CHAPTER 30

.....Tuesday.

.....Dogs barked and children played. Adults set out for work or went shopping. Harding fell comfortably back into the routine of being a living postcard.
.....Off to the side of the picture loomed the Elysian Fields Funeral Chapel. The gray lady had once been a grand Victorian mansion, built on the bones of being the only game in town. For over a hundred years the dead of Harding had been wheeled through the corridors of the chapel, but when a cruelly efficient Texas-based chain opened its embalming room just off of the Mall, tradition had slowly but inexorably been laid to rest.
.....It didn't help the bottom line any when Wal-Mart began selling a line of budget caskets, and the diminished returns began to eat away the once proud estate. The steady signs of budgetary decay peeled from the sunleeched exterior.
.....The interior was only slightly less seedy, dim and moth-eaten. Faded plush, purple velvet gone dull. Swirls of dust played in the spears of light that leaked in through the weary curtains.
.....Muzak played gently over the audio system. "Seasons in the Sun".
.....Only the cold tile of the embalming room continued on without distress. Cool and clinical, the room gleamed white and porcelain as bared teeth. The solitary slab bolted to the center of the floor was the center of focus for the three men crowded in the room. In one last dance with tradition, the Elysian Fields Funeral Chapel continued to serve as the official Coroner's Office.
.....Doc slid open the zipper of the dusty black body bag. Roy and Wolfe took a step back from the released funk of stale blood and excrement. The sheriff sighed as he snagged a handkerchief from a hip pocket and propped it under his nose.
.....Wolfe slapped a hand over his mouth, couching his nostrils. He had never been exposed to what a man smells like when his insides are opened up for all to see. It was all he could do from adding part of his own insides to the general stink of the occasion.
.....It took a minute, but finally he was able to step back to look down at the dead man. His stomach roiled a bit more just from looking: they hadn’t spared the ammo on this one.
.....The sheriff turned on the portable cassette player and held it towards Wolfe.
.....“Is this the person that you saw in the school?” he asked from behind the handkerchief.
.....Wolfe looked into the bag and blinked. “Why is there a towel around his head?”
.....The sheriff turned to the doctor. “Doc, why is there a towel around his head?”
.....Doc gave him a cold stare. “You told me to make him look like a—”
.....“It’s to keep his brains from spilling out,” the sheriff muttered, turning back to Wolfe. “Is this the shooter?”
.....They looked at each other, and Wolfe sighed.
.....He didn't recognize what was left of whoever it was in the bag. But then, the tweaker from the Kwickie-Stop hadn't been all that social since Wolfe had rolled back into town.
.....What with being dead and all that.
.....“Yeah.” Wolfe nodded. “That's him, alright.”
.....“Thanks.” Roy turned off his tape recorder, nodded to Doc.
.....“That'll be it.”
.....Doc zipped the bag back up.

.....Roy and Wolfe paused on the landing. From the look of things on the main drag, things were almost getting back to normal in Harding.
.....Almost.
.....Cars drove by and pedestrians passed, but all went by without acknowledging the sheriff. Crawford ducked his head down as he lit up one of his Marlboros. He regarded the activity that flowed past their vantage point with an expression that Wolfe found hard to fathom. Hard lines set, but eyes that seemed... betrayed.
.....“So that’s it?” Wolfe finally asked the sheriff.
.....“Yeah, pretty much,” Roy confirmed. “It’s almost all over.”
.....“What about justice?” Wolfe demanded. “Putting away the real killer...”
.....“There was no real killer, just a big ol’ FUBAR.” Roy reminded him. As much as the truth of the matter was tearing him apart, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot Crawford could do about it. When what was done was done, sometimes all you could hope to do is spin it in a way that might set things right down the road.
.....He didn't have all that much faith in that, but added for Wolfe's benefit: “But justice will be served... my way. That’s the best I can do for this town.”
.....His mouth twitched. “For Pierce.”
.....“How...”
.....Roy’s knuckles were white as he clenched the rail of the landing. He just wanted the man to shut up and go back to fucking... “With no two-year-fucking-trial, no media circus, no defense attorney pissing all over...”
.....He swallowed. “Pierce was a hero, remember that.”
.....“I know.”
.....“That’s what we all need right now. He was a good boy, and he didn’t deserve what happened to him...but at least we can give him what he deserves.”
.....An Army sedan rolled by, the recruiter behind the wheel. In the passenger seat, Mike stared straight ahead.
.....Roy’s eyes were cold as he watched the vehicle continue on down Main Street, heading out of town.
.....“And that little fucker... if he doesn’t come back in a body bag, I’m gonna have one waiting for him.”
.....He turned back to consider Wolfe. A long, steady look that made Wolfe's mouth go dry. Finally, the sheriff nodded. “Now that Pierce is gone, there’s no need for me to keep an eye out for Tanya.”
.....Wolfe glanced over, then looked back down Main Street.
.....“Don’t disappoint me.” Roy kept his gaze steady. “Understand?”
.....“Yeah,” Wolfe finally matched his gaze. “I understand.”
.....The sheriff nodded, then dismounted the stairs and headed to his Humvee, climbed in and merged with traffic.
.....Wolfe turned at the sound of the door of the funeral home closing behind him, as Doc stepped out to join him.
.....“They got ya’, huh?” Doc observed. “Part and parcel of the One True Official Story.”
.....“Yeah,” Wolfe nodded. “The truth was found to be sucking. You?”
.....“If America was a John Wayne movie being made today, the Duke would be sending in some punk teenager to meet the bad guys at High Noon.”
.....“That was Gary Cooper, and what does that have to do with...”
.....“I’m a little too old to take up learning how to make license plates.” Doc grimaced, dragging out a pack of cigarettes.
.....“They don’t do that anymore. Now they have the cons doing phone sales or making jeans for some multinational...”
.....“Whatever, Dan. We both had a price.”
.....Wolfe sighed. “Mine was a lot lower than I thought it’d be.”
.....“No one ever gets their asking price.”
.....Doc offered him a smoke.
.....Wolfe eyed the deck dubiously. “Umm...”
.....“It’s a Marlboro Light.”
.....Doc batted one out and lit it for him with a kitchen match, then lit one of his own. He inhaled, then frowned, considering the cigarette. “Shit... this is like smoking a tampon.”
.....“For a doctor, you sure do have a lot of bad habits,” Wolfe observed.
.....“At my age, now’s the time to give ‘em a try.” Doc chuckled. “I’ve been thinking about finally giving heroin a run, see what all the fuss is about.”
.....They fell off into their own thoughts, watching but not seeing as the gentle townfolk scurried about beneath the blameless Wyoming sky.
.....Doc stubbed out the cigarette. He frowned his dissatisfaction of the smoking experience he found lacking, a look that spread to take in the whole town. “You remember that old fable ’bout Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby?”
.....“Yeah, well... sorta.” The storybook had been removed from the bookshelves of schools just a little before Wolfe’s tenure. He made a mental note to Google it when he had the time.
.....“This town is sorta like the Tar Baby... the more you fight against it, the more it sucks you in.”

.....The high school parking lot was still packed with news vans and RVs crowded together, side by side, bumper to bumper. It was a slow news week and there hadn’t been a school shooting in a couple of cycles.
.....The stragglers were still cooling their heels, waiting impatiently for the story behind the big explosion. Although all indications pointed to a failed suicide bomber, they still needed confirmation of the driver's nationality to confidently state it as such over the air. Until then, they had to settle for allusions.
.....After the fire had burned itself down, not much had been left of the lead vehicle. Just a swaybacked chassis and forlorn engine block smoking in a cradle of melted asphalt. Crumpled steel skin seared clean of paint. Although welded to the rear bumper, the Metro had still weathered the mayhem slightly better, enough that the rear license could be traced back to the owner of the Watergate Motel.
.....There wasn't much left of the driver, but in his absence it was assumed that Omkar Singh had been behind the wheel. Since Singh had apparently left no next of kin, Delores the cleaning lady was beginning to think that if she played her common law cards right, she just might have inherited a motel.
.....As for the other driver, there wasn't much left at all to be retrieved from the ruins of the Econoline. At the last press briefing, liaison Clyde Kehoe had reported that the identity of the driver was at that point unknown, as the vehicle had went unregistered since passing through more than a few hands over the past year.
.....All they had to work with to trace the driver's identity was a platinum HHS school ring, Class of 1986.

.....The FOX reporter had her Asian face back on and had assumed her turn in the prime spot, facing the nomadic encampment. She was framed by the camera so that the high school appeared over her right shoulder, American flag snapping proudly.
.....“... the shooter has been identified as a Twyla Wayne Gomez of...”

.....Several miles away, one Twyla W. Gomez of Lumbeck, Wyoming was in the process of realizing just how much damage can be done with a stolen MasterCard. Especially if one fails to report it stolen because it was their brother behind the filching and it was already pretty much maxed out. But as Ms. Gomez was finding out, there is no credit limit on a squad of Homeland Security troopers kicking down the door just before sunrise.
.....Waking up naked with a circle of lock-and-loaded assault weapons pointed in your face: Priceless.

.....Back at the motel, Wolfe had finally managed to bat the remote control into submission. His bag still packed beside him, he sat on the edge of the bed facing the television. He pointed the remote and clicked, a flash of snow as the channel changed. Grainy footage of the Mexican students being led from the jail by uniformed FBI agents to a waiting van.
.....“...a suspected sleeper cell of Islamic terrorists...”
.....CLICK. He changed the channel again.
.....“...this is Paris Hilton on scene reporting Live for E!...”
.....CLICK.
.....A high school portrait of Pierce Crawford came up on the screen behind the talking head as the anchor conveyed stoic empathy, a gleam in the eye that could also be read as a tear welling up.
.....“... out of the sketchy reports coming in at this point, the portrait of one true hero is emerging...”
.....There was a knock at the door. Wolfe stood to get it as the news nattered on behind him.
.....“... of a young man who gave his life so that others might live...”
.....He opened the door and Tanya stood outside, eyes wide, lip trembling.
.....“... who while receiving mortal injuries still managed to grapple with the terrorist in order to give his friends time to flee...”
.....With a sob, Tanya threw herself into his arms.