"Did you see Sean's brotherMichael Juniorand this other man after the fire?"
"Very briefly. Sean's brother was fine and the other man was receiving oxygen."
"Did he go to the hospital?" asked Kurtz.
"I don't believe so, no. What are you driving at, Mr. Kurtz?"
"Absolutely nothing, Dr. Charles. Just curious about the details. You say that no visitors were seriously hurt in the fire. Nor attendants. Just the three inmates?"
"We preferred to call them patients ," Dr. Charles had said coolly.
"Of course. Just the three patients died. Including Sean Michael O'Toole."
"That is correct."
"And did you carry out the identification, Dr. Charles?"
"Of two of them I did, Mr. Kurtz. With Sean Michael, we had to resort to remnants of clothing, a class ring he was wearing, and dental records."
"Provided by his father?" said Kurtz. "By Major O'Toole of Neola?"
"I believe so, yes." The ex-director's friendly voice was no longer friendly. "What are you getting at, Mr. Kurtz? This is no idle curiosity."
"One never knows what one's readers will find interesting, Dr. Charles," Kurtz had said in his most pedantic voice. "Thank you for your help, sir." And he had hung up
Kurtz drove the Buick east and then south on the four-lane 400, following it into the dark hills when it became Highway 16. The little towns passed one after the other. There was almost no traffic. In the tiny town of Chaffee, Kurtz could see late-night trick-or-treaters going from one large, white house to the other down a tree-lined street. Dead leaves skittered across the highway. Clouds ran ahead of the wind across a cold, quarter moon. It looked, felt, and smelled like Halloween.
Kurtz had watched the evening and late-night local news at Gail's placehe sensed that Gail didn't like him and was nervous when he was around, but he didn't know whyand there had been no mention of the Neola massacre. There had been a fifteen-second piece about a Buffalo police detective being shotthe officer had been in surgery that day and there were no details or leads at this time. She was expected to recover.
Gail had kept Arlene posted during the day on Rigby's conditionwhich had been upgraded from critical to serious by the end of the day. The ICU nurses had told Gail only that Detective King had a twenty-four-hour police guard outside the unit and that a black police detective had been there much of the day waiting for the patient to regain consciousness.
Kurtz listened to his favorite Buffalo jazz station until the signal faded as he got into the deeper valleys near Neola. He realized that he was half-dozing at the wheel when he passed under the Interstate and found himself on the four-lane road for the last seven miles into Neola.
The city was asleep, the over-wide Main Street empty and mostly dark. It had rained hard here from the looks of it and the orange-and-black crepe paper decorations on some of the shop fronts were wilted and wind-torn.
Kurtz drove through town slowly, confident that the Neola Sheriff's Department wouldn't be on the lookout for a late-model blue Buick. Although one person here has seen this carup at the Rainbow Centre Mall .
He crossed the bridge over the Allegheny, turned left on the county road, and killed the headlights as soon as he turned off the paved road. Kurtz tugged down the military-spec night vision goggles and powered them up, easily following the gravel road and then dirt ruts up the hill the way he had come before.
Parking at the barricade, he got the gear
he needed out of the backseat, tugging some on, then pulling on the peacoat again and filling the pockets with extra clips for the Browning and two flash-bangs, then tossing the empty ditty bag onto the backseat.
He went up the hill, crawled through the same cut in the fence he'd made the day before, but then made a wide loop around the forested hill, planning to come over the top and then down into Cloud Nine. The night vision goggles made the weak moonlight and occasional starlight as bright as daylight.
He was following the rails of the kiddie railroad near the top of the hill, Browning still in its holster, when he heard the noises and saw the moving lights.
Music. Organ-grinder, calliope-type music. Coming from where the midway had once been. And lights moving there. A partially illuminated Ferris wheel turning.
But another light and a louder noise loomed closer, higher up the hill, here where Kurtz lay waiting.
The train was coming.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Kurtz tugged off his night-vision goggles and let them dangle around his neck as he climbed fifteen yards up the hill and hid in some thick shrubs. He racked a slug into the Browning's chamber and propped his elbow on his knee, holding his aim steady as the train racketed closer. Avoiding looking into the single, bobbing headlight, Kurtz pulled the goggles up and into place.
Then the amusement-park mini-train was chugging past him, filling the air with its two-stroke lawnmower engine chug and exhaust stink. And then it was past, rattling and rocking around the curve of the hill and into the woods to the south.