“You know he's gonna chew our asses off, don't you?” Chunk said.
“Probably.” But I didn't really care. In my mind, I was already gone, floating down the river, out of plague town.
“Okay, just so as you know.”
I patted his shoulder and we went inside.
Little Hitler was at his desk, writing up duty rosters for all the posts that had to be manned on a twenty-four hour basis until further notice.
He barely glanced up at us when we came in.
“Sit down,” he said, motioning to the empty chairs across from his desk.
He went on writing names down on his rosters, occasionally consulting a map, then quickly wrote down more names. After about two minutes of that he put his pen down, cracked his knuckles, and leaned back in his chair so he could look down his nose at us.
I got ready for the yelling, but to my surprise, he didn't yell. When he spoke, his voice was calm and even cheery.
“I thought you might want to know that the woman and the little girl you two saved are both doing fine. They were, anyway, as of yesterday. They were released after being treated for minor scrapes and bruises. The woman took a good sap on the head, but she should be fine.”
Chunk and I tried to avoid looking at each other in shock. I was wondering if I was in the right office.
“That's good to know, sir,” I said.
If you can imagine what a cat must feel like walking through a yard full of sleeping pit bulls, that's what I felt like just then, waiting for all hell to break loose.
“Look,” he said, and he was looking straight at me, “I know we got off to a rough start. Things were said. Tempers flared. I just want you to know I'm willing to forget about that.”
Had I not been so bowled over by surprise, I would have told him to sit on his thumb. I wasn't the one, after all, who had made me look like an idiot in front of the whole damn neighborhood in that suicide's front yard so many years ago.
As it was, I just sat there with my mouth hanging open a little. I said, “Um, that would be, um, okay.”
“Good,” he said.
He leaned back more in his chair and folded his hands together over his chest.
“So, tell me, how's the case going?”
“We're closing in on it, sir,” Chunk said.
“That's not an answer. Tell me where you're at now that your number one suspect is off the hook.”
I almost said: “I thought we were going to forget about that,” but didn't. There was something about knowing that I wouldn't have to listen to his shit much longer that made me more tolerant.
Instead, I told him about our trip into the GZ, about meeting Dr. Cole and fighting with the looters and about the missing equipment from Bradley's van. I also ran down the short list of suspects, Cole, Hernandez, and the looters.
The only thing I didn't tell him about was the old woman. I hadn't even told Chunk about her. As far as I was concerned, that was a private thing, for me only.
“You've stopped looking at Myers and Laurent?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I said. “They're still on the list.”
“You haven't figured out why they lied to you about not knowing where Bradley was working?”
“No, sir,” I said. “That's why they're still on the list.”
“And Bradley's journal wasn't any help?”
“Not really. It actually confused things more than it helped.”
“What do you think she meant by that bit about us all being goners?”
“You want to know what I think? I think she found proof to support Dr. Cole's theory.”
He turned in his chair and watched an orange cat run along a burned out section of fence below his window. Then it climbed into a trashcan.
“You're suggesting a conspiracy,” he said.
“If that's what she meant by that bit about us being goners, then yeah, I think a conspiracy pretty well covers it.”
“I don't buy that. Why would Laurent send her star player out into the GZ to spy on Cole, then try to cover it up when something happens to her? Seems to me that would be the perfect opportunity to turn the situation against Cole. Discredit him by making him seem crazy. That woman is a noisy, annoying bitch, but she's not stupid. She wouldn't miss an opportunity like that. And for that matter, why go to all the trouble to spy on him anyway? Why not just bring Cole into the mix, share the research?”
“Pride, I guess. I don't think Laurent and her people think very highly of the MHD.”
“No, probably not.”
He drummed his fingers on his chest and thought.
He said, “Well, it definitely sounds like Cole is the front runner.”
“Yes, sir. Trouble is, we can't put him and Bradley together, and we can't get around the fact that Wade's killer beat him to death. Cole wouldn't have been able to do that, not at his age.”
Treanor frowned. “How do you figure?”
“Cole is seventy-two. And Wade was, well, in pretty good condition. Plus he knew how to fight. There's no way Cole could have-”
Treanor waved his hand impatiently. “Not that,” he said. “I know all that. What do you mean you can't put Cole and Bradley together? They were working on the same theory, in the same little corner of the GZ, and Wade himself even called in a meeting with Cole.”
Chunk and I glanced at each other. “He did what now, sir?”
Treanor looked at both of us and said, “Ah shit, tell me this isn't news to you guys.”
He looked at both of us again and shook his head.
“When did this happen, sir?”
“About a week ago. He got me on the radio and said they'd just run into Cole in the GZ. He wanted to know if Cole had authorization from the MHD to be out in the GZ. I told him he was on the level. His clearance checked out.”
I took a second to absorb that.
“How in the hell did you guys miss that?” he said.
“We interviewed Cole,” I said, “and he told us he didn't know Bradley was working in the GZ. He said he hadn't seen her outside of Arsenal.”
Treanor said, “That sounds like a man who needs to be looked at again.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I think you're right.”
Chapter 23
Security around the Arsenal Morgue had been beefed up after the riot, but inside it was still business as usual. The bodies came in, the bodies went out, in a relentless tide of death that never stopped, day or night.
We found Myers and Laurent inside the WHO office and went into Laurent's office to talk, closing the door behind us.
Chunk and I sat in the chairs across the desk from Laurent. Myers stood at Laurent's elbow. The two of them looked at us over their face masks with narrow, angry eyes. They disliked us being there, but tolerated us, I think, as some kind of necessary evil.
“I don't suppose you found the hard drives from Dr. Bradley's computers?” Myers said, his English accent haughty and sarcastic.
“Not yet,” I said. “We're still working on that.”
“I see.”
Laurent, a.k.a. Hippo Woman, wheezed as she said, “What about Dr. Bradley's killer? Are you any closer to
