Mo looked through his heavy frames for some time and then got up to shut the oak door. It had an old-fashioned frosted wired pane in the middle on which Dickerman’s name was printed in block letters.
“You remember that day last month when Lands whistled me up to the bench to report on my findings about Paul’s prints?” Mo asked.
“Sure.”
“I nearly wet my socks. I was just waiting for him to ask me the wrong question and I’d look like Ralph Kramden. You know, ‘Humanah humanah.’”
Tim laughed. It wasn’t a bad imitation of Jackie Gleason.
“I thought you said Paul’s prints didn’t match the crime scene.”
“They don’t. Now that I’ve finally gotten a look at Cass’s ten-card, I can exclude even the inconclusives.”
“And what about Cass himself?”
“You remember a few days after Greenwood finally found Cass’s prints and sent them over here, Lands said I had to give them back. Stern had an associate hie out this way to carry the card back to Greenwood County that afternoon. What does that tell you?”
“Maybe there was something they didn’t want you to figure out. Maybe Cass’s prints don’t match the crime scene either?”
“They do. With all the craziness in this case, that wouldn’t have been a complete surprise. But the minute I got that card, I looked at everything. Cass’s prints were all over Dita’s room, just the same as Logan said back in 1983, including the outside knob of the French door.”
“So what was the big deal?”
Mo looked away and poked his tongue to his cheek.
“It’s been a while, I’ll tell you, since I was sitting up at night thinking about a case. I was ready to hire a brass band when Lands finally entered the dismissal.”
At his age, Tim now and then found himself having unpredictable lapses, where he simply couldn’t follow the loops of an ordinary conversation. That seemed to be happening now.
“I’m not catching the drift, Mo. Cass’s prints are all over Dita’s room and Paul’s aren’t. What’s strange?”
Dickerman wiped his lips with his whole hand.
“It’s that print card from Hillcrest.”
“What about it?”
“Well, as soon as I got Cass’s original impressions from Greenwood, I compared them to the prints from Hillcrest, and I know that’s a laser copy, and there’s no evidentiary value, but those are not Cass Gianis’s fingerprints-the ones from the institution? They look a lot alike, but in the minutiae, there are distinct differences.”
“Are you saying they’re Paul’s?”
Mo took quite some time before saying yes. “From everything I could see, the answer is yes.”
Tim felt his mind spinning like a tire trapped in the snow.
“What the hell?” Tim finally said.
“I know. I was standing right there. I was looking Paul Gianis in the face when I took his fingerprints. You saw me do it. But the prints I took in the courthouse match the prints from Hillcrest.”
“Jesus,” said Tim.
Mo pointed. “Same rules: Not a word to anybody. If this ever got out, Horgan and Stern would have to come after me. They’d make a stink that I was looking at stuff I should have returned, and they’d say my opinion is a sign of incompetence. I don’t need any of that.”
Tim promised. He knew Mo had arrived at the wrong conclusion about Paul’s fingerprints, he just couldn’t figure out why. You could see even Mo was of the same mind.
26
Marlinda Glynn, a sharp young woman who’d taken a semester off from the University of Iowa to work on the campaign, was holding out his cell phone when Paul reached the backstage area at the West Town Community Center. They’d tried a morning town hall, but there couldn’t have been more than twenty-five people here, most of them elderly folks who’d arrived largely to alleviate boredom. He was hoping the call was from Peter Neucriss. Peter was an old friend, and the most successful plaintiff’s lawyer in this part of the world. Paul was going to beg him for another hundred thousand. Peter had already produced close to two fifty, bringing in checks in the names of every member of his family and his firm. When Peter said no, as Paul expected, he’d know for sure what was written on the wall.
“This guy says he’s Hal Kronon,” said Marlinda.
“Joke?” Paul asked.
“I don’t think so. It really sounds like him.” Marlinda had been there the day of Hal’s tirade at the pardon and parole hearing. “And his secretary was on the line first.”
Paul took the phone as he walked to the car.
“It’s Hal,” said Kronon, with an easy tone that made it seem as if the intervening decades of nastiness were simply stagecraft meant to obscure the fact that they were actually the best of friends.
“So I was told. Mind if I ask how you got my cell?”
“I have people who can get that kind of information in five minutes. There’s this thing called the Internet.”
Paul smiled in spite of himself.
“I’d like to have a sit-down with you,” Hal said. “Just the two of us.”
“Are we going to discuss the size of the contribution you’re planning?”
Hal laughed, which Paul might not have expected.
“Not exactly. Take the meeting, Paul. I won’t be wasting your time.”
They agreed on 2:30, after lunch. Neither wanted to be seen with the other, so Hal suggested the building office at West Bank Mall, Zeus’s original shopping center, and still one of the most successful in the nation. The place covered a square mile, the white brick buildings connected by networks of open walkways. To compete with the indoor malls, Hal placed heat torches outside in the winter and misters for summer’s dog days, and even hired kids to escort shoppers under umbrellas when it rained. And the center thrived. You were lucky to find a parking space within four blocks of the store you wanted to visit.
Paul was still bewildered about why mall shopping had emerged as Americans’ most thrilling pastime, as if coming back with several bags full of soft goods were the equivalent of big-game hunting. Whenever he was at a place like this, he wondered what we’d done wrong as a nation to make acquisition seem pleasing to so many. There was a kind of resignation to the activity that bothered Paul the most. He had nothing against leisure. It was a proud achievement that we’d given people time away from labor. But why shop, instead of garden or ride a bike?
He might have questioned the lines of folks passing by, if he thought they would have answers. He was wearing sunglasses, but was often recognized. People stared for the most part, but two couples stopped him, one to encourage him, the other to have their picture taken, much as they would have if he’d been walking along dressed up as Donald Duck.
He found the building office, a low freestanding structure. A young woman showed him back to a conference room with a cheap table and a few chairs. Hal was sitting on one of them. He rose and offered his hand for the first time in twenty-five years. Paul took it after some hesitation, then both men sat down.
Paul put a small digital recorder on the table and turned it on.
Hal’s eyes ran back and forth to it.
“I told you this would stay between us,” Hal said.
“Right. But I’d rather not pat you down for a wire or try to figure out if this room is bugged. I’ll have my own copy, in case you ever go back on your word.”
Hal’s look darkened. Paul wasn’t sure Hal was a secure-enough guy to deal with the open distrust, but he was the one who’d asked for the meeting.
“I’ll just get to the point,” Hal said. “I wanted you to know that I’m going to pull all those ads about you. I told the agency to get them off the air, even the ones where we’ve paid for the time already.”
Paul nodded, trying to show no other reaction. There was a “but” coming.
“I suspect Georgia will appreciate that,” Paul said. “I saw her a few weeks ago, and she thinks her hair looks like it was done by the serial killer in No Country for Old Men.”