“And they hired you ‘anyway?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be damned. They must have seen
something in you.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, so far you seem to have justified their faith in you.”
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
“Why the maybes?” Abby said.
“Maybe they wanted a lush for a police
chief.”
She frowned.
“Why on earth would they?”
“Don’t know. Maybe they didn’t
want a good cop in town.‘ ’
“That’s cr‘-,y,” she
sid. “I think you’re’t
“I’t not to ,‘’s
“e lobster’s hot dog roll‘ esse
sd.
“I dnt i you met an acm hot do miL” ey ate quietly for a few mounts. e mu made long shimmer on e r water. em w no jnd.
8t smell as
“You sll fl eonnt to her/ Ab
“Yes. I’m worng on itut I srll
“She wi somne cl now?”
“She’s‘still liying by he. If, I
think. But she’s in guy’s a lot.”
“d hu,‘” Abby sd.
Jesse nd.
Abby sled at him and k in r mnL She wondered if he were psionate, if someone, he.elf for inse, could get pt e connment.
“May it would lp if you got even a lie,”
she sd.
Her eyes were we bright, d er y, so neatly d professionly clad, smed somehow nefic as she’t ss e ble.
“Couldn’t buR,” he sd.
across Route 59 toward the burned-out truck. A portly man with a pleasant face, receding hair, and rimless glasses, he was a detective from the Campbell County Sheriff’s Department.
Yellow crime-scene tape defined the place. Half a dozen county vehicle.‘ were parked haphazardly around the perimeter of the tape, and more than half a dozen county employees were in the area.
“How many dead?” he said to Ray Vollmer.
“Coroner thinks only one,” Vollmer said.
“Remains are a little scrambled.”
“Infernal device?” Buck said, looking at the twisted metal skeleton.
“I’d say,” Vollmer answered.
“No sign that he ran into anything. Got some bomb-squad people coming in from Casper.”
Buck nodded, looking at the scene along the empty roadway.
Occasionally a car would appear and slow to.look at the crime scene only to be waved on by one of the deputies stationed on the road for that purpose. Most of the time, however, they were alone with the silent wreckage under the high sky.
“No reason for him to have stopped here,”
Buck said.
Vollmer shook his head.
“‘Less he stopped to take a
leak,” he said.
