Collins scanned his pad, rereading what I'd told him. He underlined something, then closed the notebook.
'Can you tell me what's going on?' I asked.
'You haven't heard?'
'Just that Carl's been murdered.'
'He was shot by this man who was looking for the plane.'
'Agent Baxter?'
'That's right.'
'But why?'
Collins shrugged. 'All we know is what you and Mrs. Jenkins have told us: Officer Jenkins left town with Baxter around nine-fifteen. Just after eleven o'clock, Mrs. Jenkins looked out her window here and saw Baxter pull up, alone, in her husband's truck. He parked it across the street, walked back to his own car, and drove away. She called her house, thinking that her husband might've been dropped off there, but got no answer, so she decided to drive out to the nature preserve herself and see what was going on. When she arrived at the park, she found their tracks in the snow and just followed them in. They went on for about a half mile through the trees and stopped beside the wreckage of a small plane. That's where she found her husband's body.'
'Linda found him herself?' I asked, horrified by the thought of this.
He nodded. 'Then she ran back to the road and called us on the radio.'
'But why would he have shot Carl?'
Collins seemed to debate for a second. He slid his pen into his shirt pocket. 'Baxter didn't mention anything to you about some missing money?'
'No.' I shook my head. 'Nothing.'
'Mrs. Jenkins said he told her husband there was four million dollars on the plane.'
'Four million dollars?' I stared incredulously at him.
'That's what she claims.'
'So he shot Carl for the money?'
'We aren't sure -- Baxter may have been lying. He said it came from an armored-car robbery in Chicago last July, but we can't find any record of that. All we know is that it had something to do with the plane. Beyond this, it's anyone's guess.'
COLLINS left me, to show my statement to Sheriff McKellroy. I wasn't sure if I could go yet -- the sheriff had said that I might have to look at some pictures to identify Vernon's car -- so I just stuck around. They'd brought some folding chairs into Carl's outer office, and I took one and sat down by the window. The farm boy nodded hello when I came in with Collins, but after that no one paid me any attention. Someone had brought in a police radio, which hissed and sputtered in the corner. There was a large map tacked up on the wall, and sometimes Sheriff McKellroy would go over and draw a line on it.
They were hunting for Vernon, I knew, tracking him down.
Outside, the crowd had grown. People were pulling up in cars. Both of the TV crews were filming interviews -- Channel 11 with a state policeman, Channel 24 with Cyrus Stahl, Ashenville's octogenarian mayor. The weather was clearing, and the town had taken on a festive air. People were talking in large groups. Some children had gotten out their bikes and were racing up and down the street. Little boys peered inside the parked police cars, their hands cupped to the windows.
The rain had stopped, and a wind had sprung up from the north, gusting now and then in cold little shocks of air that made the flag above the town hall snap and flutter, its lanyard clanking hollowly against the aluminum pole, like the distant tolling of a bell. The flag had been dropped to half-mast, in mourning for Carl.
I'd been sitting there for almost an hour and was staring out the window in a daze when the room behind me seemed to explode in a rush of movement.
'Where's Mitchell?' I heard the sheriff yell. 'He go home?'
I turned around and found one of the deputies pointing at me. 'He's right here.'
Collins and the farm boy were picking up their hats and jackets and striding toward the door. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, but I couldn't focus on what they were saying.
'Collins,' Sheriff McKellroy yelled. 'Sweeney. Take Mr. Mitchell with you. Have him ID the body.'
'The body?' I said.
'You mind?' the sheriff asked from across the room. 'It'd be a big help.'
'Mind what?'
'We got a guy that fits the description you gave of Baxter, but we need a positive ID.' He pointed toward Collins and the farm boy, who were waiting in the doorway. 'They'll take you,' he said.
I picked up my jacket and started toward the door but then stopped in midstride. 'Would it be all right if I called my wife?' I asked McKellroy. 'Just to let her know where I am?'
'Of course,' he said, giving me an understanding look. He evicted a deputy from Linda's desk and sat me down there.
I picked up the phone and dialed home.
Linda had a picture of herself and Carl on her desk, and I turned away from it, toward the window, though not quickly enough to avoid having to wonder where she was right now. Probably at home, I thought. She'd never forget what she'd seen this morning -- her husband lying in the snow, dead -- and it gave me a tired feeling to think this, a numbness in my heart.
Like this morning, Sarah answered on the first ring.
'It's me,' I said. 'I'm at the police station.'
'Is everything okay?'
'Carl's dead. The guy from the FBI shot him.'
'I know,' she said. 'I heard about it on the radio.'
'But it sounds like they caught him. They're taking me out now to make sure it's the same guy.'
'Taking you where?'
'I don't know. I think he might be dead.'
'Dead?'
'They said 'body.' They want me to ID the body.'
'They killed him?'
'I'm not sure. That's what it sounds like.'
'Oh, Hank,' she whispered. 'That's perfect.'
'Sarah,' I said quickly, 'I'm at the police station.' I glanced around the room to see if anyone was listening. Collins and the farm boy stood by the door, their hats in their hands. They were both watching me, waiting for me to finish.
Sarah fell silent. I could hear the radio playing in the background, a man's high-pitched voice, selling something. 'Do you know when you'll be home?' she asked.
'Probably not for a little while.'
'I'm so relieved, Hank. I'm so happy.'
'Shhh.'
'We're going to celebrate tonight. We're going to ring in our new life together.'
'I have to say good-bye now, Sarah. We can talk when I get home.'
I set down the phone.
THE FARM boy drove, and I rode beside him in the front seat. Collins sat in back. We headed south out of town, speeding, our lights flashing. The temperature was dropping now, and the roads had spots of ice on them. The air seemed to grow clearer by the moment, the views wider and crisper. Every now and then a tatter of bluish sky appeared between the swiftly moving clouds above us.
'Did Sheriff McKellroy say 'body'?' I asked the farm boy.
He nodded. 'That's right.'
