“They’re putting everybody on everything. You can’t believe what a mess it is down there. And lots of rumors flying around.” She looked significantly over at Gurney, who was sitting at the foot of the bed. “There’s talk about a crazy hit man blowing everything up. There’s talk about an NYPD detective shooting a kid. Or maybe shooting the crazy hit man? Or some unidentified midget?” She looked back at Hardwick. “One of the deputies told me that the midget was Panikos, and that he’s the one who shot you—and somehow he did this after he was already dead. You see what I mean? Everybody’s talking, nobody’s making sense. And on top of all that, there’s a jurisdictional pissing match between the county-level sheriff’s people, the local people, the state people, maybe soon the feds. Why not? More the merrier, right? And this is all happening while crazy people in the parking lot are ramming one another, every asshole trying to get out first. And even crazier assholes trying to get in, maybe take pictures, put them on Facebook. So that’s the way it is down there.” She looked back and forth between Hardwick and Gurney. “You guys were there. What’s with the kid? You shot him? He shot you? What on earth were you doing there to begin with?”

Hardwick looked at Gurney. “Be my guest. Talking’s getting rough for me right now.”

“Okay. I’ll make it fast, but I need to start at the beginning.”

Esti listened in anxious amazement to Gurney’s rapid recounting of the key events of the evening—from the lumber pile explosion and death of Klemper by the asparagus patch right up to the motorcycle chase and the death of Peter Pan in the midst of the rampant destruction at the fair.

After a stunned silence, her first question was a big one. “Can you prove that the person you shot is actually Panikos?”