The Throat

'You go to Brooks-Lowood, too?'

'Holy Sepulchre,' I said. 'I grew up on South Sixth Street.'

'Bastian there is from your part of town.'

Bastian was the corrupt cherub with feathery blond hair and wide-set blue eyes. 'I used to go to those athletes' suppers at your school,' he said. 'When I played football at St. Ignatius. I remember your coach. A real character.'

'Christ wouldn't have dropped the ball,' I said, mystifying the other men.

'Jesus stands facing the goalposts,' Bastian said. He was looking upward, holding one hand on his heart and pointing toward an invisible horizon with the other.

'In his heart is a powerful will to win. He knows the odds are against him, but he also knows that at the end of the day, victory will be his.' I knew this even better than Bastian, having had to listen to it day after day for three years.

'Righteousness is a—is a what?' Bastian looked straight up at the fluorescent lights.

'Righteousness is a mighty—'

'A mighty fire!' Bastian yelled, sounding a lot more like Mr. Schoonhaven than I did. He was still pointing at the distant goalposts with his hand clamped to his heart.

'That was it,' I said. 'It came with hamburgers and Hawaiian Punch.'

'Well, now that we're prepared,' Fontaine said. 'Bastian, get Dragonette out of the cell and put him in Number One. The rest of you who are coming, let's move, okay?'

At last I understood that he had not been trying to leave me behind when he came sprinting into the building. In spite of his exhaustion, he had been excited by the upcoming interrogation. His urgency was the expression of an intense desire to get into that room.

He moved toward the door, and the black detective and the big man with the energetic mustache stood up to follow. Bastian left the room through a side door and went down the long corridor I had briefly glimpsed.

The rest of us began moving down toward the front of the building. The hallway was slightly cooler than the squad room. 'First things first,' Fontaine said, and ducked into a room with an open door. Tube lighting fell on two formica-topped tables and a number of assorted chairs. Three men drinking coffee at one of the tables looked up at Fontaine. 'You were at the hospital?' one of them asked.

'Just got back.' Fontaine went up to one of two coffee machines, took a thick paper cup off a stack, and poured hot black coffee into it.

'How's Mangelotti?'

'We could lose him.' He sipped from the coffee. I poured for myself.

On the side wall of the coffee room hung a big rectangle of white paper covered with names written in red or black marker. It was divided into three sections, corresponding to the three homicide shifts. Lieutenant Ross McCandless commanded the first shift. Michael Hogan and William Greider were his detective sergeants. From the list of names written in black and red marker beneath Hogan's, April Ransom jumped out at me. It was written in red marker.

The other two detectives helped themselves to coffee and introduced themselves. The black detective was named Wheeler, the big man Monroe. 'You know what bugs me about those people out in front?' Monroe asked me. 'If they had any sense, they'd be cheering because we got this guy behind bars.'

'You mean you want gratitude?' Fontaine drew another cup of coffee and led the three of us out of the lounge. Over his shoulder, he said, 'I'll tell you one good thing, anyhow. There's going to be a mile of black ink on the board in a couple of hours.'

On the other side of the lounge we entered the new part of the building. The floor was gray linoleum and the walls were pale blue with clear glass windows. The air conditioning worked, and the corridor felt almost cool. The three of us rounded a corner, and John Ransom looked up from a plastic chair pushed against one of the blue walls. He looked no more rested than Fontaine. John was wearing khaki pants and a white dress shirt, and he had obviously showered and shaved just before or after he had learned that his wife had been murdered. He looked like a half-empty sack. I wondered how long he had been sitting by himself.

'God, Tim, I'm glad you're here,' he said, jumping up. 'So you know? They told you?'

'Detective Fontaine told me what happened.' I did not want to tell him that I had seen April's body being taken from her room. 'John, I'm so sorry.'

Ransom held up his hands as if to capture something. 'It's unbelievable. She was getting better—this guy, this monster, found out she was getting better—'

Fontaine stepped before him. 'We're going to let you and your friend observe a portion of my interrogation. Do you still want to do it?'

Ransom nodded.

'Then let me show you where you'll be sitting. Want any coffee?'

Ransom shook his head, and Fontaine took us past the glass wall of a vast darkened room where a few people sat smoking as they waited to be questioned.

He nodded for Wheeler to open a blond wooden door. Six or seven feet down the corridor an identical door bore a dark blue plaque with the white numeral 1 at its center. Fontaine waved me in first, and I stepped into a dark chamber furnished with six chairs at a wooden table. In front of the table, a window looked into a larger, brighter room where a slim young man in a white T-shirt sat at a slight angle to a gray metal table. He was sliding a red aluminum ashtray aimlessly back and forth across the table. His face was without any expression at all.

I sat down in the last chair, and Detective Wheeler entered and took the chair beside me. John Ransom followed him. He made an involuntary grunt when he saw Walter Dragonette, and then he sat down beside the black detective. Monroe stepped inside and sat down on the other side of Ransom. Everything had been choreographed so that a couple of detectives would be able to restrain Ransom, if it turned out to be necessary.

Fontaine stepped inside. 'Dragonette can't see or hear you, but please don't make any loud noises or touch the glass. All right?'

'Yes,' Ransom said.

'I'll come back when the first part of the interrogation is over.'

He stepped outside, and Wheeler stood up and closed the door. Walter Dragonette looked like a man killing time in an airport. Every now and then he smiled at the ting-ting-ting of the flimsy ashtray as he tapped it against the table. A key turned in the door behind him, and he stopped toying with the ashtray to look over his shoulder.

A uniformed officer let in Paul Fontaine. He held a file clamped under his arm and a container of coffee in each hand.

'Hello, Walter,' Fontaine said.

'Hi! I remember you from this morning.' Walter sat up straight and folded his hands together on the table. He twisted to watch Fontaine go to the end of the table. 'Do we finally get to talk now?'

'That's right,' Fontaine said. 'I brought you some coffee.'

'Oh thanks, but I don't drink coffee.' Dragonette gave his torso a curious little shake.

'Whatever you say.' Fontaine removed the plastic top from one container and dropped it into a wastebasket. 'Sure you won't change your mind?'

'Caffeine's bad for you,' said Dragonette.

'Smoke?' Fontaine placed a nearly full packet of Marlboros on the table.

'No, but it's fine with me if you want to.'

Fontaine raised his eyebrows and tapped a cigarette from the pack.

'I just want to say one thing right at the start of this,' said Dragonette.

Fontaine lit the cigarette with a match and blew out smoke, extinguishing the match and quieting Dragonette with a wave of the hand. 'You will be able to say everything you want to, Walter, but first we have to take care of some details.'