Dead Man's Song

Chapter 6

(1)

Late that afternoon Ferro advised Gus to impose a curfew on the town. The chief looked at him as if he’s just suggested that they should all dance naked down Corn Hill. “With Boyd still out there it’s the safest thing,” Ferro insisted.

“The town selectmen will have my balls if I do that. This is October!”

LaMastra looked from him to his partner. “See, Frank, I told you he’d go all Jaws on us.” In a mocking tone of voice he said, “We can’t close the beaches…it’s Fourth of July weekend!”

“Vince, please,” Ferro said.

Gus went as red as a tomato, his body swelling as if it was about to burst. “This is hardly something to joke about—”

“We apologize, Chief,” Ferro said, shooting a harsh look at LaMastra. “Vince and I are both tired and frustrated.”

The chief grunted. They were sitting in Gus’s office on Corn Hill. There was a lot of bustle as off-duty officers were coming in to replace the working shift. Everyone looked angry and there was a lot of harsh chatter about what they’d do if they found the bastard who had killed two of their own.

“But,” Ferro pushed on, “a curfew does seem to be the best course of action. Boyd is still out there, and—”

“Don’t patronize me, Frank. I’m not stupid. I know how dangerous the situation is, but you have to appreciate my position. Pine Deep is a tourist town and decisions that affect the tourism industry are not made by me. Terry makes the principal decisions—”

“The mayor’s off the radar, Chief,” LaMastra observed.

“Which means that Harry LeBeau has authority,” Gus said stubbornly, “and even then he has to get a majority vote from the selectmen, even in a police emergency.” When he saw the looks on their faces he added defensively, “I didn’t set it up, but it’s more than my job is worth to issue a curfew without permission.” He paused, realizing how that sounded, and added, “Even if I do agree.”

“Well, can you at least give LeBeau a call and set things in motion? The sun is already down.”

Gus stared at him for a long five count, then abruptly stood up and walked into his private office and slammed the door. Through the glass Ferro could see him snatch up the phone. He turned to LaMastra, dropped his voice, and snapped, “Jesus, Vince, do you have to make smartass comments to everyone? What is it with you?”

Unmoved, LaMastra quietly said, “I guess my bullshit tolerance has bottomed out over the last couple of days. Working with that guy is maybe a short step up from working with a sock puppet.”

“It’s his town.”

“Oh, screw that, Frank. People are dying—cops are dying. I just don’t see why we should be even asking him. I thought the mayor put us in charge.”

“Of the manhunt, yes, but this is a town policy issue. We push too hard on this and the mayor makes a call to our boss and we’re both writing parking tickets in West Philly.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to play politics here.”

Ferro shrugged. “The chief’s making the call, isn’t he?”

Through the glass they could see Gus, his face even redder, gesturing emphatically as he shouted into the phone. They shared a look, eyebrows raised, then settled down at desks to update their reports on their laptops. Ten minutes later Gus’s door banged open and he stalked across the room toward them, face dark, a thick vein popping on his forehead. He stopped in front of Ferro’s desk and glared down at him. “Well, I pitched the curfew idea to LeBeau and eight of the selectmen one at a time and got my ass handed to me by every single one of them.”

Ferro flicked a warning look at LaMastra, who only mouthed the word “Jaws.”

“Best I might get from them was permission to issue an advisory.”

“‘An advisory,’” Ferro echoed.

“We can broadcast a suggestion that ‘everyone stay indoors until the current criminal investigation is over.’” He said it with the intonation of someone repeating a quote. “Since almost every business in town subscribes to the township listserv, we can send out an e-mail with the same suggestion, and that is as far as they are going to budge until they hear from Terry.”

Ferro stared up at the pocked surface of the drop-ceiling panels. “Okay, then that will have to do.”

The e-mail was drafted and sent, with the request that each store owner forward it to his local client list—a suggestion Gus thought would be universally ignored—and a copy of it was faxed to the local radio station, WHWN, the “Voice of the Pennsylvania Pinelands,” which was broadcast out of Pinelands College. Word had already spread about the murders that morning at Guthrie Farm, and the whisper-stream spread the news about the “advisory.” The overwhelming reaction from both townsfolk and tourists was to pour into the streets. Within a couple of hours Pine Deep became one huge party, with impromptu bonfires flaring up in the farmers’ fields closest to the town proper, and tailgate parties sparking to life in parking lots of a dozen stores. More than half of the shops on Main Street and Corn Hill decided to stay open past the usual closing hour, and all the bars and restaurants were packed with chattering crowds. When Ferro and LaMastra left the chief’s office to walk back to the Harvestman to turn in, they encountered huge crowds of people, laughter, blaring music, and a pandemic of celebration. As they passed the open door of Jacko’s Pub, a drunk girl in a very tight T-shirt staggered out of the door, her forehead painted with a lipstick jack-o’-lantern, a drink in either hand. “Here fellas, these’ll just kill ya!” She tried to hand them the drinks, but Ferro gave her his stony face and pushed past. LaMastra paused for a moment, took the drink and downed it in a single gulp, winked at the girl, and then hurried to catch up with Ferro, his throat burning with whatever was in the drink.

(2)

Val and Crow sat side by side on his cramped bed, Crow’s good arm around her. Both of them were now free of the IV bottles and Weinstock had said that they would be released the following day. Polk sat by the door staring at the news, and Toombes was slumped in a chair by the window reading a Walter Mosley novel, but she also kept glancing up at the TV, which showed the burgeoning party in Pine Deep.

“Gotta love this town,” Crow said, giving Val a gentle squeeze, mindful of her wrenched shoulder.

“This is crazy,” Val said sourly. “People have no respect. No common sense, either. Don’t they know what’s out there?” Her voice was fierce enough to make both cops turn and look at her, but she was unabashed. “People can be so damn stupid sometimes.”

“I heard that,” Toombes murmured, and then bowed her head over her novel again.

Crow’s cell rang and he disentangled himself from Val and reached for it, checked the display, and said to Val, “It’s Terry!”

He flipped the phone open. “Hey, Wolfman…where the hell you been?”

“Hi, Crow. How are you? How’s Val?”

“Able to sit up and take nourishment.”

“Good, good,” Terry said in a vague way that made Crow think he hadn’t even registered the answer. “Look, I just got off the phone with Harry and he more or less brought me up to speed.” He cleared his throat and when he spoke again his voice was a bit more human. “Jesus, I can’t believe that Ruger actually attacked you at the hospital. I’m glad you killed the bastard.” It took Crow a second to register what Terry had just said. Jesus? Bastard? Wow, Crow thought.

“I doubt anyone’ll shed tears at his funeral,” Crow muttered.

“And…I heard about Nels Cowan and Jimmy Castle. It’s horrible but…I’m off-balance with the timetable here. Are they sure Ruger didn’t do that?’

“Ruger was DOA when that went down. Apparently his buddy Boyd did it.”

“Boyd? That doesn’t make any sense. Those Philly cops told me he was harmless.”

“I guess they were wrong.”

“Goddamn it!” There it was again.

“Have you been watching the news?”

“I’m watching it now. Place is going to hell, and I’ve got to get back on top of this situation. I’m heading over to Gus’s. Talk to you later.”

“Hey, wait a min—” But Terry had hung up. Crow slowly closed his phone and turned to Val.

“What was that all about?” she asked. He told her, emphasizing the startling changes in Terry’s vocabulary. She arched an eyebrow. “Terry? Cursing? Oh, come on….”

“Hand to God, sweetie.”

“Must be strain,” she said.

“Must be something.”

(3)

Vic spun around, whipping a pistol out of his belt and dropping into a shooter’s crouch as Kenneth Boyd stepped heavily out from between two maples. Vic’s scowl melted away and he smiled as he straightened, easing the hammer down and shoving the gun back into the shoulder rig he wore under his windbreaker. He’d been waiting for over an hour, seated cross-legged on the tailgate of his pickup, chain-smoking and working things through in his head, waiting for Boyd, who took his sweet time getting there.

Boyd stood in the darkness under an elm, staring hungrily at him. The forest and the field were both cast in shadows thrown by the mountains, but Boyd stood in the heart of the darkness, shying away from even the wan daylight.

Vic stretched his legs and stood, affecting a yawn, then he turned and as he started walking toward the forest he slapped his thigh and whistled. “Here, boy!”

With red hatred in his eyes, Boyd followed, his lips curling back to reveal a row of jagged teeth that looked more like they should belong in the mouth of a barracuda rather than a man. Together they went deep into the woods.

Vic always kept a small canvas folding chair in a zippered vinyl bag stowed behind one of the rhododendrons by the edge of the swamp. He unzipped it casually, pointedly not looking at Boyd, showing both his lack of fear and total disregard for the creature, especially here in the presence of the Man. He took his time setting up the chair, pushing the legs down into the mossy earth until they held firm against roots or stones, and then he sat down, facing the muddy pool. Bubbles were constantly rising to the surface of the pool, popping with a mingled smell of sulfur, methane, and rotting meat. Vic had long since grown used to the smell, but he took a lucifer match from his shirt pocket, popped it alight with a thumbnail, and held the flame to a fresh cigarette, then flicked the still burning match at Boyd. It bounced off the creature’s cheek and save for a tiny flaring of eyes and nostrils Boyd did not react. Those eyes never left Vic’s throat, however, and after a few minutes, as Vic sat there and smoked—his own eyes fixed on the black pool—cold spittle gathered in Boyd’s mouth and dripped in fat drops to his chest.

As he finished his cigarette, Vic said aloud, “Einstein over there nearly screwed the pooch, Boss.” His words were directed to the rippling surface of the pool, and he cocked his head to one side as if listening to an answer. “Yeah, I think we can turn it around. Worst case is that everyone’ll think Boyd here just went off his nut. I can make that work for us.” He listened again. “Sure, but it’s all based on whether Boyd will do what we say. He should have stayed out of town, should have gone to ground, but here he is, big as life and twice as ugly. If it was me, I’d cap him right now. Got those special rounds in your old Luger—they’d take Shitbag here down quick as you please, then I could leave him where he can be found and then let things go quiet for a while. Halloween’s coming fast, and cops crawling up everyone’s ass could slow things down.” He listened again, sighed, and nodded reluctantly. “Okay, I can see that…but I still think we should dump this one and just work on the other one. Well…the other three now. Maybe they won’t be brain damaged like this useless turd.” Vic leaned forward, his face, his eyes, his entire being focused on the center of the swamp. “You know I will, Boss. One thing in all the world you never need to do is doubt that. But if Boyd here steps out of line one more time—if he endangers the plan one more time—useful or not I’m going to put him down like a broke-dick dog. I won’t let anything stop the Red Wave. Not anything, and not anyone living or dead.”

He listened again and his face slowly registered surprise, eyebrows arching, and he looked from the swamp to Boyd and back again. “You can do that? You can—what word am I looking for here, boss?—you can dial up the brainpower on this moron?” He grinned like a kid. “That’s just too cool! But let’s not overdo it. Just enough to make him toe the line and maybe help with some fetch-and-carry nigger work I got to get done.”

Beside him, Boyd dropped down onto hands and knees and then leaned forward until he was able to dip his whole face into the swamp. He lay there for ten minutes, buried head and shoulders in the black bubbling ichor of Griswold’s grave. When he eventually pulled back a green-black slime oozed from his ears and nose and mouth. Boyd got slowly to his feet and staggered back to the treeline, watching Vic with eyes that were a shade less milky and bland. Not intelligent eyes, but eyes that showed the dawning of an animal cunning that had not been there before.

Vic bent and ground out his cigarette, then slid off the chair onto his knees and also fell forward onto his palms, leaning out over the edge of the swamp and craning his neck out and down until his face was nearly touching the mud. He did not immerse his face in the mud, but instead closed his eyes and bent further still and kissed the roiling surface of the swamp. “With all my soul and all my hated, I am for thee,” he said, and it was the closing line of a ritual that he had acted out many hundreds of times, and which others had acted out many tens of thousands of times before him. Boyd, watching, tried to understand and, just for a moment, felt a stab of jealousy spear him through the heart.

(4)

Every reporter in the region had the story of the killing of Jimmy Castle and Nels Cowan, and it was front-page news from D.C. to Boston, riding as it was on the coattails of the hostage-murder drama at the Guthrie farm. Locally it was big enough to earn program interruptions for news bulletins. Nationally it was above the fold in the morning editions and below the fold by the evening press. By morning it would have faded into inside stories everywhere except in eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey. Then the October 2 morning edition of the Black Marsh Sentinel came out with an exclusive by reporter Willard Fowler Newton. The headline said it all:

CAPE MAY KILLER SLAIN IN PINE DEEP

AMERICA’S MOST WANTED MAN KILLS THREE,

DIES IN HAIL OF GUNFIRE

POLICE COVER-UP SUSPECTED

Newton’s article had about the same effect as tossing a hand grenade into a crowded room—everyone was blown away.

The Sentinel, knowing it had one hell of a story, printed four times the usual number of copies and churned out special editions all through the day. By seven-thirty that morning, the radio stations had picked it up and were force-feeding it to the commuters in five counties; by nine it hit the bigger affiliates and the story again went national. TV reporters quoted it verbatim because their field reporters did not have a single fact aside from the regularly issued—and clearly evasive—press releases from the mayor’s office and the chief’s office. Not one of those press releases had so much as whispered “Cape May Killer,” let alone suggest that the man responsible for the attack at Guthrie Farm was the same killer.

It was top Philadelphia Daily News columnist Nick Robertson who first linked the story to Pine Deep’s haunted history with a story headlined SERIAL KILLER IN SPOOKTOWN. On CBS, Gail Harkins, her face frowning in concern, talked about how the “tragic events of last night were the latest chapter in a centuries-long history of menace, mystery, and murder in this quiet, upscale town.” Mitzie Malone of New York’s Channel 9, speaking in a hushed haunted-house voice, said that “in a town that boasts the country’s greatest number of spooky stories and campfire tales you would think that one more monster on the loose would not be noticed—but this monster is not out of a fireside yarn. This monster (dramatic pause) is real.” The evening commentator for Fox News called Karl Ruger the “ghostmaker,” hoping it would stick. It didn’t. Instead Ruger was simply labeled a “monster” and that was appropriate enough. None of the reporters seemed to be able to keep their stories free of clichés. The term “macabre” racked up a lot of mileage; every lurid adjective was dragged out and squeezed into the Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How of the story. For the first half of the day, though, the Black Marsh Sentinel owned the story. By ten that morning Dick Hangood was sitting at his desk with a smug grin on his face as he watched the way the story broke on the networks. Every time one of Newton’s sentences was quoted, Hangood made a tick mark on a scratch pad. By noon the page was black with them.

Newton himself was in the middle of it, and the other reporters were elbowing each other out of the way to interview him. Fired up by his first major story, and by the celebrity that came with the exclusive of the year, if not the decade, he held court in front of the chief’s office, which was thronged with scared and angry townsfolk and a swarm of reporters from all over the eastern seaboard.

One side effect of Newton’s story was that angry attention was suddenly focused on local government, a furor deliberately fueled by the news media who, as one, cranked up their studied self-righteousness and demanded—ostensibly on behalf of The Public, but actually on behalf of their ratings—that the mayor’s office and the police department respond to the allegations of a cover-up. Harry LeBeau responded by closing his shop and sneaking out the back way in order to head home and hide. Terry, for his part, was reading the papers and watching the news, and thinking it all through. This was becoming a make-or-break situation, and it had to be played just right. His nerves were beginning to grow taut again and he could feel the claws of the beast scratching at the inside of his brain.

So, the press descended on the police department. Gus Bernhardt, his face as red as a boiled lobster, hemmed and hawed as he tried to field eighty questions at once, most of them accusatory. Why had he not informed the public of the danger? Why was there a cover-up? How could the authorities let such a dangerous man walk around free? Sergeant Ferro was so tired and disgusted by all that had happened that he had the perverse urge to let the chief sink under the tide of questions, but a couple of the city journalists recognized him and immediately he was barraged. Unlike Bernhardt, Ferro was used to press conferences, and he had his own method for dealing with the pressure. He gave answers that were so dry and boring that most reporters found listening to him excruciating. Willard Fowler Newton was not so easily dissuaded; he grilled Ferro with questions like machine-gun fire and after a few minutes even Ferro found himself tripping over his words and casting around for an exit. Standing to one side, LaMastra fought valiantly not to crack a visible smile.

Then at the stroke of one, the back door to the chief’s office banged open and through it walked Terry Wolfe. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a dark blue tie loosened at the throat, and he had unbuttoned the top two shirt buttons. His hair was just slightly tousled and his curly red beard looked a little wild. The effect was that of a man who has been seriously at work all night, a man who has been in the trenches. He walked right through the middle of the crowd, which yielded and parted for him (though they continued to babble questions at him), past a grateful Gus Bernhardt and a skeptical Ferro—who had become convinced the mayor had wigged out—and stopped in the precise center of the crowd. Everyone was speaking at once, yelling, demanding, imploring, reviling, questioning, accusing, but Terry said nothing, did nothing other than fix his blueberry eyes on the nearest reporter and then turn very slowly in a full circle, making deliberate eye contact with as many people as possible. His stare was as hard and unfaltering as a statue’s, and from the subtle arch of one eyebrow and the set of his stern mouth it was clear that he was not going to speak until he had a more attentive and respectful audience. He did not say a word, but gradually every voice faltered and grew silent. By the time he completed the full turn the crowded office was totally quiet except for the rustling of clothes and a small, embarrassed cough here and there.

Ferro, watching, was impressed. He and LaMastra exchanged a brief look. “This should be good,” LaMastra murmured.

Terry had prepared himself for this moment. Since calling Gus late yesterday he had spent hours getting himself calm, gathering all the details, mentally rehearsing his comments, and listening to all the updates from the news services. Terry felt like ten miles of poorly paved back road, but he had showered, and dressed in the kind of outfit that would project the image he wanted the people of his town to see: not a shifty politician dodging the situation, but a leader of the people who was there on the front lines with the troops. Not an Italian suit but rolled-up shirtsleeves and all of the long hours stamped on his face. He crammed the other things—the hallucinations, the monstrous mirror images he was seeing, and the fear—into a closet in the back of his mind and made himself be The Mayor. He was good at this sort of stuff, and he knew it; and it was not all artifice—he genuinely cared about his town, though he rarely had a chance to show it. Right now, though, he needed to show a lot of it. He needed to be The Man in Charge. He waited out the silence, standing nearly six-five and powerful in the center of the reporters, few of whom were anywhere near his height, and none of them his equal in gravitas.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press,” he began in the stentorian tones he had learned long ago in high school debating society, “and my fellow citizens of Pine Deep. For those that don’t know me, my name is Terrance Wolfe, I am the mayor of Pine Deep.” He paused for effect, gave a small self-effacing smile. “I am aware of the depth of concern you all must feel about what has happened, and I understand your confusion about the way in which this situation was handled by myself and the members of the interjurisdictional task force. If you will allow me, I will present all of the available facts to you. However, before we begin, I would like to say that out of respect for everyone’s deadlines, I will first read a prepared statement and then I will field questions. I think it would help us all if there were no questions until I finish the statement, because the information I have is extensive and will probably provide you with most or all of what you need to tell your readers.”

He paused again, smiling the kind of smile a high school principal would give when addressing a group of incoming freshmen. Terry knew how to project both his sincerity and his command so that few people ever felt compelled to interrupt him. He deliberately avoided the use of contractions so that he sounded formal, and yet pitched his voice to be on the corporate side of affable. The length of his pause, and the sweep of his dark, intense blue eyes, cemented his words into every crack and crevice of the silence. “Very well. I assume most of you have your tape recorders and cameras rolling? Good. Let me begin with the prepared statement.”

He took a folded sheaf of papers from his shirt pocket, and after giving the crowd another brief pointed look, he began to read. It was long and involved. Terry was aware that there was going to be a lot of pressure to explain why the authorities had attempted to cover up the fact that the infamous and infinitely dangerous Cape May Killer had been running amok in Pine Deep and that one of his associates was apparently on a murder spree even now. Terry had decided not to try and weasel out of it, but to come right out and admit it, telling the straight truth: that they did not want to attract the attention of a lot of rubberneckers who might seriously compromise the effectiveness of the investigation. It was a crucial issue for Terry because his personal credibility as the mayor of the town was at stake, and elections were not all that far off.

Watching, Ferro had been curious to see how the mayor would handle it, and he found himself changing his opinion of Terry with each sentence. The mayor not only turned it around, but also made it seem that the cover-up actually aided in the early resolution of the Karl Ruger manhunt, more or less suggesting that it was part of a carefully crafted snare that had brought Ruger out of hiding so that he could be taken down.

Terry didn’t actually lie, but he played fast and loose with the truth, sometimes using rather vague (though seemingly detailed) accounts of actions taken, plans drawn, and manpower employed to sell his version of it. He sold it beautifully. So beautifully, in fact, that Ferro could see just when it was that the gathered reporters took the bait and when Terry jerked the line to set the hook. By the time Terry was well into the third page of the statement, everyone watching was convinced that, working together in a high-security cabal of law enforcement teams, the Philadelphia narcotics task force and the Pine Deep Police Department had laid a cunning trap for the Cape May Killer, and had closed the trap around him with great courage and professional efficiency. Even the attack at the hospital was made to seem like a trap that had been set using Crow—and here the press was reminded that he had been reinstated as a police officer—as bait. Ferro felt himself believing what Terry was saying, and he couldn’t help but smile as Terry worked the room like a top-grade grifter getting ready to sell five thousand acres of swampland as prime beachfront property.

LaMastra nudged him and leaned over to say, “Next time we’re up for a pay raise, I want this guy as the point man for the union.”

“Amen to that,” agreed Ferro.

The statement was a long one, and that was also part of Terry’s plan. He wanted to so thoroughly overwhelm the press with all the minutiae of detail that the very thought that there was some shifty reason for the previous cover-up would be dismissed as obviously foolish. Of course, there still was a minor cover-up underway in that some of the details from the autopsy of Tony Macchio were being withheld, as were some of the decisions made by the group of cops clustered behind him that, in hindsight, might not present the whole bunch of them (Terry included) in the best light. Leaving only two relatively inexperienced men alone at the Guthrie farm when it was clear that Boyd (and for a while, Ruger) was still on the loose, casually deputizing a shopkeeper and sending him off to the Haunted Hayride when a patrol car would have been more official and safer for the kids at the attraction, not being able to find Ruger after he’d been shot by Crow and possibly by Officer Jerry Head—things like that which could make all of the men involved look a little asinine, possibly criminally so in this litigious society. So, rather than present the whole truth, Terry presented a more acceptable edited version of it in such exhausting detail that the reporters began to fidget, which was good. Terry knew that a fidgety reporter is less likely to want to ask a thousand additional questions.

He concluded with a moving statement about the officer who had been gunned down in Philadelphia, and the two officers killed the previous day, urging that the reporters ask their readers and viewers to pray for the families and loved ones left grieving by this senseless tragedy. It was great theater and the reporters ate up every morsel he fed them.

When he finished, he gave the crowd another long silence, forcing the eye contact again. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, questions?” A lot of hands went up, but not as many as would have stabbed the air had the prepared statement been shorter or less packed with ad nauseum detail. The first hand that rose belonged to Willard Fowler Newton. “Mr. Newton, isn’t it?” murmured Terry, recognizing him from other press events and flashing him a warm and sober smile. “I believe it was you who first broke the story. An excellent piece of journalism, you’re to be commended.”

Newton was tipped off balance by the praise. He cleared his throat. “Yes, Mr. Mayor, er…thank you. Sir, can you tell me the cause of Karl Ruger’s death?”

“Of course. As I mentioned in the statement,” he said, scoring his point gently, “the suspect sustained injuries during a confrontation with the police. This took place at the Guthrie farm. Later, still weakened by wounds received, he was shot and killed by Mr. Crow, who is—I might remind you again—a part-time officer who won several citations for bravery over the years. I think everyone will agree that he should receive another one for stopping this cold-blooded and very dangerous killer.”

“I see. And you say Mr. Ruger was shot several times?”

“The autopsy has not yet been performed, but the Bucks County deputy chief coroner, Dr. Saul Weinstock, said that a preliminary examination revealed what appears to be several bullet wounds.”

“Several? Wow,” said Newton in mildly mocking amazement. “So…with several bullet wounds he survived a whole day and then was able to sneak into the hospital and attack Mr. Crow?”

Terry fixed a concerned frown on his face. “Obviously the wounds were not all that serious, though collectively they proved to be serious enough to have given Mr. Crow an edge in their second encounter.” Newton opened his mouth to speak but Terry stepped in with: “This morning I spoke briefly with Mayor Grayson of Philadelphia and also the Philadelphia police commissioner, expressing my gratitude for the exemplary work of Officer Jerome Head in the rescue at the Guthrie farm. I expect that he, too, will receive a commendation.”

“What about Rhoda Thomas?” asked a reporter from Trenton.

“Health-wise, she’s doing well. She is a fit young lady and a fine police officer, and I believe a commendation is in order for her as well.” Again Newton opened his mouth to speak and Terry took control of the moment by saying, “The police forces don’t always get a lot of good press, especially in these troubled and conflicted times, but I think we can all agree that the spirit of cooperation and the level of professionalism demonstrated over the last few days by officers from Philadelphia, Crestville, Black Marsh, and, of course, Pine Deep, present a fairer picture of the strength, intelligence, and courage of the modern law enforcement officer. I am proud to have played a part—a very small part, mind you—in the operation, and to have seen a terrible threat to society like Karl Ruger brought down.”

LaMastra leaned close to Ferro again, whispering, “That’s laying it on a bit thick.”

Ferro shook his head. “Look at them—they’re eating this up. Right now he could sell them subscriptions to their own papers. This guy’s incredible.”

The questions kept coming in from the throng of reporters, but now none of them had barbs on them. Terry was the story now and the reporters were hanging on his every word. Several times Newton tried to put some teeth back into the press conference but he was no match for Terry Wolfe, and in the end every time Newton asked a question the other reporters started giving him dirty looks.

“What’s next, Mr. Mayor?” asked a Scranton reporter. “Are there any leads on the whereabouts of Kenneth Boyd?”

Terry dialed up a graver expression. “Kenneth Boyd is now being sought as the primary suspect in the murders of Officers Cowan and Castle. Police departments in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York are working together to spread a net so finely meshed that I can guarantee you Boyd will not slip through.”

Newton snuck another one in. “What if he’s still here in Pine Deep?”

Terry’s eyes drilled holes through the little man. “Then God help him, Mr. Newton, because here in Pine Deep we have no compassion at all for cop-killers.”

Terry knew that he had just scored a classic sound-bite moment and he kept his grim game face on while the cameras rolled. A statement like that was a showstopper and from his body language alone he made it clear that this was the ball game. He held that face, forcing eye contact with Newton until the reporter dropped his own gaze, and then Terry turned to the general crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you all for coming here today. Without the resources and guidance of the press things could get out of hand and you are all to be commended on the tasteful and considerate way with which you’ve handled this crisis. You have my thanks. Now, as I’m sure you’ll understand, the law enforcement officers and I have some serious work to do and every minute counts. We want to wrap this thing up, so let us get to work.”

He paused to shake hands with a few of the reporters, clapping some on the shoulders, and every once in a while taking a senior reporter’s proffered hand in both of his and leaning close to share a private word, the content of which was meaningless, but the obviousness of the confidence making its mark on the younger journalists watching. The reporters thanked him and gave him their support in the way reporters sometimes do when a great statesman is bearing the burden of some national crisis. Watching, Ferro was so dazzled by the mayor’s finesse that he had to restrain himself from applauding.

As the reporters shuffled out to file their stories, Gus turned a beaming face at Ferro and LaMastra. “That’s why no one sane will run against him.”

“Jeeez-us,” breathed LaMastra.

When the press was gone, Terry settled a muscular haunch on a desk, folded his arms, cocked his head to one side, and looked at the gathered cops. “Well?” he said.

At that point the officers actually did applaud. Ferro stepped over and shook his hand. “That was pretty amazing, Your Honor. You should run for president.”

Terry ignored the comment and turned to face Ferro. “You think you can catch this guy?” His voice was hard, his eyes harder.

Ferro meet Terry’s stare. “I have as good a chance as anyone, sir.”

Terry continued to stare at him for a moment. “Before I came here I called the Philadelphia chief of police. You are now officially detached to the Pine Deep Police Department as officer in charge of this investigation, effective immediately and for the duration of this investigation. Not the State Police, not the FBI, and not Gus. You are in charge, which means you are responsible. The entire manhunt is yours to run, and I expect you to get it resolved right away. Are we clear on that, Sergeant?”

Ferro nodded. “We are.” He had been about to say more, but Terry abruptly turned away, effectively shutting him out, and spoke to Gus. “Gus, you are responsible for the town proper and tourist security. I expect you and Detective Sergeant Ferro to liaise and compare notes, and to do whatever is necessary to protect the citizens of Pine Deep and to ensure that the financial security of the town is not adversely affected by these events. I hope that is clear to you both.”

“Terry, I—”

“Thank you gentlemen. I will expect regular reports.” With that Terry turned and walked out of the office, got in his car, and drove away.