Because Ralph hadn’t told Jeannie about his darkest suspicion concerning the Flint County prosecutor – that he might have hoped for a crowd of righteously angry citizens at the courthouse – she let Bill Samuels in when he appeared at the door of the Anderson home on Wednesday evening, but she made it clear that she didn’t have much use for him.
‘He’s out back,’ she said, turning away and heading back into the living room, where Alex Trebek was putting that evening’s Jeopardy contestants through their paces. ‘You know the way.’
Samuels, tonight clad in jeans, sneakers, and a plain gray tee-shirt, stood in the front hall for a moment, considering, then followed her. There were two easy chairs in front of the television, the bigger, more lived-in one empty. He picked up the remote from the table between the two and muted the sound. Jeannie continued looking at the television, where the contestants were currently munching their way through a category called Literary Villains. The answer onscreen was She demanded Alice’s head.
‘That’s an easy one,’ Samuels said. ‘The Red Queen. How is he, Jeannie?’
‘How do you think he is?’
‘I’m sorry about the way things turned out.’
‘Our son found out that his father’s been suspended,’ she said, still looking at the TV. ‘It was on the Internet. He’s very upset by that, of course, but he’s also upset because his favorite coach was gunned down in front of the courthouse. He wants to come home. I told him to give it a few days and see if he doesn’t change his mind. I didn’t want to tell him the truth, that his father isn’t ready to see him yet.’
‘He hasn’t been suspended. He’s just on administrative leave. With pay. And it’s mandatory after a shooting incident.’
‘You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to.’ Now the answer onscreen was This nurse was wretched. ‘He says he may be off for as long as six months, and that’s if he agrees to the mandatory psych evaluation.’
‘Why would he not?’
‘He’s thinking of pulling the pin.’
Samuels raised his hand to the top of his head, but tonight the cowlick was behaving – at least so far – and he lowered it again. ‘In that case, maybe we can go into business together. This town needs a good car wash.’
Now she did look at him. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’ve decided not to run for re-election.’
She favored him with a thin stiletto of a smile that her own mother might not have recognized. ‘Going to quit before Johnny Q. Public can fire you?’
‘If you want to put it that way,’ he said.
‘I do,’ Jeannie said. ‘Go on out back, Mr Prosecutor For Now, and feel free to suggest a partnership. But you should be ready to duck.’
2
Ralph was sitting in a lawn chair with a beer in his hand and a Styrofoam cooler beside him. He glanced around when the kitchen’s screen door slammed, saw Samuels, and then returned his attention to a hackberry tree just beyond the back fence.
‘Yonder’s a nuthatch,’ he said, pointing. ‘Haven’t seen one of those in a dog’s age.’
There was no second chair, so Samuels lowered himself to the bench of the long picnic table. He had sat here several times before, under happier circumstances. He looked at the tree. ‘I don’t see it.’
‘There he goes,’ Ralph said, as a small bird took wing.
‘I think that’s a sparrow.’
‘Time to get your eyes checked.’ Ralph reached into the cooler and handed Samuels a Shiner.
‘Jeannie says you’re thinking about retiring.’
Ralph shrugged.
‘If it’s the psych eval you’re worried about, you’ll pass with flying colors. You did what you had to do.’
‘It’s not that. It’s not even the cameraman. You know about him? When the bullet hit his camera – the first one I fired – the pieces went everywhere. Including one into his eye.’
Samuels did know this, but kept quiet and sipped his beer, although he loathed Shiner.
‘He’s probably going to lose it,’ Ralph said. ‘The doctors at Dean McGee up in Okie City are trying to save it, but yeah, he’s probably going to lose it. You think a cameraman with one eye can still work? Probably, maybe, or no way?’
‘Ralph, someone slammed into you as you fired. And listen, if the guy hadn’t had the camera up to his face, he’d probably be dead now. That’s the upside.’
‘Yeah, and fuck a bunch of upside. I called his wife to apologize. She said, “We’re going to sue the Flint City PD for ten million dollars, and once we win that one, we’ll start on you.” Then she hung up.’
‘That will never fly. Peterson had a gun, and you were in performance of your duty.’
‘As that camera-jockey was in performance of his.’
‘Not the same. He had a choice.’
‘No, Bill.’ Ralph swung around in his chair. ‘He had a job. And that was a nuthatch, goddammit.’
‘Ralph, you need to listen to me now. Maitland killed Frank Peterson. Peterson’s brother killed Maitland. Most people see that as frontier justice, and why not? This state was the frontier not that long ago.’
‘Terry said he didn’t do it. That was his dying declaration.’
Samuels got to his feet and began to pace. ‘What else was he going to say with his wife kneeling right there beside him and crying her eyes out? Was he going to say, “Oh yes, right, I buggered the kid, and I bit him – not necessarily in that order – and then I ejaculated on him for good measure”?’
‘There’s a wealth of evidence to support what Terry said at the end.’
Samuels stalked back to Ralph and stood looking down at him. ‘It was his fucking DNA in the semen sample, and DNA trumps everything. Terry killed him. I don’t know how he set up the rest, but he did.’
‘Did you come here to convince me or yourself?’
‘I don’t need any convincing. I only came to tell you that we now know who originally stole that white Econoline van.’
‘At this point does it make any difference?’ Ralph asked, but Samuels at last detected a gleam of interest in the man’s eyes.
‘If you’re asking if it casts any light on this mess, no. But it’s fascinating. Do you want to hear or not?’
‘Sure.’
‘It was stolen by a twelve-year-old boy.’
‘Twelve? Are you kidding me?’
‘Nope, and he was on the road for months. Made it all the way to El Paso before a cop bagged him in a Walmart parking lot, sleeping in a stolen Buick. He stole four vehicles in all, but the van was the first. He drove it as far as Ohio before he ditched it and switched to another one. Left the ignition key in it, just the way we thought.’ He said this with some pride, and Ralph supposed he had a right; it was nice that at least one of their theories going in had proved correct.
‘But we still don’t know how it got down here, do we?’ Ralph asked. Something was nagging him, though. Some small detail.
‘No,’ Samuels said. ‘It’s just a loose thread that isn’t loose anymore. I thought you’d like to know.’
‘And now I do.’
Samuels drank a swallow of beer, then set the can on the picnic table. ‘I’m not running for re-election.’
‘No?’
‘No. Let that lazy asshole Richmond have the job, and see how people like him when he refuses to prosecute eighty per cent of the cases that land on his desk. I told your wife, and she didn’t exactly overwhelm me with sympathy.’
‘If you think I’ve been telling her this is all your fault, Bill, you’re wrong. I haven’t said a word against you. Why would I? Arresting him at that fucking ballgame was my idea, and when I talk to the IA shooflies on Friday, I’ll make that clear.’
‘I’d expect nothing less.’
‘But as I may have already mentioned, you didn’t exactly try to talk me out of it.’
‘We believed him guilty. I still believe him guilty, dying declaration or no dying declaration. We didn’t check for an alibi because he knows everyone in the goddam town and we were afraid of spooking him—’