“It’s nothing until they find the body and issue a forensic report. Until then, it’s nothing.”
But he watched it again. The flames billowed orangely as they ate through the old building standing in a meadow in the lee of mountains on a bright and beautiful Arkansas day.
“I think it’s over, sir,” somebody said. “I think we can chalk it off.”
“Then why would he do something so obviously stupid for a dog? This guy was a prick, but he wasn’t stupid.”
“But he was obsessional,” said Dobbler, in the dark. “The dog
“I’ll buy it when they bring me his teeth,” said Shreck.
His eyes went back to the television. He hit REWIND.
Hap found him the next day.
“Here, here he is, goddammit,” he called after lifting the air filtration mask the men wore to protect their lungs from the clouds of ash. His words carried to the twenty agents and fifteen state policemen on hands and knees who sifted and pawed through the remains of Aurora Baptist, while a hundred yards away, like gawkers at a carnival midway, the reporters were kept in check by three more cops and a rope line.
The cops and agents gathered around. Nick pushed his way through the crowd. His head ached from the pounding he’d taken and he was afraid his stitches might not hold, but he had to see.
What was left of Bob Lee Swagger was not pretty. Bob’s face had burned away and the hideous fleshlessness exposed his teeth, which had been blackened with the rest of him in the blaze. His spine had curled; it looked like an Apache bow, drawn, perhaps shrunken a little, much notched. The rest was loose body parts, black as sin, disconnected from each other.
One of the agents went away to be sick.
Nick, standing amid clouds of ashen dust in the hulk of the old church, pushed his mask off and saw what had happened. In extremis, his last moments of life on earth, as the incredible heat consumed him, Bob crawled to the altar. The fire consumed him, and spat out his bones. He had done his duty; he got that damned dog buried. It was so important to him, it was important enough to die for. Was that nobility or sheer craziness? Hard to read; and that was somehow pure-D Bob Swagger. And that done, there was nothing left to do. What all his armed and dangerous enemies could not do, a single tear gas shell fired into the rafters of the church had done in seconds. Fitting? No. Too much pain. Death by fire wasn’t transformation, it was as agonizing as crucifixion, with nails driven through every square centimeter of your skin.
“Hell of a way to die,” someone said. “Creep or no creep, hell of a way to die.”
“Who’s going to body-bag him?”
“Not me,” said Nick first and loudest. He had wanted to see the whole thing played out to the end, knowing his own end – or the end of his career – was near. There was nothing of the reliquary here for him; the bones of saints, being really just bones, made him queasy.
He stepped out of the ruins of the church. Nice to be on solid ground again, instead of shuffling through ash and fire-rotted splinters of wood.
He stood off to one side while others came to see, and wondered if this was how it was in 1934 when they got Dillinger, and everyone had to come and look and dip a finger or a handkerchief in the great gangster’s blood.
The reporters sensed the discovery and became restive; Nick could see them surge forward and strain at the rope. It was Howard over there who quieted them with the news. Nick watched the network reporters cluster around him, then looked and saw that the photographers had finished, and now the guys from morgue had gotten what was left of Bob into a plastic sack. At least they had the decency to put him on a litter, rather than carrying him like a Halloween bag to the coroner’s van.
Feeling suddenly wiped out, Nick thought how nice it would finally be to be done with it all. He had zero money because it had taken every cent he had to keep Myra taken care of, and soon he would have no job, but hey, he was alive, he was -
Then he saw something that made him sick.
He walked over to the graveyard.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Two black men were digging up the dog that Bob had buried, while two cameras blazed away and two TV reporters posed in front of them.
“I said, what the hell are you doing?”
The black men just looked at him foolishly.
“Do you have permission to dig here? This is state’s evidence.”
“Now, chief,” said one of the reporters, coming over to him. “Nothing to get excited about. We’re just doing our job. You’re FBI, huh? So, what does it feel like now that Public Enemy Number One has – ”
The microphone was pushed at him, and Nick saw the camera coming onto him. He also saw Howard rushing over to take command, a stricken look on his face.
“Nick,” Howard was calling, “Nick, you aren’t authorized to do press at this point. Mr. Baker, I’ll have to ask you – ”
Nick turned, the microphone was still there, big as a fist right at Nick’s nose, and the reporter, who Nick now saw was wearing considerable makeup and whose hair was lacquered into frozen perfection, was asking him quite earnestly how it
“Nick, no – ”
He heard Howard as his fist traveled a short distance, maybe ten inches, and caught the talker square in his pretty mouth. Nothing had felt quite so good in months. The clown bumbled fearfully backward, spitting teeth, leaking blood, and the whole contingent of press guys quivered back, making room for him.
Now gone to complete savagery, Nick turned onto the digging men and screamed at them to get the hell out of there, and they scrambled away. So there he stood for just a second, all his enemies vanquished. Look at me, Ma, top of the world. Top of the world.
Then Howard had him, and several others pulled him back and were on him, including one state policeman who was handling him more roughly than was necessary.
“Yeah, you’re tough with reporters,” the officer spat, “but yesterday when it counted, you were pussy.” And with that, he gave Nick an immensely powerful shove that sent him back a few feet, completely stripped of dignity.
It occurred to Nick for the first time how the cops must hate him. He hadn’t worked it out, having spent the night in the hospital after various stitchings and X rays. But yes, he’d had a shot at Bob, and couldn’t pull the trigger. Three minutes later it was state policemen who’d closed on Bob, fully armed and one of the most dangerous gunmen in the world. Had he wanted to, Bob could have filled Arkansas with state police widows even with that old-time cowboy carbine.
“Nick, goddamn, cool it, cool it,” Hap was whispering in his ear, as he held him in a tender but firm embrace. “Damn, what has gotten into you, Jesus, you punch a reporter, you could get busted for
“Yeah, yeah,” said Nick with phony surliness, as the cop slowly walked away, daring Nick to have a go at him. Meanwhile Howard had taken over with the reporters, trying to explain how Nick was “overextended.”
He just felt totally whacked. Even breathing seemed too hard. If he could only sleep for a couple of centuries and then wake up and put the pieces together, it might make some sense.
Howard was back. Howard didn’t have a vocabulary for anger, being by nature a conniver and a facilitator rather than a brute. But he was
“Howard, I’m sorry. I hadn’t really figured how stressed out I was. I really didn’t – ”
“Memphis, that’s it. That’s the end. I am formally relieving you of duties as of this second. You are off this case and off this team. Get back to the hotel and pack and shower. I’ll have somebody drive you to the airport. You take a plane to God knows where – I don’t give a damn. I’ll have you formally notified when the review board will meet, but as of now you are officially suspended without pay pending the outcome of the board’s decision.”
“Howard, I want – ”
“Memphis, shut up. Your involvement in the case has been a disaster. It’s my biggest mistake. Now just get the
