From a Buick 8(22)

Curt turned and started back toward the barracks. Sandy had to break into a trot in order to catch up and grab his arm. 'Where do you think you're going?' he asked.

'To call Tony.'

'Not yet,' Sandy said. 'Let him have his dinner. We'll call him later if we have to. I hope to God we don't.'

Before checking anything else, even the upstairs common room, Curt and Sandy checked Shed B. They walked all around the car, looked inside the car, looked under the car. There was no sign of Ennis Rafferty in any of those places ? at least, not that they could see. Of course, looking for sign in and around the Buick that evening was like looking for the track of one particular horse after a stampede has gone by. There was no sign of Ennis specifically, but . . .

'Is it cold in here, or is it just me?' Curt asked. They were about ready to return to the barracks. Curt had been down on his knees with his head cocked, taking a final look underneath the car. Now he stood up, brushing his knees. 'I mean, I know it's not freezing or anything, but it's colder than it should be, wouldn't you say?'

Sandy actually felt too hot ? sweat was running down his face ? but that might have been nerves rather than room-temperature. He thought Curt's sense of cold was likely just a holdover from what he'd felt, or thought he'd felt, out at the Jenny station.

Curt read that on his face easily enough. 'Maybe it is. Maybe it is just me. Fuck, I don't know. Let's check the barracks. Maybe he's downstairs in supply, coopin. Wouldn't be the first time.'

The two men hadn't entered Shed B by either of the big roll-up doors but rather through the doorknob-operated, people-sized door that was set into the east side. Curt paused in it instead of going out, looking back over his shoulder at the Buick.

His gaze as he stood beside the wall of pegged hammers, clippers, rakes, shovels, and one posthole digger (the red AA on the handle stood not for Alcoholics Anonymous but for Arky Arkanian) was angry. Almost baleful. 'It wasn't in my mind,' he said, more to himself than to Sandy. 'It was cold. It's not now, but it was.'

Sandy said nothing.

'Tell you one thing,' Curt said. 'If that goddam car's going to be around long, I'm getting a thermometer for this place. I'll pay for it out of my own pocket, if I have to. And say! Someone left the damn trunk unlocked. I wonder who ? '

He stopped. Their eyes met, and a single thought flashed between them: Fine pair of cops we are.

They had looked inside the Buick's cabin, and underneath, but had ignored the place that was ? according to the movies, at least ? the temporary body-disposal site of choice for murderers both amateur and professional.

The two of them walked over to the Buick and stood by the back deck, peering at the line of darkness where the trunk was unlatched.

'You do it, Sandy,' Curt said. His voice was low, barely above a whisper.

Sandy didn't want to, but decided he had to ? Curt was, after all, still a rookie. He took a deep breath and raised the trunk's lid. It went up much faster than he had expected. There was a clunk when it reached the top of its arc, loud enough to make both men jump. Curt grabbed Sandy with one hand, his fingers so cold that Sandy almost cried out.

The mind is a powerful and often unreliable machine. Sandy was so sure they were going to find Ennis Rafferty in the trunk of the Buick that for a moment he saw the body: a curled fetal shape in chino pants and a plaid shirt, looking like something a Mafia hitman might leave in the trunk of a stolen Lincoln.

But it was only overlapped shadows that the two Troopers saw. The Buick's trunk was empty. There was nothing there but plain brown carpeting without a single tool or grease-stain on it. They stood in silence for a moment or two, and then Curt made a sound under his breath, either a snicker or an exasperated snort. 'Come on,' he said. 'Let's get out of here. And shut the damn trunk tight this time. 'Bout scared the life out of me.'

'Me too,' Sandy said, and gave the trunk a good hard slam. He followed Curt to the door beside the wall with the pegged tools on it. Curtis was looking back again.

'Isn't that one hell of a thing,' he said softly.

'Yes,' Sandy agreed.

'It's f**ked up, wouldn't you say?'

'I would, rook, I would indeed, but your partner isn't in it. Or anywhere in here. That much is for sure.'

Curt didn't bridle at the word rook. Those days were almost over for him, and they both knew it. He was still looking at the car, so smooth and cool and there. His eyes were narrow, showing just two thin lines of blue. 'It's almost like it's talking. I mean, I'm sure that's just my imagination ? '

'Damn tooting it is.'

' ? but I can almost hear it. Mutter-mutter-mutter.'

'Quit it before you give me the willies.'

'You mean you don't already have them?'

Sandy chose not to reply to that. 'Come on, all right?'

They went out, Curt taking one last look before closing the door.

The two of them checked upstairs in the barracks, where there was a living room and a dorm-style bedroom behind a plain blue curtain that contained four cots. Andy Colucci was watching a sitcom on television and a couple of Troopers who had the graveyard shift were snoozing; Sandy could hear the snores. He pulled back the curtain to check. Two guys, all right, one of them going wheek-wheek through his nose ? polite ? and the other going ronk-ronk-ronk through his open mouth ? big and rude. Neither of them was Ennis. Sandy hadn't really expected to find him there; when Ennis cooped, he most commonly did it in the basement supply room, rocked back in the old swivel chair that went perfectly with the World War II-era metal desk down there, the old cracked radio on the shelf playing danceband music soft. He wasn't in the supply room that night, though. The radio was off and the swivel chair with the pillow on the seat was unoccupied. Nor was he in either of the storage cubicles, which were poorly lit and almost as spooky as cells in a dungeon.