Barry shook with him. “Hey, Willy. Good to see you, but I can’t stop to chew the fat. We’re in sort of a hurry. Urgent business.”
Willy nodded. “I’m waiting for Lila. I know the chances are good that she’s asleep, but I’m hoping not. Want to talk to her. I went back out to that trailer where those meth-heads got killed. Something funny out there. Not just fairy handkerchiefs. The trees are full of moths. Wanted to talk to her about it, maybe take her to see. If not her, then whoever’s supposed to be in charge.”
“This is Willy Burke,” Barry told Garth and Michaela. “Volunteer fire department, Adopt-A-Highway, coaches Pop Warner, all around good guy. But we’re really pressed for time, Willy, so—”
“If it was Linny Mars you came to talk to, you better hurry up.” Willy’s eyes flicked from Barry to Garth to Michaela. They were deep-set, caught in nets of wrinkles, but sharp. “She was still awake the last time I popped in, but she’s fadin fast.”
“No deputies around?” Garth asked.
“Nope, all out on patrol. Except maybe for Terry Coombs. I heard he’s a little under the weather. Struck drunk, don’t you know.”
The three of them started up the steps to the triple doors. “Haven’t seen Lila, then?” Willy called after them.
“No,” Barry said.
“Well . . . maybe I’ll wait a little longer.” And Willy wandered back to his bench. “Something funny out there, all right. All those moths. And the place has got a vibration.”
5
Linny Mars, part of the ten percent of earth’s female population still holding out on that Monday, continued to walk around with her laptop, but now she was moving slowly, occasionally stumbling and bumping into the furniture. To Michaela she looked like a wind-up toy that had almost run down. Two hours ago, that was me, she thought.
Linny walked past them, staring at her laptop with her bloodshot eyes, not seeming to realize they were there until Barry tapped her on the shoulder. Then she jumped, her hands flying up. Garth caught her laptop before it could crash to the floor. On the screen was a video of the London Eye. In slow motion it tottered and rolled into the Thames again and again. Hard to tell why anyone would want to destroy the London Eye, but apparently someone had felt a need to do so.
“Barry! You scared the dickens out of me!”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Terry sent me to get some of the hardware from the weapons room. I guess he wants it up to the prison. May I have the key, please?”
“Terry?” she frowned. “Why would he . . . Lila’s the sheriff, not Terry. You know that.”
“Lila, right,” Barry said. “It’s Lila’s order via Terry.”
Garth went to the doors and looked out, convinced that a sheriff’s department cruiser would pull up at any moment. Maybe two or three. They would be thrown in jail, and this lunatic adventure would be over before it even got started. So far there was no one but the bearded guy sitting out there under his umbrella, like Patience on her monument, but that couldn’t last.
“Can you help me out, Linny? For Lila?”
“Sure. I’ll be glad to see her back,” Linny said. She went to her desk and put her laptop down. On the screen, the London Eye fell and fell and fell. “That guy Dave is running things until she does. Or maybe his name is Pete. Confusing to have two Petes around. In any case, I don’t know about him. He’s very serious.”
She rummaged in her wide top drawer, and brought out a heavy ring of keys. She peered at them. Her eyes drifted closed. White threads immediately rose from her eyelashes, wavering in the air.
“Linny!” Barry said sharply. “Wake up!”
Her eyes snapped open, and the threads disappeared. “I am awake. Stop shouting.” She ran a finger along the keys, making them jingle. “I know it’s one of them . . .”
Barry took them. “I’ll find it. Miss Morgan, maybe you’d like to go back to the RV and wait there.”
“No, thanks. I want to help. It will be quicker that way.”
At the back of the main room was an unmarked metal door painted a particularly unappetizing shade of green. There were two locks. Barry found the key that fitted the top one easily enough. The second, however, was taking more time. Michaela thought Lila might have kept that key for herself. It might be in her pocket, buried under one of those white cocoons.
“Do you see anyone coming?” she called to Garth.
“Not yet, but hurry up. This is making me need to pee.”
There were only three keys left on the ring when Barry found the one that turned the second lock. He opened the door, and Michaela saw a small closet-sized room with rifles stowed in racks and pistols nestled in Styrofoam-lined cubbies. There were shelves stacked with boxes of ammunition. On one wall was a poster showing a Texas Ranger in a ten-gallon hat, pointing a revolver with a huge black barrel. I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON, read the line beneath.
“Get as much of the ammo as you can,” Barry said. “I’ll get the M4s and some of the Glocks.”
Michaela started for the ammo shelves, then changed her mind and went back into the dispatch area. She grabbed Linny’s wastebasket and turned it over, dumping out a heap of crumpled paper and takeout coffee cups. Linny took no notice. Michaela loaded as many boxes of ammunition as she thought she could carry into the wastebasket and left the secure room with the basket clasped in her arms. Garth brushed past her to get his own armload of weaponry. Barry had left one of the triple entry doors open. Michaela staggered down the wide stone steps through the thickening rain in time to see Barry reach the Fleetwood. The bearded man got up from his bench, still holding his umbrella over his head. He said something to Barry, who replied. Then the bearded man, Willy, opened the RV’s rear door so Barry could put in his armload of guns.
Michaela joined him, panting. Barry took the wastebasket from her and dumped the boxes of ammo on top of the jackstraw pile of guns. They went back together while Willy stood beneath his umbrella, watching. Garth came out with a second load of armament, his pants sagging under the weight of the ammo boxes he had shoved into all his pockets.
“What did the old guy say to you?” Michaela asked.
“He wanted to know if we were doing something Sheriff Norcross would approve of,” Barry replied. “I said we were.”
They went back inside and hurried to the secure room. They had taken about half the weaponry. Michaela spotted something that looked like a submachine gun afflicted with the mumps. “We should definitely take that. I think it’s the teargas-launcher thingy. I don’t know if we need it, but I don’t want anyone else to have it.”
Garth rejoined them. “I come bearing bad news, Counselor Holden. Truck with a jackpot light on the dash just pulled up behind your RV.”
They hurried to the doors and peered out through the smoked glass. Two men were getting out of the truck, and Michaela recognized them both: the clown and his autograph hound partner.