“Okay. If she don’t live too far from here. I’ve got a load of auto parts I got to get to Bangor by-”

“You prick.”

Fennel had checked the bushes around the semi. “No sign of him,” he called.

“Well, with the sound these two were making,” Heck said, chuckling, “I’d run too. Well, let’s get on with it. He can’t be more than a half mile from here. We should-”

The Boy said, “Uh, Trenton, I think there’s a problem.”

Heck looked up to see the young trooper pointing at a small sign that in their silent approach they’d passed but not noticed. Its back was to Heck and Fennel. They strode to it, turned and read.

Welcome to Massachusetts

Heck looked at the scripty green letters and wondered why anybody’d waste a nicely painted sign here on this dim country road, home of madmen, horny truck drivers and loose waitresses. He sighed and looked at Fennel.

“Sorry, Trenton.”

“Come on, Charlie.”

“We got no jurisdiction here.”

“Why, he isn’t but a half mile away! He could be two hundred yards from us right now. Hell, he could be watching us from one of those trees over there.”

“The law’s the law, Trenton. We need to get the Mass troopers in.”

“I say let’s just go get him.”

“We can’t cross the state line.”

“Hot pursuit,” Heck said.

“Won’t work. He ain’t a felon. Adler said that Hrubek didn’t kill that fellow was in the body bag. It was a suicide.”

“Come on, Charlie.”

“If he ain’t so crazy-and it looks like maybe he ain’t-and we nab him in Massachusetts, he might sue us for assault or kidnapping. And he could damn well win.”

“Not if we get our stories straight.”

“Lie, you’re saying.”

Heck didn’t speak for a moment. “All we do is we find him and bring him back. That’d be that.”

“ Trenton, did you ever falsify a case report?”

“No.”

“You ever perjure yourself on the stand?”

“You know I never did.”

“Well, you’re not wearing a badge now and I know you feel different about those of us who are. But the fact is, we just can’t stroll over state lines.”

Rising through Heck’s prominent anger now was a sudden understanding-that the interest Charlie Fennel and the young trooper had in the search was this: to do their job. Oh, they’d give the pursuit of Michael Hrubek 110 percent and they’d bust their balls and put in all sorts of god-awful overtime and even risk their life. But for that one purpose only: to do their job.

Leaving the jurisdiction wasn’t their job.

“I’m sorry, Trenton.”

“Didn’t any of us notify the Mass troopers before,” Heck said. “It’ll take ’em a half hour to get the first cars here. Maybe more. If he hops another ride he’ll be long, long gone by then.”

“Then that’s what’ll happen,” Fennel said. “That’s the way it is… I know what the money means to you.”

Heck stood with his hands on his narrow hips, looking at the sign for a few moments. Then he nodded slowly. “Let’s don’t have words over it. You gotta do what you think’s right, Charlie.”

“I’m pretty sorry about this, Trenton.”

“Okay. No hard feelings.” He walked back to Emil. “If you two’ll excuse us.”

“No, Trenton,” Fennel said in a firm monotone.

Heck ignored Fennel and continued walking to where Emil was loose-tied to a forsythia whip.

“ Trenton…”

“What?” Heck’s voice bristled as he turned.

“I can’t let you go by yourself either.”

“Don’t ride me, Charlie. Just don’t do it.”

“By yourself? You’re a civilian. You couldn’t argue hot pursuit even if he was a felon. You cross that line, it’s kidnapping for sure. You could get yourself into a real fix.”

“And what if he kills somebody else? You’re happy just to let him go.”

“There are rules for how this works and I’m going to stick to ’em. And I’m going to see that you do too.”

“You’re saying you’d stop me?” Heck spat out. “Use that gun? Use that fancy de-partmental Glock of yours?”

Fennel was clearly stung by this but he received no apology from Heck, whose fists were balled at his side, as if spoiling for a schoolyard fight.

“Don’t be stupid, Trenton,” Fennel said kindly. “Think about it. That Dr. Adler’s a peckerhead to start with. You think he’s going to pay you a penny of reward, you snag his boy out of state? You know he’ll cheat you if he can. And what if some pansy civil-liberties lawyer gets ahold of you for kidnapping some poor retard. Bang, your ass is hung out to dry.”

It wouldn’t have hurt so bad, Heck knew, if they hadn’t been so close-if he’d gotten a notice that Hrubek was, say, in Florida or Toronto. But they were so damn close… Trenton Heck glanced at Fennel then gazed across the empty fields, which seemed white, as if dusted with snow or lime. He saw in the vague, indiscernible distance the shape of a man’s back, crouching low as he ran. But as Heck’s eyes squinted the back became a shrub and he understood that he was seeing only what his imagination had created.

Without a word to the two men Heck untied his hound and slipped off the harness, replacing it with the jangling ID collar. He said, “Come,” and returned to the squad car to wait for the others, Emil trotting along beside.

They didn’t notice him for a full minute so he spent that time looking around the shabby office-the cheap desk, the vibrating fluorescent light, the carpet of shocking green, the books with torn jackets or no jackets at all, stacks of recycled manila folders, the shoddy walls.

Owen Atcheson was himself a homeowner and handy with tools. He recognized that the paneling came from a cheap store and was mounted by cheaper labor. The carpet was stained and the windows were streaked with grease though Owen also observed that the glass in the frames holding the doctor’s diplomas was shiny as a diamond.

“Excuse me.”

The men turned. The one in uniform-this would be Haversham, the captain, the good man-pivoted on the heels of his short boots. The other one-whose office this was, a sandy-haired man of about fifty-seemed to have had only two hours of a much-needed sleep. Still, he had keen eyes, which now tersely examined his visitor.

Owen introduced himself then asked, “You’re Dr. Adler?”

“I am,” said the hospital director, neither polite nor contrary. “What can I do for you?”

The trooper, whose eyes suggested that he remembered the name, surveyed Owen’s clothing.

“I live in Ridgeton. It’s west of here about-”

“Yes. Ridgeton. I know where it is.”

“I’m here about Michael Hrubek.”

Adler’s eyes flashed with brief alarm. “How’d you find out that he’s wandered away?”

“Wandered away?” Owen asked wryly.

“Who exactly are you?”

The trooper spoke up. “It’s your wife…?”

“That’s right.”

Adler nodded. “The woman at the trial? That sheriff called about her a while ago. Some letter Hrubek sent.” The doctor squinted, wondering, it seemed, where Owen might fit in the zodiac of the evening.

“You haven’t caught him yet?”

“Not quite. You really don’t have anything to worry about.”

“No? That was a pretty frightening letter your patient sent my wife.”

“Well, as I think we explained”-his gaze incorporated Haversham-“to your sheriff, Hrubek is a paranoid schizophrenic. What they write is usually meaningless. There’s nothing for you to wor-”

“Usually meaningless? Then not always. I see. Don’t you think there’s something to it if he threatened my wife at the trial, then wrote this letter a few months back and here he goes and escapes?”

Adler said, “It’s not really your concern, Mr. Atcheson. And we’re really quite busy-”

“My wife’s safety is my concern.” Owen glanced at the doctor’s left hand. “It’s a man’s job to look after his wife. Don’t you look after yours?” He noticed with some pleasure that Adler had in this short time grown to dislike him. “Tell me why there are only four men in the search party.”