The Library at Mount Char Part 11

"S'aright."

"Who you here to see?"

"A guy named Steve Hodgson."

The deputy's face darkened. "The cop killer? What you want with him?"

Erwin, clever, saw his way out. "Can't talk about it," he lied. "National security."

"For real?"

"Oh yeah." He could see that Rogers's brother believed this completely. That made him feel a little bad. Not as bad as he would have felt continuing the conversation, but bad. "Yeah. It's all real f.u.c.king cla.s.sified and s.h.i.t. Tell Sergeant Rogers I asked after him."

"I will, sir." He hesitated. "Could I...could I maybe get your autograph?"

Erwin weighed his options. One of them was to beat the guy a little bit unconscious. That worked sometimes. Usually after they get a autograph they let me go, though. Plus the lobby was full of security cameras. "Yeah. Sure."

The deputy pa.s.sed out a clipboard with a blank sheet of typing paper. Erwin signed it, pa.s.sed it back. Rogers's brother took the autograph and put it in a drawer with trembling hands. "I'm gonna have to put you in the chapel."

"The chapel?"

"Yeah. Visitation room is full, unless you want to wait."

"The chapel's fine." The toilet would have been fine. He just wanted out, away from Rogers's brother and the endless parade of awful s.h.i.t that lurked, trembling and eager, just beneath the surface of his babble.

III.

Rogers's brother searched Erwin's bag and took his weapon, but let him keep the laptop and manila folders. As they searched, another deputy skittered around whispering. So Erwin wasn't surprised when a different guy-a sheriff's lieutenant, no less-handed him his guest ID and walked him down the long hall to the chapel. He's probably the highest-ranking guy in the building, Erwin thought, bracing himself.

Sure enough, when they got to the steel door: "I, uh. I read. I read that book they wrote about you. Well, mostly. About what you did in-how do you p.r.o.nounce that place?"

"Natanz," Erwin said.

"Is it really true that-"

"Nope," Erwin said. He could go weeks at a time without anyone recognizing him, but there were also days where it seemed like everybody he ran into with even the tiniest connection to the military turned out to have read the book, or seen the movie, or that thing on the History Channel. Today was shaping up to be one of those. "It's total bulls.h.i.t." Maybe I should grow a beard?

"Oh. I don't read much, but-"

Erwin strode into the chapel, shut the door behind him. Inside, he looked around. His job carried him into the occasional jail, but this was his very first jail chapel. It was maybe twenty feet on a side and windowless. It smelled of paint. He had expected rows of metal folding chairs-it was that kind of building-but instead he saw six concrete benches set into the floor, each wide enough for three or four guys. Interestingly, there were no crosses in sight. Political correctness, maybe? The only real features were a plain pine podium at the front of the room and a framed painting on the wall.

With nothing better to do and not eager to settle his middle-aged a.s.s onto the concrete bench, Erwin walked over to check the painting out. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good, either. It had the simple, blocky representationalism of medieval iconography and prison tattoos. A small man with nut-brown skin-Jesus? Mohammed? Other?-stood in the center of the picture. The sun burned down behind him, leaving his face in shadow. He held out his hands, blessing a motley array of people and animals gathered in the light. The holy dude and his supplicants were surrounded by darkness.

The chapel door opened. A middle-aged guy in khakis and a grease-spotted Izod walked in. "You Leffington?"

"Call me Erwin. Yeah."

"I'm Larry Dorn."

"Yeah, hi. Where's the kid?" Dorn was Steve Hodgson's public defender.

"He'll be along. I asked them to give us a minute first. I wanted to talk to you."

"Sure," Erwin said. "Be happy to." This was a lie. They had spoken on the phone a couple of times. Dorn came across as sort of a sack of s.h.i.t, in Erwin's opinion. But he controlled access to the Hodgson kid.

While Dorn looked the papers over, Erwin occupied himself with staring at the painting. At first glance the surrounding darkness was completely black, but from the right angle you could see that it wasn't, not really. The paint was layered. If you looked at it right you could see figures in the darkness, devils maybe, and- "Everything looks in order," Dorn said.

"Yeah. For what it's worth, I don't give much of a s.h.i.t about your boy. Only reason I'm talking to him is that he might know something about another case."

"What a relief," Dorn said. His voice fairly dripped with sarcasm.

"Not real fond of him?"

"Nope. I knew Detective Miner. Our daughters played together sometimes."

"That gonna be a problem for you, defending him?"

Dorn shrugged. "What's to defend? They found him pa.s.sed out drunk on Miner's dining-room table. The gun that killed Miner was in his hands. It had his prints on it." Dorn looked like he wanted to strangle his own client. It ain't looking real good for the defense.

"Just his prints?"

"No. Miner's too. And a thumb print on the light switch from a third party we haven't made yet."

Yeah, we have, Erwin thought. You just don't know it yet.

"Anything else?"

"Like what?"

"Like anything."

Dorn pursed his lips for a moment, considering. Then he shrugged. "Yeah. There was this." He rooted around in a folder and handed over a stack of 8 10 glossies of the crime scene.

"Lotta guts on that china cabinet," Erwin said. "We know who they belonged to?" Carolyn, maybe? Or maybe Lisa?

"We're still waiting on the lab work."

"It was a shotgun what did it, though. The same one?"

Dorn popped an eyebrow. "Good eye. You in forensics?"

"Not really." He had killed a lot of people with shotguns. "That there's a piece of lung, looks like. It ain't the victim's"-his lungs were mostly in the kitchen-"and this Steve kid is up and walking around, so it probably ain't his either. You guys wonder about that?"

"Not really, no. What are you getting at?"

Erwin sighed. How'd this guy make it through law school? "Anybody gone looking for this mystery chick of his?"

"Who?" Dorn said. "The one at the bar? He made her up."

"I thought you had witnesses who saw the two of them together."

"We do. But that's all we have. If she was ever at Miner's house, she didn't leave any fingerprints, any footprints, not so much as a stray hair. Do you know how hard it is to walk through someone's house and not leave any trace?"

"I dunno. Pretty hard, I guess. Thing is, though, she did leave a print."

Dorn's face clouded. "You're kidding me."

"Nope."

"Which, the one on the light switch? It wasn't in IAFIS," Dorn said, meaning the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

"That's right," Erwin said. "It wasn't." He was going to let the phrase hang there, pregnant with all sorts of sinister implications about the information he had access to, but just then the door to the chapel clanged open. This disappointed Erwin. It spoiled the f.u.c.king moment.

A different deputy walked in clutching a skinny white guy with short brown hair. Erwin recognized Steve Hodgson from his mug shot. The deputy shoved him at Erwin the way you'd push a sack of trash into a landfill.

Erwin looked him over. Is that him? Is that all there is? He wasn't quite a kid, not anymore. Early thirties, maybe? He was in an orange jail jumpsuit, faded and fraying at the edges. No visible tattoos. He didn't look like a junkie, but his eyes jumped around, alert and maybe a little sh.e.l.l-shocked.

Dorn nodded at the guard. "Thanks."

"I gotta lock you in Mr. Leffington, sir," the guard said. "I'm real sorry. I gotta say, though, it's a honor to-"

"It's no problem," Dorn said. "Thanks."

Looking thwarted, the guard shut the door.

The Hodgson kid immediately started asking Dorn about someone named Petey, whether Dorn had heard anything about him. Who the f.u.c.k is Petey? He made a mental note but didn't interrupt.

Dorn looked at the guy like he was a f.u.c.king idiot. "Don't you have bigger things to worry about?"

Erwin could see desperation in Steve's eyes, but he kept it out of his voice. "Yeah. I know. I just wondered if-"

"Yeah. OK. Fine. Your friend called. He said he picked up your dog. That's all I got."

Hodgson nodded, smiled a little. Tension visibly slid off him. He shuffled over to one of the concrete benches, his thin blue prison slippers scuffing against the shiny linoleum. The manacles didn't leave him much room to move.

Up for murder one and all he cares about is his dog? When he got close enough Erwin stood up and held out his hand. Steve looked startled, but after a moment he reached out to the length of the chain and gave Erwin a little shake.

"I'm Erwin," Erwin said.

"Steve Hodgson." He thought about it for a second. "'Pleased to meet you,' isn't quite right, but I'll admit I'm curious. What can I do for you, Mr.-"

"It's Erwin," Erwin said. "Always call me Erwin." Steve's eyes narrowed at this. Probably wondering if I'm playing "good cop."

"I was hoping I could ask you a couple of questions. You mind if I call you Steve?"

"Sure. Whatever." Steve sat on one of the benches. "I don't suppose you've got a cigarette, do you? I'd drop-kick the baby Jesus for a Marlboro."

"Sorry. Don't smoke. Want a dip?" Erwin noticed that Steve took a couple of extra steps so that he could sit with his back to the wall. Erwin had done the same thing.

Steve considered. "I'll pa.s.s. Thanks, though."

"I've read your case file," Erwin said. "If what you say is true, sounds like you got well and truly f.u.c.ked over."

Steve gave him a wry smile. "Yeah. Oddly enough, I had that same thought."

"Any idea why she'd want to do such a thing?"

Again, Steve looked startled. "You believe me?"

"Dunno yet. You ain't said much."

Steve gave Dorn a resentful look. Dorn hadn't made a secret of the fact that he thought the woman, if she existed at all, was awfully convenient. "Up until now no one seemed interested. But to answer your question, no. I have no idea why she'd want to do something like this to me. Or anyone else, for that matter." But something flickered in his eyes as he said it.

"You got a clean conscience, do ya?"

Steve gave him a long, appraising look. "You don't miss much, do you? No. I don't have a clean conscience. I did something a long time ago. A friend of mine got hurt. Probably his parents hated me enough to do something like this, if they would have thought of it, but Celia died of a heart attack seven years ago and Martin shot himself the year after."

"That's a sad f.u.c.king story," Erwin said.

"You making fun of me?"

"I am not," Erwin said. "For what it's worth, I get it. I've got plenty of s.h.i.t I wish I could take back. Keeps me up some nights."

Steve studied him for a moment, then relaxed a little. "OK. Sorry."

"You think this Carolyn chick has anything to do with that?"

Steve's brow wrinkled. "I don't see how she could," he said. "But there's a whole lot about her that I don't understand at all."

"Why don't you start at the beginning," Erwin said. "Tell me everything you remember. Take your time. I got all day."

IV.