Lucas Stonecoat replied, “We've begun with traffic records, any tickets, maybe DMV and also have my computer whiz kid cross-reference between the DeCampe caseload and anything to do with threats.”
“ We're doing the same here. That's how we focused on Goddard.”
“ I'll have him cross for anything doing with Iowa and Purdy then.”
“ Same here.” Jessica hung up, sighed heavily, and leaned into an institutional gray wall. “Man, I hope something substantive comes of Marsden's interrogation. For all we know, he's making it up as he goes. That's what one voice is telling me; another voice is telling me he's our best shot yet.” Santiva, who had listened intently in on her side of the conversation with Detective Stonecoat, now said, “Jess, keep me posted on what you learn from Texas and from Jasper, Georgia.”
“ Course, will do.”
“ And Jess…”
“ Uh-huhr
“ You sure got some second sight or something.”
“ Meaning?”
“ I'm sure glad you kept me out of the interrogation box and away from this guy, Marsden.”
“ And why's that, Eriq?”
“ I might've strangled him when he dropped it about the dog.”
Jessica laughed lightly, and Eriq, shaking his head, went in search of his office, a little privacy with his phone, paperwork, and coffee, no doubt. “It's going to be a long night,” he muttered back at her from the elevator where he now stood.
Aren't they all? Jessica thought but only waved Santiva off.
She turned to stare at the interrogation room where Richard Sharpe, now one of Santiva's agents, continued to study Marsden through the one-way; but overhearing Santiva's last remark, he heartily agreed in her ear as she came close, saying, “The boss is right. It's going to be a long night, dear heart.” Sharpe had made his presence felt on the case, and at the same time he had often put Santiva at ease, acting as a kind of right-hand man for Eriq. Jessica's only fear was that Richard might get assigned to direct duty alongside Eriq. That would be a nightmare come true, Jessica thought. Richard would not own his own time if that should become the case. It would be like the relationship she had with Santiva-always on call. Like her, Richard would never know peace. “Yeah, long night,” she agreed.
Eriq disappeared via the elevator, and Jessica imagined him, instead of rushing back to his stuffy office, going straight for a set of doors that opened onto the world outside. Air, a clean breeze, something Jessica herself wanted right now so badly. Instead, she turned back to Richard, taking him in her arms, saying, “I could sure use a hug about now.”
“ I'll take one as well,” he replied, obliging. They stood that way in the corridor outside the interrogation room. “I think I've seen enough of Dr. Marsden to last me.”
They kissed. “Strange case,” he muttered when their lips parted.
“ And getting stranger by the moment. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, not just for the judge but for Kim.”
“ Did she really appear as bad as you say?”
“ Worse.”
“ But if they're psychosomatic lesions-”
“ No, no, these were as real as knife cuts.”
Keyes stepped off the elevator and came through a milling crowd of agents and toward Jessica. “I'll write up my notes on the interrogation,” she said, her hands full with some food in a bag from a nearby Boston Market. “Your captain requested a copy pronto. Caught him on the way out.”
Jessica momentarily wondered what words had transpired between Santiva and Keyes, and if Keyes were working for Jessica or for Eriq. She wondered if Keyes might not be the eyes and ears of the upper brass, peeking over Jessica's shoulder. It wasn't unheard of in the organization.
“ Yeah, me, too,” added Jessica, looking weary and shopworn. “Poor Eriq needs PR fodder, and he needs it badly.” Jessica smiled, then frowned and shook her head. “The eyes of a nation are on our every move, Dr. Keyes. Imagine if we fail. Who's going to be the first to blink?”
Keyes gave her a firm glare and replied, “Certainly not the most famous forensic detective in die history of the bureau, not Dr. Jessica Coran.”
TIME relentlessly reminded them with each passing hour that Judge DeCampe's life hung in the balance. Only Jessica, J. T., and Richard knew that Kim's life, too, hung in the balance. The situation gave Jessica pause, and she wondered if Kim's eerie malady might not simply disappear with Judge DeCampe's demise. If the judge were dead, then why wouldn't the psychic leprosy simply end? It made Jessica hopeful on the one hand that DeCampe might yet be found alive, but it also twisted a dark key in Jessica's mind as well. If the logic proved true, that with the Judge's death Kim might be released from her pain and suffering, Jessica could not help but choose Kim's life over that of the judge's.
She confided these thoughts to no one save Richard, who had held her firmly to him when she finished speaking. They had found a moment in her office.
Meanwhile, the hunt for the appeals court judge continued. No one was idle. Every lead was followed. The team narrowed the search after gaining new insight into the case, thanks to information coming from different sources, which all began to converge. Aside from what they'd gathered from the hobo thief, that a man old enough to have been the victim's father accosted DeCampe, a sketch-artist likeness had now been put together from Marsden's befuddled brain. The likeness, which Jessica prayed was likeness enough, now circulated to everyone in law enforcement nationwide. A call to John Walsh's producer at America's Most Wanted had gotten instant results. The story was run on an emergency basis, and now the media everywhere had both the story and pictures of Judge DeCampe and her suspected abductor, as well as a description of the suspect vehicle. But even Walsh called up to complain that the man in the composite looked like everybody's grandpa. In fact, the likeness drawn of the man they were so desperately seeking closely resembled George Burns. Add a cigar and a baseball cap as when Burns portrayed the role of God in the film Oh God, and it proved a perfect likeness. Some law enforcement people openly laughed at the depiction. It certainly didn't look like a desperate criminal; in fact, it looked cartoonish.
Jessica and Richard returned to the operations room.
“ Get me Detective Lucas Stonecoat in Houston, Texas,” Jessica ordered the civilian secretary who had been turned over to the task force.
“ It's only seven A.M. in Houston, Dr. Coran.”
“ I don't give a damn what time it is. Get me Stonecoat.”
“ Yes ma'am. Will see what I can do.”
Jessica reached for the bottle of Tylenol someone had brought her earlier, and she downed three tablets with a swill of Coca-Cola.
In a moment, the secretary tossed back her hair, saying, “Stonecoat is cm one. They patched us through to his home.”
“ Did you get the likeness we sent of the suspect?” Jessica said into the phone. “We laser-faxed it an hour ago.”
“ Got it, yeah. Some old geezer, I'm told. How sure is your information?”
“ We're certain of it. We think he's out for some kind of revenge motive. You guys turn up anything since last we talked?”
“ We're planning a ride out to Huntsville, see what went on there with respect to Jimmy Lee Purdy's execution and body. With the sketch, we'll have something for show and tell. Been my experience that most cons respond to pictures a lot sooner than words.”
“ Keep us posted. The clock's ticking.”
“ Yeah, understood.”
Jessica feared the Huntsville, Texas, execution and this guy Goddard, awaiting execution, would be just another blind alley.
NINE
Startling, like the first handful of mould cast on the coffined dead.
Texas State Penitentiary, Huntsville, Texas