Each person with potential access was brought in separately and interviewed by the three of them, with Ferro taking point on most of the interrogations. No one admitted to having tampered with the codes, and when asked to turn out their pockets—a request that was met with flat hostility by almost everyone except Head, who understood the drill—no keys turned up that shouldn’t be there. Each person was made to write out a detailed list of where they were all night and who they spoke with. “So where does that leave us?” LaMastra asked in disgust as the last of the interviewees left.
“Nowhere,” Ferro said with a sigh.
“God,” murmured LaMastra, “I love police work.”
(2)
When the car passed Vic rose up out of the tall weeds and continued moving down the bank to where the iron leg of the bridge was fitted into its massive concrete boot. He paused for a moment and took set down his backpack, unzipped it, and then removed first a pair of 12-power binoculars and then a high-resolution Nikon digital camera with a telephoto lens. He sat down with the weeds above shoulder height and put the binoculars to his eyes so he could study the old bridge that linked Pine Deep to Black Marsh. The bridge was a two-lane affair with close-fitted railroad ties stuffed between steel I-beams. It was sturdy enough, and though it rattled and shook, it would probably not even need rebuilding for another decade. That thought caused Vic to smile. He set the binoculars down and picked up the digital camera. It was very expensive, with a two-gigabyte memory card that took ten-megapixel images. Vic rested his elbows on his knees to study the camera and then took over fifty ultra-close-up photos of the bridge and each of its supports. The morning sun was clear and bright, perfect for high-res photography.
A farm truck came along the road and Vic just lay back in the weeds, invisible. His pickup was parked fifty yards up a curving access road that was almost never used. When the truck had passed, Vic sat up and then stowed his gear back in his bag. He rose, leaving the bag in the weeds, and moved farther down the bank to the closest iron leg, keeping a weather eye on the road. Confident that no one was coming, he pulled a Stanley tape measure off his belt and spent the next few minutes measuring both the concrete base and the steel leg of the bridge support, pausing to jot some numbers down in a notebook. The last measurement done, he pocketed the book, clipped the tape measure onto his belt, and climbed the hill to recover his bag. He checked the road carefully and then headed up the access lane to his truck.
Pine Deep was completely surrounded by water, with the Delaware on its eastern flank and the Pine River on the west; the Crescent Canal bordered it in the north, and a hooked arm of Pine River swooped down to meet the Delaware again in the south. In colonial days, before the town was officially organized it was generally called Pine Island on old maps. There were four bridges connecting the town to its neighbors: Crescent Bridge, Old Corn Bridge, Swallow Hill Bridge, and this one—the Black Marsh Bridge.
Vic glanced at his watch. It was just 7:00 A.M. He smiled. There was plenty of time to quietly measure all of them and still have most of the day left to do some other chores. At home he could download the digital pics onto his computer and make a closer study of stress points to pick just the right spots to plant the dynamite.
After that he could settle down and have a nice long conversation with his new houseguest. That should be enlightening. He was whistling a happy tune when he pulled his pickup off the access road and headed north up A-32.
(3)
Karl Ruger sat in darkness while Vic was out. There were basement lights he could turn on, but he preferred the darkness. It was less dark to him, he knew, than to others, and that knowledge pleased him. It made him feel like a cat. Not a little housecat, but a big hunting cat. A leopard slinking through the jungles, eyes seeing all the way through the shadows. Like that.
