After dinner, Jane walked residential streets. In the velvet shadows and subdued lighting, she gazed at a diamonded sky as mysterious as always it would be.
Every ordinary thing was in this moment extraordinary and precious beyond valuation, rich with meaning, but the meaning ineffable, all of it endangered in these darkening times.
Eventually, in a pocket park, she stood watching the motel across the street, where she’d taken a room. A few people came and went, but none concerned her. She focused on the window of her room, where she’d left the lights on, waiting to see the drapery panels part slightly or tremble as someone moved against them. Nothing.
She crossed the street and let herself into the room. She was alone. Wherever death might come for her, it wasn’t here or now.
50
THE WATCH COMMANDER at the Killeen Police Department happens to know the manager of the bus station, Dennis van Horn. He calls him at home and introduces Egon Gottfrey, who then takes the phone.
According to van Horn, the bus driver from Killeen, Lonnie John Bricker, has finished his day by driving another coach that departed Houston at 4:00 P.M., scheduled to arrive in San Antonio at 7:10. Now at 7:26, it is likely that Bricker is still at the terminal in San Antonio, filling out his trip report.
At 7:39, again in the office provided by the watch commander, Gottfrey sits at the computer—Vince standing to his left, Rupert to his right—and conducts a Skype interview with Lonnie John Bricker.
The bus driver is a burly, balding man of about fifty. His round and rubbery face has a perpetual look of sweet bewilderment that underlies his every other expression. It is a face that makes him likable on sight and no doubt is comically expressive when he tells jokes to his buddies at the local bar.
Bricker frowns and leans warily toward the screen out there in San Antonio, as though Gottfrey might be a tiny man hiding inside that distant computer. “Well, no offense intended, but I still can’t know for sure you’re in Killeen. And when you held your badge thing to the camera, I couldn’t see it clear enough to know was it real FBI or from some Junior G-Man play set.”
In instances like this, Skype is a time-saving convenience; however, it’s harder to intimidate the hell out of the subject of an interview when you are not in the same city with him. You can’t loom over the guy or accidentally knock a mug of hot coffee into his lap.
Gottfrey says, “The head of security at the terminal there, Mr. Titus, has confirmed my identity to you.”
“No offense intended to him, either, but he’s near as much a stranger to me as you are. Don’t I need myself a lawyer here?”
“You’re not a suspect, Mr. Bricker. You’re a witness who might have seen something in regards to a case of national importance.”
“What I’ve been doin’ all day is hump one bus to Houston and hump another bus to San Antone, so all I’ve seen is highway and some asshole drivers. The true FBI isn’t after speeders and tailgaters.”
According to the laws of physics established by the Unknown Playwright, when the urge to pistol-whip some idiot overcomes you, that is also not possible via Skype.
“I’m just stating for the record,” says Bricker, “you told me I’m not a suspect and I don’t need to lawyer up. So whatever I say here, it can’t be used against me in a court of law”—he raises one hand in a pledge—“so help me, God.”
Lonnie John Bricker has opened his own law practice.
“All right then,” says Gottfrey. “I sent Mr. Titus two photos, and he printed them out for you.”
Bricker glances at the photographs lying on the desk beside him, and then he squints at the screen again. “What about them?”
“Do you remember that man and woman being passengers on the bus you drove from Killeen to Houston earlier today?”
“Why wouldn’t I remember them? Or at least her. She’s maybe almost sixty, but she’s still a looker, and she sure had an eye for me. A lot of the ladies think us bus drivers are romantic figures, always off to some far place.”
“What do you mean, she had an eye for you?” According to what Gottfrey knows about Clare Hawk, this doesn’t sound like her. “How could you tell she had an eye for you?”
Leaning back in his chair, Bricker smiles smugly and shakes his head. “No offense intended, but if by your age you haven’t learned to see the love light shining in some beauty’s eyes, you probably can’t never be taught how.”
When Vince Penn snickers at this statement, Gottfrey restrains himself from putting the bus driver in his place with a sharp rebuke and from shooting Vince dead, thereby removing him from the script.
“Mr. Bricker, can you tell me where they got off the bus?”
“It was a full-booked run, door-to-door, no in-betweeners. They got off in Houston.”
“You remember seeing them get off?”
Bricker broods for a moment. “They could’ve got off while I was at the exterior luggage compartments, getting people’s bags.”
“Did this man and woman have luggage?”
“I think … maybe just carry-on … maybe none.”
“Well, the problem is, we’ve reviewed the security video in Houston. They never disembarked there.”
The look of bewilderment underlying Bricker’s other expressions takes command of his rubbery face. “I don’t know what that means.”
“When all the passengers have received their luggage, do you return to the bus to be sure everyone has gotten off?”
“I generally walk the aisle, take a look around. Wasn’t anyone there.”
“Is there a lavatory on board the bus?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you always check the lavatory at the end of a trip?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why not always, routinely?”
Getting defensive, Bricker says, “I don’t clean toilets. Only reason to check the lav is if there’s a couple passengers you think might have a habit, one of them might go in there to shoot up, so you find a junkie dead of an overdose.”
“Has that ever happened to you?”
“No. But I heard of it.”
“So you didn’t check the lavatory this time?”
“There wasn’t any obvious freak aboard. They were a straight-arrow bunch, nice and quiet from Killeen to Houston.”
“What happens to the bus after you’ve off-loaded the luggage and all the passengers are gone?”
“I drove a different bus to San Antone. The one from Killeen, it was cleaned, fueled, serviced as needed, got ready for its next leg. I don’t know maintenance routine. You’ll have to ask somebody else about maintenance routine. Can I go now or am I in trouble?”
“Why would you be in trouble, Mr. Bricker?”
“No good reason. But the law does get it wrong sometimes.”
After a silence, Gottfrey says, “You aren’t in trouble. But I would be remiss if I didn’t make sure you understood that lying to an agent of the FBI is a crime.”
After a silence of his own, Bricker says, “I didn’t lie. What would I have to lie about? I just drove from Killeen to Houston.”
“I’m happy for you, Mr. Bricker. I’m happy you didn’t lie. When people do lie, we always find out sooner or later.”
51
THE FRECKLE-FACED LITTLE BITCH keeps smirking at Janis Dern. She’s been told to keep her smart mouth shut or it’ll be taped shut, so she doesn’t speak. But the kid can mock and insult with a look as well as with a word.
If Francine, the eldest of the four Dern sisters, wasn’t still alive, Janis would need to consider that this tomboy bitch is the very reincarnation of the other.
To discourage rebellion against this illegal detention, the ten employees have been locked in Stable 2. The exits from the long building are being guarded by Pedro and Alejandro Lobo.
Some of the detainees have spouses or others who expect them to return home at a certain time. They have made carefully monitored phone calls to explain that they will be working late. Very late.