Rage Against the Dying

Twenty-three





I had some of my own questions for Floyd Lynch, like had he ever heard the name Gerald Peasil? It would be taking a risk to ask him, but it might also be one step closer to finding out if they were connected to each other or to the Route 66 killer. And if so, how and why.

Maybe Coleman was right, maybe Lynch was finding out that sitting in a cell alone wasn’t as much fun as he thought it would be. Maybe he was ready to talk and could answer these questions. So putting aside my worries about Max, I headed down to the county jail in the afternoon, a little earlier than my appointment with Coleman, to snag a few minutes alone with Lynch.

The jail, a cream-colored boxy structure with burgundy trim, was kind of attractive if you overlooked the coils of razor wire running along the top edge of the building. I left my weapon locked in the car, went through the scanner, signed in, showed my driver’s license, and emptied the pockets of my cargo pants. They told me to take a seat in the waiting room. I waited with the rest of a small group in a plain though not totally depressing lobby, with nothing that could be turned into a weapon, just molded blue plastic chairs that were even a little cleaner than those at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Most of the people joining me were women, with a few men, who were there to visit their spouses, children, felons. We all stared without looking, everyone folded into their personal drama. Most of them got up together and filed through the door to a public visitors’ room while I still waited for Lynch to see me privately.

I waited about thirty minutes, until the time when Coleman was supposed to have shown up. Then I waited twenty more. Besides having my plans frustrated, I was annoyed at the tardiness of the rigidly efficient Coleman. I was getting ready to try calling her when Royal Hughes showed up instead.

“Royal Hughes, Floyd Lynch’s public defender,” he said, holding out his hand.

I shook it, did not bother to say my name because we had already introduced ourselves just four days ago.

“Is this a coincidence?” I asked.

“Not at all,” he said, flashing those teeth. “They had instructions to call us if you tried to see Mr. Lynch.”

I didn’t bother asking who they and us was. “I was just meeting Agent Coleman here, so it’s okay.”

“No it’s not. She’s no longer on this case.”

I tried to conceal my flabbergastedness. “Since when?”

He looked at his watch and I wasn’t sure whether he was checking the date or just getting impatient. “Since three days ago when Special Agent in Charge Roger Morrison discovered she had brought you and David Weiss to the dump site and tried to set up an insanity test. She should have known better than to do that without authorization.”

That meant that Coleman was further off the reservation than she had told me. She didn’t have the authorization to proceed with any investigation at all, let alone set up interviews with Floyd Lynch’s family or come to the jail to question him further. Why hadn’t she told me this? And where was she so I could beat her up properly for blindsiding me again?

“So that’s why she didn’t show up? Why didn’t she call and tell me?” I said it more to myself than Hughes.

Hughes gave an attractive shrug. “Maybe she’s embarrassed.”

“Now she’s embarrassed?”

“Just go away and I won’t report that she was going to meet you here.” Hughes looked at his watch again and this time I was sure it wasn’t about the date. I gripped his forearm gently before he could lower it. “Let me ask you something,” I said. “Did Agent Coleman voice her doubts to you about Floyd Lynch’s confession, and did she tell you why?”

“The profile, the ears,” he intoned, not so much bored as weary. “She talked to anyone who would listen. But with our backlog, when you’ve got a voluntary confession on top of such a mass of corroborating evidence, you focus the tax dollars on the other cases.”

I thought about what Coleman was going to tell me, what she had been so excited about in her e-mail message. Whatever it was, I was convinced it was the nonsmoking gun that would exclude Lynch as the killer. I said, “You’re going to put a man in prison for life who only f*cked a mummy. And you’re going to let the real serial killer off the hook.”

“The case is closed, Ms. Quinn. On top of that, you were decommissioned four years ago and the case is not yours. Now why don’t you go do something … retired.”

That made me boil and I gave him my best retort. “Maybe you’re right, it’s a different world when the agent defends the perp and the defense doesn’t.”

Not good enough. Without seeming to take sufficient offense, Hughes started to move away from me. But he turned when I tested Sigmund’s intuition with, “Whatever does she see in you?”

Hughes paused but didn’t turn around until I said, with my voice low enough so no one else could overhear, “If you and Agent Coleman are having an affair I could blow the whistle and get you both in huge trouble.”

He gave me a shocked glare and stormed out the door of the jail.