Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

"No, not necessarily. Let's wait for what the lab has to say before we start worrying too much, though. Have you been in to see Floyd?"

A hesitation here, a hint of embarrassment. "No, I was… I mean I thought we could go in and see him together."

"Sure, let's talk for a minute about how we're going to play him. I think double-teaming is the way to go with George. And let me order some muscle from Wade. I don't much trust the jailhouse guys."

Floyd had taken off his jacket and tie and rolled up the sleeves of his white-on-white shirt. His forearms were massive and flecked with brownish hair. He rested them on the coffee-room table, their muscles flexing as he clenched his fists. Behind him, flexing even more massive forearms, stood Curtis Vogelsang, the largest state trooper in southwestern West Virginia. A much smaller jailhouse deputy, Peagram by name, sat on a chair in a corner.

"Here's what we got, George," said Karp breezily as he sat down. "We have two confessions to the murders of the Heeney family, from Earl and Bo Cade. They say you organized the whole thing. They say you were there in the house supervising the proceedings."

"I was at a meeting. Twenty guys will vouch for me."

"All on your payroll, I have no doubt. We'll see how much they vouch when we explain the perjury statutes to them. Also we have this." Karp passed across a sheaf of ink-jet printouts-the photographic record of the finding of the.38 under the birdbath. "That's a.38 there, George. If it proves to be the murder weapon, you're in big trouble."

To Karp's dismay, Floyd barely glanced at the photographs. He grinned and said, "That's horseshit. Someone planted it. Maybe you, or your little dickhead friend there."

"No, you know it wasn't anything like that," said Karp dismissively. He stared for almost a minute at Floyd silently, as if examining a specimen. He had found it a useful technique before this. Then he said, "It is interesting though. Although we know you're an asshole, I can't quite believe you're that big an asshole, because I couldn't help noticing that you walked in here with your shoes on the right feet, and also neatly tied with bows. We know you're an asshole because only an asshole would have planned a murder with a bunch of half-wit hillbillies for triggermen. And of course they screwed it up, and of course we grabbed them, and of course they ratted you out instantly. But you were smart, in just the way that assholes think they're smart. You told them to throw away the gun because you saw on the TV somewhere that we could match bullets to guns. You didn't take the gun and throw it away yourself. You're not capable of that much intelligence, you pathetic sap! No, you told your witless accomplice to throw it away. But this moron actually had more sense than you. This moron planted the gun on you, so that if anyone ever asked any questions, they could say, 'Oh, George did it. George shot a sleeping little girl.' And you're going to go away for it, for the rest of your miserable life. You know, George, they don't like child killers in prisons. You'll be at the bottom of the pecking order in the joint, instead of at the top like you are here. When you go up, you better bring a large jar of Vaseline and a frilly negligee-"

George Floyd actually shouted arrgh like they do in comic books and came out of his chair at Karp, knocking the table aside. They grappled. His clawing hands came within millimeters of Karp's throat before Trooper Vogelsang whipped a mighty arm around Floyd's neck and strangled him back into his chair. Karp cocked a fist and went for Floyd, but Hawes got in his way and pushed him back. "What are you, crazy?" Hawes shouted. "Don't ever talk to a prisoner that way in my courthouse again! Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I'm in charge of this investigation," said Karp in as authoritative a tone as he could manage.

"The hell you are! This is my courthouse, goddamnit, and right now you're not welcome in it. Get out!"

Karp did a glare and then spun on his heel and walked out, slamming the door behind him. Outside in the narrow corridor he straightened his clothes and took a drink from the water fountain. The guard on duty looked at him curiously as he signed out of the jail.

"Having some trouble?" the deputy asked.

Karp replied, "Just torturing the prisoners, Deputy Wyatt," and walked up the stairs.

He thought it had gone fairly well. Because he had a genuine sympathy for evildoers-he could not have stayed married to his wife had he not-Karp was extremely, famously effective as the good cop and hardly ever got the chance to be the bad one, as he had just now. He did not think he would ever get to like it, although he knew some perfectly decent people who doted on the role.

It was dark when he left the courthouse and walked the few streets to the Burroughs Building. As he had expected, the lights were burning still. Hendricks and his team had taken over the largest room in the place. At desks and at makeshift trestle tables, several detectives were methodically ploughing through George Floyd's papers.

"Did you find the diary, yet?" Karp asked Hendricks.

"What diary is that?"

"The one with the entry 'June 26, pick up frozen yogurt, kill Heeney family.'"

"Oh, that diary. No, not just yet. Floyd seems to be a cagey fellow. Most of what we looked at so far is copies of routine union business and personal stuff. How did you make out with the man?"

"I did my crude New York monster impression. Stan is soothing him as we speak. Somehow, I doubt we'll get much. We don't have much except the confessions."

"And the pistol."

"Could've been planted. Was planted, more likely, and, boy, would I have loved to have found it all oiled and fingerprinted under his Simmons. But anyway, whether or not Floyd was at the scene, he's definitely the guy who set the whole thing up. He paid for the whole thing. You serve that subpoena for the bank stuff yet?"

"Right after we got it, Floyd's personal account. Mel Harkness is going over them now. It might take a while."

"As long as it takes. We're looking for seventy-five hundred dollars, if the Cade boys aren't just blowing smoke. Seven point five K cash."

"Follow the money?"

"That's what they say. The weak point of every criminal enterprise. It'll probably be in the union accounts, though. We need those, too."

Karp went to the room he was using as an office and called Marlene at Four Oaks. Not in. He sat back in his chair, a cheap old-fashioned job, not nearly as comfortable as the big judge's swivel he used in New York. He swiveled. It squeaked. He tried to make it play a tune while he tapped out "The Yellow Rose of Texas" on his teeth with a pencil. The phone rang.

"Butch? Stan."

"A full confession. Remorse. Tears. You stroked his head and said, 'There, there.' "

Hawes laughed. "Not quite. I had to take some abuse, but I calmed him down. He thinks I'm still one of the boys."

"Yeah, that's why you were the good guy. What's his story?"

"Outraged citizen. He allows as how it might have been suggested around the Cades that Heeney was trouble and that no one would cry their eyes out if he got hit by a truck. But planning his murder? Heaven forbid! It was like that old movie with what's his name, Richard Burton?"

"Becket," said Karp. "'Who will rid me of this troublous priest?' He mentioned that?"

"No, I was thinking of it while he was lying. His story is the Cade boys got the idea that Floyd and the union bosses wanted Heeney dead and they thought they were doing a favor. He wasn't there, didn't know nothing about it until it happened. A pretty good defense, I thought. At trial, it'd come down to the gun and the testimony of a couple of convicted felons, or three. And they tried to implicate him because they knew he had the county wrapped up and they wanted to get off."