Shock Wave

“I’m told it was like an atomic bomb going off.”
    “Ah, jeez. Tell me.”
    Virgil filled him in, and when he was done, Davenport asked, “You got media?”
    “We had media, and now we’re gonna get a lot more,” Virgil said. “This thing is really blowing up, if you’ll excuse the rapier-like wit.”
    “So talk to the sheriff, have a press conference, emphasize that you’re making progress, that you expect arrests. That you’ve got some kind of forensic evidence. Say that because of the interstate aspect, the killer can be tried in federal court and get the death penalty. Give the bomber a reason to hunker down, to be careful, to think about it. Try to buy some time.”
    “A pageant. Good idea,” Virgil said. “The sheriff likes the whole television routine. I’ll get him to organize it.”
    “I never had much to do with bombers, but this Barlow sounds like he knows what he’s talking about—and it sounds like a lot of the other freaks we’ve seen. They like it. You better catch this guy, Virgil.”
    “I’ll catch him. I just can’t guarantee that the city hall will still be standing up,” Virgil said. “Talk to you tomorrow.”
     
     
    VIRGIL CALLED AHLQUIST— the sheriff was still out at the equipment yard—and told him about Davenport’s idea for a press conference. Ahlquist jumped on the idea and said he’d set it up. “I’ve been working on the rest of your list, all morning. I’ll give it to you at the press conference,” Ahlquist said. “Or you can stop by anytime.”
    “It’s a mess out there, isn’t it?” Virgil asked.
    “Oh, yeah. Is it gonna get worse?”
    “Barlow thinks so,” Virgil said.
     
     
    VIRGIL DUG OUT the list of contacts that Ahlquist had given him the night before. Ahlquist had suggested that he talk first to Edwin Kline, one of the three city councilmen who voted against PyeMart, and a pharmacist. Ahlquist said that Kline had been on the city council for twenty years, and had been mayor for twelve, and knew all the personalities. “Since he’s a pill-pusher, people talk to him, like they would a doctor. He knows what’s going on in their heads.”
    Virgil found Kline in his drugstore on Main Street, introduced himself, waited for two minutes until he’d finished rolling some pills for a single customer, and then followed him to a backroom office.
    Kline was an older, balding man in his late fifties or early sixties, with glittering rimless glasses and a soft oval face. He wore a white jacket like a doctor, and pointed Virgil into a wooden swivel chair that might have been taken from a nineteenth-century newspaper office, while he sat on a similar chair behind his desk.
    “There’s some pretty damn mad people in town, and I know all of them—heck, I’m one of them—but I don’t know which one is crazy enough to do this,” he said.
    “I don’t know exactly how to ask this,” Virgil said, “or where the ethics come in . . . but of all those angry people, do you know which ones might be using anti-psychotics? Or who should be?”
    “Mmm.” Long hesitation. “You know, it probably would be unethical to give you that information, though I don’t doubt you could get a subpoena. Just between you, me, and the doorpost, I’d tell you if I thought one of them was the bomber. But the people I know of, who are getting that kind of medication, are not really involved in this whole thing. I suppose they could be picking up some reflected anger.... If you want to come back this afternoon, and if you don’t let on where you got it, I could get together a list.”
    “If you’d prefer, I could get Sheriff Ahlquist to give you a subpoena, just to cover your butt, if there were any questions,” Virgil said.
    “That might be best—but I’ll get started on the list,” Kline said. “You ought to go out to Walmart and check with them, too. They roll a lot more pills than I do, now.”
    Virgil asked him who he’d have been most worried about, of the angry people. Kline thought for a moment, then said, “Well, there are about three of them. And goddamnit, now, I have to live in this town, so this has to be between you and me.”
    “That’s fine,” Virgil said. “Nobody needs to know where the names came from.”
    Kline slid open a desk drawer, pulled out a pack of Marlboros, and said, “I can’t have people seeing me smoking. I only smoke a couple a day. . . . Come on this way.” He led Virgil out of the office, through a stockroom,