have given him my password, too.” I told her what I’d figured out. “Emery Bathory, Floyd Lynch, Gerald Peasil. They were connected, and Lynch only knew what happened in the Route 66 murders because Emery told him.”
“How did they meet?”
I told her about the chat-room connection. “You were right from the start, Floyd Lynch just pretended to be a killer and got caught up in the celebrity of it when he was nabbed. If you hadn’t pulled out that logbook that showed he wasn’t there when Jessica was killed, I wouldn’t have had anything to confront him with. That was what made him tell me the truth.”
Coleman’s brain swam through the painkiller haze, focused temporarily. “Three guys, you said.”
I nodded. “In a loose confederacy. Trading stories, mostly, until things got messy.”
“And Emery heard every word we said in the bar.”
“And knew we were a threat to him.” I stopped before spilling about his sending Peasil to kill me. “Through the cops’ talking he’d know everything that went on. It was a great way to keep tabs.”
Either the Percocet was really taking effect or her mind was watching some of the tapes from the night before. Then, “Who’s Gerald Peasil?” Coleman asked.
“Who?”
“Gerald Peasil. You said that name.”
“Coleman, try not to think about it.”
She paused the tape and looked at me. “That’s the best advice Brigid Quinn can give? Try not to think about it? If I were feeling stronger I’d slug you.”
“Trust me, it works.” I straightened a wrinkle in the sheet. “Are we in agreement then? You’re not going to accuse me of perjuring myself when there’s a hearing?”
“Brigid.”
“You were crawling in the bar. You didn’t see what happened in the kitchen. You heard the gun go off. Maybe you passed out. That’s all you need to say.”
“Brigid, you’ll be in too much trouble. You’re not even an agent anymore.”
“And you’re not snow. You kept investigating a case you were no longer assigned to. You breached all kinds of protocol. Plus, you shot an unarmed man in the back. But the only way you can ultimately find justice in all this is to be snow. The homeless guy, Cheri, and Emery—three people died at the bar and there will be questions. If this whole situation gets hot and they do a real investigation, Morrison could be in trouble. He’d blame you, spin the situation so you’re the one who suffers any fallout. Do you understand?”
I didn’t add that I was already in big trouble, so taking the rap for this didn’t matter much. Coleman didn’t have to know that. She stared at me with neither assent nor disagreement.
“I’ve gotten out of worse situations,” I said. “This is nothing. And besides, I’m pretty much at the end of the game. You have a lot of scumbags left to catch.”
“One thing I still don’t understand,” Laura said.
“What’s that?”
“How did you know I had an affair with Royal Hughes?”
I decided not to tell her about Sigmund sensing it, or going through her address book, or about my conversation with Hughes where he admitted it. “Just a guess. I would have.”
She considered that, then said, “Do you want to know why I switched from Fraud to Homicide?”
Not that much, actually. I had other things on my mind. Carlo. Max. “Why?”
“Because I kept hearing so much about you and the cases you worked, the bad guys you caught. When I heard you were retiring I figured somebody had to keep catching those guys.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. The fact is, I retired because I caused the Bureau trouble over shooting that suspect.”
“That was political bullshit. I wanted to take your place because I admired you so much.”
Why do people always get this way in hospitals and airplanes? I said, “Oh, one other thing I forgot to tell you. I smashed the window in the back of your house and broke in the other day, so when you go home don’t be alarmed and think you were burgled. I didn’t take anything but some of your yogurt.” She opened her mouth with a question, but I stopped her with, “Trust me, Coleman. I’m the agent you don’t want to be.”
Finally, I made a quick stop in Max’s room. He was in intensive care, considerably worse off than Coleman. His wife, Chrystal, a woman who had nothing in common with her name, hovered on the far side of the bed in full stand-by-your-man mode.
Max was barely conscious but saw me as I approached. He tried to take a breath,