Sigmund was right. I hoped she’d never try to go undercover. She stuttered a bit, “Hughes … the public defender.”
She recovered and went on. “They all say it’s a small point in a huge mass of damning evidence. They want this catch so bad. The publicity is enormous, the director himself called to congratulate Morrison, so he won’t back down. Remember there was that highway-serial-killer initiative the Bureau instituted a few years ago.”
“So now you’re hoping I’ll do your work for you. You should have been a brave little soldier and forced Morrison to authorize a further investigation. You know, follow protocol.”
Coleman looked away at that remark. “Look, we found Jessica’s body. As far as Mr. Robertson was concerned, that’s the main thing, isn’t it? That’s why Robertson was here, because he insisted on seeing it.”
“You should go back to Fraud where you belong, dear.”
“Please don’t call me dear—it’s condescending and I don’t deserve it.”
She deserved it, all right. I ignored her and went on, “Sure, we honored Zach’s wish to see Jessica’s body. But it’s been seven years of wanting not only his daughter, but wanting justice. It’s bad enough that Lynch is going to escape the death penalty. Zachariah Robertson’s suffering is beyond anything you can imagine. You’re not going to make it worse because you didn’t have the guts to press a case you think is right.”
“Can I get you anything else?”
Coleman and I both jerked upright at the voice, as if we’d forgotten we were in a restaurant. I don’t know how long Cheri had been standing there. We slapped on smiles that from the waitress’s perspective might have looked more like snarls.
“Just the check, please,” I said.
Cheri picked up our plates and left.
“You’re no better than Morrison,” Coleman said, crossing her arms and looking at me like that was the worst thing she could say.
“Bullshit” was all I could come up with on the spot.
But Coleman would not be distracted. “What about Floyd Lynch? What if he’s innocent of the Route 66 murders?”
“Innocent? Coleman. The man fucks mummies.”
Everyone in the room looked over and I realized I wasn’t using my indoor voice anymore.
“There’s not even real evidence that he didn’t just find that body like he says he did. We can’t prove that he killed the woman on his truck. So you’re going to put a man in prison for life for desecration of a corpse? Being repulsive isn’t a capital offense,” Coleman said quietly.
She was right. You convicted someone for their crimes, not their nature. I had said something similar more than once in my career. I looked at her posture, which managed to stay straight even when she was leaning over the table, and her naturally curly hair, and her professionally plain glasses, and I wondered if her analysis of the case showed the same perfection, the same attention to detail.
“Did you coerce him? Feed him the information?” I asked.
“I swear no. Morrison wanted nothing to go wrong, so we videotaped all the interrogations. You can see for yourself.”
“Why do you think he would confess?” I asked, knowing from experience that it happened all the time for no damn good reason.
“I don’t know that part yet,” she said.
“Did you ask him?”
She relaxed again now that I was asking questions instead of attacking. “He’s sticking to his story and he seems to know all the details. Seems, hell, he’s got it down cold. It’s all in here,” she said, tapping the report, pushing it part of the way toward me again with the tip of her well-manicured finger that I bet she never chewed. “It’s short, not the whole murder book, just what I thought was important for my analysis. Please look at it…” she paused, fixed me with a look and continued, “especially this video.” She opened the report and pointed to a DVD tucked into an envelope and pasted inside the cover. “This is the part of the interrogation I’m talking about, the part that I can’t get out of my head. Look at it before you tell me to fuck off.”
When I hesitated a moment more, she said, her self-assurance slowly returning, “I know you don’t know me, and I’m asking a lot. But even if you don’t care about sending the wrong man to prison for life, look at it this way. If Lynch didn’t do the Route 66 murders, then the guy who did is still out there.” Coleman leaned across the table again. If I’d had lapels I