Clyde zapped it with his radar gun and noted that it was taking the ramp at an even nineteen miles an hour. He waited for another car to go by him, then pulled onto University and discreetly followed the Bronco north into the city of Wapsipinicon. It was the sort of vehicle that rode high on its suspension, which made it easy to track from a distance.
A few blocks short of Lincoln Way, the Bronco turned right onto a gravel alleyway that ran along the backs of several commercial buildings that were part of the old business district. Clyde gunned his unit forward, fearing that the vehicle might lose him back there. He turned into the alley and did not see it anywhere ahead of him. He ran the unit forward to the end of the block, pulled out across the sidewalk, and looked both directions up and down the street but did not see the Bronco in either direction. He threw the unit into reverse and backed down the way he had just come, looking for possible turns that his quarry might have taken.
He found the Bronco parked in the lot behind Stohlman’s Stationers, next to a steel door in the back of the building, which had been propped open. The rear doors of the Bronco were likewise open, and Roger Ossian, three-time winner of the North Central Regional Stationery and Office Supply Retailers Association Salesman of the Year Award, was unloading some boxed photocopying machines that he had apparently just picked up from a distributor in Des Moines or Omaha. Seeing Clyde Banks staring at him glumly through the window of a sheriff’s car, he set his load down on the rear shelf of the Bronco and threw Clyde a friendly wave. He was a thoroughgoing Republican.
Clyde gave him a friendly tap on the horn, shifted the unit into drive, and idled up the alley to the street. Three right turns in a row got him northbound on University once again. Three blocks later he pulled in at McDonald’s for some drive-through. But the lane was filled with waiting students as usual, so he parked in the parking lot and went inside to place his order.
As he emerged from the McDonald’s with his Quarter-Pounder and fries, he heard a wet hissing sound from the next lot and glanced over to see a car emerging from Nor-Kay’s Car Wash.
He plucked out three french fries to tide him over, then set his dinner on the hood of his unit, which would act as a hot plate, walked across the lot, and onto the property of Norman and Kay Duvall, monarchs of the Forks County car-washing industry. A solitary employee was holding down the fort this evening—an earnest fellow of maybe sixteen years.
“Hullo, Deputy Banks. Come campaigning?”
“Nope. Not on company time,” Clyde said. “I was just wondering if you’d washed any cars in the last couple of hours that had a lot of bugs on ’em. I mean a lot of bugs.” But the boy was already nodding vigorously.
“You wouldn’t believe this car I did just a little while ago,” he blurted, as if the mess had left him so traumatized he couldn’t wait to share his feelings. “It was covered with an encrustation,” he said. “Came in from out west.”
“How do you know that?”
“You learn,” the boy said. “Bugs are different out there—when you see a lot of big old fat grasshoppers stuck in the grille, that tells you they came in from the west.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“A light-blue Escort. Couple of years old.”
Clyde winced. The Escort was a ubiquitous car. “Anything special about it? Any accident damage, any aftermarket add-ons?”
“Except for tinted windows, it was just a plain old stock Escort.”
“Can you describe the driver?”
“Nope. Tinted windows.”
“But didn’t he at least roll the window down?”
“Just about an inch. Stuck a ten-dollar bill out through the crack. Didn’t want any change. Didn’t say a word.”
“Well, did you at least see his hands?”
“He had big old hands. A couple of rings on ’em.”
“Class rings? Wedding rings?”
The boy scrunched up his face, at a loss for words. “Not really either one, come to think of it. Just sort of nice-looking rings.”
“Expensive?”
“Yeah. Kind of flashy. Gold.”
“Thanks,” Clyde said. “Give me a call down at the sheriff’s department if you see him come through here again.”
“Will do.”
But Clyde knew, as he walked back to his car, that the man in the light-blue Escort would never come back to the same place again. A big old crow was flapping around Clyde’s unit with an eye on the sack of food; Clyde ran forward and shooed it away, surprising himself with how angry he was.
Someone approached him from behind, and he turned to see twenty-one-year-old Del Dhont, who wason his team.
“Clyde!” he gasped.
Clyde sped up as fast as he could.
“Clyde!” Del said again, sounding a bit wounded. They were some thirty yards from the goal line now, and the defenders had begun to run toward Clyde, building up speed for an apocalyptic collision.