He flipped on his lights and sirens and flew down the interstate, reminding Hooter of a screaming, flashing Christmas tree. She returned to her custom-fabricated aluminum booth with its vandal-resistant stainless-steel coin basket and shut the Extend-A-Door. The endless river of headlights began to move sluggishly toward her and she hoped people wouldn't be grumpy after the delay.

"What the hell's going on?" the first driver asked from the high seat of his pickup truck. "If I sat here much longer, I was gonna turn into a skeleton."

"Then that pretty lady friend I'm sure you got waiting at home for you won't have as much of you to love," Hooter teased him with a flash of a smile. "I sure do like that rainbow bumper sticker." She nodded at his windshield. "You know, I been seeing more and more of 'em lately, like maybe people is looking for the bright side and feeling hope. I might just get me one of them rainbows and stick it on my tollbooth."

The driver leaned over and popped open his glove box. "Here." He handed her a stack of rainbow bumper stickers. "Be my guest, girlfriend."

"See," Hooter said to the next driver as the pickup truck with the rainbow sticker sped off, "if you nice to folks, it's contagious just like germs is, only being nice don't make you sick." She reached out a gloved hand and took a dollar bill from Barbie Fogg.

"I know why all these cars are stopped," Barbie said. "You heard about that man who got blown up over there by the river? It's all over the radio."

"Oh my!" Hooter returned a quarter to her and dropped seventy-five cents in the toll bin. "I don't got a radio in my booth 'cause they ain't no time for me to listen to it. What happened, baby?"

Cars began to honk, turning the interstate into an endless flock of migrating Canada geese.

"The police wouldn't say. But it will be in the paper in the morning," Barbie replied. "Problem is, I don't get the paper, so I'll never know what happened."

"You just drive through my booth tomorrow," Hooter said with importance. "I always read the paper before I go to work. I tell you all about it. What your name, baby?"

They exchanged names and Hooter handed her a rainbow bumper sticker.

"You put that on your minivan and it will bring smiles and hope to all you pass," Hooter promised.

"Why thank you!" Barbie was touched and delighted. "I'll do it the minute I get home."

Nineteen

Governor Crimm chalked the tip of his lucky pool cue, cigar smoke hanging in a hazy halo around his head as he tried to make out striped balls on the red felt-covered table that Thomas Jefferson had brought back from France, or so Maude had claimed when she'd discovered it on eBay. Every few minutes, one of the troopers came into the billiards room to give the governor updates. The news was not promising.

Checks of vehicles passing through tollbooths had produced only one car with New York plates, and the driver, clearly Hispanic, had fled. So far, he had not been caught, and the consensus was that he-the heinous serial killer-had left the city, heading north. Other disturbing developments included Trooper Truth's latest essay, which accused Major Trader of being a dishonest, self-serving pirate who was trying to poison the governor. As if things weren't grim enough, Regina had planted herself on a Chippendale commode chair, slurping ice cream she had mixed with homemade Toll House cookies she had helped herself to in the kitchen. She was chewing with her mouth open and talking nonstop, distracting the governor as he peered through his magnifying glass at the pool balls he went after.

"Good shot," Andy said when a red-striped ball bounced off the table. He quickly caught it and discreetly tucked it into a corner pocket.

"You aren't letting me win, are you?" the governor said, chalking his stick again.

"Everybody always lets you win," Regina told her father. "Except me. I refuse to let you win."

Regina was a gifted pool player and between her father's terms as governor, when she was at liberty to come and go as she pleased, she was known in area bars for her trick shots and ruthlessness. The only person who had ever beaten her without cheating was that dumbshit, disrespectful Trooper Macovich.

"Here." Andy offered Regina his pool cue. "I'm not with it tonight. You take over. If you don't mind my asking," he said to the governor as Regina racked up balls, "how did Trader come to work for you?"

"A good question," the governor replied. "It was during my first term as governor, and as I remember it, he was a low man on the totem pole, but I got to know him because he used to stop by the mansion to help out with things, such as supervising the inmates, which is not the most desirable job."

Regina broke, and four solid balls whizzed into four different pockets. "Shit," she complained. "I'm having an off night, too."

Pony had just stepped inside to see if anyone needed a touch more brandy, and he caught what the governor said about inmates. He was hurt. It always wounded him when the First Family implied that just because a person was a convicted felon, he could never be trusted with anything ever again.

"Might I get you another cigar?" Pony asked Governor Crimm in a sullen tone as Regina held the cue behind her back and knocked a ball into two more balls, all three of which spun off at impossible angles and smacked into pockets.

"I must admit, I'm very disappointed to learn that he might have been trying to poison me," the governor added. "I think we should go back to having tasters. Huh, make that scoundrel one, as a matter of fact."

"If you can find him," Andy replied. "My guess is, he's going to disappear and probably already has. It's too bad we don't have any hard evidence on him yet or we could have arrested him before he left the mansion."

"Sounds to me like Trooper Truth has plenty of hard evidence," Crimm commented with an insinuation in his tone. "And that indicates to me this renegade columnist may be Trader's accomplice. How else would Trooper Truth know about my being poisoned, now tell me that, unless he had something to do with it?"

Andy hadn't anticipated this turn in the governor's thoughts, and he got a little worried. If Hammer were subpoenaed and asked under oath if she knew Trooper Truth's identity, she would have to reply truthfully and Andy could find himself in a world of trouble.

As if Crimm were privy to Andy's thoughts, he said, "I need to talk to Superintendent Hammer and find out what she knows."

"I'm sure she'd be happy to talk to you, Governor," Andy said. "But she's had a terrible time getting hold of you and never hears from you."

"Never hears from me?" The governor gave Andy a magnified eye. "I've written her a number of notes, not only about her poor little dog, but inviting her to official functions!"

"She's never gotten them, sir."

"So that damn Trader was interfering with everything!." He was getting very put out.

"Seems to me he's been lying to you from the start," Andy agreed.

"A fresh cigar would be a good idea," the governor said to Pony, who was still waiting patiently in the doorway.

Crimm stubbed out his half-smoked cigar in Regina's ice cream dish, which he mistook for an ashtray. He was getting impatient as his unsportsmanlike daughter tapped one ball after another into the pockets.

"That's why I don't like to play with you," he said to her. "I never get to shoot. I may as well not even be in the room. Tell you what I'm going to do, son." Crimm directed this to Andy. "I'm going to assign you to a special undercover investigation. I want you to find out who Trooper Truth is as quickly as possible and see just what his involvement with Trader might be. And while you're at it, let's get the dentist back and make sure those Tangier people aren't up to any other mischief."