“ Well, maybe not confront… that may not be the word.”
“ What is the damned word?” Jessica felt on the verge of slamming her fists onto the table. The man infuriated her. Keyes must have sensed this. Shannon placed a soft hand over Jessica's and asked Marsden to go on. “I… I mean we had words. We spoke to one 'nother.” Just like that? Jessica wanted to scream. “What precisely did you say to him, sir?” she pleaded.
“ I asked him… let me see… asked if he thought… if he was… you know… if he was doing the right thing here.”
“ Jesus,” Jessica muttered. 'To which he replied?” asked Keyes calmly. “The old feller said something from the Bible straight out.”
“ What… what from the Bible did he say?” pressed Jessica, her back now like a staff.
“ He stood there eyeballing me like I was an old friend the whole time, but never letting his eyes off me, burned a hole through me.” Now came the explosion of words out of the former Georgia school principal's mouth.
“ What did the old man say to you?” Jessica again pressed. “Said, 'Fear not, for I am about the Lord's work, and you'-he said to me straight out-'you have come from God as a messenger, John out of the wilderness,' and how I was a sign… yeah, a sign.”
“ A sign?” asked Keyes.
“ A good sign that he was doing exactly as God intended him to do.”
“ Damn,” cursed Jessica. “We not only have a lunatic on our hands but one that is inspired by God's divine message.”
“ The worst kind,” agreed Keyes.
Jessica's hand meandered across the table in Marsden's direction, stopping short of his. “You say he put the woman into a coffin in the van?”
“ Yes ma'am.”
“ And you let him leave without another word?” demanded Keyes, finally losing some of her control.
“ He had a look about him that told me it wasn't none of my business. Fact is, he had a strange look in his eyes.”
Jessica kept eye contact with Marsden. “What kind of look is that, sir?”
“ Like he was doing what he said he was doing.”
“ God's work, you mean?” asked Jessica.
“ The business of God's work, yes, and his eyes… that look he had… told me I wasn't to interfere, that no one was to interfere.”
“ Is there anything else? Did he say anything else to you?” Jessica was glad the interrogation had been taped.
“ There was one other thing he said. He said, 'Who can know or judge God's work,' he said.”
“ I see.” Jessica stood again, turned, and spoke to the others behind the glass. “Sounds like our man is hearing voices from God.”
“ Or reading too much into 'Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,' “ added Keyes.
Jessica had to control her anger with Marsden. She sucked it up and returned to him, sat, and calmly asked, “You didn't think to call the police?”
“ He had two coffins in the back of his van!” Now Mars-den began to show some agitated anger, weakly defending his inaction. “Damn it, I didn't want to be put into the other coffin beside her, and that van… it smelled… smelled of a horrible odor.”
“ What kind of odor?”
“ Like decay and death all balled up into one.”
“ And you aren't exaggerating about the size of the van,” asked Keyes, “or that it contained not one but two coffins?”
'Two coffins, side by side.”
“ This means she could be buried alive somewhere,” said Keyes, trembling.
Marsden began to prattle, “I thought it was some old guy come to carry his woman or maybe even his child on back to a home she run from. I saw an old Iowa farmer come to fetch what belonged to him. Maybe she was his runaway wife or daughter, I told myself. Maybe he was rescuing her from a cult or something. How should I know?”
“ Daddy come to fetch his little girl with a box to restrain her in, all to save her from the big bad city, huh?” asked Keyes, shaking her head.
“ That's 'bout what I was thinking, ma'am,” replied Marsden to Keyes. “Like that, yeah. I didn't get a fair look at her to determine if it was the wife or daughter, but yeah… that's why I didn't get involved. Thought it was family business, you know?”
“ Family business,” repeated Jessica, feeling weakened by this process of getting information out of this man. Still, she felt great relief that she had excluded Santiva and the other men from the questioning. Perhaps not Richard or J. T„but Santiva most certainly would have shut Marsden down like turning off a faucet. At least she and Keyes had been patient in finding and turning that faucet on. Eriq Santiva would most likely have sent the mole scurrying to the dark underground of a splintered personality that existed deep within him, and they would have gotten little or no information from Marsden. Even J. T. might have exploded on learning that Marsden had wasted their time with a doggie death, while all this vital information about DeCampe's abductor remained off the table and inside the man's head.
“ Family business,” muttered Keyes.
“ That's 'bout what I was thinking, ma'am,” repeated Marsden, his eyes glued on Keyes yet vacant. “Like that, yeah,” he repeated. “Were you drunk at the time you witnessed the attack?” asked Jessica, looking for something mitigating about the sheer cowardice of the man.
“ Not nearly drunk enough. Bothered me some that I didn't help out that woman.”
Jessica released a long breath of air. She had smelled Marsden's odors long enough. She stood beside him, where she slapped Marsden on the shoulder as if they had been lifelong friends, telling him how much he had already helped them. His worn, tattered coat reacted to the slap on his shoulder by sending up a flurry of dust and mites. Jessica backed off, saying, “Now you just quit blaming yourself for any of this, Dr. Marsden. If you'd gotten involved any more than you had, you might be down in our morgue right now and unable to help us one iota.” Certain amount of truth in that, she thought. “As it is, you've put us onto the right track.”
“ I have done that, haven't I?”
“ Yes, sir, Mr. Superintendent. Now relax here, and one of us'll send in some coffee and a meal and be right back, Dr. Marsden.”
As Jessica hustled Keyes out and let the door close on Marsden, the man said, “You don't have to call me doctor no more, and I don't hold title to superintendent no more; I know it's just your technique to get friendly, but you don't fool me any, detective.”
Not smart like Millie at all, am I? Jessica thought and felt a moment's relief to be away from the strange giant she'd left alone in interrogation.
EIGHT
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison.
Jessica felt as if she had been in a marathon run when she stepped from the interrogation room. She wanted to grab old of Richard and hug him, but instead, she told him, “Keep your eyes on this nutcase. He can't be allowed to waltz out of here.”
Richard stood alongside J. T., who stood beside Santiva at the one-way glass, where they had seen and heard the entire story. Santiva wore a smirk on his face.
“ What's so funny?” she asked Santiva.
“ Been a while since I've heard a good dog-saves-man story.”
“ I think he's mixed his milk toast with his rye once too often,” replied J. T.
“ Pitiful wretch, actually,” added Richard, his eyes still on Marsden.
Keyes got in Jessica's face and asked, “Are we sure Millie's really a dog, Dr. Coran?”
“ No… Guess we can't be a hundred percent.”
Santiva, biting his lower lip and shaking his head, re-plied, “Yeah, maybe somebody ought to contact authorities in Jasper, Georgia.”
“ Just to be sure?” asked J. T., a wide grin making him the Cheshire cat. “Did you get a load of that red scar along his neck? He's obviously been in some back-alley scrapes.”