"You know what they say thoughts really are, Mr. Nudger?" Candy Ann said, ignoring his professed helplessness. Her wide blue eyes were vague as she searched for words. "Thoughts ain't nothing but tiny electrical impulses in the brain. I read that somewheres or other. What I can't help wondering is, when they shoot all that electricity into Curtis, what's it gonna be like to his thinking? How long will it seem like to him before he finally dies? Will there by a big burst of crazy thoughts along with the pain? I know it sounds loony, but I can't help laying awake nights thinking about that, and I feel I just gotta do whatever's left to try and help Curtis."
There was a sort of checkout-line-tabloid logic in that, Nudger conceded; if thoughts were actually weak electrical impulses, then high-voltage electrical impulses could become exaggerated, horrible thoughts. Anyway, try to disprove it to Candy Ann, who whiled away her time with People and game shows.
"They never did catch Curtis' buddy, the driver who sped away and left him in that service station, did they?" Nudger asked.
"Nope. Curtis never told who the driver was, neither, no matter how much he was threatened. Curtis is a stubborn man."
Nudger was getting the idea. "But you know who was driving the car."
"Yep. And he told me him and Curtis was miles away from that liquor store at the time it was robbed. When he seen the police closing in on Curtis at that gas station where Curtis was buying cigarettes, he hit the accelerator and got out of the parking lot before they could catch him. The police didn't even get the car's license-plate number."
Nudger rubbed a hand across his chin, watching Candy Ann swing her leg as if it were a shapely metronome. She was barefoot and wearing no nylon hose. "The jury thought Curtis not only was at the liquor store, but that he shot the old man and woman in cold blood."
"That purely ain't true, though. Not according to-" She caught herself before uttering the man's name.
"Curtis' friend," Nudger finished.
"That's right. And he oughta know," Candy Ann said righteously. The rain took another whack at the trailer; something metal moaned in the wind. The trailer rocked, caught in a Missouri summertime monsoon. All this rain was good for the farmers, the ones who still had farms.
"None of this means anything unless the driver comes forward and substantiates that he was with Curtis somewhere other than at the liquor store when it was robbed."
Candy Ann nodded and stopped swinging her leg. "I know. But he won't. He can't. That's where you come in."
"My profession might enjoy a reputation a notch lower than dognapper," Nudger said, "but I don't hire out to do anything illegal."
"What I want you to do is legal," Candy Ann said in a hurt little voice. Nudger looked past her into the dollhouse kitchen and saw an empty gin bottle on the sink counter. He wondered if she might be slightly sloshed. "It's the eyewitness accounts that got Curtis convicted," she went on. "And those people are mixed up. I want you to figure out some way to convince them it wasn't Curtis they seen that night."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but four people, two of them customers in the liquor store, picked Curtis out of a police lineup."
"You ain't wrong. But so what if them four did identify Curtis? Who thinks or sees straight when there's a shooting going on? Ain't eyewitnesses often mistaken?"
Nudger had to admit that they were, though he didn't see how they could be in this case. There were, after all, four of them. And yet, Candy Ann was right; it was amazing how people could sometimes be so certain that the wrong man had committed a crime just five feet in front of them.
"I want you to talk to them witnesses," Candy Ann said. "Find out why they think Curtis was the killer. Then show them how they might be wrong and get them to change what they said."
"That might be like throwing chaff into the wind," Nudger said, "to put it politely."
"Except we got the truth on our side, Mr. Nudger. At least one witness will change his story when he's made to think about it. Because Curtis wasn't where they said he was. He was someplace else, and that's a fact as solid and unchangeable as the sun and the stars."
"The sun and stars are expanding," Nudger told her. "Flying apart at millions of miles per hour. The Big Bang theory, scientists call it."
"I wouldn't know nothing about some big bang, Mr. Nudger. What I know is that Curtis didn't kill nobody."
"Curtis has exhausted all his appeals," Nudger said to this hopelessly naive girl-woman. "Even if all the witnesses changed their stories, it wouldn't necessarily mean he'd get a new trial."
"Maybe not, but I betcha they wouldn't kill him. They couldn't stand the publicity if enough witnesses said they was wrong, it was somebody else shot the old woman. Then, just maybe, eventually, Curtis would get another trial and get out of prison."
Nudger stared at her. He was awed. Here was foolish optimism that transcended even his own. He had to admire Candy Ann.
The shapely pale leg started pumping again beneath the corn-flower-blue dress. When Nudger lowered his gaze to stare at it, Candy Ann said, "So will you help me, Mr. Nudger?" "Sure," Nudger said. "It sounds easy."
II
Nudger sat on his customary red vinyl stool at the end of the stainless-steel counter in Danny's Donuts, staring at the stack of glossy copies of newspaper pages before him. He'd spent the morning in the county library out on Lindbergh, poring over old news stories about Curtis Colt and copying the pages he thought were pertinent. He felt slightly nauseated. Sitting and staring at one of those library microfilm viewers while blown up pictures of newspaper pages rolled past was something like sitting by a window in a moving train; it gave Nudger the same sensation as motion sickness.
He'd felt better by the time he got to his office, which was located on the second floor, directly above the doughnut shop. So he decided to come down here, talk with Danny, and have a Dunker Delite and a glass of milk for lunch. But doleful Danny was out of milk, and apologized profusely and pressed on Nudger a free bottomless cup of coffee to go with his free Dunker Delite. Nudger's stomach was queasy again within minutes. The Dunker Delite was tolerable. The coffee, which Danny solicitously kept at rim level in its foam cup, was at its worst. Which was like saying Son of Sam was in a nasty mood.
"What's all that stuff about?" Danny asked Nudger, when the last of his few afternoon customers had left the shop.
"Curtis Colt," Nudger said.
Danny read the papers daily and was something of a crime buff. "The guy Governor Scalla wants to fry instead of send out with gas?"
"The same," Nudger said, gazing at his Dunker Delite. Scott Scalla was a hard-nosed former attorney general who had been elected mainly due to his pledge to implement capital punishment, and who favored the electric chair over the gas chamber. Most of the legislature in Jefferson City, the state capital, opted for using the gas chamber if Missouri had to begin executing convicted killers again. Sly politician that he was, Scalla had used the argument over how for the purpose of diverting attention from the argument over if. Curtis Colt was either going to inhale cyanide gas or he was going to ride the lightning. The if question had been settled just before Colt was tagged for the electric chair.
"How come you need to learn about Colt?" Danny asked, wiping down the smooth counter and tucking his grayish towel back into his belt. "After Saturday, not much of what you know about him will matter anymore. He'll be gone."
"Probably," Nudger said. He pretended to sip his coffee while Danny watched with his sad brown eyes. "You think he's guilty of killing that woman, Danny?"
"Sure. He was found guilty by twelve good men and true."
"There were eight women on the jury," Nudger pointed out.
"Sex aside," Danny said, pausing for a moment to remove the towel from his belt and snap it at a bluebottle fly that had settled on the counter, "Colt is guilty. The truth comes out in court."