A Maidens Grave

that had funded his father’s insurance company, which had in turn allowed Stepps to be a public servant. Tremain believed Stepps was the perfect governor: connected, distrustful of Washington, infuriated about crime in Topeka and the felons that Missouri sloughed off into his Kansas City but able to live with it all, his eye no further than the low star of a retirement spent teaching in Lawrence and cruising Scandia Lines routes with the wife.
    But now there was Crow Ridge.
    The governor’s eyes lifted from a fax he’d been reading and scanned Tremain.
    Look me over if you want. Go right ahead. His blue-and-black operations gear certainly looked incongruous here among the framed prints of shot ducks, theLemon-Pledged mahogany antiques. Most frequently Stepps’s eyes dipped to the large automatic pistol, which the trooper adjusted as he sat in the irritatingly scrolly chair.
    “He’s killed one?”
    Tremain nodded his head, which was covered with a thinning crew cut. He noted that the governor had a tiny hole in the elbow of his baby-blue cardigan and that he was absolutely terrified.
    “What happened?”
    “Premeditated, looks like. I’m getting a full report but it looks like there was no reason for it. Sent her out like he was giving her up and shot her in the back.”
    “Oh, dear God. How young was she?”
    “The oldest. A teenager. But still . . .”
    The governor nodded toward a silver service. “Coffee? Tea? . . . No? You’ve never been here before, have you?”
    “The governor’s mansion? No.” Though it wasn’t a mansion; it was just a nice house, a house that rang with the sounds of family.
    “I need some help here, Officer. Some of your expertise.”
    “I’ll do whatever I can, sir.”
    “An odd situation. These prisoners escaped from a federal penitentiary . . . . What is it, Captain?”
    “With all respect, sir, that prison at Callana’s like it’s got a revolving door in it.” Tremain recalled four breakouts in the last five years. His own men had captured a number of the escapees, a record better than that of the U.S. marshals, who in Tremain’s opinion were overpaid baby-sitters.
    The governor began cautiously, like a man stepping onto November ice. “So they’re technically federal escapees but they also’re lined up for state sentences. Won’t be till the year three thousand maybe but the fact is they’re state felons too.”
    “But the FBI’s in charge of the barricade.” Tremain had been told specifically by the assistant attorney general that his services would not be required in this matter. The trooper was no expert on the hierarchy of state government but even schoolchildren knew that the AG and his underlings worked for the governor. Executive branch.“We have to defer to them, of course. And maybe it’s for the best.”
    The governor said, “This Potter’s a fine man . . . .” His voice seemed not to stop but to deflate until it became a dwelling question mark.
    Dan Tremain was a career law enforcer and had learned never to say anything that could be quoted back against him even before he’d learned how to cover two opposing doors when diving through a barricade window. “Pride of the FBI, I’m told,” the trooper said, assuming that a tape recorder was running somewhere nearby, though it probably wasn’t.
    “But?” The governor raised an eyebrow.
    “I understand he’s taking a hard line.”
    “Which means what?”
    Outside the window, threshers moved back and forth.
    “It means that he’s going to try to wear Handy down and get him to surrender.”
    “Will Potter attack eventually? If he has to?”
    “He’s just a negotiator. A federal hostage rescue team’s being assembled. They should be here by early evening.”
    “And if Handy doesn’t surrender they’ll go in and . . .”
    “Neutralize him.”
    The round face smiled. The governor looked nostalgically at an ashtray and then back to Tremain. “How soon after they get there will they attack?”
    “The rule is that you don’t assault except as a last resort. Rand Corporation did a study a few years ago and found that ninety percent of the hostages killed in a barricade are killed when the situation goes hot—when there’s an assault. I was going to say something else, sir.”
    “Please. Speak frankly.”
    The corner of a sheet of paper peeked out from under the governor’s repulsively blue sweater. Tremain recognized it as his own résumé. He was proud of