Page 9 of Dodge

Greene smiled, pleasing Lombardi. “I like that. Gunfighters ... Okay, we know she’s here in the county somewhere. The plan’s like any other manhunt. You and me, with a little luck, we find her. Call in backup from your outfit, tactical. Or WSP. We collar her and that’s that. But—”

“The wrinkle is she’s hunting for you too.”

“Right. Now, why I called your sheriff: I don’t know this area and I need somebody local. I want it to be you. I like the cut of your jib.”

Something about sailing, he believed, but didn’t want to ask. Obviously a compliment.

“But you have to know there’s a risk. I understand if you want to pass.”

So this was the we’ll-see-where-you-stand part.

Lombardi thought about his past week: three DUIs, one domestic, two shopliftings, a naked crazy man, processing a meth OD and a missing six-year-old found in eighteen minutes. Oh, and volunteering for the Benevolent Association’s pancake breakfast, where he was pretty talented at the griddle.

“I’m in,” he said. And surprised himself—and apparently the marshal too—by sticking out his hand to shake, as if they’d just come to mutually acceptable terms on a used car.

Some days he liked the uniform, other days he didn’t.

This was a didn’t day.

Marshal Ed Greene looked every inch the investigator. Which is what Anthony Lombardi wanted to be someday, of course. The man’s suit was dark and rich, the starched shirt white as a cumulonimbus. The blue of the tie was like the sash worn by the European general in a movie he and Jess had seen recently.

As they walked into the parking lot, he wondered if he too should dress plain-clothed. But wasn’t sure he should ask about it.

Jessica, last night: “You look nervous.”

“Do I?” he’d replied. Feeling nervous.

“Don’t be cowed. He should be thankingyoufor helping.”

True, he guessed. He just wanted to make sure this out-of-the-ordinary day went smooth as planed oak.

He asked Greene, “I too obvious?”

“What’s that?”

“The uniform.”

Lombardi’s suits were almost like new, since he wore them only for church and the occasional wedding or funeral.

Greene was considering the question.

“Probably better to leave it. My shield doesn’t mean much here. You, in uniform, kind of ...” He sought a word. “Validates us.”

“Makes sense.”

The marshal said he’d drive. Lombardi in a uniform was one thing but rolling up somewhere in a marked cruiser could give Marlowe advance warning.

Good thinking.

The men climbed into Greene’s rental vehicle. It was a Chevy Malibu. Apart from the cruiser, Lombardi was never in a sedan. He and Jess owned SUVs. Hers was the bigger because she did the gardening and—when the kids came—she’d be the taxi.

As they pulled out of the parking lot, Greene asked where tweakers might hang out in the Falls. He wanted to talk to some. He still wasn’t sure why Marlowe was in Harbinger County but some of the crews she worked with were into meth distribution.

“There’s a trailer park a lot of ’em live in. And kind of a camp in a forest preserve. We roust them, they leave, they come back.” Lombardi thought those chained to drugs were, on the whole, sad people.

He gave the marshal directions to the park.

They were halfway there when the man’s phone hummed.

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