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  ‘Mrs Maitland?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You look like you had a thought there.’

  ‘I did, actually. I was thinking that sitting next to you on this bench is very uncomfortable. It’s like sitting next to an oven that knows how to breathe.’

  Fresh color rose in Betsy Riggins’s already flushed cheeks. On one hand, Marcy was horrified at what she had just said – the cruelty of it. On the other, she was delighted that she had gotten in a thrust that seemed to have gone home.

  In any case, Riggins asked no more questions.

  What seemed like an endless time later, Sablo came back, holding a clear plastic bag that contained all the pills from the downstairs medicine cabinet (OTC stuff, their few prescriptions were in the two bathrooms upstairs), and Terry’s tube of hemorrhoid cream. ‘All clear,’ he said.

  ‘You first,’ Riggins said.

  Under other circumstances, Marcy surely would have deferred to the pregnant lady and held her water a bit longer, but not under these. She went in, closed the door, and saw the cover of the toilet tank was on crooked. They had been probing in there for God knew what – drugs, seemed most likely. She urinated with her head lowered and her face in her hands, so she didn’t have to look at the rest of the disarray. Was she going to bring Sarah and Grace back here tonight? Was she going to escort them through the glare of the TV lights, which would undoubtedly be set up by then? And if not here, where? A hotel? Wouldn’t they (the vultures, the trooper had called them) still find them? Of course they would.

  When she finished emptying out, Betsy Riggins went. Marcy slipped into the dining room, having no wish to share the hall bench again with Officer Shamu. The cops were going through Terry’s desk – raping his desk, really, all the drawers out, most of the contents piled on the floor. His computer had already been dismantled, the various components plastered with yellow stickers, as if in preparation for a tag sale.

  Marcy thought, An hour ago the most important thing in my life was a Golden Dragons win and a trip to the finals.

  Betsy Riggins returned. ‘Oh, that’s so much better,’ she said, sitting down at the dining room table. ‘And will be, for a whole fifteen minutes.’

  Marcy opened her mouth and what almost came out was I hope your baby dies.

  Instead of that she said, ‘It’s nice that someone’s feeling better. Even for fifteen minutes.’

  16

  Statement of Mr Claude Bolton [July 13th, 4:30 PM, interviewed by Detective Ralph Anderson]

  Detective Anderson: Well, Claude, it must be nice for you to be here when you’re not in trouble. Refreshing.

  Bolton: You know, it kind of is. And to get a ride in the front of a police car instead of in the back. Ninety miles an hour most of the way back from Cap City. Lights, siren, the whole works. You’re right. It was nice.

  Detective Anderson: What were you doing in Cap?

  Bolton: Seeing the sights. Had a couple of nights off, so why not? No law against it, is there?

  Detective Anderson: I understand you were seeing them with Carla Jeppeson, known as Pixie Dreamboat when she’s working.

  Bolton: You should know, since she came back in the cruiser with me. She also appreciated the ride, by the way. Said it beat the hell out of Trailways.

  Detective Anderson: And the sights you saw, most of those would have been in Room 509 of the Western Vista Motel out on Highway 40?

  Bolton: Oh, we didn’t spend all our time there. Went to Bonanza for dinner twice. They give you a damn good meal there, and for cheap. Also, Carla wanted to go to the mall, so we spent some time there. They have a climbing wall, and I killed that sucker.

  Detective Anderson: I’ll bet you did. Were you aware that a boy had been murdered here in Flint City?

  Bolton: I might have seen something on the news. Listen, you don’t think I had anything to do with that, do you?

  Detective Anderson: No, but you may have information concerning the person who did.

  Bolton: How could I—

  Detective Anderson: You work as a bouncer at Gentlemen, Please, isn’t that correct?

  Bolton: I’m part of the security staff. We don’t use the term bouncer. Gentlemen, Please is a high-class establishment.

  Detective Anderson: We won’t argue the point. You were working Tuesday night, I’m told. Didn’t leave FC until Wednesday afternoon.

  Bolton: Was it Tony Ross told you me and Carla went to Cap City?

  Detective Anderson: Yes.

  Bolton: We got a rate at that motel because Tony’s uncle owns it. Tony was also on duty Tuesday night, that’s when I asked him to call his unc. We’re tight, me and Tony. We were on the door from four until eight, then in the pit from eight to midnight. The pit is in front of the stage, where the gentlemen sit.

  Detective Anderson: Mr Ross also told me that on or around eight thirty, you saw someone you recognized.

  Bolton: Oh, you mean Coach T. Hey, you don’t think he was the one who did that kid, do you? Because Coach T’s a straight arrow. He coached Tony’s nephews in Pop Warner and in Little League. I was surprised to see him in our place, but not shocked. You’d never guess some of the people we see in the pit – bankers, lawyers, even a couple of men of the cloth. But it’s like they say about Vegas: what happens in Gent’s stays in—

  Detective Anderson: Uh-huh, I’m sure you’re as discreet as priests in the confessional.

  Bolton: Joke about it if you want, but we are. If you want repeat business, you have to be.

  Detective Anderson: Also for the record, Claude, when you say Coach T, you’re talking about Terry Maitland.

  Bolton: Sure.

  Detective Anderson: Tell me how you happened to see him.

  Bolton: We don’t spend all of our time in the pit, okay? There’s more to the job than that. Most of the time we’re there, circulating, making sure none of the guys get their hands on the girls, and stopping fights before they get going – when guys get randy, they also can get aggressive, you must know that in your line of work. But the pit’s not the only place trouble can start, it’s just the most likely place, so one of us stays there all the time. The other one floats – checks the bar, the little alcove where there’s a few video games and a coin-op pool table, the private dance cubbies, and of course the men’s room. That’s where your drug deals are apt to go down, and if we see them, we put a stop to them and kick the guys out.

  Detective Anderson: Says the man who’s got a jacket for possession and possession with intent to sell.

  Bolton: All due respect, sir, but that’s just mean. I’ve been clean for six years. Go to NA and all. You want me to drop a urine? Happy to oblige.

  Detective Anderson: That won’t be necessary, and I congratulate you on your sobriety. So you were circulating around eight thirty—

  Bolton: That’s right. I checked the bar, then I started down the hall to take a peek in the men’s, and that’s where I saw Coach T, just hanging up the phone. There are two pay phones back there, but only one of them works. He was …

  Detective Anderson: Claude? You kind of dropped out on me there.

  Bolton: Just thinking. Remembering. He looked kind of funny. In a daze, like. You really think he killed that kid? I thought it was just because it was his first visit to a place where young ladies take off their clothes. It gets some guys that way, makes them kinda stupid. Or he might’ve been high. I said, ‘Hey, Coach, how’s that team of yours looking?’ And he gives me this stare like he’s never seen me before, although I went to just about every one of the Pop Warner games Stevie and Stanley played in, and told him about how to run a double reverse, which he never did because he said it was too complex for little kids. Although if they can learn long division, they ought to be able to learn something like that, don’t you think?

  Detective Anderson: You’re sure it was Terence Maitland.

  Bolton: Oh God, yes. He said the team was fine, and told me he just stopped in to call a cab. Sort of like the way we all
used to say we only read Playboy for the articles when our wives saw it in the bathroom beside the toilet. But I went along with it, the customer is always right at Gentlemen’s as long as he doesn’t try to grab a handful of tit. Told him there might be a cab or two outside already. He said the dispatcher already told him that, and thanked me, and off he went.

  Detective Anderson: What was he wearing?

  Bolton: Yellow shirt, jeans. Belt buckle with a horse’s head on it. Fancy sneakers. I remember those, because they looked pretty expensive.

  Detective Anderson: Were you the only one who saw him in the club?

  Bolton: No, I saw a couple of guys tip him a wave as he went out. Don’t know who they were, and you might have trouble finding them, because a lot of guys don’t want to admit they like to visit places like Gent’s. Just a fact of life. I wasn’t surprised he got recognized, because Terry’s pretty close to famous around here. Even won some sort of award a few years back, I saw that in the paper. Call it Flint City all you want, it’s really just a small town where most everybody knows everybody else, at least by face. And anybody with sons who are what you’d call athletically inclined, they know Coach T from baseball or football.

  Detective Anderson: Thank you, Claude. This has been helpful.

  Bolton: I remember one other thing, no big deal but kind of spooky if he really was the one who killed that kid.

  Detective Anderson: Go on.

  Bolton: It was just one of those things that happen, nobody’s fault. He was on his way out to see if there was a cab, right? I stuck out my hand and said, ‘I want to thank you for everything you did for Tony’s nephews, Coach. They’re good boys, but a little rambunctious, maybe because of their folks getting divorced and all. You gave ’em something to do besides hell around town.’ I think I surprised him, because he jerked back a little before he shook with me. He had a good strong grip, though, and … see this little scab on the back of my hand? He did it with his pinky nail when we shook. It’s pretty much healed up already, wasn’t no more than a nick in the first place, but it took me back to my drug days for a second or two.

  Detective Anderson: Why is that?

  Bolton: Some guys – Hells Angels and Devils Disciples, mostly – used to grow out one of their pinky nails. I’ve seen some as long as those Chinese emperors used to have. Some of the bikers even decorate ’em with decals, like the ladies do on theirs. They call it their coke nail.

  17

  After the arrest at the baseball field there was no possibility of Ralph playing the good cop in a good cop/bad cop scenario, so he simply stood leaning against the wall of the interview room, looking on. He was prepared for another of those accusing stares, but Terry only glanced at him briefly, and with no expression at all, before turning his attention to Bill Samuels, who had taken a seat in one of the three chairs on the other side of the table.

  Studying Samuels now, Ralph began to get an idea of how he had risen so high so quickly. While the two of them were standing on the other side of the one-way glass, the DA had simply looked a bit young for the job. Now, facing Frankie Peterson’s rapist and killer, he looked even younger, like a law office intern who had (due to some mixup, probably) landed this interview with a big-time perp. Even the little Alfalfa cowlick sticking up from the back of his head added to the role the man had slipped into: untried youth, just happy to be here. You can tell me anything, said those wide, interested eyes, because I’ll believe it. This is my first time playing with the big boys, and I just don’t know any better.

  ‘Hello, Mr Maitland,’ Samuels said. ‘I work in the county DA’s office.’

  Good start, Ralph thought. You are the county DA’s office.

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ Terry said. ‘I’m not going to talk to you until my lawyer gets here. I will say that I see a sizeable wrongful arrest suit in your future.’

  ‘I understand that you’re upset, in your position, anyone would be. Maybe we can iron it out right here. Can you just tell me where you were when the Peterson boy was killed? That was on last Tuesday afternoon. If you were somewhere else, then—’

  ‘I was,’ Terry said, ‘but I intend to discuss that with my lawyer before I discuss it with you. His name is Howard Gold. When he gets here, I’ll want to talk to him privately. I assume that’s my right? Since I’m presumed innocent until proven guilty?’

  Quick recovery, Ralph thought. A career criminal couldn’t have done it better.

  ‘It is indeed,’ Samuels said. ‘But if you haven’t done anything—’

  ‘Don’t try, Mr Samuels. You didn’t bring me here because you’re a nice guy.’

  ‘Actually, I am,’ Samuels said earnestly. ‘If there’s been a mistake, I’m as interested in getting it straightened out as you are.’

  ‘You have some hair sticking up in back,’ Terry said. ‘Might want to do something about that. It makes you look like Alfalfa in the old comedies I used to watch when I was a kid.’

  Ralph didn’t even come close to laughing, but one corner of his mouth twitched. That he couldn’t help.

  Momentarily put off-balance, Samuels raised a hand to smooth down the cowlick. It laid flat for a moment, then sprang back up.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to clear this up?’ Samuels leaned forward, his earnest expression suggesting that Terry was making a bad mistake.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Terry said. ‘And I’m sure about the suit, too. I don’t think there’s a settlement large enough to pay for what you sorry sons of bitches did tonight – not just to me, but to my wife and girls – but I intend to find out.’

  Samuels sat where he was for a moment longer – leaning forward, innocently hopeful eyes locked on Terry’s – and then he stood up. The innocent look disappeared. ‘Okay. Fine. You can confer with your lawyer, Mr Maitland, that’s your right. No audio, no video, we’ll even draw the curtain. If you two are quick about it, maybe we can get this squared away tonight. I’ve got an early tee time in the morning.’

  Terry looked as if he had misheard. ‘Golf?’

  ‘Golf. It’s a game where you try to knock the little ball into the cup. I’m not very good at it, but I’m very good at this game, Mr Maitland. And as the estimable Mr Gold will tell you, we can hold you here for forty-eight hours without charging you. It won’t actually be that long. If we can’t clarify this, we’ll take you for arraignment bright and early on Monday morning. Your arrest will be statewide news by then, so there will be plenty of coverage. I’m sure the photographers will get your good side.’

  Having gotten what he assumed was the last word, Samuels almost strutted to the door (Ralph guessed Terry’s comment about the cowlick still rankled). Before he could open it, Terry said, ‘Hey, Ralph.’

  Ralph turned. Terry looked calm, which was extraordinary under the circumstances. Or maybe not. Sometimes the really cold ones, the sociopaths, found that calm after the initial shock, and buckled down for the long haul. Ralph had seen it before.

  ‘I’m not going to discuss any of this until Howie gets here, but I want to tell you one thing.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ That was Samuels, trying not to sound eager, but his face fell at what Terry said next.

  ‘Derek was the best drag bunter I ever had.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Ralph said. He could hear the rage trembling in his voice, a kind of vibrato. ‘Don’t go there. I don’t want to hear my son’s name come out of your mouth. Not tonight, not ever.’

  Terry nodded. ‘I can relate, because I never wanted to be arrested in front of my wife and daughters and a thousand other people, many of them my neighbors. So never mind what you don’t want to hear. Just listen a minute. I think you owe me that for doing it the nasty way.’

  Ralph opened the door, but Samuels put a hand on his arm, shook his head, and raised his eyes slightly to the camera in the corner with its small red light. Ralph closed the door again and turned back to Terry, crossing his arms over his chest. He had an idea that Terry’s idea of payback for the public arr
est was going to hurt, but he knew Samuels was right. A suspect talking was always better than a suspect clamming up until his lawyer arrived. Because one thing had a way of leading to another.

  Terry said, ‘Derek couldn’t have been more than four-ten or -eleven back in Little League. I’ve seen him since – tried to get him to play for City last year, as a matter of fact – and he’s grown six inches since then. He’ll be taller than you by the time he graduates from high school, I bet.’

  Ralph waited.

  ‘He was a shrimp, but he was never afraid in the batter’s box. A lot of them are, but Derek would stand in even against the kids who’d wind up and fling the ball with no idea of where it was going. Got hit half a dozen times, but he never gave in.’

  It was the truth. Ralph had seen the bruises after some of the games, when D peeled off his uniform: on the butt, on the thigh, on the arm, on the shoulder. Once there had been a perfect black and blue circle on the nape of his neck. Those hits had driven Jeanette crazy, and the batting helmet Derek wore didn’t comfort her; every time D stepped into the batter’s box, she had gripped Ralph’s arm almost hard enough to bring blood, afraid the kid would eventually take one between the eyes and wind up in a coma. Ralph assured her it wouldn’t happen, but he had been almost as glad as Jeannie was when Derek decided tennis was more his game. The balls were softer.

  Terry leaned forward, actually smiling a little.

  ‘A kid that short usually gets a lot of walks – as a matter of fact, that’s sort of what I was hoping for tonight, when I let Trevor Michaels bat for himself – but Derek wasn’t going to get cheated. He’d flail at just about anything – inside, outside, over his head or in the dirt. Some of the kids started calling him Whiffer Anderson, then one of them changed it to Swiffer, like the mop, and that stuck. At least for awhile.’