Norwood’s office at the school must have a telephone. Sam walked down the street to the drugstore across from the courthouse and called the operator, who tried to connect him. But no one picked up on the other end. He would just have to go up there.

On Third Street, he spotted Harry Calabash crossing from city hall. “Harry!” he called. “For God’s sake.”

Harry had on a shabby gray duster over his frayed wool suit. A gray fedora was perched on his head as if someone else had carelessly put it there. “Where’s your raincoat?” he said.

“Raincoat?” Sam looked at the sky and saw that it was clouding up with a low overcast. All at once, he shivered with the new chill. “Guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Come along with me,” Harry said. “You’ve been missing all the news.”

“Can’t, Harry,” Sam said, pulling away. “Got to get up to Williston and find Gray.”

“Williston’s closed. All the schools, hours ago. Where on earth have you been?”

“Brooklyn, mostly.” If not Williston, where? He had no idea where to start looking. If she’d had any friends, he would have gone to their homes. But there was only Gabrielle, and Gray wouldn’t go there.

“Then let’s trade notes,” Harry said.

Before Sam realized it, Harry had steered him past the guards and into the Cape Fear Club, which was full of businessmen and out-of-town reporters. Representatives of the Businessmen’s Committee were meeting their trains and escorting them directly to the club, so they’d get the straight story from the men who knew it best. It wouldn’t do to have them roaming around forming independent impressions. Only the woman in the crimson Eaton jacket was allowed to wander unmolested, and, Sam suspected, that was mainly because, as a woman, she was barred from the club.

They stood at the bar. Harry ordered a whiskey for himself and a Coca-Cola for Sam, but Sam was still shaken from what he had watched today. He was actually shivering.

“Give me a whiskey, water back,” he said.

“Special occasion?” Harry asked. He wasn’t smiling.

The Negro bartender delivered the drinks immediately and stood off in the corner. Sam could not tell whether he was in or out of earshot—he supposed people used to servants didn’t worry about such things. Right now, he didn’t care, either.

“You should have seen it, Harry. That poor son of a bitch,” he said, and related the story of the capture and shooting of Dan Wright. He groped for the right word to describe what he had witnessed. “It was—”

“Obscene?” Harry said.

“That about covers it,” Sam agreed.

As Sam reached for his glass, Harry covered it with his hand. “You sure about this?”