As Walker got inside, Stillman yanked out the hose, capped the tank, and said to Mary, “Back out of here at least fifty feet, turn the car around, and wait.”
Mary backed out across the clear approach to the bridge, turned and backed into the brush, then swung forward to aim the car at the highway. Walker spun in his seat, looked out the rear window, and watched Stillman.
Stillman stepped out of the covered bridge, bent double, and scraped the flare on the pavement to light the match on the end of it. There was a sputter of sparks, then a brilliant red glow like a slow-motion explosion. Stillman backed away a few steps, tossed the flare in a high arc, whirled, and ran.
The flare spun crazily in the air. Walker could see Stillman’s broad body like a black void in the middle of the rosy glow, sprinting toward the police car. The flare reached apogee and started its descent, but before it could hit the boards of the bridge, it ceased to exist. There was the flash of the gasoline fumes trapped in the enclosed space igniting, and there were bright orange flames billowing out the entrance over Stillman’s head like a hand reaching out to snatch him, then receding into the interior.
The dry, seasoned boards of the bridge’s sides caught instantly, and the faint breeze that Walker had barely been able to detect a short time ago was now funneled into the tubular bridge as though the fire was sucking it inward. The superheated air had no place to escape, so it spread, rippling along the ridge beam to the other end in seconds. The boards of the roof began to issue whitish smoke, and in a moment it suddenly ignited, like the smoke above a candle.
Across the bridge, Walker watched the first of the cars pull up a short way off and stop. A figure got out on the driver’s side, and Walker leveled the shotgun on it, then held his fire. Other doors opened, passengers scrambled out to stand on the road and watch. As they gathered together to gape at the tall, snapping flames that were engulfing the bridge, Walker gaped at them. The first figure that had exited was the young woman Walker had seen hours ago in her kitchen. He recognized the shining blond hair pulled tight on her head, and the dark green sweater. She held her arms out from her sides, and the two children came close to her, letting her hold them.
Stillman threw himself into the back seat and the car began to move. Walker could not take his eyes from the rear window. He stared past the woman at the road that was now lit up by the burning bridge. Other cars had been blocked, and drivers and passengers were getting out and walking ahead to stare at the fire. Walker said, “They weren’t coming after us. They were trying to get out.”
Mary was steering the car with the intense attentiveness of a person driving through a blizzard. “What do you mean?”
“It’s families. Women, kids. They’re evacuating the town.”
Stillman had been peering out the back window too, the policeman’s pistol in his hand. “He’s right. It can’t be anything else. When they found the guy in the water, they must have thought we’d already gotten out.”
As the road came out of the woods and curved to head into the cleft between the two hills, Walker felt the car jerk to a stop. As he whirled to face the front, he saw the dark shapes of vehicles blocking the road, and then he was blinded by bright lights. The shapes of armed men seemed to emerge from the darkness on all sides at once. A man’s voice came out of a speaker. It was loud and disembodied, but was not strained or tense. “Drop your weapons, and step away from the car with your hands in the air,” it said calmly.
Stillman snapped, “Do it,” and got out. Walker and Mary each took one step forward, and then Walker lost his bearings. What felt like a dozen hands threw him to the pavement on his belly, patted him down, took his wallet, wrenched his arms behind him, and snapped handcuffs on his wrists. He was aware of several pairs of men’s feet striding back and forth near his head, and low voices conferring. A female voice said sharply, “Max Stillman.”
Stillman’s voice came from nearby, but Walker could not see him from here, because the three had been placed in a triangle with their feet toward one another. “I’m Stillman.”
Walker could hear shuffling as men raised Stillman to his feet.
The woman said, “Special Agent Nancy Atkins, FBI. We’ve got two agents in that town, and all I want to hear from you right now is exactly where they are.”
“I think they’re in jail,” said Stillman. “Before they started hunting us tonight, the cops rounded all the strangers up and took them to the police station.”
Walker heard a murmur of muffled instructions, the sounds of running feet, men talking into radios, car engines. A minute later, he heard the deepening growl of helicopters as they swooped in overhead.
It was already afternoon when Stillman, Walker, and Mary walked down the road along the line of empty cars. The cars had been pushed to the side of the road, searched, and left with doors and trunks open. Federal officers were slowly, methodically taking fingerprints and making lists of the items they were finding, removing, and putting into large plastic bags with labels. Far down the line behind them, a second team was coming along more slowly. This group had toolboxes and a variety of electronic devices. They would come to a car and begin dismantling it: taking door panels off, probing the padding of seats, opening hoods, and peering up under the dashboards with gooseneck flashlights.
A convoy of four big panel trucks came up the road, slowly wobbled over the prefabricated surface that had been laid over the skeleton of the bridge, then accelerated toward them. They stepped off the road onto the shoulder to let the trucks pass, and Walker felt the hot, dusty wind from their passing. He stared after them.
Stillman said, “Damned convenient of the people of Coulter to load all their valuables into cars for us.”
They walked toward the town. “All I want right now is to claim my rental car,” Mary said. “Then I’m going to drive it to my hotel and take a bath.”
Stillman said, “If they give you yours first, don’t leave before you talk to me.”
“Why not?”
“I want to see the notes you left in the car—the ones you took when you were in the public records office in Concord.”
Walker turned to look at him. “You’re staying here? What are you doing?”
“I want to hang around the FBI people and see if I can get a copy of their list of all the people in the town.”
“But we made one when we were looking for Scully’s cousin.”
“Of course we did,” said Stillman. “But I’m waiting for the official, revised edition. Between the car registrations and house deeds and fingerprints, they’ll probably come up with a good list by the end of the day.”
“Why are you doing all this?” asked Mary. “They’re all in jail already.”
“I don’t work for the FBI. What I’m getting paid for is finding out what made these people pick McClaren Life and Casualty.”
“I’m not sure how my notes are going to tell you that,” said Mary.
Stillman shrugged. “We’ll see.”
When the three reached the police station, the FBI agents who had set up a temporary headquarters there released the cars to them. Mary Casey’s rental car and Stillman’s vehicle were both in the police lot with their doors open. Mary took her keys out of her pocket, opened the trunk of her car, looked inside, and muttered something under her breath.
“Something wrong?” asked Stillman.
“My notes were in my laptop. It looks like the Coulter police noticed it after they towed the car. Want to see it?”
Stillman and Walker looked in the open trunk. The computer looked as though it had been broken up with a sledgehammer, then run over by a car.
“I don’t see the hard drive,” said Walker.
“We never will,” said Mary. “That’s just the mess they made getting to it.” Then she slammed the trunk, got into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.
Stillman nudged him. “Go ahead,” he muttered. “She’ll look once, and if you’re not on your way, she’s gone.”
Walker watched Mary turn and glance over the seat at him, then begin to back up. She swung the car around, then pulled forward so it was headed out toward Main Street, stopped, and slid over to sit in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead through the windshield.
Stillman stared at her thoughtfully, shrugged, and said, “See you later.” He watched while Walker got in
