east.” But he knew it was too late. They were long gone, enjoying themselves, probably thinking that the cops outside the motel were dead or injured. That he was dead. Savich looked over at the old Chevy van. It was flattened under smoking debris. “Sherlock, we need everyone out here looking for Moses Grace and Claudia. See who you can roust. Dane called nine-one-one, so the fire department should be here soon.”
“Yes, I’m on it. Connie called nine-one-one, too, and probably every other deputy here. You swear to me you’re all right, Dillon?”
He couldn’t believe it, but he grinned into his wrist unit. He had been more scared for Sherlock than for himself. She was okay. “When this is over, I’ll take you dancing.”
He turned to Dane. “At least we’re not freezing to death anymore.”
Dane grinned, his face black with ashes, showing white teeth. “Wasn’t that a kick. A well-thought-out plan, except for that small timing glitch. They wanted you, Savich. I wonder if they saw us jump or if they think you’re dead.”
Twenty minutes later, Savich stood in front of what was left of Hooter’s Motel, watching the fire hoses douse the last of the flames. The smoldering carcass was puffing out black smoke, sending up little spurts of flame, the heat still too intense to get very close. The old building had gone up quickly. He’d had Chief Tumi send two deputies to find the owner, and at that moment he saw Raymond Dykes walking toward him, shoulders slumped, looking white and dazed. Savich wanted to kick the man into the frozen ditch where he and Dane had sheltered after the explosion. He heard Dykes say to himself, “Those bastards. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m a dead man walking when Marlene finds out.”
The final piece slid into place. Moses Grace had double-crossed Raymond Dykes. It was all a setup, to kill him and as many cops as they could manage.
Dane walked up and stood behind Dykes. In a voice as nonthreatening as a nun’s at vespers, he said, “I can see how you’d be shocked that they blew up your motel, Mr. Dykes.”
“I’ve lost my livelihood here, my whole life.”
“They lied to you and showed you some money and you decided to believe them, right?”
Dykes looked at the smoking bones of his motel. “Only information,” he said, “that’s all they wanted—
information. They gave me five hundred dollars, that fast, all smiles—five hundred dollars for a phone call.” He snapped his fingers and moaned, now holding his belly. “Nothing about an explosion. I’m a dead man. You don’t know Marlene.”
“Your wife?”
“No, my sister.”
“So they paid you to tell them if the cops showed up? That was all?”
Dykes nodded, then as if suddenly realizing he was talking to an FBI agent, and saying things he shouldn’
t, he gulped and shut his mouth.
Dane said, a bit of threat in his voice, “Too late, Mr. Dykes. If you don’t tell me everything now, we’ll make it real hard for you. You phoned their room when we were getting into position outside?”
Dykes began to rock, his arms collapsed over his chest. He nodded.
“What else? What were you expecting to happen?”
“Nothing. They said they’d go out the back,” Dykes said. “I’d let the phone ring three times, that’s all I had to do, just warn them. Nothing more. I heard them laughing later about firecrackers. When I asked them what they meant, the old guy, Mr. Grace, he laughed some more, said he’d like to scare the bejesus out of the cops, if he could, said the lot of you weren’t worth spit. If he only had one firecracker, that’s all he needed, he said. But he didn’t have one, did he?” He looked at the burnt heap of rubble that was, up until an hour before, his main support, then raised smoke-reddened eyes to Dane’s face. Dane wanted to smack him upside the head for being so greedy, so stupid. “He didn’t lie. He didn’t have a firecracker, what he had was a bomb.”
Dykes whispered, “Why did they lie to me, Agent Carver? Why? I did what they asked, called their room when you showed up, let the phone ring three times. This was crazy, mean and crazy. They ruined me.”
Savich said, “No, Mr. Dykes, you did this yourself.” He was still trying to get his brain around what this man had done, for five hundred dollars.
“It was the girl with all that beautiful hair; she paid me to let them know if you guys showed up. But I wasn’t born yesterday, people are always trying to stiff me because they figure the rooms are cheap, the name of the hotel is a joke, but look, I believed them. And she was so pretty, and she liked me. Her stomach was so white and—I guess I didn’t call this one right at all, did I? I’m an idiot.”
Dane said, “Yes, I’d say tonight you were.”
Dykes, skinny as a nail, wrapped up in a coat two sizes too large for him, thick mousse glistening on the half dozen long gray hairs plastered down over the top of his skull, realized fully now that he was in deep trouble. “No, I—I—I’m not an idiot, and it isn’t nice of you to agree with me like that. I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen, Agent Carver, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t have a clue what they were planning. Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Marlene is going to kill me.”
“You took five hundred dollars knowing that our lives were on the line.” There was no rage in Dane’s calm voice, but it was there, clear as could be, in his eyes, if Dykes had looked up at him. But he kept his eyes on his shoes, and shook his head.
Savich asked him, “They requested room two-twelve?”
Dykes nodded. “Yeah, that’s a prime room since it’s on the end and there’s a window in the bathroom.”
Dane said, “You realize now that they either cut through that thin back bathroom wall or they went out the back window and were gone by the time we walked into your office. They meant to kill as many of us as they could. The bomb was powerful enough. Do you have a family, Mr. Dykes, or are you only at the mercy of your sister Marlene?”
“No, Joyce left me two years past for a trucker whose eighteen-wheeler smoked up every state he traveled through. I’ll bet he told her he’d show her all the sights and the dip believed him.”
Savich said, “Then you can think of Joyce enjoying the Grand Canyon while you’re nice and snug in jail.”
Dane said, “Maybe Marlene will visit you in your cell.”
Dane accepted a pair of handcuffs from one of Police Chief Tumi’s deputies, clicked them around Dykes
’s bony wrists, and handed him over to a deputy, who stared at Dykes like he couldn’t believe what he’d done. The deputy hauled him off, none too gently, to a cruiser. Chief Tumi called out, “Read him his rights, Deputy Wiggins. It’s a right shame that stupidity isn’t a felony.” He turned to Savich. “So the two gunshots we heard—they really were gunshots, weren’t they?”
“They were well timed, whatever they were,” Dane said. “Maybe the arson investigators will find the remains of a tape recorder in the wreckage. Maybe the conversation we heard, as well as the gunshots, was recorded to play at a specific time.”
Chief Tumi nodded, looked over at his deputy, who was stuffing Dykes into the backseat. “Roy, don’t leave that yahoo alone. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Savich said to Dane, “One thing we can bank on—they were long gone out of that room, with Pinky, before we heard the gunshots. They might have been watching.”
Connie said, “You can fry Rolly when I reel the little bugger in.” She shook her head. “This will sure shake Ruth’s belief in her snitches. Do you know the little geek reminded me about his extra pint because he’s throwing a goth party?”
Chief Tumi said to Savich, “My deputies are reporting no sign of them yet, but we’ll find them. I’ve called the State Police, given them descriptions, told them about Pinky. We’ve done what we can.”
Savich knew there was a lot more to do but mostly for the forensic team. Connie said, “That old Chevy van over there—it was bait, the lure to keep us here. I wonder if they really are heading for Arlington National Cemetery.”
“Or is it more misdirection?” Sherlock wondered aloud.
But Savich knew they had no choice but to run another complicated operation, and they only had about four hours to get everything nailed down. He couldn’t imagine how much manpower they’d need to cover that huge expanse of land, with its thousands of white markers and monuments and rest areas. “I hate to say this, I really do, but I have a feeling they’ll actually be there. Find Rolly, Connie.”
“Dillon, do you want to call Ruth, bring her back in?”
