fronted by the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and turned right. They passed an odd, domed structure and then the vast brick building of the Rochester Institute of Technology. There were several stop signs, but these were to assist traffic exiting from parking lots, and there was no traffic. Kaynor sped through them without stopping and followed curving Andrews Drive to its junction with East River Road. By the time they reached it, Roszt had found their location on the map. If they turned south on East River Road, he thought, they could follow it out of the Rochester area.
The semitrailer was overtaking them. From the south came the sound of a police car approaching, and Kaynor’s quick eyes caught the flashing light. Reacting instantly, he made a screeching turn to the north, away from the police car, and drove with the accelerator on the floor.
East River Road, which lay along the east bank of the Genesee River, had only two lanes. There was a steel guard rail along the river and sharp drop to the water just beyond it, but the bank was so overgrown with trees and shrubs that the river was almost invisible. Fortunately there was no traffic. They sped easily along the edge of the Institute of Technology’s grounds, but only the dog Val was enjoying the chase. Kaynor kept the accelerator on the floor, but the police car was gradually overtaking them.
Roszt released his seat back and climbed into the rear of the car beside the dog. From his pocket he took a small tube— Egarn’s weapon. He steadied it on top of the rear seat and fired once. The beam bored a hole through his own rear window and through the right side of the police car’s engine. It also blew the right front tire. The car swerved off the road. There was nothing there for it to collide with, so the officer probably was not injured. At least, Roszt hoped not.
He returned to the front seat. They had reached busy Jefferson Road again, and there were both left-turn and through lanes. Miraculously the light turned green just ahead of them, and they roared through the intersection and entered the town of Brighton.
A short distance beyond, a railway bridge loomed on their left, and the road climbed abruptly to the railway tracks. At the top, they bumped over the tracks and were momentarily airborne when the road suddenly dipped down again.
Just ahead of them, a police car blocked the road, lights flashing. The officer stood beside it, weapon in hand. Beyond him, on the right, was a large building with a paved—but empty—parking lot. Several small boys were playing there with radio-controlled cars. Given a choice between hitting the police car or running down officer and children, Kaynor didn’t hesitate. As the car landed, he twisted the wheel to the left.
The heavy growth along the river had resumed again, but there was a break just beyond the parked police car. They bounced wildly out of control, cleared the guard rail, shot through the gap in the trees, soared over a motor boat that was moored to the bank, and hit the water with an enormous splash.
In the new control room, Egarn sat with his face buried in his hands.
Word quickly reached the campus and the row apartments, and friends of Janie’s who had access to transportation headed for the river bank. By the time they began to arrive, the motor boat had been moved, and a truck with a winch was waiting to pull the car out. A diver was in the water; he had located the car and was attaching a cable. There were crowds of gawkers on both river banks. The students stood together, Alida and Jeff among them, and Detective Fred Ulling, who had been working on Janie’s case and also on the Johnson break-ins, came over to talk with them.
“Is anyone in the car?” Jeff asked.
“No. Talk about your ironic endings! Now I suppose we’ll have to drag the river for those characters.”
Someone noticed a large, black dog cowering in the shrubbery. It had been in the water; the mob of people obviously frightened it, but it seemed reluctant to leave. Alida said, “I wonder if that’s their dog.”
She called it. The dog backed away warily. When one of the students tried to grab it, it ran off.
Finally the winch went into operation. The car was hauled to the surface. Water poured from open windows on both sides. The winch hauled it up the bank and onto the road. There was no one in the car. There seemed to be nothing of interest in it except two ordinary-looking suitcases with disgustingly ordinary, soggy contents.
People had begun to drift away. The dramatic event had turned into a non-spectacle. Jeff said, “The bodies will be a mile downstream before they get their equipment here. Shall we go?”
Alida nodded.
In the new workroom, the large len showed the river bank. More people came, looked, and went away. Afternoon waned into evening, and then darkness set in. Those in the room were not watching with hope but because there was nothing else they could do. The small len showed Gevis, the peer and prince, and even an assortment of Lantiff watching the large len intently in the old workroom, but Arne couldn’t see what it was they found so interesting.
Traffic on East River Road diminished as the niot wore on, and the road was poorly lighted. The scene on the len had become murky when Egarn suddenly cried out. Two dark shapes hauled themselves out of the water. The dog Val was there to greet them, leaping about them excitedly. Both of them embraced the dog. Then they set off on foot.
They followed East River Road as far as Genesee Valley Park, fading into the shadows whenever a car approached. Once in the park, they avoided roads until they reached the old Barge Canal. Then they took the Joseph C. Wilson Boulevard through the University of Rochester campus. Beyond Elmwood Avenue, they angled toward the back of the campus, which ran along the edge of Mount Hope Cemetery. With the dog trotting patiently on their heels, they walked the length of a downward sloping parking lot. The land on their right gradually rose to a steep bluff with the cemetery far above them. On the left were the dark campus buildings.
As the cemetery boundary curved eastward, residence halls loomed on their right, a few of the windows still lighted. Directly ahead was another parking lot, and a cinder walk ran steeply up to the residence halls. They followed the walk until, midway to the top of the slope, a dirt path branched off and angled along the side of the bluff. The path took them to the hole in the Mount Hope Cemetery fence they had located long before. They crawled through it and set out across the cemetery.
Eerie shapes confronted them wherever they looked. On their right were regimented tombstones where Rochester’s Civil War veterans were buried in orderly ranks below the statue of a Civil War soldier. Roszt and Kaynor had puzzled over the statue’s message on an earlier visit: “On fame’s eternal camping ground, their silent tents are spread, and glory guards with solemn round, the bivouac of the dead.” Beyond this area, a tall pillar topped with the statue of a fireman marked one dedicated to Rochester’s fire fighters.
They threaded their way eastward and then north, dim shadows more ghostly than the ghosts that surrounded them. Exhaustion was evident in every halting stride—even the dog was exhausted—but they moved as quickly as they could until they had left the more open southern part of the cemetery far behind them. They staggered along a sheltered, wooded drive until the land dipped downward into the picturesque dell and they reached the boarded up chapel and crematorium.
It was one of the refuges they had prepared long before by hiding food, blankets, toiletries, and a change of clothing there. Now they simply pulled one of the plywood window coverings open far enough to admit them—they had already loosened it. The dog was lifted up to the window. Then Roszt climbed in and turned to help Kaynor. The board was pulled into place after them. Because they had left the padlock on the door intact, the casual passerby or even the cemetery’s employees, would think the building empty and safely locked.
They changed their clothing. They ate and fed the dog. Then they wrapped themselves in blankets and fell asleep at once huddled on either side of the warm dog.
Their peril had been enormous. It still was. Their escape, however skillfully managed, was only temporary. Egarn knew they wouldn’t be safe until they were far from Rochester. He also knew they would never get out of the city unless they got rid of the dog. “Two men with a large black dog” was a tag anyone could remember and apply. Probably that was why they had been followed so easily. They were marked men as long as Val was with them. They would have to get rid of the dog and separate.
It was cruel to them and to the dog, but it had to be done. Egarn wrote a message, explaining this. Inskel
