having very good impulse control.” Sigmund picked up what I figured was the comparative profile that Coleman had compiled and gazed blankly at it. “I wonder what the real killer is feeling about this little man who has usurped his fame. It will either drive him deeper into hiding or inspire him to regain his glory. You need to get to Lynch, Stinger.”
He was right; it was what I was thinking. I said, “Thanks for your help.” I stopped picking at a hangnail, my whole body wanting to tell Sig about the real mess I needed help on. “Sigmund?”
“You can see I’m still here.”
“Is it possible that somebody we put away is out on parole and we weren’t notified?”
He thought, said, “No, they’re very good about notifying us. Why?”
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
I expected Sigmund to be the first to disengage from the conversation, but he did not.
“Now for the thing I don’t know,” he said. “You’re different from when I was there.”
“How so?”
“I can tell you’re really troubled when you sound breathier than usual, as if you weren’t breathing with both lungs. Are you terribly upset by the likelihood that Lynch isn’t the killer? Are you feeling guilty?”
No, I’m having problems with a dead guy who I surmise is somehow connected to everything we’d just been talking about. I wanted so badly to tell Sigmund about it that I could feel the words forming in my mouth and had to bite down hard to keep them from coming out. There was something about Sigmund that made you want to confess and end the suspense. And then he could help me find out who might be after me.
Instead of spilling, I found myself giving a caricature of a casual shrug and actually batting my eyelashes. “Other than feeling jerked around by all this uncertainty, and hating the thought of having to tell Zach that the guy who killed his daughter is still out there, nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”
Eighteen
Flowing between several different mountain ranges like a river of pavement and buildings, the Tucson area is tucked into the center of the Sonoran Desert. The Sonoran Desert is the largest, possibly the only, stand of saguaro cactus in the world. It’s pronounced “swarro,” and they’re the kind of cactus you always think about when you think cactus, the kind that studs the landscape like a giant Gumby.
Now desert is mostly beige, that is to say rocks and sand. Only the hardiest of plants can survive, and you get to thinking, if that cactus can take it, so can I. I like the ruggedness of a place that can kill you, either by brush fire, dehydration, or drowning in a flash flood. Next to the desert, I feel soft and gentle.
Unlike Tucson, the area around the town of Benson, about an hour east from the easternmost part of the city, and at a higher elevation, sports less desolate-looking vegetation, with apple, peach, and pecan orchards. Benson has at least as many mobile homes as houses, and even a lot of the houses are prefab, their aluminum skirts hiding their lack of foundation like modest librarians.
As Coleman had suggested, I had met her in the parking lot attached to one of several skyscrapers in downtown Tucson, a twelve-story building in which the FBI occupies the sixth. She was sitting in her car looking at her watch when I pulled into the space next to hers.
I couldn’t bring myself to apologize for being fourteen minutes late, and besides, in that time she’d cranked up the AC so her Prius was bearable. Almost. Having taken my suggestion to dress in less intimidating attire, she was wearing black slacks and a white short-sleeved linen blouse. I guess that was as casual as Coleman could be. I pressed the button to shut off her radio, which was playing a song by one of those girls who all sound alike.
“Do you mind?” Coleman asked.
“Not anymore. Please leave it off. I hate music.”
Coleman allowed that and as the Prius pushed the speed limit along I-10 East, she grilled me about my reaction to the video, and nearly crowed with triumph when I told her I not only saw the part about the ears but forwarded it to Sig Weiss, who concurred.
“So both of you think it’s awfully suspicious,” she said.
“That’s right.” I repeated how Weiss thought we should interrogate Floyd again from the supposition that his confession was false. “But we still need evidence. We need the big holes in his confession.” I