“Evie?” asked Clint. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. And while I appreciate your need for haste, Clint, I’m multi-tasking this afternoon. You need to wait while I take care of something.” Then, to herself rather than the half a dozen people outside her celclass="underline" “I’m sorry to do this, but he wouldn’t have had long, anyway.” A pause. “And he misses his cat.”
Judge Silver had shuffled most of the way to the Olympia’s parking lot before Frank caught up with him. Gems of drizzle shone on the slumped shoulders of the old fellow’s topcoat.
Silver turned at his approach—nothing wrong with his ears, it seemed—and gave him a sweet smile. “I want to thank you again for Cocoa,” he said.
“That’s all right,” he said. “Just doing my job.”
“Yes, but you did it with real compassion. That made it easier for me.”
“I’m glad. Judge, it seemed to me that you had an idea in there. Would you like to share it with me?”
Judge Silver considered. “May I speak frankly?”
The other man smiled. “Since my name is Frank, I’d expect nothing less.”
Silver did not smile back. “All right. You’re a fine man, and I’m glad you’ve stepped up to the plate since Deputy Coombs is… shall we say hors de combat… and it’s clear none of the other officers want the responsibility, but you have no background in law enforcement, and this is a delicate situation. Extremely delicate. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” Frank said. “On all points.”
“I’m worried about a blow-up. A posse that gets out of control and turns into a mob. I’ve seen that happen, back during one of the uglier coal strikes in the seventies, and it was not a pretty thing. Buildings were burned, there was a dynamite explosion, men were killed.”
“You have an alternative?”
“I might. I—get away, dammit!” The judge waved one arthritic hand at the moth fluttering around his head. It flew away and landed on a car aerial, slowly flexing its wings in the fine drizzle. “Those things are everywhere lately.”
“Uh-huh. Now what were you saying?”
“There’s a man named Harry Rhinegold in Coughlin. Ex-FBI, retired there two years ago. Fine man, fine record, several Bureau commendations—I’ve seen them on the wall in his study. I’m thinking I might talk to him, and see if he’ll sign on.”
“As what? A deputy?”
“As an advisor,” the judge said, and took a breath that rattled in his throat. “And, possibly, as a negotiator.”
“A hostage negotiator, you mean.”
“Yes.”
Frank’s first impulse, childish but strong, was to tell the judge no way, he was in charge. Except, technically speaking, he wasn’t. Terry Coombs was, and it was always possible Terry would show up, hungover but sober, and want to take the reins. Also, could he, Frank, stop the judge, short of physical restraint? He could not. Although Silver was too much of a gentleman to say it (unless he absolutely had to, of course), he was an officer of the court, and as such far outranked a self-appointed lawman whose specialties were catching stray dogs and doing ads for Adopt-A-Pet on the Public Access channel. There was one more consideration, and it was the most important of alclass="underline" hostage negotiation was actually not a bad idea. Dooling Correctional was like a fortified castle. Did it matter who pried the woman out, as long as the job got done? As long as she could be questioned? Coerced, if necessary, should they conclude that she actually might be able to stop the Aurora?
Meanwhile, the judge was looking at him, shaggy eyebrows raised.
“Do it,” Frank said. “I’ll tell Terry. If this Rhinegold agrees, we can have a skull session either here or at the station tonight.”
“So you won’t…” The judge cleared his throat. “You won’t take any immediate steps?”
“For this afternoon and tonight, I’ll just keep a car posted near the prison.” Frank paused. “Beyond that, I can’t promise, and even that depends on Norcross not trying anything funny.”
“I hardly think—”
“But I do.” Frank gravely tapped a finger against the hollow of his temple, as if to indicate thought processes hard at work. “Position I’m in right now, I have to. He thinks he’s smart, and guys like that can be a problem. To others, and to themselves. Looking at it that way, your trip to Coughlin is a mission of mercy. So drive carefully, Judge.”
“At my age, I always do,” Judge Silver said. His entry into the Land Rover was slow and painful to watch. Frank was on the verge of going to help him when Silver finally made it behind the wheel and slammed the door. The engine roared to life, Silver gunning it thoughtlessly, and then the lights came on, cutting cones through the drizzle.
Ex-FBI, and in Coughlin, Frank marveled. Wonders never ceased. Maybe he could call the Bureau and get an emergency federal order enjoining Norcross to let the woman go. Unlikely, with the government in an uproar, but not out of the question. If Norcross defied them then, no one could blame them for forcing the issue.
He went back inside to give the remaining deputies their orders. He’d already decided to send Barrows and Rangle to relieve Peters and that Blass kid. He and Pete Ordway could start making a list of guys, responsible ones, who might form a posse, should a posse be needed. No need to go back to the station, where Terry might show up; they could do it right here at the diner.
Judge Oscar Silver rarely drove anymore, and when he did, he no longer exceeded forty miles an hour, no matter how many cars stacked up behind him. If they began to honk and tailgate, he found a place to pull over and let them go by, then resumed his stately pace. He was aware that both his reflexes and his vision had declined. In addition, he had suffered three heart attacks, and knew that the bypass operation performed on his failing pump at St. Theresa’s two years ago would only hold the final infarction at bay for so long. He was at peace with that, but he had no wish to die behind the wheel, where a final swerve might take one or more innocent people with him. At only forty (less, within the city limits), he thought he would have a fair chance to apply braking and shift into park before the lights went out for good.
Today was different, however. Once he was beyond Ball’s Ferry and on the Old Coughlin Road, he increased his speed until the needle hovered at sixty-five, territory it hadn’t explored in five years or more. He had reached Rhinegold on his cell, and Rhinegold was willing to talk (although the judge, a crafty old soul, hadn’t wanted to discuss the subject of their confab on the phone—probably a needless precaution, but discretion had ever been his byword), and that was good news. The bad news: Silver suddenly found that he did not trust Frank Geary, who talked so easily about gathering a bunch of men and storming the prison. He had sounded reasonable enough back at the Olympia, but the situation was utterly unreasonable. The judge didn’t care for how practical Frank made such a move sound, when it ought to be an absolute last resort.
The windshield wipers clicked back and forth, clearing the thin rain. He turned on the radio and tuned in the all-news station in Wheeling. “Most city services have been shut down until further notice,” the announcer said, “and I want to repeat that the nine o’clock curfew will be strictly enforced.”
“Good luck with that,” the judge murmured.
“Now, recapping our top story. So-called Blowtorch Brigades, goaded by Internet-fueled fake news that respiration exhaled through the growths—or cocoons—surrounding the sleeping women is spreading the Aurora plague, have been reported in Charleston, Atlanta, Savannah, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, and Tampa.” The announcer paused, and when he resumed, his flat twang had become more pronounced. Folksier. “Neighbors, I’m proud to say none of these ignorant mobs have been operating here in Wheeling. We all have womenfolks we love like mad, and killing them in their sleep, no matter how unnatural that sleep may be, would be a terrible thing to do.”