His name was Phil Something from a state that began with a vowel, some tale about being in aches, Eichord thought he'd said, finally figured out he'd told him, “I'm in eggs,” and was in the wholesale food business, nowhere guy with a bad marriage, a job that hated him, a boss that hated him, a wife that hated him, not really gay just a sad and lonely old coot. How depressing.
But when you're in the murder business every nasty cloud may have a revealing lining. He'd banged on the door with a long stick. So simple. Right under Eichord's nose, so to speak. And it reminded him of one of the forgotten basics: the easiest way to hide something is to leave it right out in the open. Sometimes nobody thinks to look there. He wasn't sure if it applied to the Hackabee thing but it was worth filing away. He finally got some sleep about three in the morning. He went to sleep thinking how he and old Phil next door had a lot in common. Both of them in aches, that was for sure.
There was screaming coming from the plush conference room on the richly appointed second floor of the building that Fidelity Mutual shared with Jones, Seleska, Foy, Biegelman, and Guthrie, known in the Texas legal profession as Jones-Seleska. The screaming was coming from a breathtakingly beautiful woman who was bent over a very expensive conference table. She was finally able to stop screaming with laughter and when she came up for air the somber-looking man sitting across the table from her, the one who had been responsible for her current agonies, said, “You gotta learn to lighten up a little, you take things too seriously,” at which she doubled over again.
“Not again with screaming. They'll think you're raping me in here,” he told her and she pounded on the table.
“Please ... no...” She gasped. “Please ... stop."
“You knucklehead. Get outta here,” he said, which sent her off again. Finally when she composed herself enough—the laughter diminished to the point where she could hear him—he said, “Do you know the official Jewish stand on abortion?"
“Ohhhh,” she groaned as she held herself in mock pain.
“It's still a fetus until it graduates from Harvard Law.” She giggled, grateful that it hadn't been another killer.
Her secretary opened the door. “It's that policeman again, Miss Collier. Second time he's called. Mister"—she glanced at the pink slip—"Icort, about the Hackabee case, I believe."
Still chuckling, the beautiful woman gestured no with her hand. “I'm not in.” And let herself slide back in the chair with a groan.
Dallas
“—and I'd gone in to buy some things, like I said, South Oak Cliff Shopping Center,” she said with a sigh, for maybe the hundredth time, “and no I don't believe I'd been followed, and I was on my way in to go shopping, Sanger Harris, various stops I wanted to make, and I pulled in to the mall and just barely tapped the car in back of me on the bumper, but, you know, you always feel scared if that happens, and I was relieved when I looked up in the rearview mirror and didn't see anybody in the car because, you know, you're embarrassed when that happens. And I guess that's why it scared me so much when this man sticks his head in the window and pokes a gun at me—"
Eichord was listening and watching carefully, “Excuse me. Don't lose your train of thought but you said, ‘sticks his head in the window.’ Was your window rolled down?"
“Huh?"
“How did he stick his head in the window of the car if the window was up?"
“Sure, the window was up. I meant he came over and suddenly there's this face in my window and I go, OH, and about jumped out of my skin. I was so surprised. And he was talking and I thought it was the guy's car that I'd tapped on the bumper and like I rolled the window down. Oh, I remember. I had to turn the motor off or on, I mean to roll it down—power window deals, and—"
“Tell me everything you remember about that moment. How did you feel when you saw him? What was the weather like that day? What did you have on? What—"
“Did you know the intelligence people had me act all that out? Don Duncan went out there and had me dress in the exact clothing I had on that day and he followed me all the way from the house. I mean, it isn't that far, six-seven minutes or whatever, but he had me go through all the motions when they were trying to find where he took me."
She had never been able to give them the house where she'd been held prisoner. It had just been blocked out completely. She couldn't remember anything about how she got from the room in the house to the police station. Not even the part where the wino found her in the refrigerator box, hiding behind a discarded stove in back of a store downtown. Nude. Bloody. Out of it.
“Donna. What I'm wanting to hear is your description as much as the facts themselves. You may give me something that will help without meaning to, just in the way you tell about it all. Understand?” As always speaking so softly.
“Aaaaaaahhhhhh,” sighing, looking not at all fresh as a daisy today.
Jack getting her after a rigorous bit of playacting with intelligence and then, last night, a brain-battering session in which Donna Scannapieco had allowed herself to be put in a deep trance by a clinical hypnotist. Still, there'd been nothing forthcoming about the location of her makeshift prison.
“Okay,” she said with a shrug. “Let's see. I was wearing the jeans, stacked heels, blouse under the grape sweater, earrings, purse, no extra jewelry, had makeup on, wearing my hair long like I have it today, it was an ordinary day, cool, I just don't remember anything about it all that I haven't said a million times. And he stuck his head in the window and said, ‘If you'll look in my hand you'll see I'm holding a pistol.’ I was scared but mainly I was like, you know, sort of in shock. I didn't want to get shot. I did what he said, and—"
“Donna, did it ever strike you as odd that when he threatened you there in the shopping center that was the only time in the four weeks he had you that he'd ever made any kind of specific threat with a weapon?"
“I don't get what you mean."
“Even when he was telling you about all the people he had buried around the state. Did you once ever hear him say anything about I shot this one with a pistol? Or I stabbed this one with a knife? Or I hit this one over the head with a club?” She shook her head no. “See what I'm saying here? He threatened you with a gun in the mall when he took you. But how come he never waved a gun around or talked about any specific act of violence all the time he had you?"
“He talked about acts of violence all the time,” she said, making a face at the stupidity of what he'd said. “He was always going to kick my ass for this or whip the shit out of me for that. And what do you call the fact that he claimed to have killed HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE. Is that enough violence for you?"
“No. You're not getting my point. If he threatened to beat you or hurt you physically, sure, I agree that is definitely violence. But did he ever pull a knife or gun on you? A blackjack? Anything?"
“Well—"
“When he was talking about the crimes he'd committed, was he ever specific with respect to using a weapon? How did he get those people dead? Run over them in a car? Drop a bomb on them? Poison them? Strangle them? What?"
“I don't know.” She shrugged. “He just talked about killing different ones and I don't recall anything about whether he said he shot ‘em or stabbed ‘em and I don't see what the hell difference it could possibly make. Also, you say did he threaten me with a gun? I was CHAINED by a leather thing this big"—she gestured impatiently—"all he had to do was grab me or slap me or kick me or whatever he wanted I didn't threaten him in any way. Why would he need a knife or gun? I was chained to the wall."