But it was Tyner’s hand, placed gently on her shoulder, that worried her the most. She must be in a lot of trouble if Tyner was being so kind to her.

“The thing about the office-how did you figure that out?” A trivial question, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to form the more central one.

“I had thought the surroundings pretty bloodless, even by government standards. On a hunch I called a friend who does a lot of federal bankruptcy work, and he confirmed that they relocated across the street.”

“Am I…could they…I mean, shit, thirty years. How can that be?”

“The prosecutor’s not particularly bright,” Tyner said. “And he clearly jumped on this hobby horse without getting Gail’s say-so. But I think she’ll take his side and they’ll charge you. That max really is thirty years. They use it all the time to squeeze people they can’t get on anything else.”

“We could go to the press…” She must be desperate if she was considering trying to manipulate the local media.

“Thing is, I don’t think we can win this public-relations war. The average citizen sees it their way-you’re protecting a person of interest in the murder of a federal prosecutor. And if it drags on even a little while, the cost of defending yourself would be exorbitant. You’d have to hire someone else, for one thing, someone with more expertise in the federal system-a system in which more than ninety percent of all cases plead out, because more than ninety-five percent of the people who go to trial are found guilty.”

“Maybe I could borrow some money from Crow,” she said. “Crow, with his secret money-market account. I still don’t know what to make of that. I don’t know what to make of any of this. And I’ve been terrified to speak to him on the phone, for fear he’ll tell me something that these guys will ask about and then I’ll be at risk for lying and incurring more federal charges.”

Tyner gave her shoulder another squeeze. She turned away from him, and using the wheeled chair to motor across the floor, like a toddler astride a Big Wheel, she rolled to the trash can in the corner and threw up.

25

The afternoon was gray and overcast, a perfect complement to Crow’s mood. Yet he kept postponing his departure, finding another chore to do for Ed, another errand to run. He dropped the Books on Tape in the library’s off-hour boxes. He and Lloyd would never listen to Early Autumn now. On the way back to FunWorld, he stopped at Ed’s trailer park and found the older man sitting on the screened-porch annex to his motor home, wearing shorts and clutching a beer.

“It’s Opening Day,” Ed said. “And on Opening Day I sit on my porch in shorts and drink beer.”

“I thought there was only one game and it’s tonight on ESPN, the Red Sox at the Yankees. Everyone else plays Tuesday.”

“Tradition,” Ed said. “You find the boy?”

Crow winced a little at the “boy” part, conscious of how it would land on Lloyd if he were here. Then again, Lloyd was a very young sixteen. Maybe not a boy, but boyish, as evidenced by his disappearing act.

“No,” he said. “And he doesn’t know how to call me, because I switched burners last night, dumping the other phone. I suppose he could try to call FunWorld if he knew the number, or get your listing from directory assistance. But why would he call? He clearly wanted to get away.”

“You know I was a cop, right?”

“Yeah. A cop, but also a friend of Spike’s. You held his liquor license, in fact. What was that about?”

“Spike has a past. The kind of past that keeps you from having a liquor license. Not even his family knows about it. He was…a little out of control as a young man. I locked him up.”

“You locked him up, but then you helped him get a liquor license when he got out?”

“What he did-Look, it’s not my story to tell. One day you’ll have a past and you’ll want people to keep it to themselves. Trust me.”

“I already have a few mysteries in my life,” Crow said.

Ed snorted, as if Crow didn’t know from secrets, and he had a point. Most people would think that Crow’s secret was a cause for joy and celebration, but Crow felt marked by it, shamed and unsure. “Anyway, let’s just say I could see the bigger picture, see that maybe Spike didn’t have any choices in what he did. So when he did his time and wanted a fresh start, I helped him out.”

“What’s your point?”

“I don’t know. I kind of lost it.” He scratched a pale, freckled calf. “Oh, yeah. Like I said, I was a cop. The boy?”

“Lloyd.”

“Yeah, him. He’s hiding something, too.”

“He was in hiding because he had stopped hiding something.”

“I get the distinction, but that’s what I’m telling you. He ain’t told you everything he knows. That’s why he’s so jumpy-like. There’s another shoe going to drop with him. Maybe you’re better off, not being around him. Someone wants to kill the kid, you’re trying to protect him, and he’s not straight with you. That means he’s risking your life along with his.”

Crow wanted to indulge the older man, but he didn’t think a retired cop’s instincts were worth much.

“Well, I guess we’ll never know. I don’t think I’ll ever see Lloyd Jupiter again.”

“You want a beer?”

Ed was drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, which had enjoyed a brief, strange vogue among the wannabe hipsters that came to the Point. Crow was pretty sure, however, that Ed had been drinking PBR since before those kids were born and would still be drinking it after some of them died.

“Sure.”

They sat in companionable silence, pretending the day was suitably warm and sunny, and listened to the callers on WBAL, whose signal was faint but clear here on the shore. It was the happiest, most optimistic day of the baseball season, with the Orioles fans convinced that they were going to go 162-0. Hey, it could happen. Anything could happen.

Tess dug the cell phone out of her laundry hamper and called the only number on the message list. No answer. How else could she get in touch with Crow? She examined the phone, which had more bells and whistles than hers-pictures, video, Internet access. She could e-mail him, then. She went to her computer and sent Crow a message headed SIX INCHES FOR YOU, a long-standing joke with them.

Call me. Urgent.

All she could do was hope he would check the e-mail via phone-he was clearly too canny to use a computer that could be traced. Oh, she had raised her little spy boy well. Spy boy made her think of flag boys, and she put on a CD of the New Orleans music that Crow loved so much-and kept booking into the club, despite mixed results. “Jockamo fee-NO-MONEY,” her father had complained privately to her.

My flag boy told your flag boy…

She should forward those photos that Whitney had taken of the three caballeros, she decided, although if that trio got close enough for Crow to identify, it would be too late. But at least he would recognize his hunters should they come for him, understand how serious things were. Not that it mattered. Tyner figured she had perhaps seventy-two hours before she would be charged officially and faced with the choice of giving up Lloyd Jupiter or rolling the dice on the federal charge. Of course, once she identified Lloyd, they would still have to find him, and she couldn’t help them with that. Would they believe her? Or would they deny her the promised immunity, thinking she had reneged?

As for Crow’s disappointment when she caved-well, who was Crow to be disappointed with her? Crow, who had listened to her fret about money while he sat on his secret nest egg. She didn’t believe that Crow would be involved in anything illegal, but then-she had never thought he would be cruel or selfish either. He had been playing poor. She really was.

Tess downloaded the three photos, then sent them as e-mail attachments. The nausea came back, and she couldn’t think of anything to do except to lie on the floor, although what she really needed to do was put something, anything, in her stomach. The dogs came over and comforted her, pressing their damp, cold noses to her neck and ears. She was touched-until she realized they were simply petitioning her to take them for their afternoon walks. Man’s best friend, sure, as long as your interests were congruent with theirs.