that scaffolding, bypassing the streetlights below. I think he’s got Chat confused with Faith. He probably hasn’t seen her since the night in December at Ursula Hewitt’s play. That’s why he kept on walking past Faith with a simple ‘sorry.’ ”
“He disappeared from your courtroom ‘like magic’ that day the bishop testified,” Mercer said, adding to my fuel. “Isn’t that what you told us?”
“That’s exactly how Pat McKinney described it.”
“I’ll get Manny Chirico checking those murders in Alpharetta, Georgia, and Wayland, Kentucky,” Mercer said. “See how the dates match up to when the circus came to a nearby town. I’m beginning to like the possibilities here.”
“I know you wanted the killer to be an orangutan, Mike, swinging over the church gates,” I said, “but unless there’s one of those on board for an animal act, you better give me some cred. It’s totally logical. Think Poe, that’s fine with me. Think ratiocination.”
He had both hands on his hips, working through my ideas as though they were starting to make sense.
“Come with me, Mike.” I meant it both literally and figuratively. “Strong, fluid, graceful, agile. Gymnasts, trampoline artists, illusionists. What better candidate for our perp than a circus performer?”
“A suspect with his own private rail car to take him away from the scene of his last crime—no flight in a stolen vehicle with bum tags,” Mercer said. “And the train puts him firmly in our territory when his spree begins. No lousy motel room to leave a record of your driver’s license or your timetable.”
“But we don’t know what set him off,” Mike said. “We don’t know what he was doing here over the holidays, if he was actually the guy in the audience at Ursula’s play.”
“Well, don’t you want to find out?” I was imitating Fontaine Delahawk, tapping the dial on my watch. “They’re going to ride on if we don’t bite this bullet now.”
“What’s your gut, Mercer?” Mike asked.
“Take Coop and go.”
“Call Peterson first. Make sure he’s got a squad waiting in the Bronx, in case we catch a break and move this fast enough to offload there. He’d better have a couple of cars all along the route, if they can figure out what that might be.”
“Probably parallels the Northeast Corridor passenger trains, on freight tracks. New Rochelle, New Haven, New London, Providence,” Mercer said. “I’ll wait here until every one of these Angus trucks is opened. And yes, Alex, Nan and I will stay on top of the lady minister from Nantucket too.”
“You going to try to sell this one to Fontaine?” Mike asked me. His words were almost drowned out by the double-blow of the whistle.
I looked to the engineer and could see Fontaine Delahawk talking with him in the cab. Slowly, the great hulking locomotive belched its smoke into the air and like a sleeping beast, awakened and started to move.
Mike pointed to the empty area from which Delahawk had earlier descended. We looked at each other and began sprinting toward the train. I beat Mike there, then reached out for him and pulled him with me onto the stepladder, holding on tight as we climbed up to safety on the platform of the rolling rail car.
FORTY-ONE
“STAND still. Don’t move a hair,” Mike said. He had opened the door of a coat closet in the front car, which seemed to be Delahawk’s office, directing me inside and pressing against me while the train lurched forward and picked up speed.
“How long?” I mouthed to Mike.
He held up five fingers and whispered, his lips against my ear. “He obviously gave the engineer the signal to start running. He’ll either ramble back and check on his charges, or he’ll settle down in his office, in which case we’ll already be out of the rail yard and on the live tracks.”
I closed my eyes as the train swayed around a curve and tried to keep my balance by holding Mike’s shoulder.
“What is it with the eyes, Coop? The onions? I shouldn’t have had that second sandwich.”
I shook my head, unable to get the vision of Faith’s sister out of my mind. “Chat. It’s Chat. Not knowing where she is or what condition she’s in. How did I ever let that fragile girl walk away this morning?
“You can’t go there, kid. We didn’t know then what we know now. We’re pulling out all the stops to find her. Stay cool. Wrap your mind around P. T. Barnum.”
“There’s a sucker born every minute, is that what you’re telling me?”