Dead Man's Song полностью

Ferro’s reaction was to lean back in his chair and smile at Spinlicker. “Well, Agent Spinlicker, clearly if we had searched everywhere we’d have found him.”

“You implied—”

“What I said was that one hundred and sixty-three men, six teams of dogs, and two spotter airplanes have spent the last several days combing every inch of the Guthrie farm and much of the surrounding woods. We’ve broadened the search to include ninety other farms, the grounds of the Haunted Hayride, the campus of Pinelands College, a large portion of Pinelands State Forest, and the canals. My assessment, Agent Spinlicker, is that Kenneth Boyd is not in any of the areas we’re searched.”

“And found jack shit,” LaMastra summed up.

Spinlicker shared a glance with his partner, and smiled ever so faintly. To Ferro he said, “And Kenneth Boyd has managed to elude all of your efforts.” There was just the slightest emphasis on the word “your.”

In the stiff silence that followed Bernhardt cleared his throat. “In all fairness, sir, the area they searched is pretty dense.”

“It also comprises less than an eighth of the entire borough,” said Trooper Yablonski. “The village itself may be small, but the borough of Pine Deep is pretty damn big. There are a lot of places for one man to hide.”

The SAC let silence be his comment on that, and on the handling of the operation as a whole. He picked up a folder from the table, opened it, and riffled through the papers, occasionally making a small and dismissive “hmm” sound. “Quite frankly, Sergeant Ferro, it makes me wonder how well you—”

Then there was a sound like a gunshot and everyone jumped in their seats and spun toward Terry, who had just slammed his palm down hard and flat against the table. “Agent Spinlicker,” he snapped, “if you think there is a problem in the way things have been handled then come out and say it.” He glared at the SAC and at that moment Terry Wolfe seemed to fill the room.

Spinlicker hedged. “I didn’t say that, sir.”

“I know. You’re pussyfooting around it. If you have a problem with the way Sergeant Ferro’s handled things come out and say it right now.”

The air between them crackled like the charge between two poles. Spinlicker said, “No, sir.”

Terry’s face remained hard as a fist. “Then sit there and shut the fuck up.”

Henckhauser gasped audibly and the Staties exchanged startled looks. Gus was shocked at the language he was hearing from Terry; Ferro was staring at the mayor, and LaMastra was grinning. Terry saw the smile and wheeled on him. “And you can wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Detective. I’m not saying that you guys have done such a great job either.”

That wiped LaMastra’s face clean.

Addressing the whole table, Terry said, “This is my town, gentlemen, but this is not my mess. It’s yours. Now clean it up!” Again his palm came down on the table hard enough to make everyone jump. “One of my closest friends is dead. My best friend just got out of the hospital along with his fiancée, whom I’ve known since kindergarten. One of my cops is dead, and so is an officer loaned to me from a neighboring town. I have a hospital worker in intensive care with a split skull, a woman who was nearly raped, her husband who had his face kicked in, shots fired in my hospital, two other cops down with injuries, and now a body stolen from the morgue. Every reporter in the world is here and according to the news stories I’m starting to see, this town—my town—is becoming a joke in terms of safety. I heard this town mentioned on the Daily Show last night, and on Leno. As a goddamn punchline. So, when I tell you that I am one hundred percent fed up with this bullshit you had best believe I’m serious. About the last thing I want to hear or see is you lot getting into a jurisdictional pissing contest. Am I getting through to you on this?”

“Loud and clear, sir,” Ferro said. Spinlicker and the others just nodded. Gus was staring at Terry with a look of fascinated awe.

“Then let me make something else clear. October is the biggest income month for this town. We’re already reeling from the crop blight and a lot of local farmers are likely to lose their farms. If you—” he fished for an appropriately savage word but only came up with an acid-laced version of “officers of the law, working together, cannot find one man—one injured man, mind you—then we are likely to lose the entire tourist season. That means Pine Deep is going to go into the tank.” He leaned forward, his blues eyes as hard as gunmetal. “If, on the other hand, you can manage to find this guy, then there is still a chance we can pull off enough of a season to stay afloat. That, gentlemen, is a very real concern and I want to know right now that this is going to happen.” He made eye contact, brief but penetrating, with each man at the table, one after the other. “Make me believe that this is going to happen.”

(3)