did maintain a neat and cozy atmosphere, steered the captain and the trooper to a fine New England seafood dinner on Friday night, and furnished such mountains of breakfast Saturday morning that the captain, indulging himself far beyond his normal pattern, decided not to mention the breakfast to his wife.
Mrs. Bartlett, in a side desk drawer in her neat office, seemed to keep an unlimited supply of local maps, on one of which she drew a narrow red pen line from where they were to the temporary unified police headquarters in the Rutherford Combined Bank building, that being the rightful owner of the money stolen last week.
When they went out to the car, they were preceded by another guest here, a brassy-looking blonde in black, who got into a black Honda Accord festooned with antennas. With just a quick glimpse of her profile, the captain found himself wondering, have I seen her before? Possibly in here last night, or at the restaurant. Or it could be she’s just a kind of type of tough-looking blonde, striking enough to make you notice her, but also with a little warning sign in view.
Whatever the case, she was none of the captain’s concern. He got into the pool car, and Trooper Oskott drove him over to the meeting.
What was normally a loan officer’s space, a fairly roomy office with neutral gray carpet and furniture and walls, had been turned into the combined police headquarters, crammed with electronic equipment, extra tables and chairs, and easels mounted with photos, chain-of-command charts, progress reports, and particularly irritating examples of press coverage.
While Trooper Oskott waited at an easy parade rest out in the main banking area, still shut down since the robbery with all necessary bank transactions handled at another branch twenty-some miles away, Captain Modale went into the HQ room to be met by several of his opposite numbers, brought here at this hour specifically to meet with him.
What the captain read from those solemn faces and strong handshakes was a frustration even deeper than his own, and he decided to give up his bad temper at having his time wasted like this, because he knew these men and women were clutching at straws.
Three strangers had come into their territory, armed with antitank weapons illegal to be imported into the United States, and they’d made off with just about an entire bank’s cash assets. One day later, the law had managed to lay its hands on one of the felons, but the very next day they lost him again, and lost one of their own as well. Now, in the nearly a week since, there had been no progress, no breaks, no further clues as to where any of the three men had gone.
One of the brass here to greet him, a Chief Inspector Davies, said, “I’ll be honest with you, Captain, this reflects on every one of us.”
“I don’t see that, Inspector.”
“Yes, it does,” Davies insisted. “The one man we got, and I’m afraid lost—”
“
“The point is,” Davies said, “we know who he is. Nicholas Leonard Dalesia. He’s not from the Northeast at all. He has no friends here, no associates, no allies. He hasn’t stolen a car. He’s been loose for almost a week in the middle of the biggest manhunt
“He’s gone to ground,” said the captain.
“Agreed. But how? The feeling is, around here,” the inspector told him, “the feeling is, the other two are with him.”
“I don’t follow that,” the captain said.
“We know they had to leave the money behind, hide it somewhere,” the inspector told him. “Are they with it now? One of them, the one you met, went over to New York State to engage almost immediately in another robbery. Did he do it for cash to tide the gang over while they’re hiding out?”
“You’re suggesting,” the captain said, “the one that came to us managed to escape your manhunt, did that second robbery, and went right back
“You don’t buy it,” Inspector Davies said.
“I know
“Then where’s Nicholas Leonard Dalesia? It just doesn’t— Oh, Gwen, there you are. Come over here.”
A very attractive young woman in tans and russets had just entered the HQ room, and before the captain could show his bafflement— what was somebody like
After a handshake and greeting, Detective Reversa said, “John B. Allen, that’s who he was when I met him.”
“He called himself Ed Smith in my neighborhood.”
She smiled. “He doesn’t go in for colorful names, does he?”
“There’s not much colorful about him at all.”
“Tell me,” Detective Reversa said, “what do you think of the drawing?”
“Of Mr. Smith?” The captain shook his head, “It works in the wrong direction,” he said. “Once you know it’s supposed to be him, you can see the similarities. But I had a conversation with the man
Inspector Davies said, “While you’re here, Captain, I’d like you and Gwen to sit down with our artist and see if you can improve that picture.”
“Because you think he’s come back.”
Detective Reversa said, “But you don’t.”
“I think,” the captain said carefully, not wanting to hurt anybody’s feelings, “the third man could very well still be here, helping Dalesia hide out. But the fellow I talked to? What do you think?”
“He’s a cautious man,” she said, “and not loud. No colorful names. I think he’d be like a cat and not go anywhere he wasn’t sure of.”
Inspector Davies said, “So the two of you could improve that drawing.”
The captain bowed in acquiescence. “Whatever I can do to be of help.”
* * *
The artist was a small irritable woman who worked in charcoal, smearing much of it on herself. “I think,” Gwen Reversa told her, “the main thing wrong with the picture now is, it makes him look threatening.”
“That’s right,” Captain Modale said.
The artist, who wasn’t the one who’d done the original drawing, frowned at it. “Yes, it is threatening,” she agreed. “What should it be instead?”
“Watchful,” Gwen Reversa said.
“This man,” the captain said, gesturing at the picture, “is aggressive, he’s about to make some sort of move. The real man doesn’t move first. He watches you, he waits to see what
“But then,” Gwen Reversa said, “I suspect he’s very fast.”
“Absolutely.”
The artist pursed her lips. “I’m not going to get all
“Maybe,” Gwen Reversa said, “not so defined.”
