right?”
“ Course we're going to keep surveillance on the place for a few days. And we're going to cover every inch of ground out here and pry open anything remotely curious, and any one remotely connected with the old man before we're done.”
“ Again, my thanks, Chief… and thanks for all the effort. This old man is shrewd like a fox,” she said.
“ Well, Iowans are known for that.” She detected a note of sadness in his voice when he added, “Can't believe what this old fool's gone and done.”
“ He must have known we'd target his place sooner or later. He saw us coming.”
“ From the time line you gave me, I'd say your people have moved remarkably fast on this. Don't beat yourself up about it, Doctor, and in the meantime, I'll be in touch. Let you know if anything new develops at this end.”
“ And we'll keep you apprised. Chief. Again, thanks.”
“ Sure… don't mention it.”
Blind alley, Jessica thought, as she hung up the phone.
“ Lew,” Jessica called out, startling Clemmens. “I want to know what all was said at Jimmy Lee's trial.”
“ You mean his appeal?”
“ No, his trial, what? Nine, ten years ago?”
“ A transcript that old may be hard to come by.”
'Tap into our friend in Houston. You said he had some cyber inroads in the system there.”
“ Yeah, I can put him onto the relic stuff, which could be complicated. We can only pray Houston's up to date with scanning that stuff to disk and putting it into electronic files.”
“ Fact is, Houston's one of the leaders in putting old cases onto computer disk. But are you saying it could be inaccessible?”
“ Buried in a hard file or on microfiche someplace, yes. Meantime, I can track down the appeal transcript. It shouldn't be tough to get it electronically. It's a matter of public record. Besides, you'll want both for what you gotta do.”
“ I think it's time we learned a great deal more about Jimmy Lee Purdy,” suggested Sharpe. “Perhaps it will indicate our next move.”
“ Oh, and what's that?” Shannon Keyes joined them. “Are you actually proposing we do a profile on a dead man? Jimmy Lee Purdy?”
“ So far as we know from people around Judge DeCampe, there's no known public pronouncement out of the old man. He was never arrested for so much as disturbing the peace, and he never disrupted the court proceedings,” Sharpe countered. “Suppose the old man's driven by his dead son's motives now?”
Keyes shook her head. “Never a word out of the old man? He has no brain of his own? Whataya want to do, provide him with a defense? My dead son made me do it?”
“ From all we've learned, the elder Purdy never said word one during all the court appearances he made,” said Jessica. “Maybe Richard is onto something here. Stonecoat and Sanger both mentioned that Jimmy Lee was pulling strings from his prison cell.”
“ So… you're supposing that the old man is doing just what his son wanted, fulfilling Jimmy Lee's last wishes?” asked Keyes.
“ Parents are funny that way, yes,” replied Richard. “So perhaps if we understand Jimmy Lee better, then we'll better understand his father Isaiah and his plan and maybe his moves.”
Jessica jumped in, saying, “We've got to understand as much about Jimmy Lee's psyche as possible, then maybe… maybe we'll have some idea what the old man is thinking, and if we can determine what he is thinking then… maybe…”
“ Good strategy,” Keyes finally relented, agreeing. “Let me help you with it.”
“ We need to know about every and any contact whatsoever that either of the Purdys may have had in any way with Judge DeCampe,” said Jessica.
Keyes nodded, a finger playing with the dimple in her chin. “Yes, perhaps something there will give up an overlooked clue.”
“ The sins of the son shall the father inherit,” added Richard. “Kind of a twist on an old theme.”
“ More a reversal,” countered Jessica.
Keyes bit her pouting lower lip and added, “Perhaps you're right, Sharpe, perhaps the son's transgressions can tell us what this old fool is up to.”
“ And maybe where he is?” Richard volunteered. “First we need the transcripts. Lew? What're you stand-ing around for?” asked Jessica. Lew's eyebrows raised in consternation. “On it, Jess.”
J. T. found Jessica still working out of the ops room, looking tired and pale. He brought in fast food from a Chinese restaurant, and as he unpacked the little boxed dinners filled with moo goo gai pan, sweet and sour chicken, beef lo mein, spring rolls, and egg rolls, he informed Jessica that Mars- den's story about euthanizing his dog and flipping out as a result had checked out.
“ I'll be damned.” A wide smile replaced her glum features.
“ He did leave some serious bills and confused people in his wake, but he's not wanted for murder or anything like that, thank God.”
They all had a light laugh over the Marsden story.
“ But Jess, there's something else you need to know.”.
She stared at J. T. “Lay it on me. What is it?”
“ It's about the Claude Lightfoot case.”
“ Go on.”
“ Hosea Crooms, our guy in the field asking all the ques-tions, phoned in.”
“ OK… and what'd Hosea say?” Jessica pictured the enormous black agent.
“ Seems our snitch, the guy who's been feeding us information about the Lightfoot case, is dead… apparent overdose of J amp;B Scotch and quaaludes.”
“ Malcolm McArthur, dead?”
“ One and the same.”
“ Only one who was talking in the whole damned county.”
“ 'Less I miss my guess, someone decided he'd already talked to Hosea long enough.”
“ Murdered?”
“ Yeah, Hosea suspects murder. The scene was a foul mess. It could've been he tore up the place in a drunken stupor like the M.E. wants to believe, but he spilled an awful lot of the J and B.”
“ How many bottles?”
“ M.E. said he consumed three 1.5-liter bottles of the stuff along with enough quaaludes to choke an elephant.”
“ Sons a bitches silenced him.”
“ That'd be my guess.”
The phone rang, and Keyes caught it. “Jessica, it's Iowa calling back.”
“ Put it on the con,” she replied. In a moment, she asked, “Chief Gorman, what news have you?”
“ We got a new wrinkle here, Dr. Coran.”
“ Shoot.” 'Two things, actually. A note left with the wife with a biblical injunction we're all familiar with: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. “We'll want it sent here for analysis, Chief.”
“ Got it.”
“ And the other thing?”
Gorman breathed deeply before speaking.
“ One of my cruisers was sitting atop a For Sale sign, doctor.
A RE/MAX sign. They didn't discover it until they backed off it. Sorry, but that means Purdy unloaded the place before he left.”
“ How long?”
“ The Purdy farm has been sold for a little over a month, according to our local realtor.”
“ He sold the place? Over a month ago?”
