“The letter’s at our lab right now, being analyzed.”
“Waste of taxpayer dollars. I can tell you it’s authentic.”
“How’s that?” Vail pulled a copy of the letter from her pocket and unfolded it. “What makes you so sure it’s from Dead Eyes?”
“See the sentence ‘Evil rides the ocean and the sky turns all the rivers gold’? He made that up a long time ago. It became kind of a saying for us.”
“You know the Dead Eyes killer?”
“I just said that, didn’t I? Man, I thought you people were smart.”
Vail felt like reaching across the table and slapping the guy but kept her face neutral. “Who is he?”
Singletary burst out laughing. A smoker’s cough quickly overwhelmed him, and Vail had to turn away to avoid the explosion of germs from the man’s uncovered mouth. “You expect me to just give you the guy’s name?”
“I thought you might, yes.”
“Then you’re stupider than I thought you were. But you are a fine lookin’ thing,” he said, then stuck his tongue out and waved it like a lizard’s. “I got two demands. One is, I only talk to Thomas Underwood. Second, I want my death sentence commuted, to life in prison.”
Now it was Vail’s turn to laugh. She did so boisterously, purposely to annoy the man who thought he held all the cards. It was his nature to try to gain the upper hand, to seek control and power. She was not going to give it to him. “Thomas Underwood isn’t with the Bureau anymore. I doubt he’d want to waste any more of his time talking to you.”
“Then you’d be wrong, Agent Vail. Because Thomas has already said he’d meet with me. He said it on MSNBC, just about a half hour ago.”
Vail resisted the urge to glance at the one-way mirror, behind which Bledsoe was seated. “Why Underwood?”
“The guy understands me. It’s a familiar face. This is important information. I deal with him.”
“You want something, you deal with me,” Vail said.
“Ooh. Tough woman. That turns me on,
Vail ground her teeth. She wanted to grab the guy’s jumpsuit lapels and shake him. Hard. But she counted backwards from five to calm her anger. “I’ll make a call, see if I can get Underwood here. As to getting your sentence commuted, I wouldn’t count on it. I can get you some T.V., a steak dinner every night—”
“Yeah, that’s good. MTV. I want my MTV. Add that to the list.”
“Mr. Singletary, I’ll make the calls, convey your demands. I just wouldn’t hold out much hope.”
“I don’t have much hope, sweetheart. I’m on death row. You hold out hope, you get disappointed.”
She nodded, then pushed away from the table.
“Just remember,” Singletary said. “You give me what I want, I’ll give you the name of the Dead Eyes killer.”
Vail stood there for a long moment, reading the man’s eyes. Tempted to agree to the deal even though she didn’t have the authority. Given all the death, the young lives taken and yet to be taken, the offer seemed too good to refuse.
But in her experience, making deals with the devil usually backfired.
Vail let the door click closed behind her. Bledsoe met her and Del Monaco in the hallway, the detective’s normally olive-complected face red and strained.
“I spoke with Gifford,” Vail said. “He’s calling Underwood’s office. We’ll know soon whether or not he’ll come. Bureau will pay his airfare and hotel, any expenses.”
Del Monaco grunted. “We all know this deal turns on his sentence.”
“And that ain’t gonna happen,” Bledsoe said. “Imagine the heat the DA will take if he caves and recommends leniency to the governor.”
Vail shook her head. “Think about the heat he’ll take if Dead Eyes murders another woman and it gets out he could’ve prevented it.” She leaned her back against the wall, let her head touch the cold, painted cinderblock. “I think we need to make the deal. Contingent on arrest and conviction of Dead Eyes.”
Del Monaco stepped forward. “The guy’s set to die in five days, Karen. Delaying his execution even an hour sends a message. Once you’ve delayed it, it’s like you’ve made the decision to wait till the jury comes back with a verdict. You can’t suddenly decide you’re going to change your mind two or three months into it. You’re either in or out.”
“You don’t think we should do it,” Bledsoe said.
“Hey, I don’t get paid the big bucks to make those decisions. What I think doesn’t mean diddly.”
“I think Underwood’s our best shot,” Bledsoe said.
Del Monaco shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “There’s a bigger issue. How do we know this letter is even legit? And how do we know that Singletary really knows who Dead Eyes is? He could be jerking us around. Playing us, trying to buy himself some extra time.”
Vail pulled out her cell phone and began to dial. “Maybe the lab has some answers for us.”
She walked down the hall, pacing, waiting for the technician to take her call. But she knew the time spent hoping they had discovered something of value was wasted when the tech told her they hadn’t finished running the tests. They could tell her the type of paper it had been written on, the type of ink used to print it, and that there were no usable fingerprints other than a partial from Singletary.
“This guy dies in five days,” Vail said. “Any way we’ll have something soon—anything—that’ll tell us if this letter is from our killer?”
“Problem is that we’ve got no other writing samples to compare it to, nothing where we can match syntax, or even something as basic as handwriting.” The technician sighed. “But we’ll do our best. If there’s something to find, we’ll have it for you tomorrow.”
Vail walked back toward Del Monaco and Bledsoe and said, “Nothing yet.”
Del Monaco was folding his phone. “Underwood is on his way. He’ll be here inside of two hours. I say we get out of here, paint the town or something.”
“Our knight in shining armor is on the way to save the day,” Vail said with a hint of sarcasm. “Smacks of Hollywood. I can’t wait.”
THEY TOOK THEIR SEATS at a beat-up picnic table twenty yards from Bob’s Country Store, where they’d purchased hamburgers, chilidogs, and beer. The debate over drinking while on duty died with their appetite after finding that the only greasy spoon within fifteen minutes of the prison was, in fact, a very greasy spoon.
And, as they soon learned, being in the Bible Belt meant their alcohol had to be consumed off-premises, in the chill air.
“Well,” Bledsoe said, inspecting the flat head on his beer, “it seems that somewhere along the way, Underwood made an impression on Singletary.”
Del Monaco tipped his plastic cup toward the light and frowned at the color of his drink. “Singletary’s got a relationship with Underwood. He trusts him. Happened with John Wayne Gacy, and Dahmer, too.”
Bledsoe took a pull on the beer and made a face. “I hope Underwood works his magic. I get the feeling he’s more into writing books than writing profiles these days.”
“Bureau pension only goes so far,” Del Monaco said. “Nothing wrong with free enterprise.”
“Yeah, well, looks to me like he’s trying to ride the coattails of John Douglas’s success.”
Vail cleared her throat and leaned forward. “Frank,” she said tentatively, “you ever have nightmares? Of work?”
Del Monaco swallowed a mouthful of beer as he thought about the question. “You mean like working with you is a nightmare sometimes?”
“I’m serious.”
Del Monaco set down his cup and regarded his colleague. “You having Dead Eyes nightmares?”
Vail’s gaze found the million-year-old pocked-wood table. “You didn’t answer my question.”
