Jeffery Deaver - Hard News

"A man who got wrongly convicted."

Boggs smiled an interstate cloverleaf into his face. "You got some good lines. I like that. Yeah, that's a role I've been acting for a long time. Nobody's bought it yet."

"I want to get you released."

"Well, miss, seems like we've got a lot in common." He was definitely warming up to her.

"I talked to Fred Megler-"

Boggs nodded and his face showed disappointment but not anger or contempt. "If I had money to hire me a real lawyer, like those inside traders and, you know, those coke kingfishers you see on TV, I think things might've been different. Fred isn't a bad man. I just don't believe his heart was in my case. I reckon I'd say he should've listened to some of my advice. I've had a little experience with the law. Not a lot of which I'm proud of but the fact remains I've seen the inside of a courtroom several occasions. He should've listened to me."

Rune said, "He told me your story. But I knew you were innocent when I saw you."

"When would that've been?"

"On film. An interview."

The smile was now wistful. He kept evading her eyes, which bothered her. She believed this was shyness, not guile, but she didn't want shifty eyes on tape.

Boggs was saying, "I appreciate your opinion, miss, but if that's all you have to go on I'm still feeling like a six-ounce bluegill on a twenty-pound line."

"Look at me and tell me. Did you do it or not?"

His eyes were no longer evasive; they locked onto hers and answered as clearly as his words, "I did not kill Lance Hopper."

"That's enough for me."

And Boggs wasn't smiling when he said, "Trouble is, it don't seem to be enough for the people of the state of New York."

Two hours later Randy Boggs got to: "That's when I decided to hitch to New York. And that was the biggest mistake of my life."

"You were tired of Maine?"

"The lobster business didn't work out like I'd hoped. My partner – see, I'm not much for figures – he kept the books and all this cash coming in didn't no way equal the cash going out. I suspicioned he kept the numbers pretty obscured and when he sold the business he told me he was letting it go to a couple creditors but I think he got paid good money. Anyways, I had me maybe two, three hundred bucks was all and two new pair of jeans, some shirts. I figured I'd be leaving that part of the country before another winter come. Snow belongs in movies and in paper cones with syrup on it. So I begun thumbing south. Rides were scarce's hens' teeth but finally I got me some rides and ended up in Purchase, New York. If that isn't a name I don't know what is." He grinned. "Purchase… It was raining and I had my thumb out so long it was looking like a bleached prune. Nobody stopped, except this one fellow. He pulled over in a – we call them – a Chinese tenement car. Big old Chevy twelve or so years old – you know, could ride a family of ten. He said, 'Hop in,' and I did. Biggest mistake of my life, miss. I'll tell you that."

"Jimmy."

"Right. But then I told him my name was Dave. I just had a feeling this wasn't a person I wanted to open up with a real lot."

"What happened after you got in?"

"We drove south toward the city, making small talk. 'Bout women mostly, the way men do. Telling how you get put down by women all the time and how you don't understand them but what you're really doing is bragging that you've had a ton of 'em. That sort of thing."

"Where was Jimmy going? Further south?" "He said he was only going so far as New York City but I was thankful I was getting a ride at all. I figured I could buy a Greyhound ticket to get me on my way to Atlanta. In fact I was thinking just that very thing when he looks over at me in the car and says, 'Hey, son, how'd you like to earn yourself a hundred bucks.' And I said, 'I'd like that pretty well, particularly if it's legal but even if not I'd still like it pretty well.'

"He said it wasn'treal illegal. Just picking up something and dropping it off. I told him right away, 'I've got a problem if that'd be drugs you were talking about.' He said it was credit cards and since I've done a little with them in the past I said that wasn't so bad but could he maybe consider two hundred. He said he'd more than consider it and said if I drove he'd make it two hundred fifty. And I agreed was what I did. We drive to this place somewhere. I didn't know New York but at the trial I found out it was on the Upper West Side. We stopped and he got out and I scooted over behind the wheel. Jimmy, or whatever his name was, walked into this courtyard." Rune asked, "What did he look like?" "Well, I wasn't too sure. I oughta be wearing glasses but I'd lost them overboard in Maine and couldn't afford to get new ones. He was a big fellow, though.

He sat big, the way a bear would sit. A moustache, I remember. It was all in profile, the look I got."

"White?"

"Yes'm."

"Describe his clothing."

"He wore blue jeans with cuffs turned up, engineer boots-"

"What are those?"

"Short buckled boots, you know. Black. And a Navy watch coat."

"Weren't you a little nervous about this credit card thing?"

Boggs paused for a minute. "I'll tell you, miss. There've been times in my life – not a lot, but a few – when two hundred fifty dollars hasn't been a lot of money. But had then it was. Just like it would be now and when somebody is going to give you a lot of money you'd be surprised what stops becoming funny or suspicious. Anyway, I sat for about ten minutes in the car. I had me a cigarette or two. I was real hungry and was looking around for a Burger King. That's what I really wanted, one of those Whoppers. There I am, feeling hungry, and I hear this shot. I've fired me enough pistols in my life to know a gunshot. They don't boom like in the movies. There's this crack-"

"I know gunshots," Rune said.

"Yeah, you shoot?"

"Been shot at, matter of fact," she told him. This wasn't ego. It was to let him know more about her, make him trust her more.

Boggs glanced at her, decided she wasn't kidding, and nodded slowly. He continued. "I walk carefully into the courtyard. There's a man lying on the ground. I thought it was Jimmy. I run up to him and see it'snot Jimmy and I lean down and say, 'Mister, you okay?' And of course he isn't. I see he's dead. I stand up fast and I just panic and run."

Boggs smiled with a shallow twist of his lips. "And what happens? The story of my life. I run into a police car cruising by outside. I mean, I really run right into it, bang. I fall over and they pick me up and collar me and that's it."

"What about Jimmy?"

"I glanced around and seen the car but Jimmy wasn't inside. He was gone."

"Did you see any gun?"

"No, ma'am. I heard they found it in the bushes. There wasn't any of my prints on it but I was wearing gloves. The DA made a big deal out of it that I was wearing gloves in April. But I got me small hands…" He held one up. "I don't have a lot of meat on me. It was real cold."

"You think Jimmy shot Mr Hopper?"

"I pondered that a lot but I don't see why he would have. He didn't have any gun that I saw and if it was just a credit card scam Mr Hopper wouldn't've been in on that, credit cards're small potatoes. I think Jimmy had the cards on him and just panicked when he heard the shot. Then he just took off."

"But you told the cops about Jimmy?"

"Well, not the credit card part. It didn't seem that was too smart. So I kept mum on that. But sure I told them about Jimmy. Not one of them – to a man -believed me."

Not even your own lawyer, Rune thought. "Assuming Jimmy didn't shoot Hopper, you think he might'veseen the killer?"

"Could've."

"There isn't a lot to go on, what you've told me."

"I understand that. He sighed. I was just biding my time, waiting for parole. But there're people here I got on the bad side of somehow. I'm really worried they're going to move on me again."