saw that she was clutching a Luger pistol in her right hand. 96 james twining
“Even this,” she continued, her strained voice rising to a hysterical scream as she raised her eyes to the heavens. “You could have told me.”
She lifted the gun to her mouth, the black barrel slipping between her lips, bright red lipstick smearing along it.
“No!” Tom leapt to knock the gun out of her hand before she could pull the trigger. But he was too late. The back of her head exploded across the room, a fine mist of blood spraying in short bursts from the severed blood vessels as her body slumped to the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FBI HEADQUARTERS, SALT LAKE CITY DIVISION, UTAH
January 6—8:17 a.m.
Paul Viggiano fetched himself another cup of filter coffee from the machine. There was a tidemark in the glass jug where the coffee had evaporated since the last fresh pot had been made that morning. The remaining liquid looked dark and thick, like molasses. With scientific precision, he poured in one and a half servings of creamer, added one level teaspoon of sugar, then stirred it three times. Satisfied with his handiwork, he turned to face Sheriff Hennessy and his attorney, Jeremiah Walton. A wiry, aggressive man with a thin face, hornbill nose, and sunken cheeks, Walton seemed unable to sit still on the molded plastic seats, forever shifting his weight from one bony buttock to the other. Bailey was sitting on the opposite side of a flimsy-looking table that had been screwed to the floor, staring at Hennessy with hostile intensity, his pen suspended motionlessly over a notepad. A tape recorder hummed gently to his right.
“Face it, Hennessy, it’s over,” Viggiano said, trying to sound calm but struggling to contain the excitement in his voice. Less than forty-eight hours ago he’d been wondering what he was doing with his life. Now here he was running a multiple homicide investigation.
Funny
how
someone
else’s
98 james twining
bad luck could be just the break you’ve been praying for. “Whatever little scam you’ve been running up there is finished now. So you might as well tell us what you know and make this a whole lot easier on yourself.”
Hennessy stared at Viggiano stonily, dabbing himself every so often with a handkerchief that his sweat had turned from pale red to deep vermilion.
“My client wants to talk about immunity,” Walton said in a high-pitched, nasal whine, pinching his right earlobe between finger and thumb as he spoke.
“Your client can go to hell,” Viggiano snapped. “I got twenty-six corpses out there.”
He waved in what he assumed to be the direction of Malta, Idaho, although in the small windowless room it was difficult to be sure. “Women. Kids. Whole families. That’s twenty-six people—dead. Immunity isn’t even in the dictionary as far as your client is concerned.” His fingers made quote marks in the air.
“You got nothing. Just one man’s word against another.” Walton glanced at Bailey. “A throwaway comment made in the heat of the moment that has been taken completely out of context. A pillar of the local community has seen his integrity questioned and his reputation dragged—”
“For an innocent man, he sure got you down here pretty damn quick,” Viggiano interrupted.
“My client has a right—”
“Hell, maybe you’re right,” said Viggiano. “Maybe we don’t have much. But we’ll find it.” He leaned across the table toward Hennessy. “You see, we’re going to go through your bank records and high school reports and college files. We’re gonna turn your life upside down and shake it real hard and have a good long look at everything that drops out. We’re gonna go through that farmhouse that you claim you’ve never been to before with a ten-man forensic team that’ll find out if you even so much as farted in its general direction in the last six months. Whatever we need, we’ll find it.”
Walton flashed a questioning glance at Hennessy,
“Even this,” she continued, her strained voice rising to a hysterical scream as she raised her eyes to the heavens. “You could have told me.”
She lifted the gun to her mouth, the black barrel slipping between her lips, bright red lipstick smearing along it.
“No!” Tom leapt to knock the gun out of her hand before she could pull the trigger. But he was too late. The back of her head exploded across the room, a fine mist of blood spraying in short bursts from the severed blood vessels as her body slumped to the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FBI HEADQUARTERS, SALT LAKE CITY DIVISION, UTAH
January 6—8:17 a.m.
Paul Viggiano fetched himself another cup of filter coffee from the machine. There was a tidemark in the glass jug where the coffee had evaporated since the last fresh pot had been made that morning. The remaining liquid looked dark and thick, like molasses. With scientific precision, he poured in one and a half servings of creamer, added one level teaspoon of sugar, then stirred it three times. Satisfied with his handiwork, he turned to face Sheriff Hennessy and his attorney, Jeremiah Walton. A wiry, aggressive man with a thin face, hornbill nose, and sunken cheeks, Walton seemed unable to sit still on the molded plastic seats, forever shifting his weight from one bony buttock to the other. Bailey was sitting on the opposite side of a flimsy-looking table that had been screwed to the floor, staring at Hennessy with hostile intensity, his pen suspended motionlessly over a notepad. A tape recorder hummed gently to his right.
“Face it, Hennessy, it’s over,” Viggiano said, trying to sound calm but struggling to contain the excitement in his voice. Less than forty-eight hours ago he’d been wondering what he was doing with his life. Now here he was running a multiple homicide investigation.
Funny
how
someone
else’s
98 james twining
bad luck could be just the break you’ve been praying for. “Whatever little scam you’ve been running up there is finished now. So you might as well tell us what you know and make this a whole lot easier on yourself.”
Hennessy stared at Viggiano stonily, dabbing himself every so often with a handkerchief that his sweat had turned from pale red to deep vermilion.
“My client wants to talk about immunity,” Walton said in a high-pitched, nasal whine, pinching his right earlobe between finger and thumb as he spoke.
“Your client can go to hell,” Viggiano snapped. “I got twenty-six corpses out there.”
He waved in what he assumed to be the direction of Malta, Idaho, although in the small windowless room it was difficult to be sure. “Women. Kids. Whole families. That’s twenty-six people—dead. Immunity isn’t even in the dictionary as far as your client is concerned.” His fingers made quote marks in the air.
“You got nothing. Just one man’s word against another.” Walton glanced at Bailey. “A throwaway comment made in the heat of the moment that has been taken completely out of context. A pillar of the local community has seen his integrity questioned and his reputation dragged—”
“For an innocent man, he sure got you down here pretty damn quick,” Viggiano interrupted.
“My client has a right—”
“Hell, maybe you’re right,” said Viggiano. “Maybe we don’t have much. But we’ll find it.” He leaned across the table toward Hennessy. “You see, we’re going to go through your bank records and high school reports and college files. We’re gonna turn your life upside down and shake it real hard and have a good long look at everything that drops out. We’re gonna go through that farmhouse that you claim you’ve never been to before with a ten-man forensic team that’ll find out if you even so much as farted in its general direction in the last six months. Whatever we need, we’ll find it.”
Walton flashed a questioning glance at Hennessy,
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