The girl behind the glass extended one finger from a closed fist, an obscene gesture to tell him how much his criticism meant to her.
He flicked a lever, then leaned far back in his chair. "I could run the whole show from this console. But my assistant has a certain entertainment value. You may have noticed – she's insane."
"Eccentric, perhaps," said Johanna. She had found the younger woman's survival instinct was still intact, always a good indication for hope, but yes, Crazy Bitch was definitely in trouble. Johanna's sudden smile was directed at the producer's booth, and this had a telling effect on Zachary.
Once more, he turned to face the screen blocking his view of the dark glass. "So, Dr. Apollo, do you know Needleman?"
Though no sound escaped the lighted booth, Crazy Bitch was laughing hysterically and nodding with wildly exaggerated bobs of her head.
"Everyone knows Needleman," said Johanna.
Riker had invited the FBI man to the second interview of the night, the one that might actually break the case. They entered a small room with a lockup cage and no mirrors – no witnesses. Mallory was clearly surprised and unhappy to see Hennessey, not liking this change of plans – her plans.
The fake blind man had finally been returned from Bellevue, and his public defender had just finished reading the psychiatric evaluation, slapping it on the table in disgust. Though the court-appointed lawyer was still not satisfied that his client was competent to waive legal counsel, and he said so for the record, he now left the strange little man in police custody and quit the room with a secretive smile, so happy to finally end his long workday and happier still to be rid of this lunatic.
Victor Patchock sat with his arms folded. His white cane had been taken away from him, but he stubbornly insisted on wearing his wig and dark glasses, and neither would he remove his overcoat. "In case I have to leave in a hurry."
"You're not going anywhere for a long time." Mallory snatched the dark glasses away. Patchock raised his hands, anticipating a blow to the face, and the overcoat fell open to expose drops of blood on his shirtfront. A surprised Agent Hennessey stared at these bloodstains.
Riker and Janos turned in unison to stare at Mallory.
Before she could utter her trademark line, I didn't do it, the little man quickly closed up his coat, saying, "I have nosebleeds when I'm under stress."
Now that Mallory had been cleared of mistreating her prisoner, she reached toward the little man once more. One white hand, five sharp red nails, flashed out to touch the nylon strands of the red wig and to make the little man flinch. "Why the costume, Victor?"
"That was Dr. Apollo's idea," said Victor Patchock. "She told me no one would look for me under a neon sign – if you take my meaning. Before she bought me the wig, I couldn't bring myself to leave my room."
"So she was treating you?"
The little man nodded. "Getting out of my room was a big part of my therapy. You know, taking back my life. So I spent my time following other players around, MacPherson, Johanna and – "
"And Ian Zachary." Mallory touched his arm, making him jump a bit. "That's how you knew he'd be in the parking garage the other night."
"Yes. It took me a while to figure out that his limo was picking up an impersonator. After I caught on, I followed him to that garage lots of times." Victor Patchock smiled at Riker, but it was not a happy smile, more on the sly side. "I followed you around, too – all those nights you went out drinking with Dr. Apollo after work. You never saw me, did you? No, you only had eyes for the doctor." He wagged one finger at the detective. "I would kill for that woman. Just you remember that, you bastard." Now he turned his suspicious eyes on Mallory.
"Victor?" Riker slapped the table to regain the little man's attention. "What happened in that jury room? Why did you all vote not guilty?"
"Andy," said the man in the red wig. "It was his doing."
"Andy Sumpter?" Agent Hennessey was startled. "The juror?"
"The first one to die," said Victor Patchock.
Johanna Apollo continued to glance at the dark window from time to time. This had the desired effect of rattling Ian Zachary, but never for more than a few seconds. Now he relaxed into a self-satisfied smile. "You have a lot of explaining to do, Doctor."
"I know," she said. "It would be easier to understand if we start with the voir dire, the jury selection. Your lawyers dragged out the process. There was lots of time to get full background checks on everyone in the jury pool."
"Stacking the jury isn't a crime, Doctor. It's a science."
"Oh, I agree," said Johanna. "It only seemed insane at the time. Your lawyers didn't care about biases. All the physically small people, the frail ones with the most retiring personalities, they were never challenged by your defense team. And then there was me, the hunchback, the cripple – so vulnerable. Andy Sumpter was the lone exception, a man with the emotional maturity of a child and the body of a weight lifter. The prosecutor loved him, didn't he? Andy came off as such a law-and-order freak. I'm sure you coached him every step of the way."
"Now that would be a crime." Zachary's smile was unaffected by this accusation. "Let's stay with the facts for now, Dr. Apollo. We can talk about your unsupported theories later on."
"Andy slept through most of your trial. That's a fact. But when we retired to the jury room for deliberations, he was suddenly wide awake. The first round of ballots were for a guilty verdict – except for Andy's. The judge wouldn't accept a hung jury. Day after day, he kept sending us back to that little room to work it out, and every day more votes swung over to Andy's side. The first two crossover votes were easy. Those people just wanted to go home. But the rest stood firm – even while Andy sat there, glaring at them one by one and punching his fist into his hand, over and over."
Victor Patchock was off to the men's room, escorted by Detective Janos. In addition to nosebleeds, he had announced that frayed nerves also affected his bladder.
The moment the door closed, Agent Hennessey discovered that he was Mallory's new interview subject. She stood beside his chair, preferring the advantage of looking down at him. "Jury tampering," she said. "The feds were investigating before the first juror died. That's what brought Timothy Kidd to Chicago after the trial. He wasn't working the Reaper murders." Unspoken were the words You liar.
"But that can't be right," said Riker, answering for the stunned FBI agent. "Wrong department. Timothy Kidd was a profiler – murder cases."
Mallory shook her head. "Kidd was never a profiler. He was a garden-variety field agent – just like Hennessey here. And he was also a flaming nutcase."
"She's right, and she's wrong," said Hennessey, speaking only to Riker's friendlier face. "A year ago, Agent Kidd had a nervous breakdown. He was pulled from fieldwork and transferred to an office job. All he did was shuffle papers and make out reports on obscure complaints. So one day, Dr. Apollo's charge of jury tampering lands on his desk. No one else took it seriously. A hung jury might've gotten some attention, but you can't buy a whole jury, can you? The verdict was unanimous, and her claim was unsupported." He glanced up at Mallory, to say, "You were wrong about the tampering charge," then quickly looked away, not even willing to meet Riker's eyes anymore. "There was no federal case before the first juror died. But Dr. Apollo papered every agency, local, state and federal."
Riker nodded. "And crazy Timothy Kidd was the only one who believed her."
"That's right," said Hennessey. "So Agent Kidd went to Chicago for a follow-up interview, and that was on his own initiative. He was never assigned to any criminal cases. A few days later, the Reaper slaughtered the first juror. There was a message on the crime-scene wall, written in the victim's own blood. One down and eleven to go. That's what it said. We never got that detail until the second juror died. Then the Chicago bureau stepped in and placed the rest of the jury in a protection program. Agent Kidd was using sick days, commuting between D.C. and Chicago. So he did investigate the Reaper murders, but he did it on his own time."