naturally wrapped in one another but bound with rough rope.
Am I dreaming? If so, what does it mean? she searchingly wondered.
Jessica heard a roar and saw the waterfall turn into a gaping mouth. Then the blue veil and the land of dream shattered into black-and-white dots as on a dead TV screen. Someone's hand had reached into her dream, shaking her; someone's voice had infiltrated her brain and had set her eyelids fluttering.
At FBI headquarters, Richard Sharpe shook Jessica Coran, waking her from a nap on the sofa in her temporary office. “It's Houston, that Cherokee detective, on the line for you. Says he has something for us. Thought you'd want to hear it firsthand.”
“ What? Oh… yes, of course.”
Jessica listened on one line, Sharpe on a second one, as Detective Stonecoat said, “There's no time to explain, but we have sufficient grounds to issue a warrant for search and seizure at Jimmy Lee Purdy's father's farm home outside Iowa City, Iowa. But getting an Iowa judge and a Texas one agreeing with one another, well that could take some time. We suspect that a federal warrant may be easier and faster to obtain, although Dr. Sanger is at work on Judge Richard Parker as we speak.”
“ Then your visit to Huntsville turned up something about the case, about the old man?”
“ About the son, for certain. It may be that the old man is acting on Jimmy Lee's orders.”
“ Say that again?”
“ From the grave, so to speak. He… we believe Jimmy Lee left strict instructions for the old man to follow through on, and they involved sending Judge DeCampe over with Jimmy Lee to the other side.”
“ Just as we feared.”
“ What about a federal warrant?”
“ We'll get right on it. Send me a full report of your findings out at Huntsville. We'll need every shred of corroboration on this.”
“ Consider it done. I'll fax you a full report. Meanwhile, someone's got to get the Iowa authorities alerted and descend on that farmhouse, and since I'm in Houston and you're in D.C., I don't think we have the luxury of wasting a moment's more time. Fact is, we fear she may be buried already, fighting for her last breath, if she isn't already dead.”
“ Then I take it Goddard was forthcoming with what he knew?”
“ We convinced him it was in his best interest, yes.”
“ I'm saying good-bye now, detective, and thanks for the help. I'm off for that warrant.”
Stonecoat asked to be kept informed. “Judge DeCampe was well liked in these parts.”
“ Yeah… yeah, same here, detective.”
Jessica called in every favor she had outstanding, and she felt certain that a federal warrant for search and seizure of property at the Purdy farmstead outside Iowa City was just a matter of time. She immediately contacted the head of the Highway Patrol in the vicinity of Iowa City, and after a number of frustrating stops and starts, she finally found herself talking to the man in charge, someone who sounded normal.
“ This is Chief of Patrol Virgil Gorman. How can I help you, Dr. Coran, is it?”
“ I'm head of a task force in an abduction case, Chief Gorman, and it involves a Washington, D.C., judge who's become the victim of a vengeful relative. Our investigation has recently shifted toward-”
“ Wait a minute, you talking about the case I saw in the Police Gazette just the other night?”
She covered the phone with her hand and said to Sharpe, “God, he sounds like Andy of Mayberry.”
Sharpe raised his shoulders to indicate he didn't know what in the world she referred to. She then spoke into the phone. “Yes, that would be the case I am referring to, sir, and all evidence is pointing at a one Isaiah Purdy, who maintains some sort of farm outside Iowa City.”
“ Damn, you don't say. These parts are full of Purdys. Isaiah Purdy, huh?”
“ His son was recently executed in Huntsville, Texas, and DeCampe put him on death row.”
“ I see… so you suspect his father of abducting the judge?” The chief stated the obvious.
“ We have many leads pointing to him, yes.”
“ I see. So, how can we help you, Dr. Coran?”
“ I want you to get out to his place and execute a search and seizure warrant, ostensibly to locate Judge Maureen DeCampe. We fear he intends burying her alive-if he hasn't already done so.”
“ Christ… sure, we'll do everything within our power to cooperate, of course. Have you faxed a copy of the warrant to my people here?”
“ Not just yet, but it's on its way.”
“ On its way?”
“ She doesn't have a moment to lose, sir.”
“ Lost my last case in court for jumping the gun on a warrant, Doctor. It's not going to happen again. Best I can do is stay in radio contact while I get some units up there, waiting and poised to go in. But I won't order my men in without paper on the suspect”
“ It's on its way,” she lied.
“ Like I said, soon as we have it in hand.”
“ What about soon as I have it in hand, Chief Gorman?”
“ Don't know…”
“ You can trust me.”
He hesitated.
“ Minutes are like days on this case. Chief.”
“ I'll send 'em in on your say-so. I'll get them out there soon as I get off the phone. I can promise you that much.”
“ Keep in constant contact with us, sir.”
“ As much as earthly possible, I will.” Chief Virgil Gorman immediately telephoned Iowa City Sheriff Chester Dunkirk, who on learning the news, replied, “I'm going to step back, Virgil. You're entirely in charge here.”
Virgil Gorman understood. There were a lot of Purdys living in and around the area, and it was an election year. “Do you know Isaiah Purdy? Is he capable of this sort of thing?”
“ I've never made the man's acquaintance. Heard stories when his son was arrested in Texas. All I ever heard was he was devoted to his wife, his son, and his pig farm. But he never spent a night in my jail. You?”
“ Never heard of him before I got that call from the FBI.”
“ Well, since you called, I dug out the likeness the Feds put out on the old man, Virgil.”
“ And what about it?
“ According to a cousin, it doesn't look anything like him. The cousin works for us.”
“ A cousin of Purdy's? Could be useful at the scene. Can you get him out there?”
“ He's not too cooperative, Virgil.”
Gorman hated to hear this. “Anything? Did he give up anything?”
“ Said the old man's a hermit up there, and nobody has anything to do with him or his wife, and no one's seen either of them in months.”
“ I'll see you at the perimeter, Dunkirk.”
ELEVEN
Ruthless as the old devil gods of the worlds first darkness.
Houston, Texas
Inside Judge Raymond Parker's chambers in downtown Houston, Texas, Dr. Meredyth Sanger did not have to plead long for Parker's help. Parker told her a chilling story about how the old man, just after his son's execution,
