resonance of his voice. I was out of questions. Again I wondered why I’d come. But this time I knew the answer. It wasn’t to shake the tree, but to test it, to inspect it. I leaned into him and hesitated.
“Jim, I’ve got one more question I need to ask you.”
He said nothing. I folded my hands together and rested my weight on my elbows, the question practically leapt out of me. “Did you kill your wife?”
It was the one question you never asked. Even I knew that. But there it was, hanging in the air between us.
Steele barely moved, other than to let a smile come over him. He clasped his hands together said, “In a dozen years, no one has ever asked me that question.” Then he reached out and set his hand on my arm. Its warmth only magnified the cold of the room.
He leaned in closer and whispered, “No.”
***
It was a two-hour drive back to the office and I thought about Steele’s denial the whole way. He looked me right in the eyes when he said it. No wavering, no hesitation. Even if it wasn’t the truth, the guy definitely believed what he was saying. There was no questioning that.
I wondered whether a dozen years in prison could cause a man to so completely rearrange the past in his own mind that his memory was effectively changed. In movies, they always talked about repressed memories, but what about completely fabricated ones? Was the drive to escape guilt so strong that Steele could have consciously revised his memories and then forgotten his revisionist efforts?
I figured anything was possible, but that innocence was more likely. The more I thought about the steadiness of his voice and eyes, the more I began to believe that Steele really was innocent, despite the evidence against him. What had gone wrong in the first investigation? How had no one managed to find anything to support his story? There had to be something.
I was still thinking it through when I got back downtown. I was so lost in thought that I only half noticed the two guys lingering by the entrance to the parking garage. I saw them, but I didn’t really look at them. One was a wiry little guy with an earring and a face like a ferret. The other was big, bearded, and dressed in leather, as though the ninety-degree weather meant nothing.
I parked the car and started working my way across the large garage when I saw the big guy walking my direction. Somehow I saw it right away. I sensed it. He was coming for me. He looked right at me and I looked away, moving for the entrance to the building where the elevator banks were. I glanced up and down the rows of cars. I was in the parking garage of one of the largest buildings in one of the largest cities in the world and there were no people except for me and this guy coming toward me. I wondered for just a second — where was the little guy? — until the bearded one called out.
“Olson.” The words echoed through the garage, ricocheting off the concrete walls and ceiling.
I looked at him like I was still confused about who he was talking to when I felt someone push me from behind. It was the little guy. I’d been flanked. He grabbed one of my arms, twisted it up behind my back, and ran me between two parked cars and up against the garage wall.
The Ferret said, “Don’t fuck around, smart guy.” His breath in my face was like a cloud of rotten fish. He held me against the wall, face first, until the big guy got there.
I felt the big guy’s oversized hand on my shoulder and he spun me around like I was a rag doll, put his hand against my chest, and held me there, his weight nearly suffocating me. The hairs in the guy’s moustache were like black wires, sticking out in all directions like they’d sprung from a dark and tightly wound inner core.
He said, “Here’s a little kiss from Matt Bishop.” Then he hit me so hard in the stomach that I nearly lost consciousness. I was crouched and bent over, one hand against my aching guts and the other out against the floor, holding me up like a football player waiting for the snap. But I wasn’t going anywhere, at least not until I started breathing again.