In less than six hours, I’d gone from being just another hungry customer of Beane’s Diner to a fugitive hunted by the closest thing the US has to a secret police. Most likely I would soon be charged with two murders that were actually acts of self-defense committed while in the grip of a strange magnetism that compelled me to rescue a young woman and her grandfather, whom I hadn’t known existed until I drove more than seventy miles and crashed through a barn door to free them. When I brought that story before a court, at trial, I’d probably be the first person burned at the stake in centuries.
|?7?|
Rumor had it that the ISA employed more agents and support staff than the FBI, although that could have been wild social media speculation. Regardless of the truth, they suffered no shortage of manpower, and the nearest large city where they maintained an office was surely Phoenix. The called-for backup was probably on its way to the Flying F Ranch both by ground transport and helicopter.
Because the elderly Buick was conspicuous, south of Wickenburg we departed federal highway US 60—which the ISA would follow coming out of Phoenix—and we headed east on State Route 74. Eventually, to get around the city, we would weave through a few suburbs—Scottsdale, Tempe—on a series of surface streets and connect with Interstate 10 heading southbound to Tucson.
I told them I had been abandoned at birth, raised by nuns, and had a plan that involved driving to Peptoe to research my origins.
Before I could explain further, Sparky said, “We’re short of a plan ourselves, and we seem to be in this together, so your plan is now our plan, if you don’t mind.”
I considered Bridget long enough that the Buick drifted onto the shoulder of the highway, requiring me to recover with a sudden hard pull of the wheel. “Yeah. That’s good. That’s great. We’re in this together, whatever the heck ‘this’ is.”
Bridget and Sparky wanted to know when the ISA came after me and how I escaped, so I told them about my day, beginning with the unfinished three-cheese hamburger and ending with the barn door that proved to be a mere curtain of dry rot.
Then I said, “When did you end up in their sights?”
“The day before yesterday,” Sparky said from the back seat. “We had a nice little house on five acres of pine forest in Flagstaff.”
Bridget said, “Deer used to come look in our windows. They were so sweet.”
Sparky said, “They came so often, nearly every day. We gave them names. Comet and Cupid.”
She said, “Donner and Blitzen.”
He said, “We had squirrels that would eat out of your hand.”
She said, “Samson and Delilah.”
He said, “There was a fox so tame it would curl up in its own rocking chair on the porch, while we were rocking away in ours.”
She said, “Cary Grant. That’s what we called the fox, because he was so elegant. Movie stars aren’t elegant like that anymore.”
He said, “The cougar was a little scary at first.”
She disagreed. “Oh, she never was, Sparky. She was always just a big pussycat.” Bridget sighed. “The property outside Flagstaff was our little paradise.”
“Then the day before yesterday,” Sparky said, “Bridget and I were having breakfast when two black Suburbans pulled into our driveway, and eight men in black suits got out.”
Bridget said, “It was like a chorus line from some musical about funeral directors.”
“They knocked,” Sparky said, “and I told them to go away. They said they were ISA agents, needed to talk to us, and I told them to go away again.”
I glanced at the rearview mirror, in which Sparky was briefly revealed by the headlamps of a truck sweeping past in the westbound lane. The fleeting light seemed like a mask of a face that peeled up and away, revealing a half-formed shadowy countenance beneath.
I said, “Those people aren’t used to being told to go away. Things must have gotten ugly.”
“Not immediately,” Sparky said. “We just put down the automated window shades, so they couldn’t see into the house. They called our landline and told me they had a warrant. I said I wasn’t impressed with warrants when their kind have so many corrupt judges in their pocket. They were a little miffed at that, so I said maybe I’d open up for them if I knew what this was about, and the guy on the phone said they had some questions related to what Bridget ordered on the internet, which was when I knew we were in the soup.”
To Bridget, I said, “What did you order?”