Free Shattered by Dean Koontz

and soft as a woman's. Yet he apparently was not intimidated by Hoval. Everyone else was. Hoval used both his rank and his two hundred and forty pounds to dominate everyone who worked under him, and he was annoyed with the technician when the man failed to be impressed. The soft white hands packed the camera away with deliberately maddening care. Only when that was all secured as it should be, did they pick through the other contents of the leather satchel beside the squad car and come up with file copies of Lieutenant Pulham's fingerprints. The technician raised the yellow sheet and held it beside the bloody prints on the window.
        “Well?” Hoval asked.
        The lab man took a full minute, studying the two sets of prints. “They aren't Pulham's,” he said at last.
        “Son of a bitch,” Hoval said, slamming one meaty fist into the other open palm. “It's going to be easier than I thought.”
        “Not necessarily.”
        Hoval looked down at the pale, narrow man. “Oh?”
        The technician got to his feet and dusted his hands together. He noticed that in the cross-glare of all the lights, neither he nor Hoval nor any of the others cast a shadow. “Not everyone in the United States has his prints on file,” the technician said. “Far less than half of us, in fact.”
        Hoval gestured impatiently with one strong hand. “Whoever did this is on file, believe me. Probably arrested in a dozen different protest marches - maybe even on a previous assault charge. FBI probably has a full file on him.”
        The lab man wiped one hand across his face, as if he were trying to pull away his perpetually sorrowful expression. “You think it was a radical, a new leftist, somebody like that?”
        “Who else?” Hoval asked.
        “Maybe just a nut.”
        Hoval shook his square, long-jawed head. “No. Don't you read the papers any more? Policemen getting killed all over the country these days.”
        “It's the nature of their job,” the technician said. “Policemen have always gotten killed in the line of duty. Percentage of deaths is still the same as it always was.”
        Hoval was adamant as he watched the other lab men and the uniformed troopers comb the murder site. “These days there's an organized effort to slaughter policemen. Nationwide conspiracy. And it's finally touched us. You wait and see. This asshole's prints will be on file. And he'll be just the kind of bastard I'm telling you he is. We'll have him nailed to a post in twenty-four hours.”
        “Sure,” the technician said. “That'll be nice.

----

    TUESDAY
        

    Four
        
        On the second day of May they rose early and ate a light breakfast, checked out of the Lazy Time Motel, and were on the road again shortly after eight o'clock.
        The day was as bright and fresh as the previous one had been. The sky was high and cloudless. The sun, behind them once more, seemed to propel them on toward the coast.
        “Does the scenery get better today?” Colin asked.
        “Some,” Alex said. “For one thing, you'll get to see the famous Gateway Arch in St. Louis.”
        How many miles to St. Louis?”
        “Oh… maybe two-fifty.”
        “And this Gateway Arch is the very first thing that we have to look forward to”
        “Well-”
        “Christ,” the boy said, shaking his head sorrowfully, “this is going to be a long, long morning.”
        Interstate 70 took them west-southwest toward the border of Illinois, a straight multi-lane avenue carved out of the flatlands of America. It was a convenient, fairly safe, controlled access throughway made for fast travel, designed for a nation always in a hurry. Though Doyle was, himself, in a hurry, anxious to be with Courtney again, he shared some of Colin's dissatisfaction with their route. Though simple and quick, it was characterless.
        Fields of spring wheat, short and tender and green, began to fill the open