re not just going to go tap dancing by again, are we?”
“No. We’ll pull into their parking lot. We can get some good shots from there and we won’t be noticed. I’ve got a zoom lens in the glove compartment. I’ll take the next shots. You drive.”
“All right. We might as well switch places now.”
He got out of the car and walked around to her side. The night air felt chill but he rather liked it; it was like splashing his face with water in the morning to wake up — it reminded him he was still alive. He opened the car door for her and she got out.
They stood there for a while, leaning against the front of the car, enjoying the stillness, their backs to Kemco, looking out at the night. Pale ivory moonlight bathed the farmland around them with a quiet beauty. It didn’t look so bad on Boone, either.
Half an hour was up.
Crane drove back to Kemco, pulling into the parking lot, which was, as it had been last night, nearly full; but they found a place, and from it they could see the American flag, which Kemco flew twenty-four hours a day, and, just across the way, the loading-dock area. The truck was nowhere to be seen.
“Did we miss it?” Crane asked her.
“I don’t think so.”
“Couldn’t it have pulled out and gone down the other direction?”
“Possibly. If so, it wasn’t loaded up; hasn’t been time for that.”
“Where is it, then?”
“Somewhere on the Kemco grounds picking up its cargo. My guess is they didn’t want to store the stuff in their normal loading area. What they’re doing here isn’t something they want to advertise, you know, not even to their own employees.”
They sat and watched.
Boone opened the glove compartment and got the zoom lens out and began attaching it to the Nikon. Crane got a glimpse of something else in the glove compartment, something that, although metallic, didn’t look anything like a camera attachment.
“Have you got a gun in there?” he asked her.
She didn’t look up from the Nikon she was fussing with. “I might have.”
“You might have a gun in there.”
“Okay, I have a gun in there. All right?”
“How’d it get there? Or did it just grow there, organically?”
“I put it there, what do you think?”
“Boone, that’s it. That’s the end.” He started turning the key in the ignition.
She reached for his hand and stopped him. Gently.
“The gun used to be Patrick’s. He left it with me.”
“He took the furniture, and left the gun. What a guy.”
“He didn’t leave it on purpose. He forgot it. Look, I don’t like the damn thing. I never liked it when Patrick kept it in the house.”
“Which is why you keep it in the car.”
“Crane, think. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t figure there was a good possibility Mary Beth was murdered.”
He said nothing.
“And if that is what happened to Mary Beth,” she continued, “and if those other ‘suicide’ victims were murdered, too, then looking into it, like we’re doing, could be a little risky, right?”
He said nothing.
“So,” she said, “we just might have to protect ourselves.”
She took the gun — a .38 — out of the glove compartment.
“Give me that!” Crane said.
She did.
“This isn’t loaded, is it?” he asked.
“Of course it’s loaded.”
He stuck it under the seat.
“You got a choice, next time,” he said, his face feeling hot. “You can bring me along, or the gun. Not both.”
“There’s the truck again.”
He turned and looked back at the loading area. The flatbed, its tarp tied over a full load, was wheeling out. No one, not even the hard hat that had been there before, was around; no one checked them out: the clearing booth was still empty.
Boone sat recording all this with the Nikon.
The truck turned right onto the blacktop, away from them.
“I better drive.” Boone said.
“No,” said Crane. “I can handle it.”
He waited a few minutes and then pulled out of the Kemco lot, after the flatbed.
“One of its back lights is broken,” Boone said, pointing.
Ahead, one of the taillights on the rig glowed white.
“That’s a break,” she said. “You can stay back and still not lose sight of him.”
Crane sat forward, back straight, hands gripping the wheel, intensity squeezing the nervousness, the fear, right out of him. A couple times he felt himself creeping up too close on the truck — which was going a nice legal fifty-five — and Boone eased him back. There were a few other cars on the road, and occasionally he was able to put one of them between him and the truck, the tarp on the back of which was flapping loose a bit, giving them a glimpse now and then of the black drums of waste sitting bunched in the back like illegal immigrants.
“Don’t sweat losing him,” she said. “I think I know where he’s headed.”
And she did.
From the blacktop that wove through Garden State farmland, the truck went to a four-lane highway, where it was easy to stay way back and not lose track of the white light on the truck’s tail.
“You know where he’s headed now?” Crane asked Boone.
“Maybe,” she said.
Soon the truck turned off onto a toll bridge.
They pulled off. Waited till the truck was across. Then followed.
Once over the bridge, Boone said, “Welcome to Pennsylvania, Crane.”
They were still on a four-lane.
“I’ve lost him,” Crane said, hitting the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.
“No,” said Boone, pointing. “He’s just turning off. Up to the right. See him?”
And there was the white light of the rig as it turned onto an off-ramp.
Crane followed suit.
After fifteen miles of sporadic two-way traffic on a primary road, the truck turned off onto a blacktop.
“Has he spotted us?” Crane asked.
“No.”
“He could be leading us out into nowhere to deal with us, you know.”