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happened?” Bernie asked.
    The thin guy in the gray jacket was being taken away by local cops assigned for just such an eventuality.
    â€œDon’t move, sir, paramedics are on the way,” Art said.
    â€œI don’t need paramedics,” Jack said. “I’m fine. Just let me finish talking with these good people.”
    Two young males in navy blue jumpsuits appeared, asking where he was hurt. They came from the ambulance waiting outside, just in case.
    â€œDamn it, I’m not hurt. I’m fine.”
    â€œCan you walk, sir?”
    â€œOf course, I can walk. Somebody bumped into me and I stumbled over some idiot behind.”
    â€œYou don’t seem to be putting your weight on your right foot.”
    â€œYeah.” Jack took a breath. “Maybe my ankle is a little tender.”
    â€œWe’ll get you to the hospital right away.”
    â€œOh, for God’s sake, I don’t need a hospital. Stop at a pharmacy and buy an Ace bandage.”
    â€œYou know we can’t do that, sir.”
    He refused the gurney, but did let Art van Dever lend an arm and joked with the crowd as he limped to the door. Despite his insistence that he was all right, Art insisted on getting him in the ambulance.
    Bernie got in the limo that followed. At the emergency room, he found the governor in a cubicle with troopers blocking the entryway.
    A stocky man with black curly hair, stethoscope around his neck, was looking at an X-ray. “No break. Bad sprain though. Stay off it.” He looked at the governor. “Going to do that?”
    Jack nodded.
    â€œSure you are.” The doctor sighed. “At least, keep ice on it tonight.”
    â€œThat I can do.”
    Two birds with one stone. Ice on the ankle, ice on the swollen right hand.
    A trooper brought in a classy-looking woman with black hair and a man with hard, flat eyes. Local law, Bernie thought.
    Art van Dever introduced them. The female of the duo was Hampstead’s chief of police, Susan Wren. Bernie looked at her more closely. Police chief? She had a haughty look about her like you see on models in expensive magazines. The man with her was a guy named Parkhurst. You wouldn’t mistake him for anything but what he was. Cop.
    â€œIt’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” she said.
    The governor shook her hand and held on to it as he glanced up at her. “Wren? Relation to Dan?”
    â€œNot exactly,” she said. “He was my husband.”
    â€œAh,” the governor said. “I knew him.”
    â€œTell me what happened tonight,” she said.
    Jack told her the same thing he’d told Art. Somebody bumped into him, he stumbled and fell.
    â€œYou think it was deliberate?”
    â€œI doubt it. There was a crowd and somebody got too close to somebody.”
    â€œDid you see anyone you know?”
    The governor gave her a dry smile. “My family has a farm out west of town. I went to school here. There were people who came just to see what I looked like after all these years.”
    He sounded tired, Bernie thought. Todd apparently thought so, too, because he clenched his jaw the way he did when he wanted to move things along.
    â€œIf you write a list of everybody you remember seeing, it would be helpful,” she said.
    â€œIt’s a month from the primary,” Bernie said. “He has a few things on his mind.”
    â€œI understand,” she said and gave the governor a look of her own.
    He nodded tiredly. “I’ll give it a try.”
    The police chief said what an honor it was to meet him, how sorry she was that this happened and promised to do everything in her power to make sure nothing else untoward happened while he was here.
    Jack gave a hearty wave to all the people crowded around as he limped out and asked everybody to remember him on election day. He got in the limousine and Bernie slid in beside him.
    â€œWhat happened back there?”
    â€œI’m not