face, but I could tell it anyway. Feel it just from the tone of her voice and the air in that Jeep.
“So now,” I said. “What’s your story about this Captain Scranton?”
And then I saw them; saw the tracks, saw where they went.
That little rise we’d been climbing to where the tower sat, it had a sharp drop-off to our left. And now that we were right up on them, I could see those tracks veered off, maybe forty yards in front of the tower and went sideways down the slope.
At the bottom of that slope the snow suddenly turned flat and level for maybe a half mile, so I figured there was likely a lake down there. And right at the edge of that lake, almost covered in snow there was a black-and-white car.
And footprints.
“It looks like a police car,” Callie said helpfully.
I hit the clutch and the brake, pulled up the Jeep and pressed my face up against the freezing-cold window, trying to see through blowing snow: one set of tracks, running from the passenger side of the car to the tower and back. Or maybe from the tower to the car, then back. I couldn’t be sure. Tried to look closer.
Which is how we were, just sitting there, stock-still out in the open like that, when I heard a sound I’d only heard the like of once before; it only come on me one other time, back in the war, but that was too many times to mistake it for anything else.
There was that short-sharp-sudden noise and all to once the windshield of that Jeep tuned into a crystal-white spiderweb with a big nasty hole in the middle of it.
Chapter 22
Three Hours and Fifty-Five Minutes After the Robbery
December 20, 1951
12:55 PM
Sarge
At Sarge’s Spot, the only business for two miles in either direction out on Highway 12, Sarge himself looked disgustedly around the soft-lit polished-plastic room full of empty booths and tables, the only noise there coming from the flashing red-and-yellow jukebox,
Sleeeep in heavvvvenly peee-eeece
,
Slee-eep in heavvvv-enly peace.
“You got that right,” he muttered to himself, took off his spotless white apron and walked to the big glass door leading to the gravel parking lot out front.
Nothing there but snow. White, deep, and unbroken by any tire tracks all day.
“Hell,” he said to nobody but himself.
Behind him, Joe opened the door from the kitchen and looked timidly out.
“You want I should pitch this coffee and make some fresh, Boss?”
“Nah.” Sarge couldn’t take his eyes off the empty, money-losing parking lot. “Ain’t nobody gonna come out in a mess like this.” He reached up to turn off the bright blue-white-and-gold sign outside with the three stripes and the big letters
SARGE’S
SPOT
Dining – Dancing – Good Food
Beer –Wine – Liquor
He wondered vaguely if he’d make enough yet this year to pay off Brother Sweetie and get clear. Maybe if he got a good crowd on Christmas Eve…and then New Year’s…. Yeah, he could count on a good crowd New Year’s Eve, and Sweeney wouldn’t expect to get paid right away anyhow, not right around the holidays like this, so if things broke right, he might make it. With a little luck and a good crowd. Not today, though. Nor tonight either. Might as well—
Something out there caught his eye. Some kind of car, big and black, coming up Highway 12 as fast as it could on a day like this. Sarge tightened his fingers on the light switch.
Just one car
, he thought,
and if they decide to stop and get out of this mess they might sit here for hours waiting for the snow plow to come by, just sitting here drinking coffee and using up my electricity….
He almost turned off the switch. Then he reflected that whoever was out there might really need a chance to stop and rest. Might want something hot. Maybe need it bad, out there driving in all this. He listened a moment to the sentimental music coming from the jukebox and figured he might as well wait and see if whoever it was stopped in. Just for Christmas’ sake.
Sure enough, the car slowed as
“So now,” I said. “What’s your story about this Captain Scranton?”
And then I saw them; saw the tracks, saw where they went.
That little rise we’d been climbing to where the tower sat, it had a sharp drop-off to our left. And now that we were right up on them, I could see those tracks veered off, maybe forty yards in front of the tower and went sideways down the slope.
At the bottom of that slope the snow suddenly turned flat and level for maybe a half mile, so I figured there was likely a lake down there. And right at the edge of that lake, almost covered in snow there was a black-and-white car.
And footprints.
“It looks like a police car,” Callie said helpfully.
I hit the clutch and the brake, pulled up the Jeep and pressed my face up against the freezing-cold window, trying to see through blowing snow: one set of tracks, running from the passenger side of the car to the tower and back. Or maybe from the tower to the car, then back. I couldn’t be sure. Tried to look closer.
Which is how we were, just sitting there, stock-still out in the open like that, when I heard a sound I’d only heard the like of once before; it only come on me one other time, back in the war, but that was too many times to mistake it for anything else.
There was that short-sharp-sudden noise and all to once the windshield of that Jeep tuned into a crystal-white spiderweb with a big nasty hole in the middle of it.
Chapter 22
Three Hours and Fifty-Five Minutes After the Robbery
December 20, 1951
12:55 PM
Sarge
At Sarge’s Spot, the only business for two miles in either direction out on Highway 12, Sarge himself looked disgustedly around the soft-lit polished-plastic room full of empty booths and tables, the only noise there coming from the flashing red-and-yellow jukebox,
Sleeeep in heavvvvenly peee-eeece
,
Slee-eep in heavvvv-enly peace.
“You got that right,” he muttered to himself, took off his spotless white apron and walked to the big glass door leading to the gravel parking lot out front.
Nothing there but snow. White, deep, and unbroken by any tire tracks all day.
“Hell,” he said to nobody but himself.
Behind him, Joe opened the door from the kitchen and looked timidly out.
“You want I should pitch this coffee and make some fresh, Boss?”
“Nah.” Sarge couldn’t take his eyes off the empty, money-losing parking lot. “Ain’t nobody gonna come out in a mess like this.” He reached up to turn off the bright blue-white-and-gold sign outside with the three stripes and the big letters
SARGE’S
SPOT
Dining – Dancing – Good Food
Beer –Wine – Liquor
He wondered vaguely if he’d make enough yet this year to pay off Brother Sweetie and get clear. Maybe if he got a good crowd on Christmas Eve…and then New Year’s…. Yeah, he could count on a good crowd New Year’s Eve, and Sweeney wouldn’t expect to get paid right away anyhow, not right around the holidays like this, so if things broke right, he might make it. With a little luck and a good crowd. Not today, though. Nor tonight either. Might as well—
Something out there caught his eye. Some kind of car, big and black, coming up Highway 12 as fast as it could on a day like this. Sarge tightened his fingers on the light switch.
Just one car
, he thought,
and if they decide to stop and get out of this mess they might sit here for hours waiting for the snow plow to come by, just sitting here drinking coffee and using up my electricity….
He almost turned off the switch. Then he reflected that whoever was out there might really need a chance to stop and rest. Might want something hot. Maybe need it bad, out there driving in all this. He listened a moment to the sentimental music coming from the jukebox and figured he might as well wait and see if whoever it was stopped in. Just for Christmas’ sake.
Sure enough, the car slowed as
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