"You drove all the way from Scranton?" Dean said with disbelief.
"I had my suitcase in the car anyway 'cause I was gonna get a room near the bus station." Dean continued to stare. "The car ain't due back at the garage 'til tomorrow but we gotta figure some way of returning it or they're gonna get miffed."
"Right," said Dean, still in a daze.
"'Course we don't know it was Nota for sure..."
"Fred, I want you out of this business. I'm serious. I was a fool getting you involved in the first place. I'm not about to have your dead body on my conscience."
"Scout's honor. No more Mike Hammer stuff from now on. I'm strictly a stay-at-home couch detective, behind the scenes, back-room guy, like Father Brown or Nero Wolfe. I ain't leaving the house-maybe make a few phone calls from time to time. Besides, I'm tired of leading these bozos through this case. Everywhere I go they follow me. Let 'em do their own detective work. The case is all yours." Then he added, "But you gotta admit we been making progress as a team."
Dean put his arm around the old man's shoulder. "You're doing a better job than Hercule what's-his-name."
Fred smiled, but it was quick to fade. "But now it's a dead end. The train stops in Kansas by the looks of things. Every time we're a whisker away from nailing Byrne, something crops up to slam the door in our face. If that ain't bum luck."
"I don't believe in luck, bum or otherwise," Dean said.
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe we're looking at it the wrong way."
"Like how?"
"I don't know. Like someone's playing with us, and not necessarily Byrne."
"Who'd want to convince us he's alive if he ain't?"
"Maybe someone who wants us to think Byrne swiped the millions."
Fred rubbed his chin. "We been chasing this all over the country. It'd take a legion of liars to pull that big a bluff. Someone is out there and for my money it's Byrne."
Maybe Fred was right. Maybe Dean's sleep-deprived brain was going in circles but something wasn't clicking, and it bothered him the rest of the night.