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As dusk
turned to night the two men raced down a dark alley, stinking of rancid
garbage, then through the cluttered yard of an out-of-business welding company.
They stirred up a flurry of stray cats rummaging trash cans and a number of
barking dogs that diligently notified their owners of the chase, until Harmon
outran the transient.

“You’ve
been bird-dogging me for two days, now. Who are you, and what do you want?” he
demanded

The
scrawny man with dope-hungry eyes, said, “My name is Greg Ferris. I think drug
dealers killed them kids.”

“Oh,
yeah,” Harmon sneered. “What do you know?”

“Well,
I party with the men livin’ under the bridge. Weeks before the murders, me and
Fred Layman seen people sellin’ drugs in the cornfield. Now I know every drug
dealer in town, but I never saw them afore. Then, the evenin’ those kid’s wuz
killed, me, and the Bush Brothers, heard shots comin’ from the cornfield, but
we wuz too drunk to check it out. Days later, when the bodies wuz found, we
figured the murders went on in the cornfield.”

“Any
proof?” Harmon asked, releasing Ferris.

“Fred
said the dead girl’s underwear and a knife, found under the bridge, wuz
confiscated by cops. Then Captain Malloy showed Fred a picture of Vernon James,
and Fred told Malloy the man he saw on the riverbank, wuz not Vernon James.”

Surprised,
Harmon asked, “Did Malloy show anyone else a photograph of Mr. James?”

“The
Bush Brothers,” said Ferris. “Then after the murders, they changed. I think
they know who the killer is and got scared; that’s why they took off. I tried
talkin’ to ‘em about that evenin’ by gettin’ ‘em drunk, but either they passed
out or I did. Then I told ‘em to talk to the cops, but, since Sheriff Brown
laughed at Fred when he told him what he saw, the brothers didn’t think anybody
will believe them either. Plus, there’s this weird guy who sometimes lives in
the cornfield. He eats cats he catches in traps, and collects guns and knives.”

Realizing
the creep had some good information, Harmon asked, “What caliber guns?”

“I know
he had two handguns, a .22 and a .44.”

“And
can you describe his knives?” Harmon asked.

“He had
two Bowie-types and a third knife, even larger, strapped to his side. The big
one was his favorite. He kept it real sharp.”

Catching
his breath, Harmon nodded. “Maybe so, but people said

Vernon
James carried a knife until the murders. Do you know anything about the dead
girl?”

“I
heard she talked to a Jane Doe, who -” A shot fired from the nearby darkness
silenced Greg Ferris forever. He dropped to the ground–dead!

Yanking
out his gun, Harmon whirled around. The sounds of moving bushes gave him his
only lead, and another chase began.

The
agent ran through the brush and along the railroad track with only star shine
for light. Solely the sound of fading footsteps and an occasional glimpse of a
distorted silhouette kept him going. “Stop! F.B.I.!” he shouted, periodically,
between gulps for air.

The
killer darted into a backyard. Harmon, stopping at the edge of the lawn, crept
forward, gun extended. Abruptly, he was clubbed from behind and knocked to the round,
losing his weapon.

Kicking
the agent in the ribs, his attacker had the upper hand, until Harmon grabbed up
a rock and clobbered the sniper’s kneecap.

“Ahhhhh!”
the killer screamed.

Leaping
to his feet, Harmon punched the guy…but again was hit from behind. After
regaining his senses, he found himself blinded by a police searchlight, his
assailant long-gone.

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