Gurney was straining to maintain his patience. “Petros Panikos killed seven people in Cooperstown this week. He may have caused the death of a police officer half an hour ago. He’s in your fairgrounds right now. Is this getting through to you?”
The cop put his hand on the butt of his holstered gun. “Who the hell are you?”
“My ID told you exactly who I am—David Gurney, Detective First Grade, NYPD-Retired. I also told you I’m in pursuit of a murder suspect. Now I’m going to tell you something else. You’re creating an unnecessary obstruction to his capture. If your obstruction results in his escape, your career is over. You hear what I’m saying, Officer?”
The muddy hostility in the cop’s eyes was sharpening into something more dangerous. His lips drew back, revealing the tips of clenched yellow teeth. He took a slow step backward. With his hand tightening on his gun, the movement was far more threatening than a step forward. “That’s it. Get off the bike.”
Gurney looked past him and spoke to the row of gaping young women in a loud, deliberate voice. “Call your head of security! Get him out here to this gate—NOW!”
The cop turned around, raising his free hand in a stop gesture. “You don’t need to call anybody. Nobody. No call. I’m taking care of this myself.”
It struck Gurney that this might be his only chance. Risk be damned—losing Panikos was not an acceptable option. He gave the throttle a quick twist, pulled the handlebars down to the right, spun the machine in a one-eighty, and, with the rear tire smoking, shot back down into the alleyway behind the motor homes. Halfway to the main concourse, he made a sharp turn in between two of the big vehicles and found himself threading his way through a maze of RVs of all shapes and sizes. He soon emerged onto one of the fair’s narrower concourses, along which exhibitor tents displayed everything from wildly colored Peruvian hats to chain-sawed bear sculptures. He abandoned the BSA in a half-hidden space between two of the tents, one selling Walnut Crossing sweatshirts and the other straw cowboy hats.
On an impulse, he bought one of each, then stopped in a restroom farther along on the same concourse to cover the dark, short-sleeved shirt he was wearing with the light gray sweatshirt. He moved the Beretta from his ankle holster to the sweatshirt pocket, and checked his appearance in the restroom mirror. The change, along with the brim of the cowboy hat shielding his eyes, convinced him he’d be less recognizable, at least at a distance, either by Panikos or the troublesome cop.
It occurred to him then that Panikos might be taking similar steps to blend in with his surroundings—and that raised an obvious question. As Gurney began searching the crowd for the little man, what characteristics was he looking for?
His height—which had been estimated at between four-ten and five-two—would put him in the range of most middle-schoolers. Unfortunately, middle-schoolers probably comprised at least several hundred of the approximately ten thousand visitors at the fair. Were there other criteria that could narrow the profile? The security videos had been useful in establishing certain facts, but for the purpose of generating a likeness independent of the original context, their value was limited—since so much of Panikos’s hair and face had been covered with sunglasses, headband, scarf. His nose had been visible and distinctive, as well as his mouth, but little else—little that would facilitate the quick scanning of faces in a moving crowd.
The stressed security girl at the gate said she thought he was wearing a black jacket, but Gurney gave that little weight. She hadn’t sounded sure, and even if she had, pressured eyewitness reports like that were more often dead wrong than anywhere near right. And whatever he might have been wearing when he ran the gate, Panikos could have altered his appearance as quickly and easily as Gurney just had. So, for the moment at least, he was looking for a short, thin person with a sharp nose and a childlike mouth.
As if to underscore the insufficiency of that description, an excited cluster of at least a dozen kids—ten-year-olds, eleven-year-olds, maybe twelve-year-olds—crossed the concourse just ahead of him. Perhaps half of them would fall outside the size parameters either because of their height or pudginess, but Panikos could easily blend in with the other half.
In fact, suppose he had blended in. Suppose Panikos was among them, right there in front of him. How could Gurney pick him out?
It was a discouraging challenge—particularly since the whole group had evidently visited one of the fair’s face painters, obscuring their features under the visages of what Gurney assumed were comic-book superheroes. And how many similar little groups might there be—all circulating through the fairgrounds at that moment, with Panikos as a potential hanger-on?
It was then that he noticed what the members of this particular group were doing. They were approaching other fairgoers, adults primarily, with bunches of flowers. He picked up his pace and followed them onto the larger concourse to observe more closely what was happening.
They were selling the flowers—or, more accurately, giving a free bunch to anyone who would make a minimum ten-dollar donation to the Walnut Crossing Flood Relief Fund. But the thing that captured his attention—one hundred percent of his attention—was the appearance of these bouquets.
The flowers were rust-red mums, and the stems were wrapped in yellow tissue—seemingly identical to those left by Panikos on the rock by the tarn.
What did this mean? Processing the implications, Gurney came quickly to the conclusion that the flowers by the tarn had most likely come from the fair, which meant that Panikos had been there prior to his visit to Barrow Hill, which raised an interesting question:
Why?
Surely he hadn’t gone to the fair originally for the purpose of acquiring a bouquet to bring to Gurney’s property—since he would’ve had no way of knowing such a thing would be available there and a local florist would have been a more obvious source in any event. No, he’d gone to the fair for some other reason, and the mums had been secondary.
So what was the primary reason? It sure as hell wasn’t for the rustic amusement, cotton candy, and cow-flop bingo. Then why on earth …?
The ringing of his phone interrupted his train of thought.
It was Hardwick, highly agitated. “Shit, man! Are you all right?”
“I think so. What’s going on?”
“That’s what I want to know! Where the fuck are you?”
“I’m at the fair. So is Panikos.”
“Then what the hell’s happening at your place?”
“How do you know—?”
“I’m out on the county route, approaching your turnoff, and there’s a fucking convoy—two trooper cruisers, a sheriff’s car, and a BCI SUV—all heading up your road. Fuck’s going on?”
“Klemper’s up there by my house. Dead. Long story. Looks like the first responders found the body and called for help. The convoy you see would be the second wave.”
“Dead? Mick the Dick? Dead how?”
Gurney gave him the fastest run-through he could—from the flat tire to the lumber explosion to the fatal joist hanger in Klemper’s neck to the flowers on Barrow Hill to the flowers at the fair.
Reviewing it all underscored in his own mind his need to call Kyle ASAP.
Hardwick listened in complete silence to the narration of events.
“What you need to do,” said Gurney, “is get over here to the fairgrounds. You’ve seen the same videos I have, so your chance of recognizing Panikos is as good as mine.”
“Which is close to zero.”
“I know that. But we’re got to try. He’s here, somewhere. He came here for a reason.”
“What reason?”