“ Generally speaking, maybe yes.”
Meredyth thought how this man qualified everything he said, a typical politician. She asked, “What about the old man's vehicle?”
“ Wouldn't know. I had left before then. Did not meet Mr. Purdy Senior except to see him through the glass, sitting like a zombie up front during the execution. Didn't make eye contact. He didn't seem or appear capable of it. May've been on drugs for all I know.”
“ Who takes care of turning over the remains?”
“ It was taken care of by a guard and honorary inmates who've earned the respect of the guards.”
“ I see.” Lucas realized now that Gwinn had not seen the old man face-to-face, nor had he talked to the elder Purdy. That all the dirty business of cleaning up after an execution-once the show was over-fell to inmates and guards.
Meredyth broke the uncomfortable silence. “According to the only eyewitness we have, Judge DeCampe's abductor shapes up to be old man Purdy.”
“ And that old man left here with two pine box coffins in his van,” finished Lucas. “One housed his fried son's body, and the other was intended for the judge.”
Meredyth added, “Goddard corroborates our worst fears, that the old man means to bury his son and the judge, and she most likely alive.”
Visibly shaken, Gwinn's mouth moved, but only an unintelligible utterance sounded.
Lucas stormed at him. “Last time I looked, the State of Texas still supplies pine boxes for death row inmates, but somebody had to have given or sold the old man that second coffin. Any guesses who?”
“ Pine boxes can be had at any funeral home. You just have to ask.”
“ Do you really believe that is how Purdy came to have two coffins in back of his van, Warden?” asked Meredyth. He bridled and puffed up as if every fiber had filled with air. “All right, we build pine boxes with gold- chrome-plated handles in our inmate wood shop. Keeps idle hands busy. Takes some stress off to work a plane and a sander.”
“ We'll want to talk to your man in charge of the wood shop where they make the coffins for death-row inmates.”
“ There're three of 'em. Each on different shifts. As for the coffins, we supply them to public funerary homes all over the state, and some out-of-state locations. It's the only alternative to those high-priced Cadillac models, and there're a lot of sharecroppers in the state who don't want to go broke over a funeral.”
“ So a coffin or two going out the door wouldn't necessarily be missed?”
“ You'd best talk to my men.”
“ Before we talk to them, let me see their records,” suggested Meredyth Sanger.
“ If you wish, Dr. Sanger.”
“ We're trying to win a race here, sir, against time. Perhaps we can save some time by my going over the records. Sometimes it's in the ink-the handwriting. I'm something of a handwriting expert,” she explained. She had taken up the science of reading handwriting after learning how it served Kim Desinor, when she and Lucas had worked with her on the Snatcher case two years before.
The warden only frowned at this, punched a button on the intercom, and shouted, “Shirley, I want three personnel files in here stat. Bill Lowry, Karl Tubbs, and Jake Pascal. Got that?” He then turned to his visitors and said, “I trust every one of my guards here at Huntsville. They're the best.”
Before even meeting the three guards who rotated over seeing the wood shop, Meredyth Sanger had a fix on Jake Pascal as being the rascal who had sold a second coffin under the table to the old man, based on his handwriting. They didn't bother speaking to the other two men. Summoned to the warden's office, Pascal was immediately apprehensive and defensive, and spilled his guts the moment Meredyth displayed the artist's sketch of the elder Purdy.
“ I thought it'd be OK, you know. The old man said it was for himself, for when his time would come. Said he didn't have nothing in this life but the van he'd just bought. When we loaded his son into the van around by the shop, I just had the boys toss in another for him at no charge.”
“ No charge?” asked the warden.
“ Sir, I swear, I didn't take a cent for it. You can ask Fletcher and Columbo; they were the ones who helped load the coffins. No mystery about it.”
“ What kind of van did the old man drive?”
“ Ahhh, fancy, large, expensive, well carpeted. Roomy. Both the boxes fit in side by side. He'd taken out all the backseats.”
“ What make and model?”
“ Chevrolet, I think. Big American job. Maybe a Ford. I didn't pay any mind to that. But I wondered where he'd put the seats he'd removed so the boxes would fit.”
“ So he anticipated getting two coffins before he ever got here?” asked Lucas.
“ Look, we all knew Jimmy Lee pretty well after ten years. Jimmy asked me as a favor to him to cut out a coffin for the old man. I… I was expecting the old man and his request.”
“ But you took no money for it?” repeated the warden.
“ Not a cent, sir. Honest.”
The warden waved him down.
Lucas wanted the warden to leave the room, but he knew making such a request would only anger the man. “Did you notice anything unusual about the license plate?”
“ Wasn't one of ours. Out of state. Indiana, I think.”
“ All right. Officer Pascal. You can go now,” said the warden, seeing that Lucas and Sanger were finished with the guard.
“ I'm sorry, Warden Gwinn, sir.”
“ I'll deal with you later, Pascal. Some tough guy you turned out to be. You allowed yourself to be hoodwinked by an old Iowa farmer.”
The phone rang; a call for Lucas from Randy Oglesby, his computer support. Randy had unearthed some fascinating facts, if belated. “Get this, Lucas-old man Purdy had made two previous trips to Houston, the first time was almost ten years before, when Judge Maureen DeCampe, a newly appointed judge, saw his son to the death chamber in a ruling she alone made-no jury trial. Jimmy Purdy was found guilty of sex crimes that had turned to sex-lust- murder. He had opted for a no-jury trial, and his case had fallen into DeCampe's lap.”
“ Good work.”
'That's not all. The old man returned recently when Jimmy's appeal was being heard before Judge Raymond Parker, but not before it first fell into DeCampe's hands. DeCampe hand delivered it to Parker. She recused herself from hearing the appeal since she was, to say the least, extremely prejudiced where Jimmy Lee Purdy was concerned. It was a direct conflict of interest, a no-brainer,” said Randy. “However, the senior Purdy made an appointment and saw her before the appeal trial began. What was said during that meeting remained between them. Judge DeCampe shared it with no one.”
“ And the old man's third trip here,” said Lucas, “was to retrieve his son's body.” He thanked Randy and hung up. Lucas then conveyed this information to the warden and Sanger. They next stood and said their good-byes.
On leaving the prison and locating the car, Sanger said, “Lucas, as I see it, we have one more stop, and then we call out the armed forces in Iowa to locate one Isaiah Purdy.”
“ Warrant across state lines can take time,” replied Lucas. Darkness was already descending over Texas when they made their way out to the parking lot. “Not if the judge is sympathetic to our cause,” countered
Sanger, “and being highborn as I am, I have a few friends in high places around here, and so did DeCampe. If Judge DeCampe is suffocating somewhere in a pine box between here and Iowa or back at this guy's property and six feet under, we… well, we have to act fast, and even then it may be too late.”
“ I've got to call this medical examiner with the FBI, tell her what we've got. Maybe she can get a federal warrant to search the guy's property faster than the State of Texas can talk to the State of Iowa.”
“ I know Judge Parker, and he'll be extremely sympathetic, and-”
“ I see. Play on the old saw: There but for the grace of God could a went Judge Parker, right?”
“ With these men, father and son, fixated on DeCampe, I suspect Parker was never in the running. But of course, I'll work every angle on him, Lucas. Meanwhile, you get the feds to jump-start the state patrol in Iowa.
