13

Pounding woke him. At first he thought it was part of his dream, hammering on the barn being unaccountably built by a swarm of Amish men at the land end of the bridge from Pioneer Park's island. He did wonder when the entire group turned and began shouting in unison: "Mikaelian! Mikaelian, goddamn it, wake up!" Amish would surely not curse that way. These could not be real Amish.

Then he noticed that though they stopped pounding when they yelled at him, the pounding noise went on. Their voice sounded familiar, too.

"Mikaelian!"

The voice and pounding were real . . . outside his door. He clawed his way up out of sleep to squint at his clock . . . and then stare in outrage. Eleven-thirty!

The pounding sounded ready to break through the door. "Mikaelian! MIKAELIAN!"

"I'm coming!" He staggered to the door and opened it half the width of the safety chain.

Through the crack and the glare of light outside he recognized the burly form of Lieutenant Byron Kaufmann filling his porch. "Helen Schoning and her mother weren't kidding about how sound you sleep," Kaufmann grumbled. "I've been making enough noise to wake the dead."

Garreth leaned his forehead against the crack, sighing. "So you have. What do you want, lieutenant? I just got to sleep."

"Sorry, but I'm supposed to bring you down at the station."

"At this time of day?" While he unchained and opened the door, Garreth's mind raced, hunting serious transgressions.

"Relax." Kaufmann strolled in past him. "There are just some reporters waiting for you."

"Reporters?" Garreth's gut knotted. He shoved the door closed. "Shit."

"Jesus it's dark in here."

Garreth switched on a lamp. "Why do they want to talk to me?"

Kaufmann grinned at him. "Don't you realize who you collared last night? Frank Danner."

The name sounded vaguely familiar. Garreth had shaved before he identified it, though. Then he stared at Kaufmann. "One of the bank robbers who killed that Nevada trooper? They're in Kansas?"

Kaufmann rolled his eyes. "Don't you read your briefing notes?"

"I've been off for two days."

"Don't you watch the news? Two days ago Frank and his brother Lyle shot a Colorado trooper. Every cop in the country wants them. And you nailed Frank without a scratch to you or his hostage. Danzig says wear something professional looking."

Garreth reluctantly put on a suit and tie, and after a moment of hesitation went to the refrigerator. Instead of filling a glass, though, he drank directly from the thermos, freshly refilled from the Gehrt Ranch herd after taking Maggie home last night.

They never had talked.

Kaufmann eyed him. "That's health food stuff I suppose."

"Liquid protein and additives." Perfectly true. He added sodium citrate to keep it from clotting. But let Kaufmann think he meant vitamins and brewers yeast. Despite the knots in his stomach, Garreth could not resist adding slyly, "Try some?" He held out the open thermos. "It's very healthy. Makes you live forever."

As he hoped, Kaufmann refused with a shudder and he returned the thermos to the refrigerator.

They trotted down to the patrol car in the driveway. "Why don't I just follow you in my car?" Garreth asked.

"Danzig remembers how camera shy you were after our round with the bow-and-arrow cop killer. He wanted to make sure you showed up. I'm also supposed to brief you on the way."

Why became obvious as Kaufmann filled him in. The Bellamy PD had arrested Lyle Danner without realizing who they had. Early in the evening he had tried to rob a liquor store, only the owner had been in the back room when Danner pulled a gun on the clerk, and the owner had called the police from an extension then sneaked out to jam a shotgun in Danner's back and hold him until the police arrived. Danner gave the name William Dane when he was booked, which came back negative when checked through the National Criminal Information Center in Washington.

"So the arresting officer tossed Danner in a cell to wait for the fingerprint check and his court appearance and thought nothing more about him," Kaufmann said. "But when Pfeifer and Chief Oldenburg saw 'Dane' and the guy you collared together in jail, their descriptions clicked. Someone woke up the editor of the Bellamy Globe to tell him what had gone down and in nothing flat he had it on the wire and people to collect more details. A whole group of reporters complete with minicam showed up at our office half an hour ago asking to talk to you."

Minicam. Garreth slunk down in the seat. Damn. "Does the chief want me to say something in particular?"

"Just avoid making us sound like hick cops who stumbled over these fugitives in spite of ourselves."

There should be nothing to this interview, Garreth told himself. With all the mass murderers, serial killers, and terrorists in the news, no one cared about a couple of men who had only robbed a bank and killed two law enforcement officers, let alone had any interest in a small-town cop who happened to be part of capturing one of them. At most this would be something for the local news out of KAYS in Hays. Still, he felt like a prisoner marching to execution.

At City Hall Danzig charged out of his office, a big man still built for the football he had obviously played in school, still impressive despite his waistline trying to match the width of his shoulders. "What the hell took so long? I have them waiting in the city commission meeting room." He led the way through the door connecting the office to the rest of City Hall and down the corridor.

To Garreth's relief, the group consisted of only five, and he already knew Jeanne Reiss from the Baumen Telegraph. The others were from the Bellamy Globe, the Hays paper, and KAYS.

"Would you mind removing your sunglasses so we can see your face better?" asked the TV cameraman.

And record the flare of his eyes if he tilted his head wrong? Garreth left on the glasses. "I work a night shift. My eyes aren't photogenic at this time of day. Just why do you want to talk to me anyway? Frank Danner's capture resulted from a coordinated effort of several law enforcement agencies. I was just one of many officers involved."

From his place by the door, Danzig nodded approval.

The Globe reporter, an attractive brunette woman named Catherine Heier, raised an eyebrow. "You were the one who followed the kidnapper's car without headlights to keep him from spotting you behind him, and then tracked him to that farmyard on foot and faced his gun in the dark. That was very brave."

Garreth shrugged. "It's my job and no more than any other officer would have done in my place."

Each reporter took a turn. Had he realized at all who he was after? Would he have changed his tactics if he had? How had he felt with the kidnapper shooting at him? Predictable questions, he thought. Stupid ones. He did his best to answer politely.

Then the Globe reporter said, "You seem to have as many lives as a cat when it comes to brushes with death."

Garreth tried not to stiffen. "You mean that incident with the killer archer a couple of years ago?"

"And the one in San Francisco where you were found in North Beach with your throat mutilated and erroneously thought dead."

How the hell had she found out about that? He glanced at Danzig, who frowned a denial.

"No, your chief didn't tell me," Heier said. "I came into town before dawn and met one of your fellow officers. In the course of chatting, he made remarks about the circumstances of your departure from the San Francisco Police Department that piqued my curiosity."

Duncan! It had to be. Garreth held his face expressionless.

Behind the reporters, Danzig did not bother. He stiffened, mouth thinning to a grim line. Duncan would pay for talking to a reporter instead of referring her to the chief, Garreth saw, but that did nothing to help right now. Damn the man! Garreth said evenly, "Are there more questions about Frank Danner?"

But the reporter was not about to be distracted. "I called a friend of mine who knows someone on the Examiner out there, who in turn knows someone in the police department, and it turns out that your colleague misunderstood the facts. Which delights me, because the true story is much more interesting than the one I thought I'd get. I'd like to talk about that with you, Officer Mikaelian."

"I don't wish to talk about it," Garreth replied. "It's totally irrelevant to Danner's capture. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go home and sleep before I come on duty tonight."

Heier tried to follow him. "We have a great human interest story here."

Which would make life in Baumen very awkward if she turned up the difference between his actual recorded parentage and the one he claimed locally. He produced a weary sigh for her benefit. "I don't think much of it, Ms. Heier. I lived it. It was painful; it was traumatic; and I prefer to forget about it."