"Bad luck, he had real bad luck," Keegan answered and started putting away the folders they had completed. Dryman kept leafing through the reports.

"They killed the chief of police," he said.

"Who?"

"The Dillinger gang. They killed the chief of police in this little town, uh . . . Drew City, Indiana."

"Uh huh," Keegan said, slipping the folders back in their proper places in the drawers.

Then as he was about to put the folder away, Dryman stopped. He pulled a sheet from the thick file.

"Hey Boss?" Dryman said.

"Yeah?"

"This guy from the Dillinger job that drowned?"

"Yeah."

"They never found his body."

FORTY-TWO.

Dryman roared across Indiana at three hundred feet with a Sinclair Oil Company road map in his lap, trying to figure out exactly where he was.

"Are we lost, H.P.?" Keegan asked. He had the folder on the Dillinger job in his lap, reading through every sheet of paper.

"Of course not," Dryman said, insulted. "I'm looking for landmarks."

"You're going to knock some farmer's hat off if you don't put some altitude under us."

"I can't navigate from ten thousand feet," Dryman complained and changed the subject. "You're really hot on this one, aren't you, Boss?"

"It's desperation. We're running out of subject matter," Keegan answered sourly. "Just keep flying."

Keegan remembered something Eddie Tangier had told him. If he faked his death it would stop right there. He's out clean. . . .

Fred Dempsey had supposedly drowned in an auto wreck but they had never found his body. He was the loan officer in the bank and had actually spoken with Dillinger during the robbery. Certainly he had been a prime witness and one of the first the FBI would have interviewed.

"Hey, there it is!" Dryman said, pointing down as if surprised that he had found the town. "Drew City, Indiana. Boy, there's not much to it. I hope we're not going to be here long."

"As long as it takes, H.P."

Dryman buzzed the town once, "to find a place to set down." Then he did a slow chandelle to the right, circled the main intersection and put the low-winged monoplane down on a road just beyond a cluster of houses.

"Beautiful," he congratulated himself.

"How come we never land at airports?" Keegan said as they climbed out of the AT-6 but Dryman ignored the remark. "Got a reception committee," he answered instead.

A string of kids stretched out from the middle of town, running toward them followed by several adults who approached with more reserve. A police car wheeled around them and screeched to a stop a few feet away.

"Everybody okay?" the young policeman asked as he jumped out of the car. Keegan leaned closer to him. He was wearing a chiefs badge.

"Just fine, uh . . . Chief . . . ?"

"Yes sir, Chief Luther Conklin, at your service, sir. Not often a plane lands on Main Street Extension."

Keegan flashed his ID. "I'm Francis Keegan, White House Security," he said. The response was always the same: a flurry of excitement, then curiosity ("Why is he here?"), and eventually, "The White House what?"

"We're here to run a check on a man who was killed a few years back. You'll probably remember, it was the day Dillinger robbed your bank."

"I certainly do, sir. My boss, Tyler Oglesby, was killed that day. Shot him down in cold blood. But you're talking about Fred Dempsey."

"Right. Fred Dempsey. You knew him, did you?"

"Real well. Once made me a loan just on my name."

"Nice guy, huh?"

"Yes sir. On the quiet side. It was a real tragedy. Both him and Louise Scoby was killed. Car skidded off the road back at the bridge and went into the river. Her father was Fred's boss, Ben Scoby, president of the bank. Damn near killed him."

"I'll bet it did, Luther. I hear they never found the bodies."

"Oh, they found Louise the next day. But it was during the spring thaw and we had a hellacious rain that day. The river could've taken him . . . fifty miles downstream. Probably stuck up under some log somewheres."

"Probably. Tell me about old Fred. How tall was he? What'd he look like?"

"Tall? Oh, six feet, I guess. Had a good build on him for a bookworm type. Dark hair, a little gray around the edges. Gray eyes, I remember those piercing gray eyes of his. I think he and Louise were pretty hot and heavy, everybody expected them to get married. Roger, her brother, took it real hard. He loved Fred. Fred was good to him. More like a father than old Ben."

"How old is he, the kid?"

"Let's see, he'd be about thirteen now. Works afternoons down at the filling station."

"And her father's president of the bank?"

"Yes sir. Fine man. How come you're interested in Fred?"

"We're putting the Dillinger files in the archives," Keegan said casually. "Just filling in some blanks."

"Oh."

"Would Ben Scoby be at the bank now?"

Luther took out a pocket watch and checked it.

"Probably home eatin' lunch about now."

"Mind running me by there, Chief? Then maybe Captain Dryman can check around town, talk to some of the folks who knew Dempsey."

Ben Scoby was a man aged early by time and tragedy, his straw-thin hair streaked with gray, his eyes faded and lusterless, his voice shallow and distant. He ushered Keegan into a parlor that was neat but dusty, a room choked with furniture, doilies and doodads, the small treasures of life in a room that looked frozen in time. He had taken off his suit jacket and his suspenders dangled around his hips. A forgotten napkin was tucked under his chin and as he sat down he noticed it and took it away with an embarrassed grin.

"Well," his faint voice said, "never have met anybody from the White House before. Can I get you something? Lemonade, coffee maybe?"

"No thanks," Keegan said. "Actually we're closing out some old files, Mr. Scoby. There still is a question about Fred Dempsey. You know, his body never turned up and, uh . . ."

He let the sentence hang in the air, hoping Scoby would respond. But Scoby only nodded and said, "Uh huh."

"I understand that your family was close to him?"

"Yes, sir. M'boy Roger loved him. And I guess I hoped that maybe he and Weezie-my daughter Louise-might marry. It was . . . it was a . . . devastating experience. Senseless waste . . ."

He shook his head and looked down at his veined hands.

"Mr. Scoby, can I trust your discretion? What I mean is, if I confided something to you, could you keep it quiet?"

"Suppose so, Mr. Keegan. Never have been much for gossipin'."

"This is just speculation, of course. Supposing I told you that there's a chance that . . . maybe . . . Fred Dempsey wasn't killed in that accident. That perhaps he got out of that car and managed to get out of the river . . . or maybe never went in the river in the first . . ."

"That's a lie!" a voice cried from the doorway. They looked up at a skinny kid in scuffed-up corduroy pants and an open shirt, glaring defiantly from the doorway.

"Fred didn't do that," the boy insisted angrily. "Fred would've tried to save Weezie and that's why the river took him under. That's what Mr. Taggert said and that's what happened."

"Roger, you're not supposed to be eavesdroppin' on your elders," Scoby scolded. "This is my son, Roger Scoby. Roger, this gentleman is from the White House in Washington, D.C."

"I don't care where he's from, he's a liar!" the boy said, pointing at Keegan.

"Roger!"

"I said supposing, " Keegan said. "I was just speculating . . . playing a little game . . ."

"It's a rotten game. Fred was my friend and you shouldn't play games like that about dead people. You lie and you get out of our house!"

"Roger!" the boy's father snapped.

"It's all right," Keegan said. "Loyalty is a rare enough thing, Mr. Scoby. I admire his spunk."

"Go upstairs and do your homework, son," Scoby ordered.

"Finished it already."

"Then just plain go upstairs," Scoby snapped.

"Yes sir." Roger started to leave, then turned back to Keegan. "Isn't right to talk about dead people like that," he admonished Keegan again before leaving.

"Never has gotten over the accident," Scoby said, closing the parlor door. "They were real, real close. You were saying . . .?"

"Who's Taggert?" Keegan asked.

"County coroner over at Lafayette. Why would Fred do something like that anyway? I mean, if he got out, why didn't he tell us? Why would he've left without saying anything? Don't make a lot of sense, Mr. . . . uh . . ."

"Keegan. And I agree, it really doesn't make a lot of sense but you know how these bureaucrats are. They can't stand loose ends."

"Why would Fred do that?"

A Nazi spy, hiding in Drew City, Indiana, working in his bank, making love to his daughter? The man would think I'm totally nuts, thought Keegan.

"That's why it's far-fetched, Mr. Scoby. You're right, it doesn't make a lot of sense. It's just that never finding the body and all, we're trying to cover all the bases. Want to close the case up once and for all. Sorry I upset the boy."

"Like I said, he'll never get over it," Scoby said sadly. "But then, neither will I. I'll say one thing for Fred, he made the last few months of my daughter's life very happy ones. She didn't have a very pleasant life before he came along. Lost her mother when Roger was born, had to tend to him and me and the house. Fred put some sparkle back in her eyes. I'll always be indebted to him for that."

"Yes sir. Can you remember anything else about him specifically? You wouldn't have a photograph, would you?"

"No sir. Fred wasn't one for snapshots. Was a private man, Fred was, stuck close to his friends, didn't go in much for show."

"Did he have any quirks? Any funny habits?"

Scoby pursed his lips and scratched his temple with a forefinger.

"I just, uh . . . been a long time, Mr. Keegan. Five years this past May. M'mind strays a bit these days."

"Sure."

"Actually Fred was just an average man who treated me and my children with a lot of love and thoughtfulness. Liked the movies. Liked a glass of beer with his dinner but he wasn't a big drinker. He rolled his own cigarettes. Didn't like the store-bought kind. Prince Albert pipe tobacco, as I recall. Had this gold cigarette lighter he was real proud of. Family heirloom, so he said."

"What kind of lighter?"

"It was rectangular, 'bout three inches long." He measured a distance between his thumb and forefinger. " 'Bout like that. Had smooth sides and a wolf's head carved on the top of it. It was solid gold, not plate. Very handsome thing. Looked expensive. He was right proud of that lighter."

"Could you draw a picture of it for me?"

Keegan handed him a notebook and a pencil and Scoby drew a fair likeness of the lighter with a hand that had begun to shake with time.

"Mother lived in Chicago," Scoby went on as he drew. "She was ailing. He used to go up there occasionally to visit with her."

"Was her name Dempsey?"

"Well, I suppose so."

"What I mean is, she could have been a widow or divorced and remarried."

"Uh huh. Never did ask. He didn't talk a lot about himself, sir."