Lightning by John Lutz Page A

carrying a sign. But there was so much confusion and running around after the bomb went off, I can’t be sure, much less if whoever I might have seen was Norton. I was concentrating on Beth, trying to put together in my mind what had just happened, figure it out.”
    “Maybe there is no way to figure it out,” Wicker said. “At least figure it all the way so everything makes sense. Crazy bastards might not really know themselves why they do things like that.”
    “I don’t think anyone really knows why they do anything. They only think they know, if they think about it at all.”
    Wicker ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek for a few seconds, considering that somewhat nihilistic philosophy. “That’s a fact. But it’s up to people like us to tell them why, when what they do is a crime. What’s your take on the locals?”
    Carver knew he meant the police, not the average Del Moray citizen. “They’re mostly okay. Some rotten wood here and there.”
    “Like Lieutenant McGregor?”
    “Just like.”
    “Local law resents the bureau moving in on them, usually. They got a nickname for us they use behind our backs: feebs, they call us. You know that?”
    “I’ve heard,” Carver said.
    “Abortion clinic bombing’s a federal offense, though, so they got to learn to get along with us. Even your Lieutenant McGregor.”
    “Not my lieutenant. If he were mine I’d have a vet put him down.”
    “He didn’t have many kind words for you, either,” Wicker said. “Doesn’t matter. We got a line on both of you real fast. It’s true McGregor’s no good.”
    “Worse than no good.”
    “Still, nothing can be pinned on him. He’s a real artist at covering his ass. And this is your town and he’s the local law, so you’ve gotta stay legal with him, play along and follow the script. Just like we do.”
    “He knows that, takes advantage of it.”
    “Oh, I’m sure he does. And he sort of sees himself in competition with us to solve this case, either prove it was Norton or prove it wasn’t and catch whoever did it.”
    “Or whoever hired Norton or gave him orders.”
    “Exactly,” Wicker said. “Anyway, in a sense McGregor’s right about competition. It’s not a bad thing through and through. It tends to keep people concentrating on the job, gets it all done faster and closes the book on a case.”
    “Competition’s a good thing,” Carver agreed. “I’m thinking of baseball, football, basketball players, how it makes them and the team better.”
    “Not thinking of FBI agents and local police lieutenants?”
    “Yeah, as long as the competition doesn’t get in the way of cooperation.”
    “Uh-huh. Like you cooperate with Lieutenant McGregor?”
    Carver had gleaned Wicker’s angle. “Don’t you want me to keep cooperating with him, Special Agent Wicker?”
    “Oh, I sure do. The question is, how fast? I mean, you got this piece of maybe important information, say. You’re gonna give it to both of us, but how soon and in what order? You understand?”
    “I think so. You want to win this competition.”
    “I want the bureau to know all about whatever and whoever was behind this bombing, and I want the bureau to make the arrests.”
    “If there are going to be more arrests,” Carver said.
    “I think there will be. I’ve heard tapes of Norton’s interrogation. He’s not what you’d describe as the mastermind type. He’s hung up on God, pickup truck, family, flag, in whatever order. That kind of guy.”
    “God way out in front, I imagine,” Carver said.
    “His idea of God, anyway. Angry old man with a white beard, hurling lightning bolts down at folks who don’t share Norton’s views.”
    “Has he got a lot of views?”
    “Uh-huh. And about a lot of things. Government conspiracies, the United Nations, bar codes, secret world governments, gun control, the Trilateral Commission, bankers of a certain ethnicity plotting to control the world’s economy, the Internal Revenue Service’s