Gilstrap, looking alarmed at this, took a notebook from inside his plaid jacket and jotted something.
“Let’s get going,” Howie said. He took Terry by the arm.
Ralph’s cell phone rang. He took it from the left side of his belt (his holstered service weapon was on the right) and looked at the screen. “Hold it, hold it, I have to take this.”
“Oh, come on,” Howie said. “What is this, an arraignment or a dog-and-pony show?”
Ralph ignored him and walked to the far side of the room, where there were coin-op snack and soda vending machines. He stood beneath a sign reading FOR VISITOR USE ONLY, spoke briefly, listened. He ended the call and returned to the others. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
Officer Mitchell had stepped between Howie and Terry long enough to snap cuffs on Terry’s wrists. “Too tight?” he asked.
Terry shook his head.
“Then let’s walk.”
Howie took off his suit coat and draped it over the cuffs. The two officers led Terry out of the room with Gilstrap in the lead, strutting like a majorette.
Howie fell in step next to Ralph. He spoke in a low voice. “This is a clusterfuck.” And when Ralph made no reply: “Okay, fine, clam up all you want to, but between now and the grand jury, we have to sit down—you, me, and Samuels. Pelley too, if you want. The facts of the case aren’t going to come out today, but they will come out, and then you won’t have to worry about just state or regional news coverage. CNN, FOX, MSNBC, the Internet blogs—they’ll all be here, savoring the weirdness. It’ll be OJ meets The Exorcist.”
Yes, and Ralph had an idea Howie would do all he could to make that happen. If he could get reporters to focus on the question of a man who appeared to have been in two places at the same time, he wouldn’t have to worry about them focusing on the boy who had been raped and murdered, perhaps partially eaten.
“I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not the enemy here, Ralph. Unless you don’t give a shit about anything except seeing Terry convicted, that is, and I don’t believe it. That’s Samuels, not you. Don’t you want to know what happened?”
Ralph made no reply.
Marcy Maitland was waiting in the lobby, looking very small between the hugely pregnant Betsy Riggins and Yune Sablo from the State Police. When she saw her husband and started forward, Riggins attempted to hold her back, but Marcy shook her off easily. Sablo only stood pat, watching. Marcy had just time enough to look into her husband’s face and kiss his cheek before Officer Mitchell took her by the shoulders and pushed her gently but firmly back toward the sheriff, who was still holding the bulletproof vest, as if he didn’t know what to do with it now that it had been refused.
“Come on, now, Mrs. Maitland,” Mitchell said. “That’s not allowed.”
“I love you, Terry,” Marcy called as the officers moved him toward the door. “And the girls send theirs.”
“Same goes back to all of you doubled,” Terry said. “Tell them it’s going to be all right.”
Then he was outside, into the hot morning sunshine and the incoming fire of two dozen questions, all hurled at once. To Ralph, still in the lobby, those mingled voices sounded more like invective than interrogation.
Ralph had to give Howie points for persistence. He still hadn’t given up.
“You’re one of the good ones. Never took a bribe, never pitted evidence, always walked a straight path.”
I think I came close to pitting some evidence last night, Ralph thought. I think it was close. If Sablo hadn’t been there, if it had just been me and Samuels . . .
Howie’s expression was almost pleading. “You’ve never had a case like this. None of us have. And it’s not just the little boy anymore. His mother is dead, too.”
Ralph, who hadn’t turned on the television that morning, stopped and stared at Howie. “You say what?”
Howie nodded. “Yesterday. Heart attack. That makes her victim number two. So come on—don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to get this right?”
Ralph couldn’t hold back any longer. “I do know. And because I do, I’m going to give you one for free, Howie. That call I just took was from Dr. Bogan, in the Pathology and Serology Department at General. He doesn’t have all of the DNA back yet, and won’t for at least another couple of weeks, but they crashed the semen sample they took from the backs of the boy’s legs. It matches the cheek swabs we took Saturday night. Your client killed Frank Peterson, and buggered him, and tore away pieces of his flesh. And all that got him so excited that he spunked on the corpse.”
He strode away quickly, leaving Howie Gold temporarily unable to move or speak. Which was good, because the central paradox still remained. DNA didn’t lie. But Terry’s colleagues weren’t lying, either, Ralph was sure of it. Add to that the fingerprints on the book from the newsstand, and the Channel 81 video.
Ralph Anderson was a man of two minds, and the double vision was driving him crazy.
2
Until 2015, the Flint County courthouse had stood next to the Flint County jail, which was convenient. Prisoners up for arraignment were simply led from one gothic heap of stones to the other, like overgrown children going on a field trip (except, of course, kids going on field trips were rarely handcuffed). Now a half-constructed Civic Center stood next door, and prisoners had to be transported six blocks to the new courthouse, a nine-story glass box that wags had dubbed the Chicken Coop.
At the curb in front of the jail, waiting to make the trip: two police cars with flashing lights, a short blue bus, and Howie’s gleaming black SUV. Standing on the sidewalk next to the latter, and looking like a chauffeur in his dark suit and darker shades, was Alec Pelley. On the other side of the street, behind police department sawhorses, were the reporters, the camerapersons, and a small crowd of lookie-loos. Several of the latter were carrying signs. One read, EXECUTE THE CHILD KILLER. Another read, MAITLAND YOU WILL BURN IN HELL. Marcy stopped on the top step and stared at these signs with dismay.
The county jail corrections officers halted at the foot of the steps, their job done. Sheriff Doolin and ADA Gilstrap, the men technically in charge of this morning’s legal ritual, escorted Terry to the lead police car. Ralph and Yunel Sablo headed for the one behind. Howie took Marcy’s hand and led her toward his Escalade. “Don’t look up. Don’t give the photographers anything but the top of your head.”
“Those signs . . . Howie, those signs . . .”
“Never mind them, just keep moving.”
Because of the heat, the windows of the blue bus were open. The prisoners inside, most of them weekend warriors bound for their own arraignments on an array of lesser charges, caught sight of Terry. They pressed their faces against the wire mesh, catcalling.
“Hey, faggot!”
“Did you bend your dick getting it in?”
“You’re bound for the needle, Maitland!”
“Did you suck his cock before you bit it off?”
Alec started around the Escalade to open the passenger door, but Howie shook his head, motioned him back, and pointed to the rear door on the curb side instead. He wanted to keep Marcy as far as possible from the crowd across the street. Her head was lowered, and her hair obscured her face, but as Howie led her to the door Alec was holding open, he could hear her sobbing even in the general tumult.
“Mrs. Maitland!” That was a leather-lunged reporter, calling from beyond the sawhorse barricade. “Did he tell you he was going to do it? Did you try to stop him?”
“Don’t look up, don’t respond,” Howie said. He wished he could tell her not to listen. “This is all under control. Just get in, and off we go.”
As he handed her in, Alec murmured in his ear. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Half the city police are on vacation, and FC’s fearless sheriff can barely manage crowd control at the Elks Barbecue.”