gold-flecked eyes shining, looking for all the world like a man enjoying a terrific first date. Momentarily jarred out of her professional detachment, Dr. Cogan switched onto automatic pilot, lobbing one of the interviewee's last words back at him in lieu of a real question. “Recently? How recently?”
The prisoner shrugged easily-or as easily as the fetters would allow. “I dunno, thirty, forty seconds. She was still sitting up.”
2
The Bureau liked its agents to be young and fit, to wear conservative suits, and to carry regulation weapons in over-the-kidney holsters. At fifty-five, Special Agent E. L. Pender was two years from mandatory retirement, overweight and out of shape, and beneath a plaid sport coat his boss had once described as being loud enough to spook a blind horse, he carried a SIG Sauer P226 9mm semiautomatic in a soft calfskin shoulder holster.
“Enjoy your stay in San Jose, Agent Pender,” said the young flight attendant, giving him the obligatory doorway send-off. What with all the forms that had to be filled out in order to carry a weapon on a commercial flight, it was impossible for an armed FBI agent to travel incognito these days. “Thank you for flying United.”
“Thank you, dear.” Pender tipped his trademark hat, a narrowbrimmed green-and-black houndstooth check with a tiny feather stuck into the band. Beneath it, he was bald as a melon. “You know, the time was when I'd have asked a pretty gal such as yourself for her phone number.”
“I'll bet.” The stewardess smiled politely.
“Would I have gotten it?”
The smile never wavered. “My parents didn't let me date much when I was seven, Agent Pender.”
Pender's luck wasn't much better at the rent-a-car counter. The clerk knew nothing about the midsize sedan that was to have been reserved for him, so he was forced to squeeze his six-four, twohundredand-fifty-pound frame behind the wheel of a Toyota Corolla.
At least the car had AC and a respectable sound system. Pender set the temperature control to blue and the volume control to high, found an oldies station on the FM band, and sang along in a sweet, surprisingly soulful tenor as he drove. A full hour passed before they played a song to which he didn't know all the words.
Strictly speaking, from the standpoint of professional courtesy, Pender should have notified the local FBI resident agency before showing up in Salinas to interview a murder suspect currently being held in the county jail. But according to the grapevine, the RA's collective nose was still out of joint from the previous summer, when the bureau had brought down agents from the San Francisco field office to take over a high-profile kidnapping investigation-they wouldn't be likely to welcome an interloper like Pender with open arms.
Also strictly speaking, Pender should have checked in immediately with the Monterey County Sheriff's Department. But before he requested an interview with the prisoner, he first wanted to speak to the arresting officer, and local cops tended to be overly protective of their own.
According to Pender's information, obtained for him by one of Liaison Support's overworked clerks, Deputy Terry Jervis lived in a town called Prunedale. They'd had a few chuckles over that back in Washington. “Prunedale, home of regular folks,” and so on.
He found the place without any difficulty-one thing about working for the government, you could always get hold of a decent map. The house was a small, well-tended ranch with sprayedstucco walls and a few rounded arches thrown in so they could call it mission style, perched on a hillside in the sort of semirural neighborhood where half the houses were trailers, and half the trailers were probably meth labs. A spindly lemon tree was tied to a stake in the middle of a rocky but carefully trimmed front lawn; tidy flower beds lined the short walk from the driveway to the front door.
Pender rang the bell, then backed down from the low doorstep so his height wouldn't be intimidating. The woman who opened the door as far as the chain permitted was black, solid, broad in the beam, and low to the ground. It occurred to Pender that this might be Jervis-she had a cop's wide ass, and the arrest report hadn't been gender-specific.
“Yes?”
“Special Agent Pender, FBI. I'm here to see Deputy Jervis.”
“Terry's resting. Could I see your shield, please?”
If not the cop, then the cop's wife-only a cop's wife would say “shield” instead of “badge.” Pender tinned her, flipping his wallet open to show her his old Department of Justice badge with the eagle on the top and the blindfolded figure in the pageboy haircut holding the scales of justice in one hand and a sword in the other.
“You have a photo ID?”
“Here you go.”
She glanced from the picture on the laminated card to his face and back again, then closed the door. The chain rattled; the door opened wider. “Come on in.”
Pender took off his hat as he stepped through the doorway. “Thank you, Mrs. Jervis.”
The woman frowned. “I'm Aletha Winkle.”
Pender winced exaggeratedly. “Sorry. That's my job-stumbling to conclusions.”
She ignored the apology. “Hey, Terry,” she called over her shoulder. “There's an FBI man here to see you.”
The response was a muffled “Okay.” Pender followed Winkle down a short hallway, past a small living room furnished largely in wicker, and into a white-and-pink bedroom-everything from the bedclothes to the bureau, the rug to the ceiling fixture, was either white or pink.
Pender froze in the doorway-the pale woman sitting up in bed was pointing a semiautomatic pistol at his midsection. He threw up his hands. “FBI-take it easy there, Deputy.”
“Sorry,” Terry Jervis hissed through clenched teeth, lowering the gun. “They tell me the guy was making threats-we were worried he might send somebody to carry them out.”
Deputy Jervis had spiked blond hair and washed-out blue eyes. The lower half of her face was heavily bandaged, and her jaw was wired shut. Her pajamas were pin-striped, black on pink.
“I understand.” Pender lowered his hands. “Does it hurt to talk?”
“Some.”
“I apologize in advance-I wouldn't be here if it weren't important. I'd be grateful for anything you can tell me.”
“This is where I get off,” said Aletha Winkle. “Call me if you need me, honey.” She stooped, plumped the smaller woman's pillows, kissed her high on the forehead. On her way out of the room she waggled her forefinger in Pender's direction. “Don't you tire her out, now!”
“Scout's honor,” replied Pender.
Jervis smiled weakly. “Aletha's a little overprotective.”
“I noticed-and God bless her for it.” In Pender's experience, some lesbians, like most minorities, tended to regard even a pleasantly neutral tone as barely disguised disapproval. But Pender was a proponent of what was known as the affective interview, so he made sure to add an extra dollop of warmth to his voice as he returned the grin.
“Take a load off.” Deputy Jervis pointed to the small, pinkcushioned chair in front of the pink-and-white mirrored vanity, then set the pistol down carefully on the bedside table, next to a framed photo of herself and Winkle, posed in front of the house with their arms around each other's waists. It had probably been taken on the day they moved in-a yellow Drive-Yr-Self moving van was parked next to a green Volvo station wagon in the driveway.
“You really need that?” asked Pender, nodding toward the gun. He knew the model well-Glock. 40s were now standard issue for recruits at the FBI Academy.
Jervis nodded sheepishly. “I know it's dumb, I know he's behind bars, but he's still got me spooked. If you never saw the fucker, then you can't imagine how fast the fucker can move.”
“Probably not.” Pender picked up the delicate-looking chair, positioned it a few feet from the side of the bed at a forty-fivedegree angle-the recommended interviewing position-and sat down carefully with his hat in his lap.
