Suddenly we were in the tunnel. Interstate 10, the Papago Freeway, the mainline between Jacksonville, Florida, and Santa Monica, California, running like an underground river of metal and headlights. It smelled like catalytic converters and leaky oil and confined concrete. I made a fool’s calculation and cut across the ramp just as a city garbage truck came through at battle speed. Then I reached the shoulder, hard against the tunnel wall, with nothing but a white line between me and the automotive age, going 80 miles an hour. The roar of engines and wheels was constant and deafening, even at this time of morning. To this white noise was added frantic honking at the fools running down the freeway. But I could see. The tunnel lights cast a strange arctic daylight. Car headlights shot past like comets from hell.
“We’re in the freeway,” I shouted into the phone. “Moving eastbound in the westbound lanes.” The little digital display glowed happily back: “No service available.”
I ran gingerly along the oily concrete as cars rocketed past. I lost sight of O’Keefe. Then I had him: bounding across the traffic lanes like a desperate squirrel.
Screeching tires cut above the noise, and suddenly there was a cascade of snaps and concussions, the odd sounds of metal and composite materials striking substantial objects at high speed. I looked toward the oncoming lanes and saw two cars collide trying to avoid the crazed man running toward them. Car parts abandoned ship and flew wildly into the thickening air. Metal scraped on the pavement, releasing showers of orange sparks too close to gas tanks. The two cars were spinning together, not slowly, and they were headed right for me.
I jammed my feet into place and forced my mental transmission into emergency reverse. It was maybe ten feet in the opposite direction to a little setback in the concrete wall, but it might as well have been 1,000 miles. My stomach filled with panic and bile. There was another sickening screee! booff! kind of sound as a third vehicle smashed into them from the rear. I didn’t turn back to see. There wasn’t time. The wall finally gave up a precious corner. I dived into it and prayed.
Chapter Ten
I was forty-three years old and in the principal’s office. We all were. Me, Lindsey, Kimbrough, half a dozen Phoenix cops, and the school security guard who had opened the place so we had somewhere to sit. It was 4:45 A.M. on Thursday.
“Dave went to school here, and now he’s the sheriff,” Lindsey said to the security guard. “They ought to have a Dave Mapstone Day.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, trying to understand.
“Sheriff, if I may speak frankly,” Kimbrough said.
“Yes, yes.” I waved my hand at him. I was sitting bent over in a too-small plastic chair, suddenly wishing I could sleep for about a hundred years.
“Sir,” Kimbrough said, “with all due respect.”
Lindsey said, “Just say it. I bet I agree with it.”
He let loose: “What the fuck”-this last word was shouted-“was that little stunt about!?” He added quietly, “Sheriff.”
He wheeled on Lindsey. “And you! You were supposed to keep him from doing something pretty much just like this!”
“Sorry,” she said. “He’s headstrong. I like that, sometimes.”
“Jesus!” he said. “It’s like you have Peralta’s recklessness without, without…”
He let it hang, and a grizzled Phoenix captain said, “His balls.”
Kimbrough raised up and said, “Fuck you. Where were your people when we needed them? Where were those silly-ass bicycle patrols? The suspect just walks down Interstate 10 and gets away, while Phoenix PD is at Krispy Kreme.”
; Kimbrough turned back to me. “How did he even get your number?”
“It’s listed,” I said, feeling ever more foolish.
“Who’s going to write this report?” a younger city cop demanded, realistically.
God, my head and knees hurt. Maybe I’d end up like one of those old people who has total knee replacement with some very expensive composite material, kind of like the stuff flying off those cars in the tunnel, and yet your knees still hurt like hell.
I looked around the room. A jurisdictional goat-fuck, I heard Peralta’s voice say. Yes, my friend, and you would know just how to take charge. Just the right amount of politicking, and just the right amount of hard-ass. Well, if I knew those things I’d have tenure at a major university history department.
I said quietly, “It’s not O’Keefe.” Everybody stopped talking and looked at me.
“O’Keefe didn’t shoot Peralta.”
“Oh, bullshit,” the Phoenix captain said under his breath.
“He just tried to shoot you, too!” Kimbrough said. “And from the way you describe the shot, I wouldn’t be surprised if ballistics finds this is the same gun that shot Peralta.”
I shook my head. “He’s not our guy.”