sea, there were weary-worn routes all the buses took, but that some tours included side trips that others failed to take. All of this he learned from the clique of tour guides hanging about Ruby Inn. He also learned something of the history of the inn, that it was a favorite haunt of cowboy and Western stars from Gene Autry and Roy Rogers to Audie Murphy and John Wayne.
From the bus companies he'd contacted, he had heard from only three of seven so far, and none of them listed a Chris Lorentian, a Charon, or anyone named Nessus in any of various spellings on their manifests. It had been four hours since Jessica had left, and no word. He began to worry when Warren Bishop showed up at the inn, seeking Jessica.
'Where is she?' Bishop asked J. T. where he sat before a phone in the manager's office.
'Salt Lake City.'
'Why Salt Lake?'
'We believe-or rather, she believes it will be where he next kills.'
'How does she know this?'
'She doesn't, not exactly, but bear with me.'
Bishop, exhausted from what appeared lack of sleep, dropped stonelike into a chair beside J. T., who then continued, 'He's a killer of opportunity. He bides his time, seeking out the weakest to prey upon, someone lonely or despondent, someone alone, and he pounces.'
'I follow you so far.'
'Step out to the restaurant with me for a moment.'
'I'm not hungry. Get on with it, Dr. Thorpe.'
'Please, come along,' J. T. gently urged.
Taking a narrow passageway, they came upon the dining area. It was dinnertime, especially for the bus tour crowd staying the night at the inn. 'Notice how many of these people around you here at the inn, Bishop, are just that- vulnerable one way or another?'
'They're mostly elderly people-couples, and in packs. What do you mean?'
'Women alone, women traveling with their daughters, single women, single men in search of a mate along with their adventure into the wilderness parks. Sure, there are a lot of couples, but there are also the singles. Melvin Martin was a single man traveling alone, and now this Whitaker woman, a single woman traveling alone.'
'Then the killer could still be at this lodge, camouflaged among the bus tour crowds,' suggested Bishop. 'So, you and Jessica have concluded that he's traveling by bus, I see.'
'How do you suppose he learned we-Jess, rather- was staying at Wahweap Lodge when he was here, killing again? He's following a bus route, and he has us marching to his drumbeat, and he knows it.'
'Then he's thought this thing through thoroughly, hasn't he?'
'We believe so. As you know, he's been baiting Jessica all along. The creep was milling around in Page while we were there, just.. just to taunt us.'
'Yes, Jessica feared her path and his might cross there.'
'He knew enough to telephone her there, so he either saw her there or assumed she would follow him there…'
'And if he assumed… Well, either way, he's as shrewd as he is psychotic. I got Jessica's wire, flew out to Page only to discover you had all rushed here.'
Bishop's apt description of the Phantom as a shrewd psychotic recalled Mad Matt Matisak to mind, along with a host of other satanic killers whom Jessica had helped, either directly or indirectly, to put down or behind bars, and he wondered, as Repasi had, if the Phantom might not be someone with a long-ago grudge to settle with Jessica. He suggested this to Bishop, who quickly informed him that it was unlikely, since a thorough check of all former such opponents revealed no one missing from lockup.
''But what if someone in lockup is holding the strings, telling this puppet what to do and say to terrify Jessica?'
'Maybe… it's a possibility, but Quantico says no. And Santiva has taken measures to stop all communiquйs going out of federal asylums and federal prisons housing anyone who could conceivably hold a grudge against Jess.'
'You should have seen Jessica last night after that bastard telephoned her again, Bishop. Mother wanted her to hear Eloise Whitaker's last screams.'
''Lowlife-SOB-motherfreaking-rat-bastard.''
'Yeah, my sentiments exactly.'
'Maybe it's possible then, at some point, he was at Wahweap Lodge in Page while you two were there,' suggested Bishop, imagining it.
'I suspect our paths crossed. The killer didn't have to wait there long, just long enough for the tour guide to round everyone up, minus Melvin Martin, of course, but then a check with Martin's tour bus company turned up no one traveling as Chris Lorentian, so Melvin may not've been a part of the same tour group as the one the killer is traveling with. Actually, as it happens, Melvin was traveling in exactly the opposite direction when their paths crossed. His tour was passing through the national parks from the north down on a journey for a destination southwest-for Vegas, in fact. And the morning after Chris Lorentian was killed? The hotel parking lot in Vegas was crammed full with touring buses.'
'He made his escape from Vegas on a tour bus?' Bishop's shake of the head spoke volumes. 'We had men watching the buses for anyone looking suspicious.'
J. T. frowned, knowing it sounded somewhat ridiculous, but he replied, ''What better way to blend in than to join a gaggle of tourists? And we never found Chris's credit cards or her purse. Besides, as the FBI profile says, this guy is so unremarkable as to be virtually invisible.'
'And using a unisex name like Chris, I suppose the tour guide would have little reason to question his sex when he went to use that ticket.' Bishop sent his balled fist down on a table, the noise startling everyone in the restaurant area.
'Right,' agreed J. T.
'So, supposing they were both-killer and victim- touring with the same or similar bus tour companies,' suggested Bishop, warming now to the game of supposition they were playing, 'they strike up a conversation, maybe have dinner together, and he slips his victim something in a drink…'
'Just enough drugs to incapacitate. Then he goes up to the victim's room, concerned about the victim's pallor, which the bastard remarks upon at dinner,' added J. T.
'And the rest, as they say, is smoke and history…' Bishop's hard-set jaw began to quiver. 'Cold, methodical bastard. Quite sure of what he wants, but I'll be damned if I know. Tell me what you know of this untapped phone call Jessica had from the creep at Wahweap Lodge.'
J. T. wondered for a moment how Bishop knew the call had been untapped, but he mentally shrugged it off. There'd been no time for Jessica to place a tap on the phone. Bishop must have assumed as much.
J. T. now launched into as detailed a description of the killer's last communiquй as he could muster. He told Bishop all that Jessica had revealed to him about the phone call, and he ended with the killer's professed reason for doing people: 'In order to climb from Hell himself, or so he said.'
'Nifty and the freshest excuse for murder I ever heard,' Bishop sarcastically replied.
J. T. nodded. 'The devil made me do it.'
'In your search with the bus companies…' began Bishop.
'Yeah?'
'Did you ask after the name she'd registered under at the Hilton?'
'My God. I'd forgotten. Chris Dunlap.'
'Let's get back on the horn then.'
They rushed back to the phone J. T. had left in the manager's office.
J. T. and Bishop double-teamed the effort, and they tied up the phone lines out of Ruby Inn with the help of the cache of tour guides they'd rounded up, making phone calls to all the various bus companies working the national parks routes in Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming. They'd thought themselves clever by limiting themselves to the national parks tour packages in this area, since the trail of the killer appeared to be that of a tourist interested in the Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam, Bryce Canyon, and the Zion area. They then
