running. Several portable kliegs had been hooked up to auxiliary
batteries and arranged in another semicircle at the south edge of the
clearing, facing the automobiles. In that vicinity, at least, night did
not exist.
The focus of all this was, of course, Lieutenant Pulham’s cruiser.
The bumpers and chrome trim glinted with cold, white light. In the
glare, the windshield had been transformed into a mirror.
Detective Ernie Hoval, who was in charge of the Pulham investigation,
watched a lab technician photograph the five bloody fingerprints which
were impressed so clearly on the inside of the right front car window,
hundreds of fine red whorls. “They Pulham’s prints?”
he asked the lab man when the last of the shots had been aligned and
taken.
“I’ll check in a minute.” The technician was thin, sallow, balding,
with hands as delicate and soft as a woman’s. Yet he apparently was not
intimidated by Hoval. Everyone else was. Hoval used both his rank and
his two hundred and forty pounds to dominate everyone who worked under
him, and he was annoyed with the technician when the man failed to be
impressed. The soft white hands packed the camera away with
deliberately maddening care. Only when that was all secured as it
should be, did they pick through the other contents of the leather
satchel beside the squad car and come up with file copies of Lieutenant
Pulham’s fingerprints. The technician raised the yellow sheet and held
it beside the bloody prints on the window.
“Well?” Hoval asked.
The lab man took a full minute, studying the two sets of prints.
“They aren’t Pulham’s,” he said at last.
“Son of a bitch,” Hoval said, slamming one meaty fist into the other
open palm. “It’s going to be easier than I thought.”
“Not necessarily.”
Hoval looked down at the pale, narrow man. “Oh?”
The technician got to his feet and dusted his hands together. He
noticed that in the cross-glare of all the lights, neither he nor Hoval
nor any of the others cast a shadow. “Not everyone in the United States
has his prints on file,” the technician said. “Far less than half of
us, in fact.”
Hoval gestured impatiently with one strong hand. “Whoever did this is
on file, believe me. Probably arrested in a dozen different protest
marches-maybe even on a previous assault charge. FBI probably has a
full file on him.”
The lab man wiped one hand across his face, as if he were trying to pull
away his perpetually sorrowful expression. “You think it was a radical,
a new leftist, somebody like that?”
“Who else?” Hoval asked.
“Maybe just a nut.”
Hoval shook his square, long-jawed head. “No. Don’t you read the
papers any more?
Policemen getting killed all over the country these days.”
“It’s the nature of their job,” the technician said. “Policemen have
always gotten killed in the line of duty. Percentage of deaths is still
the same as it always was.”
Hoval was adamant as he watched the other lab men and the uniformed
troopers comb the murder site. “These days there’s an organized effort
to slaughter policemen. Nationwide conspiracy. And it’s finally
touched us. You wait and see. This asshole’s prints will be on file.
And he’ll be just the kind of bastard I’m telling you he is. We’ll have
him nailed to a post in twenty-four hours.”
“Sure,” the technician said. “That’ll be nice.
TUESDAY Four on the second day of May they rose early and ate a
light breakfast, checked out of the Lazy Time Motel, and were on the
road again shortly after eight o’clock.
The day was as bright and fresh as the previous one had been. The sky
was high and cloudless. The sun, behind them once more, seemed to
propel them on toward the coast.
“Does the scenery get better today?” Colin asked.
“Some,” Alex said. “For one thing, you’ll get to see the famous Gateway
Arch in St.
Louis.”
How many miles to St. Louis?”
“Oh . . . maybe two-fifty.”
“And this Gateway Arch is the very first thing that we have to look
forward to”‘ “Well “Christ,” the boy said, shaking his head
sorrowfully, “this is going to be a long, long morning. ” Interstate 70