فصل 20 - بخش 02

20

Ralph got a text on his way to the county jail. It was from Kinderman, in State Police Computer Forensics. Ralph pulled over at once and called back. Kinderman answered on the first ring.

‘Don’t you guys take Sunday night off?’ Ralph asked.

‘What can I say, we’re geeks.’ In the background, Ralph could hear the bellow of a heavy metal band. ‘Besides, I always think that good news can wait, but bad news should be passed on right away. We’re not done exploring Maitland’s hard drives for hidden files, and some of these kiddy-fiddlers can be pretty clever about that, but on the surface, he’s clean. No kiddie porn, no porn of any kind. Not on his desktop, not on his laptop, not on his iPad, not on his phone. He looks like Mr White Hat.’

‘What about his history?’

‘There’s plenty, but all stuff you’d expect – shopping sites like Amazon, news blogs like Huffington Post, half a dozen sports sites. He keeps track of the Major League standings, and he appears to be a fan of the Tampa Bay Rays. That alone suggests there’s something wrong with his head. He watches Ozark on Netflix, and The Americans on iTunes. I enjoy that one myself.’

‘Keep digging.’

‘It’s what they pay me for.’

Ralph parked in an OFFICIAL VEHICLES ONLY slot behind the county jail, took his on-duty card from the glove compartment, and put it on the dashboard. A corrections officer – L. KEENE, according to his name-tag – was waiting for him, and escorted him to one of the interview rooms. ‘This is irregular, Detective. It’s almost ten o’clock.’

‘I’m aware of the time, and I’m not here for recreational purposes.’

‘Does the DA know you’re here?’

‘Above your pay grade, Officer Keene.’

Ralph sat down on one side of the table and waited to see if Terry would agree to make an appearance. No porn on Terry’s computers, and no stashes of porn in the house, at least that they had found so far. But, as Kinderman had pointed out, pedos could be clever.

How clever was it for him to show his face, though? And leave fingerprints?

He knew what Samuels would say: Terry was in a frenzy. Once (it seemed like a long time ago) this had made sense to Ralph.

Keene led Terry in. He was wearing county browns and cheap plastic flip-flops. His hands were cuffed in front of him.

‘Take off the bracelets, Officer.’

Keene shook his head. ‘Protocol.’

‘I’ll take responsibility.’

Keene smiled without humor. ‘No, Detective, you will not. This is my house, and if he decides to leap across the table and choke you, it’s on me. But tell you what, I won’t tether him to the cuff-bolt. How’s that?’

Terry smiled at this, as if to say You see what I have to deal with?

Ralph sighed. ‘You can leave us, Officer Keene. And thanks.’

Keene left, but he would be watching through the one-way glass. Probably listening, as well. This was going to get back to Samuels; there was simply no way around it.

Ralph looked at Terry. ‘Don’t just stand there. Sit down, for God’s sake.’

Terry sat and folded his hands on the table. The handcuff chain rattled. ‘Howie Gold wouldn’t approve of me meeting you.’ He continued to smile as he said it.

‘Samuels wouldn’t either, so we’re even.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Answers. If you’re innocent, why do I have half a dozen witnesses who’ve identified you? Why are your fingerprints on the branch used to sodomize that boy, and all over the van that was used to abduct him?’

Terry shook his head. The smile was gone. ‘I’m as mystified as you are. I just thank God, his only begotten son, and all the saints that I can prove I was in Cap City. What if I couldn’t, Ralph? I think we both know. I’d be in the death house up in McAlester before the end of summer, and two years from now I’d be riding the needle. Maybe sooner, because the courts are rigged to the right all the way to the top and your pal Samuels would plow over my appeals like a bulldozer over a kid’s sand castle.’

The first thing that rose to Ralph’s lips was he’s not my pal. What he said was, ‘The van interests me. The one with the New York plates.’

‘Can’t help you there. The last time I was in New York was on my honeymoon, and that was sixteen years ago.’

It was Ralph’s turn to smile. ‘I didn’t know that, but I knew you hadn’t been there recently. We back-checked your movements over the last six months. Nothing but a trip to Ohio in April.’

‘Yes, to Dayton. The girls’ spring vacation. I wanted to see my dad, and they wanted to go. Marcy did, too.’

‘Your father lives in Dayton?’

‘If you can call what he’s doing these days living. It’s a long story, and nothing to do with this. No sinister white vans involved, not even the family car. We flew Southwest. I don’t care how many of my fingerprints you found in the van that guy used to abduct Frank Peterson, I didn’t steal it. I’ve never even seen it. I don’t expect you to believe it, but it’s the truth.’

‘Nobody thinks you stole the van in New York,’ Ralph said. ‘Bill Samuels’s theory is that whoever did steal it dumped it somewhere in this vicinity, with the ignition key still in it. You re-stole it, and cached it somewhere until you were ready to … to do what you did.’

‘Pretty careful, for a man who went about his business with his bare face hanging out.’

‘Samuels will tell the jury you were in a kill-frenzy. And they’ll believe it.’

‘Will they still believe it after Ev, Billy, and Debbie testify? And after Howie shows the jury that tape of Coben’s lecture?’

Ralph didn’t want to go there. At least not yet. ‘Did you know Frank Peterson?’

Terry uttered a bark of laughter. ‘That’s one of those questions Howie wouldn’t want me to answer.’

‘Does that mean you won’t?’

‘As a matter of fact, I will. I knew him to say hi to – I know most of the kids on the West Side – but I didn’t know him know him, if you see what I mean. He was still in grade school and didn’t play sports. Couldn’t miss that red hair, though. Like a stop sign. Him and his brother both. I had Ollie in Little League, but he didn’t move up to City League when he turned thirteen. He wasn’t bad in the outfield, and he could hit a little, but he lost interest. Some of them do.’

‘So you didn’t have your eye on Frankie?’

‘No, Ralph. I have no sexual interest in children.’

‘Didn’t just happen to see him walking his bike across the parking lot of Gerald’s Fine Groceries and say “Aha, here’s my chance”?’

Terry looked at him with a silent contempt that Ralph found hard to bear. But he didn’t drop his eyes. After a moment, Terry sighed, raised his cuffed hands to the mirror side of the one-way glass, and called, ‘We’re done here.’

‘Not quite,’ Ralph said. ‘I need you to answer one more question, and I want you to look me right in the eyes when you do it. Did you kill Frank Peterson?’

Terry’s gaze didn’t waver. ‘I did not.’

Officer Keene took Terry away. Ralph sat where he was, waiting for Keene to come back and escort him through the three locked doors between this interview room and free air. So now he had the answer to the question Jeannie had told him to ask, and the answer, given with unwavering eye contact, was I did not.

Ralph wanted to believe him.

And could not.