I will ransom them from the power of the grave: I will redeem them from death…
Isaiah Purdy had gone to his son's execution with no expectations save to see the thing through and to follow through on Jimmy Lee's requests-appeals made in his psychic visits.
After the execution, which had been handled with an eerie and perfunctory precision, Isaiah made his way down an institutional green and yellow corridor that felt like a tunnel out of The Wizard of Oz, at the end of which, he could view the body. It was a cold and stony Jimmy, his boy, whose head had been shaved, and whose temples were bubbled- marks of the boiling brain that had been scrambled by the electrocution. He didn't want to know the number of volts they'd fired into the boy's head. Poor Jimmy. Poor boy… Last of his lineage… end of the line…
After this, they told Isaiah to drive his van around the back to a sign indicating the prison wood shop, where he could take possession of the body. Once at the wood shop, he requested the extra coffin, telling them he'd pay for it, and telling them that it was meant for himself. The shop foreman readily obliged, saying he couldn't take any money from any father of Jimmy Lee's. This made Isaiah proud to know that his son had still managed to make friends here, even as a death row inmate.
They had carried Jimmy Lee down on a stretcher to the wood shop, just like as if he were a side of beef, and they lifted him from the gurney and into the pine wood box that'd been awaiting him, throwing his arms and legs in last. The men in the shop loaded Jimmy's coffin into the van, and then they loaded the one meant for his bride, the judge who'd sent him to the electric chair so many years before. Jimmy Lee meant to travel into eternity with his chief accuser.
Once the two coffins and his boy's body were loaded, the old man solemnly thanked all involved and waved a good Iowa wave to the incarcerated men, wishing them all good luck. Moments later, the wood shop's loading platform door ratcheted down and came to a metallic, screeching halt, leaving Isaiah once again alone. But he was hardly alone. Jimmy Lee's body might be in the coffin inside the black van, alongside the pine box awaiting the judge, but in point of fact, Jimmy Lee himself was inside Isaiah now.
'Taking you home, boy,” muttered Isaiah as he stepped from the loading dock and down the stairs. “Home to your Lord and Maker, son.”
Isaiah snatched open the van door and climbed behind the steering wheel. He turned the engine over and switched on the radio, which was playing a Gordon Lightfoot song. The words wafted through the cab of the van: “If you could read my mind, love… what a tale my thoughts would tell.”
It was Isaiah's favorite song of all time, but now, with Jimmy Lee actually crawling around in his head, the song made more sense for Isaiah Purdy than ever it did before.
Her interrogations for twelve hours had netted little save heartburn and mental heat stroke. No one knew anything, and Jessica's team's usual sources on the street, from paid snitches to prostitutes, had nothing to barter. It was as if Judge DeCampe had literally vanished from the planet, like one of those weird alien abductions that Whitley Streiber had been writing about for two decades.
Poof, and she was gone.
“ We're not getting anywhere this direction,” Jessica confided to J. T., who had stood around making time with Dr. Shannon Keyes, an FBI psychiatrist on standby should they need any psyche evaluations done or any psychiatric advice on a given individual as they processed suspects called in for questioning. Only Jessica and Santiva knew the complete truth of the situation, that Keyes was Kim Desinor's replacement, at least for now.
“ I fear whoever has her, he's an amateur at this and just lucked out, leaving us nothing,” Jessica told J. T. and Keyes.
A cop's worst fear was the crime scene that left not a single trace of victim or assailant-exactly what faced them now. Either the perpetrator had planned his every move, rehearsed his every line, or it was a crime of opportunity, a random violence. Hard to tell at this point which. While they leaned toward the judge's having been a victim of a carefully crafted stalking attack, they had zero suspects who posed an immediate threat to the judge before the abduction. Court records were being pored over, some by Lew Clemmens and his supercomputer, some by other members of the team, including Richard Sharpe.
In the meantime, Jessica had put out a general call to locate anyone who had ever made the remotest threat against Judge Maureen DeCampe, and anyone capable of acting on such a threat, and anyone available to act on his or her threats.
“ It's just remotely possible that some guy she put away arranged for all this,” suggested Keyes. “Being incarcerated nowadays doesn't stop a person from being violent on the outside, not if he's got contacts.”
Jessica looked across at Keyes, a beautiful ash blonde with an hourglass figure and penetrating gray eyes. Keyes had come up through FBI ranks via the Chicago field office, and by all accounts, she had seen a great deal in her capacity as a profiler there. She had been instrumental in capturing the infamous serial killer who called himself Doctor O, when she was just a fledgling police officer with the Chicago Police Department.
“ Then we need to scrutinize everyone she ever put away who's still alive,” offered J. T., looking mesmerized by Dr. Keyes, who normally worked with the Washington Field Bureau of the FBI these days.
“ And perhaps interview a few people around them,” added Jessica. “And that's going to take a great deal of time, and time, I fear, is the scarcest commodity we have right now.”
“ Certainly likely that time is the scarcest thing DeCampe has,” added J. T. “What other choice have we?” asked Keyes. J. T. agreed with Keyes next, saying, “Yeah, guess we don't have any other choice, Jess.
“ Jessica tried to ignore J. T., going to Keyes and saying, “You're the expert on the way the mind works, Dr. Keyes. What do you think the abductor wants? You've had time to review what we have. Any conclusions?”
“ She's only just arrived, Jess.” J. T. gave Jessica a fleeting grimace. “Cut her some slack.”
“ You think the killer's going to cut DeCampe slack, J. T.?”
“ Why're you assuming the abductor is going to kill her?” asked Keyes.
“ Are you kidding? We believe he has her buried alive somewhere.”
“ I see…”
“ Maybe your first impulse is right, Dr. Keyes,” Jessica offered while pacing the operations room. “Perhaps if we can target someone at the state pen as possibly out for revenge against Judge DeCampe,” suggested Jessica, easing her tone, “then you can do some psyche work on him.”
J. T, added, “We're also looking at inmates in the Texas penal system as well.”
Keyes nodded. “I'm open to anything you suggest. I only want to help.”
Lew Clemmens, who like the other Quantico people on board had moved to D.C. to be on call, burst into the room, waving a printout over his head, saying, “I have the last of the judge's decisions for the past year. Maybe we can sort out the worst cases and the worst threats she'd ever received and work from there. I can pull off the court records from the file numbers and cross-reference with the words verbal threat now.”
“ How long will it take, Lew?”
“ Less than an hour, and we'll have some targets,” he replied.
“ Run your program,” said Jessica.
“ Already done. It's running solo as we speak.”
They ordered in Chinese food and were soon looking over Lew's results. Most of those who threatened the judge in die past year-on the record-were behind bars, serving jail terms, many facing the chair, and some had already passed on via that route. She handled the worst cases; she'd known and worked with Dr. Morrissey back in Houston, Texas, who only a year before had been targeted and murdered by one of his own psychiatric patients, a killer who had been released to a halfway house against Judge DeCampe's ruling, thanks to a weak parole board and an over-crowded prison system.
“ I'm out of here for a couple of hours,” Keyes told them. “Have a meeting I have to attend, but I'll try to get back before sunset, OK?”
Exhausted, Jessica waved her off, and then she herself stepped back from the case long enough to find the women's room. Once there, Jessica popped some pain pills and threw water in her face.
When she returned to the ops room, it was to a jubilant Lew Clemmens. “I think we're onto something here, Jess.” He handed her a prison profile of a man named Lester Goddard. Goddard had repeatedly threatened Judge DeCampe, and his threats had been vehement and filled with rage and gore; details informed her as to exactly how he meant to kill and mutilate her entire family, starting with the pets, running through the children, and working his way up to her: “The blood of your loved ones dripping from the knife I use on you, bitch!”
“ We've got to run this creep down, then. Make him sweat,” J. T. said.
“ Where is he incarcerated?” asked Jessica.
“ Huntsville, outside of Houston, Texas.”
“ So who do we know in Texas?”
I came back for the Moo Goo Gai Pan,” said Shannon Keyes as she reentered the operations room that had been set aside for the task force, where the others stood about a conference table littered with paper ware and plastic cups and forks and chopsticks. “I'm Keyes,” she told Clemmens, taking his hand and vigorously shaking it. “Dr. Shannon Keyes, FBI field office shrink and profiler, previously of the Chicago Field Office, prior to that, the Chicago Police Department,” she introduced herself. “All my apologies for being blunt, Mr. Clemmens, is it? But Goddard is not your man.”
“ Why?” asked a confused J. T.
“ More important, how did you learn of our interest in Goddard?” asked Jessica.
“ FBI's a small family. Word gets around fast.”
'Too fast. There's a goddamn leak in my task force.”
“ I'm on your task force now, remember?”
The two women stared hard at one another.
“ All right, tell me why you think Goddard is a wild hair to chase?”
Richard Sharpe had been sitting quietly in a comer, reviewing what little they knew of Goddard. He introduced himself to Keyes and asked, “Is this your belief because Goddard is in a Huntsville, Texas, prison cell, over half a continent away?” Jessica had already made contact with people in Texas who might help uncover any plot on the part of this man Goddard to wreak havoc in the life of the judge.
“ No, because he's a blowhard. Anyone who makes that many threats and makes them that loud and loutishly… well, we who are in the business of predicting who will and who will not deliver on threats, suffice to say, first one dismissed is the Goddard type.”
“ How can you predict he hasn't paid someone to abduct and kill her?” asked Jessica.
Keyes dipped into the Chinese food and, building a plateful, she complained that she loved Chinese too much- especially the dumplings-before answering Jessica. “Goddard is what we call a stalemate threat. He makes threats like most of us make plans for the day. He loves to hear the sound of his own voice. He much prefers the threat itself to the actual carrying out of the threat.”
Sharpe asked, “We're wasting our time with pursuing this Goddard?”
“ Let me see. How can I put this more clearly? Goddard's full of shit; he's not your man,” Keyes firmly said. “He's what's known as a loudmouth, for lack of a technical term. Likes the sound of his own threats, he knows they're hot air, and so should we.”
“ How can you know he hasn't acted on his threat to harm DeCampe?” asked Jessica.
“ Aside from his being incarcerated on death row, you mean?”
Jessica clenched her teeth before saying, “Yes, aside from that little problem.”
“ He's too over the top; he's venting his spleen. Look, I make my living by reading threats and dangerous situations. I worked with the Secret Service for six years. No one who reads threats as often as I do would take Goddard seriously. Be much more wary of the single sustained curse like threat. I make my living predicting when words of menace might become actions of menace.”
“ Are you saying Goddard is harmless?” asked Sharpe. “I've made my reputation on such cases in Great Britain, and I can tell you, I'd pay attention, a lot of attention to this fellow, indeed.”
“ Not at all. I'm sure he would cut DeCampe's throat if he found himself in a locked room or dark alley with the judge,” countered Keyes.
“ Whoa up there,” said Clemmens. “You're contradicting yourself, Dr. Keyes.”
“ I'm saying that given the opportunity that maybe… maybe he'd act on his threats, but he's not going to carry on a long-term vendetta or stalk against her, nor plan out a complicated move that would involve a third party.”
Jessica looked Keyes square in the eye and asked, “How can you be sure of that? That he's not involved in her disappearance?”
“ He doesn't know a damn thing about her; hasn't bothered to find out, for one thing. A real threat is the enemy who knows your every like, dislike, whim, and collectible.”
“ I don't get your point.”
“ He says he's going to kill her pets and her children.”
“ Yeah?”
“ Been my experience that the real threat-the guy who acts on his fantasy to harm another person-isn't into mental anguish so much as physical anguish for his victim. A real threat focuses on her physical pain; besides, she doesn't have any children living at home. Goddard assumes much because he's really just reacting to a verdict he dislikes. You'd be wasting time zeroing in on him as your prime suspect, but being on death row and having threatened the now missing judge, you might persuade him to talk about who else he might know who might have harmed her, but even there it's problematic, since you have so little to bargain with. His life is already forfeit but…”
Jessica nodded and said, “But to a man in prison certain privileges that seem small and insignificant to you and me, well… he might just bargain his brains out for.” Jessica grudgingly admitted to herself that Keyes's outward appearance hid a keen, analytical mind. The woman was very on, very good. Jessica began to warm toward the FBI shrink.
A phone had been ringing for some time, and Jessica grabbed it up, barking, “Ops room, Coran! What can I do for you?”
Jessica had been sitting on the edge of the conference table, but now she pushed off it, asking, “When? Where? Are they… is he in custody? Meet you in interrogation.” She hung up and said, “We just got a break. Keep your fingers crossed.”
“ What's happened?” asked Richard.
“ The monitor on Judge DeCampe's credit cards. They got a hit, and the guy using her cards is in custody. It could be our man.”
“ Good news,” Richard replied. “Who is the chap?”
“ Some older man; they think he's homeless, a transient.”
“ Then maybe her attack was a random crime of opportunity, after all,” said Clemmens.
“ Maybe… maybe not. The guy swears he just stole a wallet out of a purse he found lying in an underground parking lot.” Jessica started for the hallway and the elevator. She wanted to be first in line at this new lead. “Washington PD's bringing him in now. Let's have a talk with the guy.”
Interrogation of the homeless man who might have witnessed something in the parking lot had to be carefully handled. Jessica and Richard both immediately decided this on seeing the shaking, hulking figure in the interrogation room. The man's face seemed catlike-rawboned and pointed. Richard agreed with Jessica's quick assessment of their possible witness/suspect. “Ganging up on the frightened figure with too many in the room will only terrify the poor, bedraggled devil more than he is already.”
The man stood as tall as a grizzly bear, and he had a mountain man's scraggly appearance, replete with out-of- control hair and beard. He seemed bent on hiding himself away in a large overcoat as well. The general impression and smell was that of a cave dweller out of time or an Old Testament prophet newly stumbled from the desert.
Jessica asked, “Richard, I would like you to stand aside for Shannon Keyes to join me inside the sweat box with the suspect.”
Keyes, standing near enough to hear the request, jumped in at the chance, showing her eagerness to question the lead. “Whatever you think best, Jess.” Richard's tone remained calm, mild. If he were upset, no one could possibly know. As it turned out, Jessica's choice was a good one. The frightened man fixed on the two women as friendly faces; he smiled back at them as they entered the room. The chain from his handcuffed wrists rang out in a metallic clang whenever he moved slightly. Like a toneless human wind chime, Jessica thought. Jessica had stopped J. T. at the door along with Sharpe, knowing J. T. had limited experience in interrogation, and when Eriq Santiva, hearing of the break in the case, appeared at die interrogation door, Jessica asked him to remain outside; when he tried to bully his way in, pull rank, she challenged him at the door, saying, “You said I would be in charge of the case if I came on, Chief. What's changed?”
Chief Santiva's eyes said that he had every intention of entering and confronting the suspect.
Jessica eased him out of the room and closed the door behind her, leaving Keyes alone for a moment with the suspect. “Shannon's a lot easier on the eye and a great deal less threatening than you, Eriq, and with this guy, we need to be less threatening, not more. He's squirrelly and jittery as a starved cat,” Jessica told Santiva.
“ Oh, and you're not threatening, Jess?” asked Santiva, his eyes challenging her now.
“ I didn't say we shouldn't lean on the guy. Just trust me. I think Keyes might give us some insights we might otherwise miss.”
“ You told me you didn't need her help, remember?” he whispered just before she turned and reentered the interrogation room, closing the door on him.
Jessica felt great relief that Santiva hadn't managed to bully his way past her. He could easily have pulled rank, but perhaps even he knew that he'd have scared the hell out of the possible witness, and in doing so perhaps shut the frightened man completely down. So J. T., Santiva, and Richard now listened and watched via the one-way mirror, while the stranger, Keyes, took a bold run at the only man who might shed some light on what had happened to DeCampe.
'Tell us what you saw just prior to finding the purse, sir,” Keyes asked the man.
Jessica felt a stifling heat inside the interrogation room, and this, combined with the suspect's body odors, made her slightly ill. Beneath the layers of hair and dirt, Warren Paul Marsden had the facial characteristics of an aristocratic man who'd stepped out of time, and he was huge and daunting, even while sitting, where his head came up to Jessica's breastbone. With Jessica at almost six feet, this placed Marsden at nearly seven feet high, and yet this grisly Grizzly Adams look a like had somehow escaped the attention of the parking garage attendant? The question begged an answer, and it further corroborated a growing suspicion that the attendant was either on drugs and busy the entire night on a binge of his own, or knew a hell of a lot more than what he'd given up. Now that the attendant was reported dead, it appeared his secrets would never be revealed, making Mr. Marsden here even more valuable to the case.
“ You've got to tell us what you saw in the garage, Mr. Marsden,” Jessica began cajoling the man in her most encouraging tone.
Marsden's straight mouth twisted into a wry grin, and his keen, twinkling, intelligent eyes, which seemed at odds with his condition, traveled from one to the other of these people who were suddenly interested in him. “Been some time since somebody called me Mr. Marsden. Hell… one time it was Dr. Marsden. Was a choirboy before I lost everything. Model citizen, not a day of debt, and a nice home and Millie meeting me every night at the door with… with her unconditional love. She was all the family I had.”
“ I'm deeply sorry for your loss, sir,” Shannon Keyes offered.
He gulped back a tear and said, 'Funny how things turn on a dime.”
“ Isn't it so,” agreed Keyes.
Jessica had lost all patience with the man. She stood and paced around him, fuming, working to control her anger.
“ I was a school superintendent You believe that? Respected, you believe that? Not as if I expect you to, not looking at me now.”
“ Where was this, sir?” asked Dr. Keyes.
“ Everyone in Jasper, Georgia, held me in high esteem, even though they all called me a damn Yankee.”
“ Then you're not originally from Georgia. I didn't think so,” said Jessica from behind him.
“ You got that?” he asked. “How'd you know, no ac-cent?”
She frowned and from behind his back threw up her arms for Keyes to see.
Marsden continued spottily speaking. “I was born in Zion, Illinois. Went to college at Northwestern. Went through the ranks of teaching. Got my Ph. D. on the job. Took the position in Georgia. It was my dream… a dream come true, but it all came apart, as you can tell from my current situation.”
Jessica, having gotten hold of her anger, commiserated, saying, “I know how that goes. Things fall apart. Three years ago, I was on my back in a hospital, out of money, out of a job, shafted by my employer, when my hubby tells me he wants a divorce,” she lied.
“ Life sucks rocks, like the kids say, huh?” he replied, his eyes now fixed on Jessica, who had come around to face him while telling her make-believe tale of woe, designed to put them on the same side.
“ With me, it all went to hell when… when Millie… when she died.”
Keyes bit her lower lip and stared across at Marsden, who saw her struggling to hold back her emotions. “We're all very sorry to hear of your loss, Mr. Marsden,” she offered.
“ In my private time with Millie… well, she was all I had, my whole life outside the job, but I should've given her more of my time, you know?”
“ Sure… sure,” replied Jessica.
“ Should've devoted myself to her. She certainly did as much for me. Before the disease struck.”
“ Disease?” asked Shannon.
“ She contracted a rare disease. Blood disorder. Ripped my heart out to watch her slowly succumb. Doctors all said it was only a matter of time; best I could do was make her comfortable in the end.” Marsden rose as if under some invisible force. “She came into so much pain in the end, so I… I put her down myself, you see, and afterward… I couldn't just go on with life as if… as if everything were the same as before. No way of doing that…”
“ Easy, Marsden,” cautioned Keyes through clenched teeth, hissing, when suddenly the huge man came up out of his seat. Jessica had to reach up to put a hand on his shoulder, but she was right up with him, toe-to-toe, eye meeting eye. Something in Jessica's stem gaze caught firm hold of the lean giant, and he dropped back down into his seat, almost toppling it with the sudden impact of his weight against it.
Once righted, he allowed his legs to fully extend and relax beneath the table. With a shaking hand that he balled into a fist, he muttered, “I–I-I put a bottle of painkiller into her. A whole fucking bottle. Figured the more I used, the quicker and faster and less pain that way, you see?”
Keyes tried to get control back, saying, “You don't have to relive these events here and now, sir. We are only interested in what you saw in that parking garage at the courthouse where you stole that woman's purse.”
“ Millie… she went just as peaceful as nightfall then… after I took it on myself to… to… you know…”
“ I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Marsden… really. But we have a situation on our hands here and now that requires our full and undivided attention. Do you understand?” Keyes firmly asked.
Jessica continued to be impressed by Keyes's approach.
Leaning into his space, Keyes added, “How you came to be in that parking garage, and how you took Judge DeCampe's purse off the floor and emptied it. That's what we're interested in here and now, sir.”
“ If we have your full cooperation, Mr. Marsden, you're outta here in the time it takes to answer a few questions.” Jessica's lie would have to suffice for now.
The others all knew that with a confession of having killed his wife, they would have to return Dr. Marsden to the Georgia judicial system, likely to stand trial for mercy killing.
The broken giant, tears in his eyes, asked, “You want to know how that man got her, don't you?” Marsden thanked Keyes, who offered him a handkerchief from her purse.
Impatient again, Jessica held herself in check, saying, “Go on, Mr. Marsden.”
“ I saw how he zapped her.”
“ Zapped her?” Jessica perked up at this.
“ I heard the buzz and smelled the flesh bum. I was that close. In my usual comer.”
“ Go on,” encouraged Keyes.
“ She fell like a piano with no legs. After he zapped her, she went to her knees and right into him. She almost knocked him over with her weight. He dragged her to a van, put her inside, and drove out. That's all I know… all I know.”
“ Zapped her? Zapped her how?” repeated Jessica.
Marsden looked again directly into Jessica's eyes. “One of them rods, an electronic gizmo you might use on a cow.”
“ A cattle prod?” asked Keyes. 'That's it.” Jessica, who had remained standing at Marsden's side, now stared across at Keyes. She had watched Dr. Keyes closely and again felt pleased with the woman's technique. She gave Marsden the feeling that he was the only person in the world she wanted to be with at the moment. She shrewdly nodded at everything he said, not flinching once, and her body language didn't give her away either, not even at the worst moments in the interview. At the same time, Keyes listened intently for every nuance, studying their only witness to the crime.
“ Are you sure of what you saw, Mr. Marsden?” asked Keyes, her glasses playing hip-hop with her eyebrows.
“ 'Cause, he was a little guy… scrawny as a scarecrow. Clothes hung on him. No way he coulda overpowered that woman any other way.”
Jessica asked, her eyes burning into Marsden, “At what age would you place the man who attacked her?”
“ Old… way old, you know.”
“ Old, how old?” asked a surprised Keyes, who, like the others, had been going by the usual profiling measures, which statistically placed the attacker at between the ages of eighteen and forty. “Define old.”
“ Granddaddy old. Looked like somebody's grand pappy. Wore a suit, but it looked like he'd slept in it more than once. All skin and bone, you know, sun-baked hound-dog- leather skin, you know, like they say in Georgia.”
“ Do you think you could describe him to a sketch artist, Mr. Marsden?”
“ For a hot meal and some coffee? Sure.”
“ Deal, sir. I'll just arrange to get an artist in here,” replied Jessica.
“ Sir… used to be my name… sir. Then the thing with Millie… hit me so hard, first her sickness, dealing with her mortality, and then… then having to do what I had to do…
Jessica girded herself for this uncalled-for confession. She gritted her teeth before staring into Keyes's eyes, and then she stared at the one-way mirror at the back of the room. “Maybe we ought not say any more about Millie, Dr. Marsden.”
“ Yeah,” agreed Shannon Keyes, “let's keep that between… among us for now, OK? We can get you a court- appointed lawyer to discuss that with you.”
Jessica added, “And Dr. Keyes here is a psychiatrist. You can tell her all about Millie later. How's that?”
“ Pains me to talk about it.”
“ I absolutely understand,” replied Keyes, smiling warmly and adding, “I think we all understand, Dr. Marsden.”
“ It's been a long… way down… a whataya call it… free fall.” The big man had a feminine, even childish air about him. “Just walked away… right off the face of my life. Stopped making payments. Walked away… got on a bus, then a train… don't recall how I got to D.C., not really.”
“ I'm sure Millie was in a lot of pain,” offered Keyes.
“ Pain… we're talking horror. She had a rare form of cancer in the blood you don't often find in canines.”
Both Jessica and Keyes found their mouths had dropped open. Now, staring at one another, they knew they had been had, not intentionally, but had nonetheless. Keyes falsified a coughing jag to cover her mirth.
“ Did you say canine, sir?” asked Jessica.
“ Millie was my support, my linchpin, my fulcrum, my unconditional love, and all round best friend. It's true what they say…”
“ But she was a dog, sir?” pressed Jessica. They shoot horses and dogs, don't they? ran through her mind.
“ She wasn't just a dog, detectives. You people… you all pretend to be so understanding and sensitive, but that's only a means to an end. With Millie and me… there was never any inkling of that, ever. Not even when I put her outta her misery.”
But Millie licked your face for food, thought Jessica; still, she censored herself, saying instead, “Well, sir, we certainly understand how much you must have loved Millie.”
“ Love… still do.”
“ Yes, of course…”
Keyes, still crushing out a full-blown laugh directed as much to Jessica and herself for being so gullible, added, “That's… painfully obvious, Mr. Marsden.”
Jessica imagined Richard, Santiva, and J. T. behind the one-way mirror, likely laughing it up on learning that the mysterious, ailing Millie had turned out to be a dog and not the man's wife or lover. For a moment, she wished herself to be behind the mirror, where she could safely vent her feelings at having wasted so much time over this interrogation. Still, Jessica felt both the room and the outer room fill with great relief that Marsden had not killed his wife but had put down his dog instead-animal euthanasia-still not a crime in America, despite all the lobbying to make it one by certain animal rights groups. One chimp in the news had his own lawyer now.
“ Ahhh, Shannon… Dr. Keyes, will you arrange for a Boston Market meal for Dr. Marsden while I arrange for a sketch artist?”
“ Absolutely, right away, Dr. Coran.” Keyes's rolling eyes told Jessica she could not wait to get out of there.
“ We'll want a complete description of the van the old, cattle-prodding guy used, too, Dr. Marsden. Did you get a clear look at it?”
“ Not real clear, no. A dark van, tinted windows. Didn't get the license plate, but it was curious, since it was out of state.”
“ Out of state?”
“ Yes, ma'am.”
“ What state was it?”
“ Something like Iowa.”
“ Something like Iowa, or Iowa?”
“ Iowa, yeah… it was Iowa.”
“ Anything else distinguishing about the old man or his ride?” pressed Keyes, now held up at the door by the turn of the conversation.
“ It was spanking clean and brand new, one of those newest models, foreign-made for sure… Couldn't tell you which, but large enough to hold two caskets side by side. Man looked like the Grim Reaper himself.”
'Truly, sir, you do have a way with words,” replied Jessica, picturing this image. A van large enough to hold two caskets.
“ Did you ever at any time think that maybe you ought to… you know… intervene, Dr. Marsden?” asked Keyes, an edge that had not been there before now creeping into her voice.
“ Hell, I can't straighten out my own life. I wasn't about to get involved, but I did kinda sorta confront the old man.”
“ You confronted him?” asked Keyes.
“ You had words with him?” asked Jessica. Both women approaching the old man anew, their eyes pinning him to where he sat. “How?” asked Jessica, her eyes telling the old man that she wanted every single word of this latest revelation, and she wanted them now.
Marsden's voice quaked a little bit, a small anxious crackling sound, as if he might go either way, explode with words or contract into himself and say little or nothing. “Just after…”
“ Just after what?” Damn this man, Jessica thought.
“ Just after he… he put her into it.”
“ Into the van?”
“ Into the casket… the casket in the van.”
“ Whoa, wait up there, sir,” replied Jessica. “Are you saying that he actually did have two g'damn coffins in back of his van?”
“ God's honest truth, yes.”
Again the women exchanged a long, amazed look. The conversation had held Keyes planted in the room, and she, like Jessica, had turned her full attention to Marsden. 'Tell us, sir, how you actually confronted the abductor.”
“ Well, maybe not confront… that may not be the word.”
“ What is the damned word?” Jessica felt on the verge of slamming her fists onto the table. The man infuriated her. Keyes must have sensed this. Shannon placed a soft hand over Jessica's and asked Marsden to go on. “I… I mean we had words. We spoke to one 'nother.” Just like that? Jessica wanted to scream. “What precisely did you say to him, sir?” she pleaded.
“ I asked him… let me see… asked if he thought… if he was… you know… if he was doing the right thing here.”
“ Jesus,” Jessica muttered. 'To which he replied?” asked Keyes calmly. “The old feller said something from the Bible straight out.”
“ What… what from the Bible did he say?” pressed Jessica, her back now like a staff.
“ He stood there eyeballing me like I was an old friend the whole time, but never letting his eyes off me, burned a hole through me.” Now came the explosion of words out of the former Georgia school principal's mouth.
“ What did the old man say to you?” Jessica again pressed. “Said, 'Fear not, for I am about the Lord's work, and you'-he said to me straight out-'you have come from God as a messenger, John out of the wilderness,' and how I was a sign… yeah, a sign.”
“ A sign?” asked Keyes.
“ A good sign that he was doing exactly as God intended him to do.”
“ Damn,” cursed Jessica. “We not only have a lunatic on our hands but one that is inspired by God's divine message.”
“ The worst kind,” agreed Keyes.
Jessica's hand meandered across the table in Marsden's direction, stopping short of his. “You say he put the woman into a coffin in the van?”
“ Yes ma'am.”
“ And you let him leave without another word?” demanded Keyes, finally losing some of her control.
“ He had a look about him that told me it wasn't none of my business. Fact is, he had a strange look in his eyes.”
Jessica kept eye contact with Marsden. “What kind of look is that, sir?”
“ Like he was doing what he said he was doing.”
“ God's work, you mean?” asked Jessica.
“ The business of God's work, yes, and his eyes… that look he had… told me I wasn't to interfere, that no one was to interfere.”
“ Is there anything else? Did he say anything else to you?” Jessica was glad the interrogation had been taped.
“ There was one other thing he said. He said, 'Who can know or judge God's work,' he said.”
“ I see.” Jessica stood again, turned, and spoke to the others behind the glass. “Sounds like our man is hearing voices from God.”
“ Or reading too much into 'Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,' “ added Keyes.
Jessica had to control her anger with Marsden. She sucked it up and returned to him, sat, and calmly asked, “You didn't think to call the police?”
“ He had two coffins in the back of his van!” Now Mars-den began to show some agitated anger, weakly defending his inaction. “Damn it, I didn't want to be put into the other coffin beside her, and that van… it smelled… smelled of a horrible odor.”
“ What kind of odor?”
“ Like decay and death all balled up into one.”
“ And you aren't exaggerating about the size of the van,” asked Keyes, “or that it contained not one but two coffins?”
'Two coffins, side by side.”
“ This means she could be buried alive somewhere,” said Keyes, trembling.
Marsden began to prattle, “I thought it was some old guy come to carry his woman or maybe even his child on back to a home she run from. I saw an old Iowa farmer come to fetch what belonged to him. Maybe she was his runaway wife or daughter, I told myself. Maybe he was rescuing her from a cult or something. How should I know?”
“ Daddy come to fetch his little girl with a box to restrain her in, all to save her from the big bad city, huh?” asked Keyes, shaking her head.
“ That's 'bout what I was thinking, ma'am,” replied Marsden to Keyes. “Like that, yeah. I didn't get a fair look at her to determine if it was the wife or daughter, but yeah… that's why I didn't get involved. Thought it was family business, you know?”
“ Family business,” repeated Jessica, feeling weakened by this process of getting information out of this man. Still, she felt great relief that she had excluded Santiva and the other men from the questioning. Perhaps not Richard or J. T„but Santiva most certainly would have shut Marsden down like turning off a faucet. At least she and Keyes had been patient in finding and turning that faucet on. Eriq Santiva would most likely have sent the mole scurrying to the dark underground of a splintered personality that existed deep within him, and they would have gotten little or no information from Marsden. Even J. T. might have exploded on learning that Marsden had wasted their time with a doggie death, while all this vital information about DeCampe's abductor remained off the table and inside the man's head.
“ Family business,” muttered Keyes.
“ That's 'bout what I was thinking, ma'am,” repeated Marsden, his eyes glued on Keyes yet vacant. “Like that, yeah,” he repeated. “Were you drunk at the time you witnessed the attack?” asked Jessica, looking for something mitigating about the sheer cowardice of the man.
“ Not nearly drunk enough. Bothered me some that I didn't help out that woman.”
Jessica released a long breath of air. She had smelled Marsden's odors long enough. She stood beside him, where she slapped Marsden on the shoulder as if they had been lifelong friends, telling him how much he had already helped them. His worn, tattered coat reacted to the slap on his shoulder by sending up a flurry of dust and mites. Jessica backed off, saying, “Now you just quit blaming yourself for any of this, Dr. Marsden. If you'd gotten involved any more than you had, you might be down in our morgue right now and unable to help us one iota.” Certain amount of truth in that, she thought. “As it is, you've put us onto the right track.”
“ I have done that, haven't I?”
“ Yes, sir, Mr. Superintendent. Now relax here, and one of us'll send in some coffee and a meal and be right back, Dr. Marsden.”
As Jessica hustled Keyes out and let the door close on Marsden, the man said, “You don't have to call me doctor no more, and I don't hold title to superintendent no more; I know it's just your technique to get friendly, but you don't fool me any, detective.”
Not smart like Millie at all, am I? Jessica thought and felt a moment's relief to be away from the strange giant she'd left alone in interrogation.