"What do you mean, Captain?"
"Aren't you just a little too damn convenient? You hit town and everything starts to pop open. Why is that?"
"Coincidence, I guess."
"You knew Timmy and you know Fitzmartin. Maybe before you came here you knew Fitzmartin was milking George. Maybe that's why you came here, Howard."
"I didn't know anything about it."
"I'm not through with you, son. Don't take yourself any notion to disappear. I want you where we can talk some more. You're just too damn convenient in this whole thing."
At that moment, about a mile from the Hillston city limits, a call came over the radio. Marion answered it. I could barely decipher Prine's Donald Duck voice over the small speaker.
"He's gone, Captain. Fitzmartin is gone. I've put out a description of him and his car. He was living in a shed at the rear of the lumberyard. All his personal stuff is gone. I felt the space heater. There was a little warmth left. He didn't leave too long ago. How about road blocks?"
"Damn it, Steve, I've told you before. Road blocks aren't worth a damn around here. There's too many roads. There just aren't enough men and vehicles in this area to close all those roads. That stove could have been turned off three hours ago. You'd have to have your blocks set up right now this minute on every road within a hundred miles at least."
"What do you suggest, sir?" Prine said more humbly.