bidding of others, we do things either illegally or not at all, to make those higher up happy and content. Whoever the hell they are.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
Sam reached into his coat, past his shoulder holster, and took out his revolver. He cocked back the hammer—the click sounding very loud in the morning air—and Hanson held up both hands and said, “Whoa, wait a minute, Sam, what do you mean—”
“What I mean is this,” Sam said, raising up his revolver. “Petr Wowenstein escaped from a research facility in New Mexico and made his way to Portsmouth. He was coming here to reach the Underground Railroad, a station that was going to help him get to Montreal, with something very important he was carrying. A station I know you’re familiar with, with all those hints you’ve given me. Wowenstein was a courier with a package that meant the life and death of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. But the package never got delivered. Just as he was coming into Portsmouth, just as he was about to leave the train, he was murdered. His neck was snapped, and he was tossed off the train like a piece of garbage.”
Hanson said, “Well? So what?”
Sam held the revolver level and steady. “What’s what is the truth,” he said. “Harold, you were on the train that night. You were trying to get the package off Petr Wowenstein. And when you couldn’t find it, you killed him.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
He stared at his boss, wanting to see a reaction. Except for a quiver of the lips, there was nothing. Sam said, “No reply, Harold?”
“Sam, you’ve drawn a gun on me. You’re making crazy accusations. What do you want me to say? And what the hell gives you the right to call me by my first name?”
“The right of someone who’s no longer your errand boy. You were on that train, Harold, and you murdered Petr Wowenstein.”
“Sam—”
“Then tell me it’s not true.”
“Of course it’s not true!”
Sam took one hand off the revolver, went back into his coat pocket, and took out two pieces of paper. He tossed them in the direction of Hanson, where they fluttered to the ground. “Pick them up.”
Hanson stared at him for a moment, then squatted down, picked up the slips of paper.
“The one with the blue lines,” Sam went on. “You’ll recognize it, I’m sure. It’s a page taken from Mrs. Walton’s log. You may run the department the way you see fit, but by God, Mrs. Walton demands to know where everyone is. No one dares to cross her by telling a lie. And the night the Boston express train came through, that’s where you were. It says so right there in her writing. How did you get back and forth to Boston? On the train, and with your National Guard and police marshal IDs, you could ride for free, no paperwork. Right? But remember what you told me that morning I came to see you? You said you were in Concord the day of Petr’s murder. Not Boston.”
Hanson crumpled the paper, let it drop back to the dirt. “So?”
“Check out the other paper. It’s a carbon copy of my report on my first homicide. My first homicide, Harold. Read the last two lines, will you.”
Hanson, his voice dripping contempt, said, “Since you’re holding a gun on me, I guess I have no choice.” He brought the piece of paper up and read it:
Sam said, “Sound familiar?”
“I guess.”
“I’ve talked to Dr. Saunders. He said he never filed a follow-up report, and he never talked to anyone after he was visited by me, LaCouture, and Groebke. So how did you know Petr’s neck was snapped?”
“What?”
Sam stepped closer, his revolver inches from his boss’s chest, knowing he was taking a path that he could never, ever retrace.
“Back in Burdick, you told me to ignore the case, that it was just one refugee who had his neck snapped and got dumped off the train. But I never told you his neck was snapped. Dr. Saunders never told you his neck was snapped. None of my reports ever mention his neck. Nobody ever told you his fucking neck was snapped. So how did you know?”
Now he saw a reaction in Hanson’s face. It was as if he had aged ten years from the time he’d stepped out of his car.
Sam knelt down, picked up a rock with his free hand, and tossed it at Hanson’s head. The marshal ducked and brought up his left hand to block the flying stone. Sam stood up, breathing hard. “And another thing. The killer was left-handed. Just like you. So. How and why was the courier killed?”
The air was cold, still, and heavy, and then Hanson nervously cleared his throat. “It was an accident.”
“How was killing him an accident?”
Hanson spat on the ground. “Because it was, dammit! The son of a bitch wouldn’t give it up!”
“Give what up?”
“Whatever he was carrying, the skinny bastard,” Hanson fumed. “I was just told to get on that train, find him, and get any documents he had. Whatever he had was vital. But he didn’t have anything on him, nothing. I dragged him into the baggage car, started working him over, looking for a suitcase, a valise, anything, and he still wouldn’t give it up. Then the train started slowing down. I thought we were stopping because someone saw me drag the bastard to the rear. I held him tight, told him to give it up, and shit, he was so sick, so skinny. Damn neck just broke in my hands. I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“After you dumped him, what did you do?”
“Got off a few yards down, by the Fish Shanty lot. And that was that.”
“Where my witness, Lou Purdue, spotted you. A fine-dressed man standing in the rain. Lou Purdue, murdered up in Dover. Another loose end tidied up.”
Hanson said, “I know nothing about that.”
“So you say,” Sam said. “Who told you to go to Boston and grab those documents?”
“What difference does it make? Someone from the Party in D.C.”
“The Party, the Party… which faction, Nat or Statie? Who needed those plans?”
Hanson said, “There are factions, there are differences, but that didn’t come into account here. I was given an order by the Party, and I followed it. That’s what happened.”
“You did all of this?” Sam’s voice was shaking with rage. “And you threw this case at me, knowing right from the start what was going on?”
“What else was I going to do?” Hanson yelled back. “I was trying to protect you, you stubborn bastard. You could have just given it up after a day or two, filed it away, and you would have been fine. But no—you had to prove how noble and upright you were.”
“Sure,” Sam said. “If I had been a lousy cop, I would have been fine. But guess what, Harold? I wasn’t a lousy cop. I was a good cop. And for the past several days, I’ve been a lousy man and a lousy husband, but that’s all going to change.” He unfolded the pages and held them up. “Here. Here, you Party whore. This is what you were looking for. Was it worth it, murdering an innocent refugee? Lying to me and everyone else in the department? Covering up everything connected with the case?”
Hanson’s eyes seemed frozen on the handful of papers. Sam had a strange feeling, knowing what he was holding, knowing it all would come down to the next few seconds.
“How… where did you get those?”
“Got them off that poor bastard’s body, that’s where. You didn’t look far enough, Harold. Refugees, they’re experts at hiding things. These papers were produced from microfilm, hidden up in his butt.”
