“I’ve just been told that there’s been a death threat against the judge who’s supposed to sit on this case.”
“A death threat on Hamilton Folger?” Kevin said. “No. If there had been, I’d have heard about it.”
“Everybody here has heard about it.”
“No, Gregor. Everybody there has heard somebody say they heard about it. If there had been a real death threat, if somebody had actually threatened Folger—I mean, for God’s sake, Gregor, you remember Hamilton Folger. He’s got a stick so far up his ass it comes up out of his head and he uses it for a flagpole. He was appointed by W. He takes himself more seriously than God.”
Gregor thought about it. He did remember Hamilton Folger. “Prosecutor in Chicago?” he said finally. “That weird case of the woman who’d—I don’t remember—something about she got caught with cocaine—”
“She got caught with a lot of cocaine,” Kevin said, “but she’d just lost both her daughters in some kind of freak accident. So she went down to the nearest slum neighborhood she could find and bought enough of the stuff to kill herself with and everybody knew that was what she was trying to do, but he went after her for dealing, anyway. I mean, seriously, Gregor, the man makes conservatives look like bleeding hearts. If he’d had a death threat, I’d know about it, the national office would know about it, CBS News would know about it, and so would you.”
“All right,” Gregor said. “But the rumors are here, and rumors like that are dangerous. You say you have some agents in place?”
“Molly Trask and Evan Zwicker, yeah. They’re both about twelve years old. I’ll give them a call and ask them to accommodate you if you want. They’re competent enough.”
“That would be excellent,” Gregor said. “I’m just trying to be cautious here. You’re sure you’ve never heard of one of these trials where there’s been any violence?”
“Absolutely sure,” Kevin said. “The violence tends to be limited to what the school kids do to each other, and they’re nasty. Nasty, but not Columbine. They call each other names. They bully each other. Some kid goes home in tears because somebody told her on the playground that she’s going to burn in Hell. That sort of thing. I’ve got the numbers. You have a pen to write these down?”
Gregor had a pen. He took the numbers down as Kevin reeled them off—both were cell phone numbers. He put his pen down on the desk and stretched a little.
“I wish I understood these things,” he said. “Everybody seems to get angry for no reason. Or no reason that makes sense to me.”
“That’s the trouble with the world, Gregor. Everybody is angry with no reason, or at least they’re not angry for the reasons they say they are. Never mind. You’re getting married in a few weeks, aren’t you? Congratulations!”
3
In the world Gregor came from, protocol mattered almost more than anything. Who did what when, who had jurisdiction over which or whom was the first question any sane man asked about any action he was about to take. In the universe of Snow Hill law enforcement, there seemed to be no protocol, and not many personnel, either. He left his closet office for the larger room and looked around. Only the woman named Tina was there. There was no sign of any other person. Even Gary Albright had disappeared.
“I’m going to take a walk,” Gregor said.
Tina looked up at him and blinked. “All right,” she said. “Diner’s down the block to your right, if you’re looking for coffee.”
Gregor made a noncommittal noise, then went out through the front door to Main Street. There were more people there now. The mobile news vans had visible staff. People were walking along the street. Gregor stopped and listened for a while, but that odd high-pitched wail he’d heard for a few moments earlier had ceased. He wondered what it was. He’d thought a car was about to explode.
He looked to his right, in the direction of the diner. People were going in and out of it, quite a few of them carrying Styrofoam cups of what he presumed to be coffee. He looked to his left. There at the end of the street was that big, white modern church and the little cluster of buildings behind it. Now that he had a chance to study it, he didn’t think the building was modern by nature. It had been remodeled, somehow. The skeleton of it was venerable, but all the ornamentation was new.
He turned in that direction and walked slowly down past the storefronts. He had no idea what he was expecting to see. The stores and other buildings were what you would expect in a small town like this. A lot of them were churches of one kind or the other, the very biggest was the Baptist one, but it seemed to Gregor to be much less impressive than Nick Frapp’s semi-modern. There was a tire store—could something be called Hale ’n’ Hardy?—and a place for greeting cards and gifts. That one had a Hallmark sign, which meant somebody must have gotten lucky. The nearest mall must not be so near after all. There was a feed store, proof that people around here raised cattle or horses. There was a “package store,” which was how liquor stores liked to disguise themselves when they had opened up in nice neighborhoods.