Via Pietowski, Monks had arranged to get a few minutes alone with Glenn. The agents on guard were expecting him. He identified himself to them, stepped into the room, and closed the door. He glanced approvingly at the medical arrangements-EKG monitor, saline IV with antibiotics, nasal oxygen tubes. It was just the kind of setup he would have used.
Glenn was sitting up in the adjustable bed. He looked uncomfortable and scared, but intact. The severed ear had been another of Freeboot’s mental tortures. He had demanded Glenn’s earring and Glenn had handed it over, without any idea of what it would be used for. Whose ear it was that Monks had found might never be known.
“You getting enough pain meds?” Monks asked.
Glenn nodded, and pointed to the call button on the bed arm. “They come right away.” With the strain of the injured lung, his voice was a husky whisper.
“I’ll keep this short, Glenn,” Monks said. “I need to know the truth about some things. Just between you and me. No one else will ever know.” He pulled a chair up to the bedside and leaned close, watching Glenn’s face intently.
“Did you know that Freeboot and the maquis were committing the Calamity Jane murders?” Monks said. “That that’s what they were doing with the names and addresses you provided?”
Glenn shook his head emphatically.
“No way, man. He told me we were putting together information on enemies of the people. I never dreamed anybody was getting killed.”
Monks kept his face emotionless, but his fear took a sickening jump. Before Glenn had spoken, his eyes had flickered away just a tiny bit-the look of the same boy that Monks had raised, a very smart, accomplished liar, who was undoubtedly aware that the issue was going to be crucial in his sentencing.
Monks steeled himself for the next, almost worse, question. “Were you the one who attacked me and cut off my hair, that night in the camp?”
“That was Shrinkwrap. She wanted to get back at you for pissing her off.” This time, Glenn seemed disinterested, as if the issue wasn’t at all important. That had the ring of truth.
“Do you think she was in on setting you up?” Monks said, perhaps cruelly.
“I don’t know.” Glenn’s head rolled to the side, facing away.
“All right, I’ll let you rest.” Monks stood. “We’re there for you, your mom and me. You know that, son.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Glenn’s voice was laced with unmistakable sarcasm. But at least he hadn’t brutalized and humiliated his father, and there was some relief in knowing that.
In the hospital’s lobby, Monks stopped at a pay-phone kiosk and called Glenn’s mother. She hadn’t yet been allowed to visit him, and Monks had promised to check in.
“I just talked to him,” Monks said. “He’s doing fine.”
“Fine?” Gail said shrilly. “He’s going to prison, isn’t he?”
Monks exhaled. “That’s going to depend on a lot of factors.”
Pietowski had assured Monks that if Glenn was what he seemed-a dope-ridden pawn under the brainwashing influence of Freeboot and Shrinkwrap and who hadn’t been part of any violent acts-a plea bargain with a minimum sentence could be reached.
But if it was proved that Glenn had known about the killings, that would be a very different order of business.
“He should have a lawyer with him every second,” Gail fumed.
“He needs to tell the FBI everything he knows, as fast as he can,” Monks said, trying to stay patient. “If they have to put up with a lawyer interfering, you can bet he’s going to prison. We’re talking killers out there.”
“I think you’re handling this horribly!”
“Why am I not surprised,” Monks said and hung up.
He walked on outside to the parking lot. The afternoon was clear and sunny. Queen of the Valley was a long, low modern building surrounded by greenery and trees, without the forbidding aspect of older, urban hospitals. But all hospitals had plenty of grief and guilt passing through their walls.
Monk was terrified that Glenn was guilty and would be punished-and almost as afraid that he would scheme his way out of it.
When Monks had left Bodega Bay, after hours of helping paramedics evacuate casualties, the town looked like it had been hit by an earthquake. Storefronts were shattered, shops and private homes savaged and looted by the fleeing mob. Police were still dealing with the tangle of abandoned vehicles. Most of the crowd had gotten away, catching rides in the cars that had managed to get out, or melting into the woods and nearby communities. Police eventually questioned hundreds of stragglers and detained dozens, but, owing to the identical T-shirts and caps, it was almost impossible to figure out who had done what.
It was clear that the riot had been carefully orchestrated. Glenn’s instructions had been to incite the crowd until the police intervened, then wipe off his blackface makeup and get back to the RV. But no one had said anything to him about shooting.
What happened next seemed to have been a series of double-crosses planned by Freeboot. Hammerhead, dressed as a Highway Patrolman, had inflamed the mob by shooting the speaker who was championing them. A sniper then killed him, enraging the cops, who had taken him for one of their own. More snipers kept shooting at police, who returned fire into the crowd, and from there, it was unchecked mayhem. Police and media videos showed armed bikers and gangstas joining the attack. Six law enforcement officers had been killed and eleven wounded. The civilian toll was more than twice that. Many more people had been injured in other ways, some of them local residents-trampled, beaten, cut by flying glass, hit by the cars trying to escape. Three women had reported being raped, and there were probably more who hadn’t come forward.
Only one of the escaping dirt-bikers had been caught-Callus, the limper who had given the RV away. He was being held in isolation on twenty-four-hour suicide watch, refusing to say a word. Freeboot might be wounded or even dead, but his status as a daring Robin Hood figure had jumped explosively.
And his message of the ugly violence hovering close at hand had come through loud and clear.
Monks found his car, the same rental that he had driven to Bodega Bay. His Bronco was highly visible, and he wanted to stay underground just now. Besides the threat of Freeboot and his men still at large, Monks had been propelled into another media furor. This time, he had checked into a Napa motel under a phony ID that he sometimes used for investigation work.
He drove across the north edge of Napa, crossing Highway 29, once a charming little road through the grand old California wineries, now a major traffic artery. The motel was a mile or so south on a frontage road-big, modern, and anonymous, just what he wanted.
When he opened the door to his room, he caught the faint scent of perfume. Then he saw another suitcase on the extra bed, open beside his own.
Sara was curled up in an armchair, sipping wine, looking out the window over the expanse of greening vineyards to the west. She turned at the sound of his entry. They hadn’t seen each other since the night that Monks had abducted Mandrake. He’d invited her to join him here, and had left instructions at the desk to give her a key, but he hadn’t been sure that she would come.
“How did it go?” she said. Her eyes were soft with concern.
“It could have been better. Worse, too.”
“He’s okay?”
“Physically,” Monks said.
She stood and came to him. He put his hands on her waist and kissed her. She started crying. Monks held her, feeling helpless. Now she was the one waiting to find out whether her child was alive. Acting on Glenn’s information, police had raided the place where Marguerite had called from, an isolated backwoods shack near the tiny town of Annapolis. But it was deserted by the time they got there, and she hadn’t been heard from again.