“What I don’t get is why.”

Nabler sighed. “I get tired of explaining myself. I went through all of this with your friend Gavin. Suffice it to say that I’m one of those working in the sliver who restores things to a natural order, creating balance in a world where the frequency with which bad things happen is dropping.”

Sliver? Harry thought. But what he said was, “I guess you don’t get CNN.”

Nabler waved a dismissive hand. “Three thousand dead here, three thousand there, they seem like major events, but they are but a drop in the ocean. The population continues to soar. Resources are dwindling. It can’t go on like this forever. My kind are buying you some time. Spreading out, doing our work in countless locations in a multitude of ways, working, as you might say, under the radar.”

“So you’re, what, some sick force of nature, like a pandemic? Keeping the population in check?”

Nabler sighed. “I’ve been at this a long time, in different places, and you’ve figured it out as well as anybody. Not bad, for a two-bit cop in a two-bit town.” He paused, reflecting. “And now I may have to move on. It’s always a pain, and I was hoping this was a place where I could settle down.”

The trains continued to swirl and race around them.

“Can we pull the plug on these things?” Harry asked. “Your electric bill must be through the roof.”

It was then he remembered something Janice had told him. How, in her work for the town’s electric company, there’d been a power drain they’d not been able to account for. Harry figured he was standing in the middle of it.

Enough, Harry thought.

Time to take out his gun, put the handcuffs on this sick fuck, and take him in, whoever and whatever he was. Linking him to recent bizarre deaths like Darryl Pidgeon’s or Nadine Comstock’s would never be possible, but there was plenty of physical evidence in this room to convict Nabler on charges of being a serial killer. There’d been huge advances in DNA technology in the last few years. Forensic experts would be able to match these ghastly remains to the deceased, or their relatives.

Harry pulled his weapon. “I’m taking you in,” he said.

“Oh my,” Nabler said. “What do they say? The jig is up?”

All but one of the trains maintained their frenzied loops around Harry and Nabler. One train slowed to a stop not far from where they stood facing one another. A steam engine with several cars attached, including one very special gray boxcar.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

“Perhaps we might discuss this further first.”

“Shut up and turn around.”