"Do you remember where he was born, Mr. Scoby?"

Scoby looked up with surprise and then grinned. "Born?" he said.

"Yes sir. Where he was from."

"Sorry to laugh, it just seemed like a strange question. Matter of fact I do remember that. He was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. I remember it from his job application. Looked it up on a map once, just out of curiosity."

"Anything else? College? Previous jobs . . ."

Scoby stared at him for several seconds, then shook his head no.

"Right," Keegan said and rose to leave. "Mr. Scoby, you've been a lot of help. As I told you, we're just trying to clean up some loose ends, put this to bed once and for all. Thanks again for your time."

As they reached the front door, Scoby said, "There was one thing about Fred. I've never told anybody this, not even the board down at the bank. Fred had a letter of recommendation from the First Manhattan Bank in New York. I hired him because I liked him and because he had a good, strong letter. He seemed real smart and honest, told me he'd been looking for work for a long time. This was the heart of the Depression, remember. I forgot about the letter until about a month later I came across it in my desk drawer and just kind of force of habit, I called the bank. They never heard of Fred Dempsey."

"And you kept him on?"

"Well, times bein' what they were, lots of people were desperate. By that time I had found him to be an honest man and a hard worker, easily living up to the recommendation. Besides, Roger and Weezie were in the picture by then. I decided to judge for myself rather than broach the subject with him. Never said anything more about it to anybody till now."

"I appreciate your confidence. Thanks again. Good luck, Mr. Scoby."

"Same to you, Mr. Keegan."

On the way back to the plane, Conklin turned off the main road and drove across a bridge, parking on the opposite side of the river.

"Thought you might like to see this. Here's where the car went off, right here," Chief Conklin said. "Must've skidded. The car was . . ." he pointed fifty yards downstream, ". . . about there when we found it. Weezie was still in it. She had ahold of Fred's jacket. He must've been swept away. The river was going crazy that night."

Keegan looked around. It was a barren stretch. There were no houses nearby, only the railroad tracks that paralleled the river. Isolated. If Fred Dempsey had wanted to fake his death, this was the perfect place.

"I didn't get much," Dryman said as they crawled back in the plane. "Too long ago. People really don't remember him all that well. Want to hear something funny? That same night, the night of the bank robbery? There was a big fight in a hobo camp down the road. Two people were killed."

"A hobo camp? Where?"

"Lafayette."

"No kidding. Do you think you can find Lafayette, H.P.? And a real airport? I'm getting tired of landing in people's backyards."

"What're we going to Lafayette for?"

"I want to talk to the coroner."

Elmo Taggert, who was both funeral director and coroner in Lafayette, picked them up at the airport in his hearse.

"After you called, I took the trouble of digging out a copy of the report I filed on Louise Scoby," he said. He handed Keegan a brown envelope. Keegan took out the report and scanned it.

"She was dead when she hit the water?" Keegan asked.

"Yes sir. Probably snapped her neck when the car hit the water or maybe when it went off the road. Broke her neck clean as a dry branch. Death was instant, that's why her lungs were dry."

"Was there a bruise?"

"Had several bruises, what you'd expect. The car fell eighteen feet before it struck water. I figure she was looking back or maybe out the window when it hit. Kind of made a twisting break."

"A twisting break, you say?"

"Yep." He cracked his hand from the wrist and snapped his fingers at the same time. "Crack! Just like that," he said. Dryman grimaced.

They drove in silence for a few minutes more. The report did not reveal too much more.

"There's one thing I guess I should tell you, although I don't really see that it makes any difference," Taggert went on. "I've known Ben Scoby since high school, Mr. Keegan. Didn't want to see him get hurt any more than he was already, so I didn't put it in, but . . . Louise Scoby had semen in her vagina when she died. Obviously she and Fred Dempsey had sexual intercourse just before they were killed."

Christ, was he that cold? Keegan wondered. Did he lure her to his house and make love to her before he killed her and dumped her in the river? A man on the run from the FBI who takes time out to get laid before he fakes his own death? He could not have planned it. He didn't know John Dillinger was going to rob the bank. Everything he had done that fateful day had to have been spur of the moment. Was 27 really that cool?

"How about Dempsey?" Keegan asked.

"Nothing. She had his jacket in her hand, like she was hanging on to him when she died. My guess is, the door flew open and Dempsey was swept out of the car."

"Isn't it likely he would have surfaced sooner or later?"

"Not really. River's a hundred and fifty miles long, Mr. Keegan. Long stretches of it are uninhabited. Lots of debris from the spring floods. Hell, he could've been jammed under junk somewhere . . ."

Keegan put the report back in the folder. "Tell me about the fight in the hobo camp that night," he said.

"Know about that, do you?"

"Somebody mentioned it to Captain Dryman."

"Well, sir, nobody here's real proud of what happened that night," Taggert said. "There'd been a lot of grumblin' in town about the Hooverville and how big it was gettin'. And the railroad people were gettin' real put out about it. The railroad bulls decided to clean it out. Some of the tents caught on fire. Pregnant woman had a miscarriage. Twelve people in the hospital. And two dead, one of the railroad cops and a 'bo."

"How were they killed?"

"The cop was beat to death with a baseball bat. The 'bo was stabbed. Deep wound. Under the ribs right here and up into the heart. Nasty wound. Must've been a hell of a knife."

He pulled off the road and parked on the shoulder.

"That's where it happened, right over there in Barrow Park," Taggert said, pointing out of the car. There was a broad expanse of green grass and trees beside the railroad. "The 'bo camp spread along the railroad tracks from the edge of the river there all the way down the road t'the edge a town. Real eyesore, it was."

"Where's the railroad come from?" Keegan asked.

"It's a spur. Runs down from Logansport."

"Through Drew City?"

"Yep."

"Were there any witnesses to the killings?"

Taggert nodded. "One man saw the whole thing, even saw the stabbings. Joe Cobb. Worked for the railroad. Lives over on Elm Street."

"Here in town?"

"Yes sir."

"And he was there that night?"

"Right in the middle of it."

"Can we talk to him?"

"Sure. Old Joe'll tell anybody about it who'll listen to him. Problem is, nobody takes him too seriously."

"Why's that?" Dryman asked.

" 'Cause he's blind as a mole."

Joe Cobb sat in a rocker on his porch, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, his hands gripping the arms of the chair as if he were afraid he would fall out of it. Years of inactivity had turned muscle to fat. Cobb had a big stomach which folded over his belt, hulking shoulders and a neck the size of a tree trunk. The chair squeaked as he rocked back and forth.

"Remember that night? Of course I remember that night. Last time I ever saw God's sweet earth," he said. "Look, I never took offense at those folks. They was just unfortunates, got wiped out in the bust, tryin' to make a go of it, y'know. The Hooverville was down to Barrow's Point. There was this spate of robberies around town. Nothin' big, mind yuh, but folks was gettin' nervous. Railroad didn't want 'em. Town didn't want 'em. Hell, nobody wanted 'em. About seven-thirty, the local rattler came in . . ."

"That the train that came through Drew City?" Keegan asked.

"Yeah. Bunch of 'bos jumped off and was runnin' down to the camp. They was maybe ten of us from the railroad chasin' them."

He remembered that night all right, like a nightmare montage burned into his mind. Men silhouetted against campfire sparks twirling into a black, windless sky. Dirt-caked fingers protruding from the holes in a pair of red wool gloves. Cardboard lean-tos, worn-out canvas tents, shacks of tar paper. The tired, burned-out faces of defeat and the frightening sounds of the attack. A woman screaming. The sickening sound of wood striking flesh and bone. Flashlight beams crisscrossing through the camp. People running from shanties, bumping into each other in the dark, scrambling to get out of the camp. The sound of a shot. A crazy-eyed hobo, blood spurting down his face from a jagged crack in his forehead, waving a Bible at arm's length as he cried out. "They's upon us, the heathen screws is upon us. Save yourselves, sinners. . . 'the wicked draw their bows and aim their arrows, to shoot at good men in the darkness.' Psalm eleven, verse two." And a brutal response: "C'mere, you miserable stinkweed."

Chaos.

Oh yes, he remembered it.

"We come up on two of 'em sitting on the edge of the gulch gasping for wind," Cobb went on. "They jumped up when me and Harry Barker seen 'em. 'Here's two more of 'em,' Harry yells, and we went after 'em with our Louisville Sluggers. He hit one of 'em in the back and that fella turned on him like a tiger, grabbed him and spun him around and wrapped an arm around his neck and snapped it with one powerful wrench of his arm. Harry went down and then the 'bo grabbed Harry's bat and he whales him and then he hits me a good one in the stomach. The other 'bo, he says, 'C'mon, we got to get outta here,' and then the first one, he leans over and he pulls a knife out of his shoe-his shoe!-and sticks his buddy, just like that. 'Sorry,'bo,' he says, 'you seen too much.' It was a helluva knife, I'll tell you, not a hunting knife. Had a long narrow blade sharp on both edges."

"Like a dagger?" Keegan asked.

"Yeah, a dagger. Anyway, I started to get m'feet under me and I looked up just as he swung that damn bat as hard as he could and it got me right in the face, right in the eyes."

"Do you remember what he looked like?"

"Remember? Are you kiddin'? It's the last thing I ever saw. He was tall, maybe six feet, husky, black hair, and . . . the way he was dressed. He weren't dressed like no hobo. Had on a flannel shirt, nice pants and what looked like brand new boots. Hadn't been a hobo for very long, else he stole the clothes he was wearing. And there was one other thing. He had different colored eyes."

"Different colored eyes?" Dryman echoed, looking at Keegan skeptically.

"Yep. One gray and one green."

FORTY-THREE.

Indian summer had settled over eastern Pennsylvania. The golden colors of fall were replacing the green of summer and a soft breeze stirred the trees in the cemetery. They walked down the rows of markers, looking for the grave of Fred Dempsey. Keegan was more convinced than ever that Dempsey was their man. Dryman, even though he had made the connection, was still skeptical.

On the flight from Indiana to Pennsylvania, Keegan had finally explained their mission to Dryman.

"C'mon, Kee, you really believe this bank clerk was a Nazi spy?"

"I'm convinced of it," Keegan replied.

"Well, if it was him he's probably been dead for five years. Probably floated up somewhere along the river and the dogs ate him," Dryman answered.

"H.P., the railroad runs right past where the car went into the river in Drew City and ends at Lafayette," said Keegan. "Now, supposing you had just faked your own death and you had to get out of town. How would you do it? You can't drive, can't take a bus or hitchhike. You can't afford to be seen. But . . . you could hop a freight. And if Fred Dempsey jumped a rattler, he would've walked into the middle of that brawl at the Hooverville."

"If, if, if," Dryman grumbled. Then Keegan grabbed him by the elbow and pointed to a plot. It was well cared for, the grass neatly trimmed and a small plot of flowers at the foot of the section. A large headstone was bracketed on either side by two smaller stones, one of which read:FREDERICK DEMPSEY

BORN: FEB. 3, 1900 DIED: FEB. 7, 1900.

TAKEN FROM THIS EARTH AFTER FOUR DAYS.

BELOVED FOR A LIFETIME.

"Convinced?" an elated Keegan cried.

Keegan was not satisfied with just one subject. Recalling what Tangier had told him, that people on the run sometimes set themselves up with more than one identity, he and Dryman checked the rest of that cemetery and five others in the city. They strolled through the rows of tombstones, jotting down the names of all male children born between 1890 and 1910 who had died within two weeks of their birth. By the end of the day they had the names of twelve male children to check. It was a long shot, Keegan agreed, but so was the search that had turned up Fred Dempsey.

They had little trouble getting birth certificates of all twelve. Death certificates were recorded on a separate floor in the courthouse. Eddie Tangier was right, the state made no correlation between life and death. The certificates were not cross-referenced. As far as the clerk in the vital statistics department knew, Fred Dempsey was alive and well. Little did she realize how alive and well he was.

Keegan met Mr. Smith in a small Chinese restaurant in Georgetown. By arrangement, Keegan arrived first and was ushered into a small private room in the back. Smith arrived ten minutes later, entering through a back door after taking his usual circuitous route. The tall, enigmatic dog robber listened patiently as Keegan described the trip to Drew City and Erie, Pennsylvania.

"So . . . we know our Mr. X assumed the identity of Fred Dempsey," Keegan concluded. "He lived in Drew City for nine months, never caused any trouble and might have even married Louise Scoby if fate disguised as John Dillinger hadn't walked into his life."

"Seems to me you may be stretching a point, tying him to the killer in the hobo camp," Smith answered.