Far down the road ahead of me, I saw a car hidden inside a great rolling wraith of gravel dust traveling fast toward the farm. Of course, it might well go right on past the farm and then right on past me. But, as I’d expected, it started slowing down when it got within a quarter-mile of the farm, slowing down and using its blinker to signal a left turn.
This car was a blue Toyota four-door, the family model.
The driver did the same thing McNally had: pulled straight into the barn, failed to reappear. I hadn’t had any look at all at his face. I was damned curious.
I went back and sat behind the wheel of my car and turned on the radio to a news station.
No sense in making myself any more obvious than necessary. Sitting in your car was obvious enough. Standing out in the road with binoculars was pointing a bright red arrow at yourself.
They went fifteen more minutes, and still there was no sign of them. They could be doing all sorts of things in that barn, but I guessed it would have something to do with McNally’s daughter. He might be a drunk and a wife beater, but even scum care about their children in their own scummy way.
In the interim, a big gravel truck roared by, rocking my ancient jeep; a long vented truck filled with squealing pigs rumbled past; then a motorcycle with a young helmetless kid raced by; and finally two big bays ridden by two young girls clopped onward, leaving road apples of a curious iridescent green.
I mention all this so you’ll know why I was numbed into indifference when I heard the next car come up behind me. Figured it was just another local pilgrim hastening on to farm or co-op or babbling brook.
Only when I heard the door chunk shut behind me did I realize that the car had stopped and pulled over to the side of the road.
Only when I heard gravel crunch and pop did I realize that somebody was walking through it directly toward me.
By the time I got the window rolled down, she was there. She put her nice arms on my door and leaned in and spoke to me. She wore a sweet innocent perfume.
“You doing a little bird-watching?” she asked.
“I didn’t think you were speaking to me.”
“I shouldn’t be, actually. I should be arresting you.”
“For what?”
“For what? C’mon, whatever-your-name-is, for withholding evidence.”
“What evidence?”
She sighed. She looked sexy in her blue uniform and dark, dark shades. “So are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“What you’re doing at the scene of the crime?”
“This isn’t the scene of the crime.”
“It’s very close.”
I was tempted to just tell her. For one thing, I liked her. For another, she would eventually find out anyway. But I had given the McNally woman my word that I’d keep her secret. Given the stakes, her daughter being kidnapped and all, it was a promise I certainly meant to keep.
“How about if I buy you dinner tonight?”
“Are you trying to bribe an officer of the law?”
“You bet I am.”
“I don’t know why I like you.”
“I’m just glad you do.”
“Maybe I’ll seduce you tonight and get the information that way.”
“I think you’re serious.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I want to do both — get to know you and find out everything you know.”
“You wouldn’t hear me object.”
She sighed again. “Actually, I hate coy stuff like that. I shouldn’t have said it.”
I smiled. “I thought it was kind of sweet.”
“I grew up in a very strict household, so I guess I’ve still got some hangups about sex.”
“Most of us do.”
“You?”
“A little, I suppose.” I smiled. “But I don’t let it get in my way.” I looked at her a long moment. “I’d tell you what I know, but somebody may die if I do that. So right now I have to keep silent. I don’t expect you to understand what I’m talking about, but I am telling you the truth.”
She took her own long look at me. “You know what? I believe you. But I’m still kind of mad.”
“I know. And I don’t blame you.”
She looked down the hill at the ancient shabby outbuildings and the ancient shabby house, and shook her head. “It’s always different in the daylight — crime scenes, I mean. You always wonder how people can be such animals. But people seem to be different at night. They change, somehow.” She looked back at me. “You could help me, you know.”
I was tempted again but said nothing.
“What kind of meat do you like?”
“How about if I bring a cheese pizza over?”
“Are you serious?”
“Sure. Why should you have to cook? You work a full-time job.”
“You wouldn’t mind a cheese pizza?”
“Huh-uh.”
“I could make us some kind of dessert.”
“You don’t have to make us anything. I’ll bring a pizza and a six-pack of a good imported beer, and we’ll just enjoy ourselves.”
She smiled. “Now if you’d just tell me why you’re sitting out here.”
“Maybe tonight.”
“Now you’re the one who’s being coy.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
She was still leaning in and looking at me and didn’t see them, McNally first, his friend second, backing out of the barn, backing down the driveway and then heading off quickly in the opposite direction, lost in a gravel dust storm of their making.
“Maybe I’ll follow you back to town.”
“I’m not headed back to town,” she said. “I’m going back to the farm.”
“For what?”
“See if we missed something last night.”
“You’re thorough.”
She smiled. “No, egotistical. I want to make sure that I do a very good job so that all the cynics in this town will know that a woman can do a very good job as a peace officer.”
“Is it all right to tell you that I like you?”
“Only if that thought is accompanied by your real name.” She stood up and smiled. “I’ll see you about eight tonight. With your cheese pizza.”
She gave me a little salute, walked back to her patrol car, got inside and drove down the hill, giving me a blast on her horn and a wave as she reached the farm driveway.
But by this time I was preoccupied wondering who McNally’s friend was and what they were doing in the barn together. I turned the car around and drove back two hills where, with my field glasses, I could watch Jane walk around the farm. She stayed twenty minutes.
When she was done, she left, and then I drove over for my own look.
I spent the next fifteen minutes peeking through shattered windows into empty farmhouse rooms littered with gray-and-white pigeon droppings, and with empty Bud cans and empty Pepsi cans and empty red Trojan wrappers that looked like lurid autumn leaves.
I had just stepped inside the barn when I heard the tires of a heavy automobile crunch through gravel.
I stood in the barn watching as Jane walked up to me. “Thought you were going back to town.”
I smiled. “Thought you were, too.”
“Now’d be a good time to tell me who you really are.” If she was kidding, she wasn’t kidding much.
I looked back into the barn. I wanted to scout around but not when Jane was here.
I checked my watch. “Well, guess I’d better head back.”
“Not going to finish checking out the barn?”
I laughed. “And give you all my trade secrets?”
She walked me back to my car. She was going to make sure that this time I left.
“Maybe I’ll see you later,” she said.
Just then she looked tired and melancholy and I wanted to give her a hug but I knew better. You didn’t hug women when they were wearing badges and holster rigs.