“Is Volker a terrorist?”
“Unknown, but unlikely. ” She told him what Oscar Price had told her about Volker’s motivations.
“Sweet suffering Jesus,” said McMasters. “I’m going to have to brief the president, and he’ll need to contact the governors of Pennsylvania and Maryland. ”
“Possibly Ohio and West Virginia, too. Maybe even Virginia. ”
“Tell me you’re joking, Colleen. ”
“I wish I could, Lorne. ”
“Okay, okay … give me some talking points for my call to the president. Where do we stand and how bad can this get?”
“Lorne … I’m not sure you looked closely enough at the Soviet strategy stuff. The only limit to the spread of this thing are natural barriers and direct sterilization. ”
McMasters closed his eyes.
“Mary, Mother of God,” he whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CONROY’S ACRES
STEBBINS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Billy Trout followed a crazy zigzag of back roads and side roads to find Selma Conroy’s place. It was deep in the heart of the county’s endless farm country. Though the town of Stebbins was small, the county was huge, composed mostly of a patchwork of enormous fields of wheat, barley, potatoes, apples, peaches, and corn. Cut between these were tracts of grazing land for cattle and sheep. Houses and farm buildings were scattered around, but the farmlands were so broad that each house looked like a lost island in a vast sea of waving green.
When Marcia called, Trout pulled onto the shoulder of the road and put her on speaker.
“What’ve you got?” he asked.
“Half the job,” she said. “Dr. Volker’s taking some time, but I think I got just about everything on Selma Conroy. You want all of it now?”
“E-mail me everything but for now give me the bullet points. ”
“Okay,” said Marcia, and they could hear her tapping computer keys. “Selma Elsbeth Conroy is eighty-two years old, born in East Texas. Dinky little place called Red Lick near the Arkansas border. Moved to Stebbins in 1969, and even though she had family here in Pennsylvania, the move was apparently along the lines of being run out of town on a rail. Her mother was a similar paragon of virtue. Six kids, five fathers. Class. Want to guess what one of the father’s names was?”
“If you say Gibbon I will kiss you. ”
“It is Gibbon and do I get to pick where that kiss lands?”
“We’ll talk. Tell me about the Gibbon connection. ”
“Is Goat listening to this?”
“And enjoying it,” said Goat.
“Well, you boys are going to love this. Homer is Selma’s sister’s only child. Want to guess what Homer’s mom’s first name is? Clarice!”
There was a two count as Trout looked at Goat. They burst out laughing.
“Are you shitting me?” Trout demanded. “The mother of a serial killer is named Clarice?”
“Hello, Clarice,” Goat said in a passable Hannibal Lecter.
“I kid you not,” Marcia assured them. “Is that life imitating art or something like that? Anyway, now here’s a wrinkle. The family name is actually Gibbens. Clarice Gibbens. G-I-B-B-E-N-S. No idea where the spelling change started. Court and birth records are sketchy at best, but from what I could piece together, Clarice had a child out of wedlock and put it up for adoption within a few months. Whoever filled out the adoption intake form misspelled the name. ”
“How come nobody traced this back to Stebbins before?” Trout asked.