Spencerville

modus operandi fairly well.”
    “After all these years, I think I do. There used to be an older sergeant on the force, a real good friend to me, and he’d tell me about Cliff’s craziness. Cliff got rid of him and all the good old guys as soon as he could. Did you notice that most of those guys were young? Cliff handpicked each one. He told me once that it was like training dogs—get them young, hand-feed them, make them afraid of you, and loyal only to you.” She added, “He said it was the same with wives.”
    Keith didn’t reply.
    She continued, “He’s also tried to make them as vicious as he is. But I don’t believe you can make people vicious unless they have it in them to begin with. Most of those guys are okay—they like me, but they have to play the part for the boss.”
    Keith wasn’t entirely sure about that, but since he had no intention of traveling through Spencer County, he wasn’t going to find out. Unless, of course, some other police force picked them up and turned them over to the Spencerville police department. Keith said to her, “Okay, after the phone calls, he finally calls the Spencerville P.D. and, I suppose, the county sheriff. ”
    “Yes. That’s his mother’s cousin.”
    “So, at that point, the whole county is looking for your white Lincoln.”
    “Yes. Before I had a car phone, they’d pull me over and very politely ask me to call my husband at work, or go home because he needed to tell me something.” She added, “A lot of them smirked—not
at
me,
with
me.”
    “Sounds like fun being married to the local police chief.”
    “Actually, sometimes it was. God forgive me, but I used to love seeing him make a jackass of himself.” She added, “I’m sorry. That’s not me.”
    “It’s okay.” He said to her, “I’ll be honest with you—a lot depends on how long it takes him to decide to drive out to my place, then decide to come onto my property, then to open the barn door.”
    “I know.”
    He tried to put himself in Cliff Baxter’s position. He thought about what Annie had told him about her husband’s usual wife-searching routine, and he also considered the fact that Baxter didn’t really believe there was any recent connection between his wife and Keith Landry. Yet, eventually, Cliff Baxter would be drawn to the Landry farm. Then what? If he came onto the property, he’d see the house was dark and the Blazer was gone. He would think that Keith Landry had taken Chief Baxter’s threat seriously and run away, which was a logical conclusion for Baxter, considering the man’s overblown ego. Or Baxter could think something else, based on his jealousy and paranoia, which in this case was well founded. If Baxter thought to go to the barn, all his questions would be answered. The “Fuck you” note wouldn’t improve his mood much. Keith processed all this and figured they had about another hour or less before the police radios started crackling in the surrounding counties.
    A half hour after they’d left Terry and Larry, they approached the intersection of Interstate 75. Southbound led directly to Dayton or to Route 15, which would take them to Columbus. Northbound led directly to Toledo. Keith considered the problem. If he went south, to Columbus, it would take about two hours, and to Dayton, close to three. The airports in both cities were bigger than Toledo Airport, and they’d have a better chance of getting a flight to Washington, or even Baltimore or Richmond. It didn’t matter where at this point. But that was a very long time to be on the road in this situation.
    Toledo Airport was only about a half-hour drive, but Keith didn’t know if they could get a flight east, or a flight anywhere for that matter. Yet there had to be some flight out of Toledo that they could get on. The main consideration as he saw it was to get off the road as quickly as possible. He said to Annie, “I think we should go to Toledo because it’s a shorter drive.”
    She nodded in understanding.
    He added, “But I don’t know what’s flying out of there, where, or when.”
    “I don’t care what, where, or when.”
    “Okay.” He swung onto Interstate 75 northbound. It was a good, fast road with two lanes in either direction and not much traffic. He kept his speed at seventy miles per hour. They were heading back toward Spencer County, but Interstate 75 would not go through the county. He tried to determine how much territory a police search would include and asked