Dr. Danco must have been in a hurry, because he had left behind a very pricey-looking scanner, the kind that police groupies and newshounds use to monitor emergency radio traffic. It was very comforting to know that Danco had been tracking us with this and not some kind of magic powers.
Other than that, the van was clean. There was no telltale matchbook, no slip of paper with an address or a cryptic word in Latin scribbled on the back. Nothing at all that could give us any kind of clue. There might turn out to be fingerprints, but since we already knew who had been driving that didn’t seem very helpful.
I picked up the scanner and walked around to the rear of 1 9 6
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the van. Doakes was standing beside the open back door as the older paramedic finally got his partner onto his feet. I handed Doakes the scanner. “It was in the front seat,” I said.
“He’s been listening.”
Doakes just glanced at it and put it down inside the back door of the van. Since he didn’t seem terribly chatty I asked,
“Do you have any ideas about what we should do next?”
He looked at me and didn’t say anything and I looked back expectantly, and I suppose we could have stood like that until the pigeons began to nest on our heads, if it hadn’t been for the paramedics. “Okay, guys,” the senior one said, and we moved aside to let them get to Frank. The stocky paramedic seemed to be perfectly all right now, as if he was here to put a splint on a boy with a twisted ankle. His partner still looked quite unhappy, however, and even from six feet away I could hear his breathing.
I stood beside Doakes and watched them slide Frank onto the gurney and then wheel him away. When I looked back at Doakes he was staring at me again. Once more he gave me his very unpleasant smile. “Down to you and me,” he said. “And I don’t know about you.” He leaned against the battered white van and crossed his arms. I heard the paramedics slam the ambulance door, and a moment later the siren started up.
“Just you and me,” Doakes said again, “and no more referee.”
“Is this more of your simple country wisdom?” I said, because here I was, having sacrificed an entire left shoe and a very nice bowling shirt, to say nothing of my hobby, Deborah’s collarbone, and a perfectly good motor-pool car—and there he stood without so much as a wrinkle in his shirt, making cryptically hostile remarks. Really, the man was too much.
“Don’t trust you,” he said.
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I thought it was a very good sign that Sergeant Doakes was opening up to me by sharing his doubts and feelings. Still, I felt like I should try to keep him focused. “That doesn’t matter. We’re running out of time,” I said. “With Frank finished and delivered, Danco will start on Kyle now.”
He cocked his head to one side and then shook it slowly.
“Don’t matter about Kyle,” he said. “Kyle knew what he was getting into. What matters is catching the Doctor.”
“Kyle matters to my sister,” I said. “That’s the only reason I’m here.”
Doakes nodded again. “Pretty good,” he said. “Could almost believe that.”
For some reason, it was then that I had an idea. I admit that Doakes was monumentally irritating—and it wasn’t just because he had kept me from my important personal research, although that was clearly bad enough. But now he was even critiquing my acting, which was beyond the boundaries of all civilized behavior. So perhaps irritation was the mother of in-vention; it doesn’t seem all that poetic, but there it is. In any case, a little door opened up in Dexter’s dusty cranium and a small light came shining out; a genuine piece of mental activity. Of course, Doakes might not think much of it, unless I could help him to see what a good idea it actually was, so I gave it a shot. I felt a little bit like Bugs Bunny trying to talk Elmer Fudd into something lethal, but the man had it coming.
“Sergeant Doakes,” I said, “Deborah is my only family, and it is not right for you to question my commitment. Particularly,”
I said, and I had to fight the urge to buff my fingernails, Bugs-style, “since so far you have not done doodley-squat.”
Whatever else he was, cold killer and all, Sergeant Doakes was apparently still capable of feeling emotion. Perhaps that 1 9 8
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was the big difference between us, the reason he tried to keep his white hat so firmly cemented to his head and fight against what should have been his own side. In any case, I could see a surge of anger flicker across his face, and deep down inside there was an almost audible growl from his interior shadow.
“Doodley-squat,” he said. “That’s good, too.”
“Doodley-squat,” I said firmly. “Deborah and I have done all the legwork and taken all the risks, and you know it.”
For just a moment his jaw muscles popped straight out as if they were going to leap out of his face and strangle me, and the muted interior growl surged into a roar that echoed down to my Dark Passenger, which sat up and answered back, and we stood like that, our two giant shadows flexing and facing off invisibly in front of us.
Quite possibly, there might have been ripped flesh and pools of blood in the street if a squad car hadn’t chosen that moment to screech to a halt beside us and interrupt. A young cop jumped out and Doakes reflexively took out his badge and held it toward them without looking away from me. He made a shooing motion with his other hand, and the cop backed off and stuck his head into the car to consult with his partner.