Samuels leaned forward over the table, his chin jutting. “Do you expect us to believe that you were with others the entire time between three o’clock and eight o’clock on Tuesday? The entire time?”
Terry gave him a look of which only high school teachers are capable: We both know you’re an idiot, but I will not embarrass you in front of your peers by saying so. “Of course not. I used the john myself before Coben’s speech started. And I went once at the restaurant. Maybe you can convince a jury that I came back to Flint, killed poor Frankie Peterson, and returned to Cap City in the minute and a half it took me to empty my bladder. Think they’ll buy it?”
Samuels looked at Ralph. Ralph shrugged.
“I think we have no further questions now,” Samuels said. “Mr. Maitland will be escorted to the county jail and kept in custody until his arraignment on Monday.”
Terry’s shoulders slumped.
“You intend to go through with this,” Gold said. “You really do.”
Ralph expected another explosion from Samuels, but this time the district attorney surprised him. He sounded almost as weary as Maitland looked. “Come on, Howie. You know I have no choice, given the evidence. And when the DNA comes back a match, it’s going to be game over.”
He leaned forward again, once more invading Terry’s space.
“You still have a chance to avoid the needle, Terry. Not a good one, but it’s there. I urge you to take it. Drop the bullshit and confess. Do it for Fred and Arlene Peterson, who’ve lost their son in the worst way imaginable. You’ll feel better.”
Terry did not draw back, as Samuels might have expected. He leaned forward instead, and it was the district attorney who pulled away, as if afraid the man on the other side of the table had something contagious that he, Samuels, might catch. “There is nothing to confess to, sir. I didn’t kill Frankie Peterson. I would never hurt a child. You have the wrong man.”
Samuels sighed and stood up. “Okay, you had your chance. Now . . . God help you.”
22
FLINT CITY GENERAL HOSPITAL
DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY AND SEROLOGY
To: Detective Ralph Anderson
SP Lt. Yunel Sablo
District Attorney William Samuels
From: Dr. F. Ackerman, Head of Pathology
Date: July 12th
Subject: Autopsy Addendum/PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
As requested, my opinion follows.
Although Frank Peterson might or might not have survived the act of sodomy noted in the autopsy report (performed July 11th, by myself, with Dr. Alvin Barkland assisting), there can be no doubt that the immediate cause of death was exsanguination (i.e., massive loss of blood).
Teeth marks were found on the remains of Peterson’s face, throat, shoulder, chest, right side, and torso. The injuries, coupled with photographs of the murder scene, suggest the following sequence: Peterson was thrown violently to the ground on his back and bitten at least six times, perhaps as many as a dozen. This was frenzied behavior. He was then turned over and sodomized. By then Peterson was almost certainly unconscious. Either during the sodomy or directly after, the perpetrator ejaculated.
I have marked this addendum personal and confidential because certain aspects of this case, if disclosed, will be sensationalized in the press not just locally but nationwide. Parts of Peterson’s body, most specifically the right earlobe, right nipple, and parts of the trachea and esophagus, are missing. The perpetrator may have taken these body parts, along with a considerable section of flesh from the nape of the neck, as trophies. That is actually the best case scenario. The alternative hypothesis is that the perpetrator ate them.
Being in charge of the case, you will do as you see fit, but it is my strong recommendation that these facts, and my subsequent conclusions, be kept not only from the press, but out of any trial, unless absolutely necessary to secure a conviction. The reaction of the parents to such information can of course be imagined, but who would want to? My apologies if I have overstepped my bounds, but in this case I felt it necessary. I am a doctor, I am the county’s medical examiner, but I am also a mother.
I beg you to catch the man who defiled and murdered this child, and soon. If you don’t, he will almost certainly do it again.
Felicity Ackerman, M.D.
Flint City General Hospital
Head of Pathology
Flint County Chief Medical Examiner
23
The main room of the Flint City PD was large, but the four men waiting for Terry Maitland seemed to fill it—two State Police and two correctional officers from the county jail, widebodies one and all. Even though he remained stunned by what had happened to him (what was still happening), Terry could not help being a bit amused. The county jail was only four blocks away. A great deal of beef had been assembled to take him a little more than half a mile.
“Hands out,” one of the correctional officers said.
Terry put them out and watched as a new pair of handcuffs was snapped onto his wrists. He looked for Howie, suddenly as anxious as he had been at five, when his mother let go of his hand on his first day of kindergarten. Howie was seated on the corner of a vacant desk, talking on his cell phone, but when he saw Terry’s look, he ended the call and hurried over.
“Do not touch the prisoner, sir,” said the officer who had cuffed Terry.
Gold ignored him. He put an arm around Terry’s shoulders and murmured, “It’s going to be all right.” Then—to Gold’s surprise as much as his client’s—he kissed Terry on the cheek.
Terry took that kiss with him as the four men escorted him down the front steps to where a county van waited behind a State Police cruiser with its jackpot lights pulsing. And the words. Them especially, as the cameras flashed and the TV lights came on and the questions flew at him like bullets: Have you been charged, did you do it, are you innocent, have you confessed, what can you say to Frank Peterson’s parents.
It’s going to be all right, Gold had said, and that was what Terry hung onto.
But of course it wasn’t.
SORRY
July 14th–July 15th
1
The battery-powered bubble-light Alec Pelley kept in the center console of his Explorer was in sort of a gray area. It might no longer be strictly legal, since he was retired from the State Police, but on the other hand, since he was a member in good standing of the Cap City Police Reserve, maybe it was. Either way, it seemed necessary to plonk it on the dashboard and light it up on this occasion. With its help, he made the run from Cap to Flint in record time and was knocking on the door of 17 Barnum Court at quarter past nine. There were no news people here, but further up the street he could see the harsh glare of TV lights in front of what he assumed was the Maitland house. Not all the blowflies had been drawn to the fresh meat of Howie’s impromptu press conference, it seemed. Not that he had expected it.
The door was opened by a short sandy-haired fireplug of a man, his brow creased, his lips pressed so tightly together that his mouth was almost nonexistent. All ready to let fly with his go-to-hell speech. The woman standing behind him was a green-eyed blonde, three inches taller than her husband and much better looking, even with no makeup and her eyes swollen. She wasn’t currently crying, but somewhere deeper in the house, someone was. A child. One of Maitland’s, Alec assumed.
“Mr. and Mrs. Mattingly? I’m Alec Pelley. Did Howie Gold call you?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “Come in, Mr. Pelley.”