The county attorney, Laird Hawlsey, was already seated when we came in. He shook my hand and smiled wanly. On my right was assistant DA Rick Zant. Hawlsey had a notepad open on his lap, but no writing on it. Zant slumped down with his legs crossed and his argyle socks showing. I wondered at this odd arrangement of the county’s defender and the county’s prosecutor teamed up in the same place. Lots of power right there, in those two men. Not to mention the sheriff-coroner himself.
“I like this room,” I said.
“Thank you,” Jim said.
He sighed and shook his head. He looked at me with an oddly objective, analytical expression.
“I’m not sure what to do,” he said. “All the years and all the things I’ve seen. And here I am, not sure what to do.”
I let the silence stretch.
“I’ll help if I can,” I offered.
“Terry, I’m going to take you up on that.”
He reached into the top drawer and took out a large pink envelope. Frances’s discovery in Chet’s den of obscenity, I thought, whatever it was that had made her ill enough to miss a day and a half of work. He handed it to me and said, “Take a look.”
The envelope contained three 5-by-7 color photographs. The top one was of a very young girl — prepubescent — fondling an older man. I stared at it for a long time. During that time I felt my heart pounding in my ears like a big drum, accompanied by a whine as loud as a siren. The second photograph showed the same girl and man, in coitus. The last was an oral act on his part. They were partially clothed. The light was dim and carnal. The camera was above them and seemed to maintain the same angle for all three shots, like it was on a tripod. The lens angle was wide enough to get some of the backdrop. You could see the thin line of a cord lying on the sleeping bag in one of the pictures. In the other two, the guy had the end of it in his hand. The photographs were unmistakably taken in the Laguna Canyon cave I used to drink in some nights. I’d never seen the girl before.
I was the guy.
My hands were trembling, but I looked straight into Jim Wade’s unhappy eyes.
“Cute party gag,” I said.
He nodded. All three of them were silent.
“You guys can’t believe they’re real.”
No. They could not.
Wade just stared at me, then down at his desk.
“Sonofabitch,” I said.
“What am I supposed to make of these?” he asked.
“Do you think I’d do something like that?”
“Someone with your face did.”
“Ah, shit, Jim.”
Again, the long stare.
“Just run them past Reilly,” I said. “A fake is a fake, and you can tell.”
Wade nodded again. Hawlsey stared down at his empty notepad. I heard Zant adjust himself in his seat, but didn’t look at him.
“Reilly analyzed them for me,” said Jim. “He’s not one of the forensic scientists at the FBI in Washington, but Reilly is pretty good. He says he isn’t sure. Says they might be retouched, fabricated somehow, like the tabloids do. If they are, he can’t see it. He says they might be real. Real pictures of a real event. He can’t see any signs of tampering at all.”
My guts had twisted around themselves and the terrible ringing in my ears got louder. “What’s Chet say about them?”
Zant looked at me. “He says he’s never seen them before.”
“Which is what he says about all that other shit we found in his house.”
“Yes, basically.”
“He mocked them up,” I said.
“He didn’t have the equipment to do that.”
More silence. I still wasn’t willing to believe that my peers even considered that I might really have been with that girl.
“Sheriff Wade,” I said. Then, turning first to Laird, then to Zant, “Counselor Hawlsey and Counselor Zant. I am going to tell you one thing now that’s the truth. There was no real event. This didn’t happen. And it pisses me off to no end that you’re sitting there thinking it did. Just for the record — fuck all of you.”
I stood up. In the second or two that passed next I could easily have attacked any of them. In fact, only their number deterred me: I couldn’t decide which one to throttle first.
The pictures and envelope hit the floor. The chair fell over behind me. My legs wobbled. My ears rang. I went to the window and looked through the curtains at the pure April sunshine beaming down on the riding arenas, the people in their colorful clothes, the tawny flanks of a jumper clearing the fence.
“Do you know the girl?” Zant asked.
“Of course I don’t, Rick.”
“I have to ask you these things. Have you seen her before?”
“I’ve never seen her, period.”
“Do you recognize the scene?” asked Hawlsey.
“It’s a cave out in Laguna Canyon. I slept in it a few times. Without girls.”
Jim Wade’s sigh hit me with gale force. I could hear one of the lawyers collecting the pictures off the floor.
“I’ll take you there. You can go through it,” I said. “You won’t find—”
“We have,” said Jim. “Hairs like the girl’s. Hair like yours. Fibers. Girl’s underwear. The mattress that’s in the pictures. The sleeping bag.”
My mind was burning itself alive, trying to keep up with the information.
“I took these pictures of myself?”
Silence again.
“Come on.”
“They’re convincing, Terry,” said Zant. “You look at them and they look real. And once presented with them, we have to do something. We can’t just toss them out because you work with us. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Who knows about this?”
No response. They were going to make me work.
“Melinda?” I asked.
“She doesn’t know,” said Jim. “I talked to her but she doesn’t know. I got the location of the cave from her. Some other things. She doesn’t know it all. I thought... well. That part of it is between you and Melinda, Terry.”
“That’s really kind of you,” I managed. “Ishmael?”
“Ishmael, Vega and Woolton,” said Jim. “Hawlsey and Zant. Johnny and Louis. That was my decision. Nobody else.”
“Don’t forget Frances,” I said.
“It killed her to bring these things to me, Terry.”
“It hasn’t done a lot for my mood, either,” I said quietly. Outside another sun-blanched horse glided through the sky over the poles. The applause came muffled through the glass. I saw a helicopter descending from the blue — the governor, no doubt, arriving in time to watch my execution.
“So, what are you going to do, Sheriff?”
“Just take a week of special duty, at home. It will give us the time we need. It will keep you paid. It will keep things quiet for a while.”
“The Horridus.”
“CAY can work The Horridus.”
“While I sit on my butt for eight hours a day?”
“I thought of a leave of absence, due to the stress of watching your friend blow out his brains in Chet’s backyard. A suspension would be good insurance, but bad faith. An arrest wasn’t out of the question, based on what you’re holding in your hand there and the way we found them. I’d be happy if I were you. I’m going to move carefully. Those are copies. I’ve sent the originals to the FBI. Reilly is processing what we found in the cave. If a case arises against you, Terry, we’re going to prosecute it If it doesn’t, we’re going to owe you a rather huge apology.”
“For what it’s worth,” said Zant, “I hope it’s the latter.”
Somehow, my nerves had repaired themselves and the ringing had left my ears. I felt blanched and drained, but in control of my own parts.
“What about the press?” I asked.
“They don’t need to know.”
“They’ll find out.”
“Not from us, they won’t,” said Wade. “You’re on special duty. That’s all it is right now, Terry.”
There was a heavy silence in the dark room, undercut with the cheers from outside. Hawlsey was still buried in his blank notepad. Zant sat forward like a fan at a boxing match.
Sheriff Wade was rigid in his chair, with his arms on the desk and his head cocked just slightly as he looked at me. “Naughton, stay low. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be what it looks like. That’s for your sake as well as my own.”
“It already isn’t what it looks like,” I said.
“Noted.”
I set up the chair I’d knocked over. “You think I did it? Jim? Rick? Laird?”
The question hung in the air like the silence after a scream. No one spoke.
“I’ll tell you something,” I said. “You gloomy chickenshit bureaucrats are all going to regret this. A lot. I promise. Not quite as much as the sonofabitch who did it, maybe, but a lot.”
“Naughton,” said Wade, “give us the same respect we’re trying to give you. You’re a good investigator and a decent-seeming guy, when you’re not sinking your teeth into somebody’s ankle. You are also not in possession of photographs picturing me with underage girls. I have those, of you. That means I could roll your head and wash my hands right now, and save a big gamble. The CAY unit leader doesn’t show up in photographs with girls. It stinks up my entire department. If the media finds out, and I’m not doing something, my head rolls right alongside yours, down the ramp and into the basket. So I’m doing something. I’m gathering the facts. Lay low. Let the facts come in. If you’re scared of what we’ll find, then sell your house and get the best lawyers you can afford. If you’re not, you might actually think about cooperating. In the meantime, stay out of my sight. And when the Classic is over, get off my property.”