From Potter's Field

Tucker looked at his watch and showed us into a small adjoining conference room. Windowless, and carpeted in deep blue, it was furnished with a round table and eight chairs, a television and a VCR.

'What about Lucy and Janet?' I asked, expecting the chief to exclude them from the discussion.

'I already know about them,' he said, getting comfortable in a swivel chair as if he were about to watch the Super Bowl. 'They're agents.'

'I'm not an agent,' Lucy respectfully corrected him.

He looked at her. 'You wrote CAIN.'

'Not entirely.

'

'Well, CAIN's a factor in all this, so you may as well stay.'

'Your department's on-line.' She held his gaze. 'In fact, yours was the first to be on-line.'

We turned as the door opened and Benton Wesley walked in. He was wearing corduroys and a sweater. He had the raw look of one too exhausted to sleep.

'Benton, I trust you know everyone,' Tucker said as if he knew Wesley quite well.

'Right.' Wesley was all business as he took a chair. 'I'm late because you're doing a good job.'

Tucker seemed perplexed.

'I got stopped at two checkpoints,'

'Ah.' The chief seemed pleased. 'We have everybody out. We're lucky as hell with the weather,'

He wasn't joking.

Marino explained to Lucy and Janet, 'The snow keeps most people home. The fewer people out, the easier for us.'

'Unless Gault's not out, either,' Lucy said.

'He's got to be somewhere,' Marino said. 'The toad don't exactly have a vacation home here,'

'We don't know what he has,' Wesley said. 'He could know someone in the area,'

'Where do you predict he might have gone after leaving the morgue this morning?' Tucker asked Wesley.

'I don't think he's left the area,'

'Why?' Tucker asked.

Wesley looked at me. 'I think he wants to be where we are.'

'What about his family?' Tucker then asked.

'They are near Beaufort, South Carolina, where they recently bought a sizable pecan plantation on an island. I don't think Gault will go there.'

'I don't think we can assume anything,' Tucker said.

'He's estranged from his family.'

'Not entirely. He's getting money from somewhere.'

'Yes,' Wesley said. 'They may give him money so he will stay away. They are in a dilemma. If they don't help him, he may come home. If they help him, he stays out there killing people.'

'They sound like fine upstanding citizens,' Tucker said sardonically.

'They won't help us,' Wesley said. 'We've tried. What else are you doing here in Richmond?'

Tucker answered, 'Everything we can. This asshole's killing cops.'

'I don't think cops are his primary target,' Wesley stated matter-of-factly. 'I don't think he cares about cops,'

'Well,' Tucker said hotly, 'he fired the first shot and we'll fire the next.'

Wesley just looked at him.

'We've got two-person patrol cars,' Tucker went on. 'We've got guards in the parking lot, primarily for shift change. Every car's got a photo of Gault, and we've been handing them out to local businesses -those we can find open.'

'What about surveillance?'

'Yes. Places he might be. They're being watched.' He looked at me. 'Including your house and mine. And the medical examiner's office.' He turned back to Wesley. 'If there are other places he might be, I wish you'd tell me.'

Wesley said, 'There can't be many. He has a nasty little habit of murdering his friends.' He stared off. 'What about State Police helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft?'

'When the snow stops,' Tucker said. 'Absolutely.'

'I don't understand how he can sneak around so easily,' said Janet, who most likely would spend the rest of her working life asking questions like that. 'He doesn't look normal. Why don't people notice him?'

'He's extremely cunning,' I said to her.

Tucker turned to Marino. 'You have the tape.'

'Yes, sir, but I'm not sure…' He stopped.

'You're not sure of what, Captain?' Tucker lifted his chin a little.

'I'm not sure they should see it.' He looked at Janet and Lucy.

'Please proceed, Captain,' the chief said curtly.

Marino inserted the tape into the VCR and cut the lights.

'It's about half an hour long,' his voice sounded as numbers and lines went by on the television screen. 'Anybody mind if I smoke?'

'I definitely mind,' Tucker said. 'Apparently, this was what we found in the video camera inside Sheriff Brown's house. I have not seen it yet.'

The tape started.

'Okay, what we got here is Lament Brown's upstairs bedroom,' Marino began to narrate.

The bed I had looked at earlier today was neatly made, and in the background we could hear the sound of someone moving.

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