something to his partner. His partner shook his head.
From Vernon's body they proceeded to an inspection of the Toyota, and from there to a brief conference with one of the state troopers. After about a minute or so, the trooper called over the farm boy and introduced him to the two agents. They talked for a few seconds; then the farm boy turned to point in my direction.
'Mr. Mitchell?' one of the agents called. He started walking toward me. 'Hank Mitchell?'
'Yes?' I said, stepping forward to meet him. 'I'm Hank Mitchell.'
He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet. He flipped it open to show me his shield. It gave me an anxious feeling, watching him do this, like I was being arrested. 'My name's Agent Renkins,' he said. 'I'm from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.'
I nodded, staring at the badge.
'My partner and I were wondering if you'd mind driving back into town with us, so you could tell us what you know about all this.'
'I've already gone over it once with the police,' I said. 'Couldn't you get my statement from them?'
'We'd prefer to hear it for ourselves. You can appreciate that, can't you?' He gave me one of Vernon's fake smiles.
I didn't answer; it was clear that I didn't have a choice. The other agent came up to join us. He had a black plastic garbage bag clamped beneath his arm.
'We're parked over here,' Renkins said, pointing toward their car. Then he turned and led me away.
I RODE in the backseat. Renkins drove, and his partner, Agent Fremont, sat beside him. The two men looked virtually identical from the rear -- their shoulders were the same width, their heads rose to the same height above the car's seat, and their hair grew out in exactly the same tint of dark brown, covering their identically round scalps to the same depth and thickness.
There was only one variation between them, though it was a dramatic one. Fremont's ears were much too large for his head. I couldn't help staring at them as we pulled away from the toll plaza; they were huge, convoluted ovals, stiff looking and astonishingly white, and they had an extremely personable effect on me. They made him instantly likable. He must've been teased about them when he was little, I thought, remembering Jacob's childhood and how he'd been tormented for his weight, and I felt a wave of pity for the man.
It was a remarkably different sensation, sitting in the rear of the agents' car, than it had been sitting in the front of the cruiser. It was just a normal car, like a traveling salesman might own -- black vinyl interior, little ashtrays on the doors, a cheap-looking tape deck in the dashboard -- but, alone in the backseat, I had the definite sensation that I was in their custody, that I was under their control. It was a feeling I hadn't had in the cruiser.
We headed toward Ashenville, moving at right angles along the perpendicular farm roads, first north, then east, then north again, and I told them my story. They kept a tape recorder running as I spoke, but they seemed relatively uninterested in what I had to say. They asked no questions; they didn't glance back at me when I paused or nod encouragement to move me along. They sat impassively before me, staring out the windshield at the road. We retraced the route I'd driven with Collins and the farm boy earlier that afternoon, passed the same landmarks, the same houses, the same farms. The only difference was that it was clear now, the air pale and dry. The sun, approaching the end of its slow arc to the west, glinted brightly off of distant rooftops.
As I talked, I decided that the agents' silence could mean only one of two things. Either they'd already accepted my story and were merely listening now as a formality or they'd discovered something damning in their investigation of the crime site, some contrary evidence that wiped everything I was saying aside, and they were simply waiting for me to finish, allowing me to dig myself further and further into my falsehood before unmasking me for what I was: a liar, a thief, a murderer. I lingered as I neared the close of my tale, pausing and repeating myself, fearful to discover which of these possible alternatives would confront me.
But then, unavoidably, I reached the end.
Fremont punched a button on the tape recorder, stopping it. Then he turned to look at me.
'There's only one problem with your story, Mr. Mitchell.'
A tightness settled into my stomach when he said this. I looked out at the passing fields, forcing myself to wait before I spoke. Off in the distance I could see a scarecrow, dressed in black, hanging from a pole. He had a straw hat on, and from this far away, at first sight, he looked like a real man.
'A problem?' I asked.
Fremont nodded, his elephantine ears moving up and down like paddles beside his head.
'The man whose corpse you identified back there -- he wasn't from the FBI.'
The relief I felt at these words was so intense that it had an actual physical effect on me. Over the entire surface of my body, my pores opened, and I began to sweat. It was a strange, even horrible sensation, like losing control of one's bladder, a sudden slipping, a dizzying loss of control. It made me want to giggle, but I suppressed it. I wiped my forehead with my hand.
'I don't understand,' I said. My voice came out hoarser than I would've liked. Fremont didn't seem to notice.
'His name was Vernon Bokovsky. That plane you heard with engine trouble back in December was carrying his brother. It crashed in the nature preserve.'
'He was looking for his brother?'
Fremont shook his head. 'He was looking for this.' He lifted the plastic bag from between his feet. I leaned forward to get a better look. It gave me a thrill to see it; it was knowing something secret.
'A garbage bag?' I said.
'That's right.' Fremont grinned. 'Full of some very expensive trash.' He opened the bag, shaking it so I could see the money.
I stared at it, counting to ten in my head, trying to look speechless with surprise. 'Is it real?' I asked.
'It's real.' Fremont stuck a black-gloved hand into the bag and pulled out one of the packets. He held it up before my face. 'It's ransom,' he said. 'Bokovsky and his brother were the guys who kidnapped that McMartin girl last November.'
'The McMartin girl?'
'The heiress. The one they shot and dumped in the lake.'
I kept my eyes on the money. 'Can I touch it? I'm wearing gloves.'
The two agents laughed. 'Sure,' Fremont said. 'Go ahead.'
I stretched out my hand, and he set the packet in it. I stared down at it, weighing it in my palm. Renkins watched me in the rearview mirror, a friendly smile on his face.
'It's heavy, isn't it?' he asked.
'Yes,' I said. 'It's like a little book.'
We were approaching Ashenville now. I could see it rising from the horizon, a low mound of buildings clustered tightly around the crossroads. It looked fake, illusory, like the city of Oz.
I handed the packet to Fremont, and he dropped it back into the bag.
Ashenville had returned to normal in my absence. The TV crews had left, the crowds had disappeared, and now the town looked exactly like it would've on any other Saturday afternoon, empty, sleepy, a little run-down around the edges. The only thing that remained as a reminder of its recent tragedy was the flag, fluttering limply at half-mast.
Renkins parked in front of the town hall, and we climbed out onto the sidewalk to say good-bye.
'I'm sorry you had to get dragged into all this,' Fremont said. 'You've been very cooperative.' We were standing at the base of the town hall's steps. There was only one police car left.
'I still don't really understand what happened,' I said.
Renkins grinned at me. 'I'll tell you what happened,' he said. 'Two brothers kidnapped a girl outside of Detroit. They shot seven people, including the girl, and escaped with a ransom of four point eight million dollars. One of the brothers crashed a plane into that park. The other came out to find him, pretending to be a federal agent. When he saw the plane, he shot Officer Jenkins.'
His smile deepened.
'And then a state trooper shot him.'
