She lifted the gun to her mouth, the black barrel slipping between her lips, bright red lipstick smearing along it.
"No!" Tom leapt to knock the gun out of her hand before she could pull the trigger.
But he was too late. The back of her head exploded across the room, a fine mist of blood spraying in short bursts from the severed blood vessels as her body slumped to the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Paul Viggiano fetched himself another cup of filter coffee from the machine. There was a tidemark in the glass jug where the coffee had evaporated since the last fresh pot had been made that morning. The remaining liquid looked dark and thick, like molasses. With scientific precision, he poured in one and a half servings of creamer, added one level teaspoon of sugar, then stirred it three times.
Satisfied with his handiwork, he turned to face Sheriff Hennessy and his attorney, Jeremiah Walton. A wiry, aggressive man with a thin face, hornbill nose, and sunken cheeks, Walton seemed unable to sit still on the molded plastic seats, forever shifting his weight from one bony buttock to the other. Bailey was sitting on the opposite side of a flimsy-looking table that had been screwed to the floor, staring at Hennessy with hostile intensity, his pen suspended motionlessly over a notepad. A tape recorder hummed gently to his right.
"Face it, Hennessy, it's over," Viggiano said, trying to sound calm but struggling to contain the excitement in his voice. Less than forty-eight hours ago he'd been wondering what he was doing with his life. Now here he was running a multiple homicide investigation. Funny how someone else's bad luck could be just the break you've been praying for. "Whatever little scam you've been running up there is finished now. So you might as well tell us what you know and make this a whole lot easier on yourself."
Hennessy stared at Viggiano stonily, dabbing himself every so often with a handkerchief that his sweat had turned from pale red to deep vermilion.
"My client wants to talk about immunity," Walton said in a high-pitched, nasal whine, pinching his right earlobe between finger and thumb as he spoke.
"Your client can go to hell," Viggiano snapped. "I got twenty-six corpses out there." He waved in what he assumed to be the direction of Malta, Idaho, although in the small windowless room it was difficult to be sure. "Women. Kids. Whole families. That's twenty-six people — dead. Immunity isn't even in the dictionary as far as your client is concerned." His fingers made quote marks in the air.
"You got nothing. Just one man's word against another." Walton glanced at Bailey. "A throwaway comment made in the heat of the moment that has been taken completely out of context. A pillar of the local community has seen his integrity questioned and his reputation dragged—"
"For an innocent man, he sure got you down here pretty damn quick," Viggiano interrupted.
"My client has a right—"
"Hell, maybe you're right," said Viggiano. "Maybe we don't have much. But we'll find it." He leaned across the table toward Hennessy. "You see, we're going to go through your bank records and high school reports and college files. We're gonna turn your life upside down and shake it real hard and have a good long look at everything that drops out. We're gonna go through that farmhouse that you claim you've never been to before with a ten-man forensic team that'll find out if you even so much as farted in its general direction in the last six months. Whatever we need, we'll find it."
Walton flashed a questioning glance at Hennessy, who raised his eyebrows in response and then gave a brief shrug, suggesting that they had planned for this outcome.
"Very well, then," Walton conceded, pinching his left earlobe now. "We want a deal."
"This is the biggest homicide investigation in Idaho since the Bear River Massacre in 1863," Bailey reminded him in a cold voice, his eyes never leaving Hennessy.
"The best deal he'll get is avoiding the Row," Viggiano added. "Accessory to multiple homicides before and after the fact. Criminal conspiracy. Armed robbery. Hell, by the time you get out, if you ever get out, the Jets might have won the Super Bowl again."
"And if he cooperates?" Walton whined, licking the corners of his mouth.
"If he cooperates, we won't push for the death sentence. And there may be the chance of parole down the line."
"A minimum-security facility?"
"We can do that," said Viggiano. "But we want every-thing — names, dates, locations."
"I want this in writing."
"You tell me what you got, then I'll tell you if it's enough. You know how it works."
Hennessy glanced at Walton, who bent toward him and whispered a few words in his ear. Hennessy straightened and nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll talk."
"Good." Viggiano pulled a chair away from the table and sat on it back to front. "Let's start with some names."
"I don't know his name," Hennessy began. "Not his real one, at least. Everyone just called him Blondi."
"This is the guy who you think did this?"
"Uh-huh."
"Where was he from?"
"Not sure. He approached us."
"Who's us?"
"The Sons of American Liberty."
"Now, Bill," Walton cautioned him, with a nervous twitch of his wrist, "let's not get into details."
"Why? I'm not ashamed," Hennessy said defiantly, before turning back to face Viggiano. "Yeah, I was one of them. Why the hell not? It's like I said before, they're patriots." He locked eyes with Bailey. "True Americans. Not a bunch of lazy, drug-dealing immigrants."
"Oh, they're patriots, all right," Bailey snapped angrily, his pen digging into the notebook and blotting the paper with a rapidly growing ink spot. "They're patriots who more or less executed a security guard up in Maryland."
"I didn't know anything about that," Hennessy said sullenly.
"Where was this Blondi from?" Viggiano continued. "Europe."
"That's two hundred and fifty million people," Bailey observed drily.
"I'm telling you what I know," Hennessy hissed. "It's not my fault you don't like it."
"What did he want?" Viggiano again.
"He said that he wanted an Enigma machine. That he would pay us to get him one."
"How much?"
"Fifty thousand. Half up front, half on delivery."
"And you agreed?"
"Who wouldn't? That sort of money was big news for us. Besides, it wasn't the first time."
"Now, Bill," Walton cautioned.
"Blondi worked for someone else," Hennessy continued, ignoring the warning. "We never knew who and, to be honest, we didn't care. When he needed to get hold of something, we'd get it for him. He never asked how we'd got it or where it had come from, and he always paid in full and on time."
"Then what?" Viggiano pressed.
"He had all the plans and blueprints and everything. Three guys volunteered and they hit the museum. From what I hear, the whole thing went pretty smooth."
"Apart from the guard they lynched."
"I guess he got in the way." Hennessy shrugged. "Besides, one more or one less… Who gives a shit?"
"One more or one less what?" Bailey was on his feet, his pen spinning to the floor. "Go on, say it. One more or one less nigger, is that what you mean?" He clenched his fists so hard the tips of his fingernails went white. "Say the word. I dare you."
Hennessy smirked but seemingly had the good sense to say nothing.
"And then what happened?" Viggiano intervened again, laying a hand on Bailey's trembling shoulder and pressing him back down into his chair. "After they got the machine?"
"I don't know. I wasn't there."