“ Yeah, this dog will fight, but he didn't raise a hand to help the judge that night. Why?” asked Jessica, still angry with Marsden.
Keyes raised an index finger and said, “Something about the old man's demeanor. All the biblical talk may well have frightened anyone, and if he had an insane look about him, carting two coffins about with him… not sure I'd get involved, either. Would you?”
“ Damn straight I would.”
Keyes didn't blink. “I think Marsden may well have been half or fully blitzed at the time, and so that much more easily convinced that DeCampe's abductor was in fact doing the 'Lord's business,' as he put it, and with Marsden's pitiable self-esteem issues… hey, who's going to go out of his way to piss off God?”
“ Or his servant,” added Richard Sharpe.
Jessica bowed to this notion, letting Marsden off the proverbial hook for now. She then turned to John Thorpe. “OK, J. T„you're my main expert on rural America types. Look into Marsden's Jasper, Georgia, story. See how much of it checks out.”
“ Gotcha.” Jessica stared through the glass at the Rock Hudson- sized man inside. “Cleaned up, he might look like a Baptist preacher or a school superintendent.”
“ Yeah, Jack, why don't you check his story out,” Santiva, who liked calling J. T. Jack, piped in. “Keyes, see to getting the man some hot food and drink. Jessica, we need to talk.” Santiva asked Richard to cuff the strange man in the interrogation room to the table. For a moment, they all stared through the one-way window.
“ Yes, sir, Chief.”
“ I need a sketch artist inside with him, Eriq,” Jessica said.
“ Already called; she's on her way.”
Jessica nodded as he took her arm and guided her out of earshot of anyone. “I'm getting a great gob of loaded heat from upstairs. They want some bone thrown their way, Jess, something-anything-I can take back. How much of this guy's story do you believe?”
“ I think he's telling us all he knows.”
“ But he could have hallucinated the whole damn thing, right? I mean with the caskets, the cattle prod, all of it. Could be just filling in blanks you laid out, Jess.”
“ I don't think so. He's… he comes across as telling the truth, Chief.”
“ Murphy's Law at work, huh?”
“ I don't follow you.”
“ If something can go wrong, it will, right? So if I report what we know from Mr.-ahhh-Dr. Marsden in there, it could come back to clip me at the knees.”
“ We really don't have time for this kind of hand-holding with the politicians, Chief. Not with DeCampe's life in the balance, not with the time clock ticking as it is. DeCampe doesn't have the time. We don't have the luxury of holding meetings with lieutenant governors and deputy mayors and-”
“ Now hold on, Jess.”
“ We need to pursue this Iowa license plate on a huge dark van with two coffins aboard the thing. We need every field office between here and Iowa on it.”
“ You'd think such a thing would be obvious or at least curious to someone out there.”
“ I need more people, Eriq, to call every law enforcement agency in the goddamn country for anything smacking of such a report. Can you get me that kind of support here?”
“ I'll get you more people.”
“ When?”
'Today.”
“ As for someone out there seeing two caskets in a dark van with tinted windows, how weird is that, Eriq, in the grand scheme of things in the state of this nation? Besides, even if someone saw the caskets, say at a Waffle House stop this old man made, do you think the average John Q. Citizen is going to bother getting involved? I don't know why I was so angry with Marsden. He's just typical of all of us.” Eriq tried to calm her. “I know… I know, Jess.”
She relented. “People might simply take it for a hearse; after all, according to Marsden, it's black and the windows are tinted.”
“ I still need something to take upstairs. We're going to hold this guy for as long as we can, right?”
“ On suspicion he's somehow connected to the abduction? Are you really going to announce to the world that this poor bastard's the perpetrator?”
“ We need something, Jess. If it comes to that, yes.”
“ Damn it, Eriq, we need to know what triggered this old man's vendetta against the judge. We need to know who he is, how he is linked to her. And we don't have the luxury of time, so we really don't have time for any g'damn games.”
“ We're talking about keeping the fucking governor of the District of Columbia and the mayor of Washington apprised, Jessica, and now the governor of Texas and the mayor of Houston. They have all sampled party favors together with the judge on many occasions. Their interest is not purely politically motivated. They all genuinely liked-or at least respected-the woman.”
Lew Clemmens found them, a cell phone in his hand. “I've got someone in Houston, Texas, willing to run out to Huntsville and interview Goddard. Goddard's on borrowed time, waiting to hear if his appeal is going to go forward. If he's shut down, he dies by the switch in seven days.”
“ Who've you got?” asked Eriq.
“ Guy that Dr. Desinor recommended, Detective Lucas Stonecoat with the HPD. He knows something about Goddard, and he has a special place in his heart for Judge DeCampe. Says she busted his chops more than once.”
“ When did you speak to Kim Desinor?”
“ She called in. Wanted to know if we were any closer. I told her about the Houston, Texas, connection.”
Jessica took the line, holding her hand over the mouthpiece for the moment. She knew something of the Texas Cherokee Indian detective's recent history with successfully closing out a string of unusual cases in his home state and beyond. Kim Desinor, acting as the FBI psychic consultant on the case, had spent time in Houston working with Stonecoat and the police psychiatrist Meredyth Sanger there. Jessica recalled that Kim had once urged her that if ever she needed insight into Texas and the Texas penal system, that Lucas Stonecoat was her man. “Hello, Detective Stonecoat, this is FBI Medical Examiner Dr. Jessica Coran. We appreciate your help.”
“ I'll interview Goddard with the help of our resident po-lice shrink. Dr. Meredyth Sanger,” he replied. “She's the best Houston has. If anything can be shaken loose from Goddard, she can do it.”
“ Excellent news, and thanks.”
“ No thanks necessary. Let's just find Judge DeCampe. Underneath that scaly, rough yet too-liberal exterior beats a beautiful heart. She's good people.”
Beats a beautiful heart still, we hope, Jessica thought but replied, “Yes, yes, she is.”
“ I'll call you back the moment we have anything.”
“ We're working up a sketch of the abductor now. We'll fax it to you. Clemmens will take your fax number, and again, thanks.”
“ Hold on. You've got a witness who can ID the abductor?”
“ We do.”
“ Excellent work.”
“ Lucked out.”
“ Not from what Dr. Desinor tells me about you. She tells me you are the most intuitive detective she has ever known.”
“ She's being generous.”
“ The state here just executed a guy named Purdy three days ago. Purdy's original trial played out with Judge DeCampe presiding-one of her first trials, long before she became an appellate judge.”
“ What's so interesting about this guy, Purdy?”
“ He was in the same cell block as Goddard. They had to have known one another. Now Purdy has been fried. It could have something to do with your case, maybe… maybe not.”
“ This fellow Purdy by any chance from Iowa?”
Stonecoat's stentorian voice silenced. “I… I'm not sure. Will look into it. What does it matter? I mean, does it matter?” He quickly answered his own question with, “Of course it's important; otherwise, we wouldn't be discussing it, right?”
“ Suffice to say, it could be vital, yes.”
“ We're looking under every rock in Houston. Trust me.”
“ I'm sure you are. We'll forward the artist's sketch as soon as we have it. Hasn't actually been created as yet.”