John Miller - Upside Down

“What're you gonna do now?” a voice asked. She turned to find herself face-to-face with another boy.

“I need to make a long-distance call. I guess I ought to go find a pay phone.”

“This is Ashe,” Peter said. “He's the best speller we have.”

“Nice to meet you,” Faith Ann said, shaking the boy's hand.

Ashe's brown eyes were serious. “You're a girl, aren't you?”

Faith Ann nodded.

“I told ya,” Ashe said, punching Peter's shoulder. “I knew I saw breasts when the wind blew her shirt against 'em.”

“I knew that,” Peter said indignantly. “She's way too pretty to be a guy.”

“Unless you're turning queer,” Ashe said, laughing. “Which you probably are. You're that girl the cops are looking for, aren't you?”

Faith Ann felt the heat rising to her cheeks. She didn't know what to say, what the boys would do. “Yeah.”

“Cool,” Peter said.

“You can use this, then.” Ashe held out a Nokia cell phone painted with red and yellow flames. “My mom gets pissed if I rack up roams. Talk as long as you want.”

The two boys high-fived.

“Thank you, guys,” she said, kissing each of them in turn on their cheeks. She felt like yelling.

“Anytime,” Peter said.

“Guys, what's the name of this place again?”

“Church of Christ. Barataria, Louisiana.”

Faith Ann dialed Rush's number and held her breath while it rang.

Tinnerino saw the four men strolling from the hospital's main entrance stopping at Manseur's car. Tinnerino heard the sound of Manseur's car door opening over the receiver. Manseur had just opened his door when the marshal answered his cell phone, stepped away a few steps to talk. Massey was on the phone for a minute, before he took out a card and scribbled on it. Massey waved the other two men into Manseur's car.

Through the earphones Tinnerino heard the men getting into Manseur's car and slamming the doors. He opened his pad to make notes because making a tape of this wasn't smart.

“That was Sean. Faith Ann just called her,” the deputy's voice said.

“Where is she?” Manseur asked. “Did she say?”

Massey was silent for a few seconds. “She's about thirty miles from here and she's freaked.”

“You direct, I'll drive,” Manseur said.

“I have to go alone. If she sees anyone besides me, she'll bolt. Last time she called, the cops showed up before I did. I'll get her calmed down and explain things and I'll bring her back. Sean told her the police weren't trying to arrest her, but she doesn't believe it.”

Manseur said, “I'm interested in this alleged evidence. Does she have it or not?”

“She doesn't have the evidence with her. She hid it after she escaped the parking deck. You can wait at the governor's hotel and I'll bring her straight there. You can get the governor to put a hold on the execution. You can see it when we show it to him, and we won't waste time.”

Manseur said, “I won't bother the governor, attempt to stop Pond's execution, until I see absolute proof that he's innocent. I'm not believing Suggs was involved in a frame and cover-up until I see proof.”

“She has an audiotape of the killings in the office and negatives and photocopies of pictures that show the real killer doing it.”

Manseur said, “And you believe that sort of evidence exists-that somebody was stupid enough to take some sort of incriminating pictures and keep them? That girl has a vivid imagination.”

“Maybe not,” Massey said.

Manseur was silent for long seconds. “Okay. So what do we do?”

Massey said, “Nicky and Adams will go to my hotel and wait for me to bring Faith Ann there. You said a few minutes ago you hadn't seen your family in two days, so go home. I'll call you when we get the evidence and we can meet and you can see the stuff and make your call to the governor.”

“I get the feeling you don't trust me,” Manseur said.

There was a long silence in the car.

“Okay. Meet me at the ferry landing at Canal Street-an hour, an hour and a half,” Massey said. “I'll pass on the evidence envelope.”

Tin Man heard three car doors closing.

The Impala's engine came to life and Tin Man heard Manseur call his wife to tell her he was swinging by the house to say good night. Then he turned the car radio to some opera crap and Tinnerino turned the volume on the receiver down.

“Who the hell are we following?” Doyle asked over the radio. “They're leaving in three separate cars.”

“Nobody,” Tin Man said. “Let them go.”

“What?”

“I know where they're going. We can give them all the space in the world.”

Tin Man dialed Captain Suggs. And he smiled because he knew their plans. He also finally knew exactly what the girl had and what all that lovely knowledge was going to be worth down the road. Suggs would put together a plan to snag the evidence. Let the Spics handle the heavy lifting. Tin Man didn't want to actually kill a child, or be in a shoot-out with Massey. When Manseur sent him and Doyle out, he would be handing them alibis on a silver platter.

Passing under a banner proclaiming a “Bible bee,” Winter went into the Church of Christ in Barataria, Louisiana. He declined a program sheet offered by a man in a knit shirt with winglike collars and entered into the sanctuary, stopping at the top of the wide center aisle.

On the riser, teenagers sat in rows of folding chairs. A skinny girl with frizzy red hair stood at the pulpit. “Armageddon,” she said into the microphone. “A-r-m-a-g-e-d-d-o-n. Armageddon.”

“That… is correct,” a voice announced.

Someone in the audience shouted out, “Praise His holy name!”

The girl raised her hands in the air in triumph.

A camera flashed.

The crowd applauded.

Winter recognized the skinny, short-haired boy with a bruised cheek who walked briskly toward him from the back corner of the santuary. Faith Ann grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard. Outside the front door Faith Ann looked up at him, her lower lip quivering.

“It's going to be all right,” Winter said, putting his arms around her. “I'm here, Faith Ann. Everything is going to be fine.”

He felt the sobs wrack her thin body. He understood that it would be a while before she'd be able to speak. He knew what sort of relief she was feeling, because he shared it. It was almost over.

When his cell phone rang, Harvey Suggs was walking away from the Verdict, a restaurant located around the corner from police headquarters, where he had explained to Tinnerino and Doyle what he expected from them. The captain's seriously shaken confidence had returned to normal. He had thought every angle through to its most likely conclusion. Everybody knew exactly what to do.

Peace of mind was going to cost Suggs a promotion each for Tinnerino and Doyle, and he'd toss the Spics a few thousand dollars. Tinnerino and Doyle would make sure that Manseur ended in such a way that he was discredited, so that whatever he had might have shared with the FBI agent and the private investigator could be more effectively denied. The Latinos were capable of the more difficult task of making the evidence vanish. They'd take care of the meddlesome Massey and the Porter kid. Without the evidence, no matter how loudly anybody howled, it would all fade away.

“Hello,” Suggs said, not recognizing the number spelled out on the caller I.D. He strode toward his car, parked a half block away. Tinnerino and Doyle sped by in separate cars, Tinnerino nodding once in greeting.

“Harold?” the somehow familiar voice said. “This is Parker Hurt.”

“Parker Hurt?”

“Governor Morton's assistant.”