“Yeah.”
Keller looks to the AUSA, who nods. Hal also concurs. The prosecutors have what they need in the event Rusty later claims he was unlawfully coerced.
“I’m Agent Sarah Keller with the FBI, and I think you’ve been introduced to everyone else.”
“I remember you,” Rusty says with disdain.
“We understand you want to make a proffer.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I want a deal. A good one.”
“A deal for what?” Arpeggio joins in, sounding impatient.
“I got some information you’ll want.” Rusty turns his gaze back to Keller. “That you’ll both want.” He smiles, his teeth gray and jagged. He still makes her skin crawl.
Arpeggio says, “I gotta tell you, Rusty, we don’t need a deal. You’re the last person to see your wife. Her body’s at your place of work. Your prints are on the barrel. And once the test results come back, I imagine your DNA will put the final nails in the coffin.”
Rusty scowls, bunches his fists. His cuffs are anchored to a steel bar on the table. Keller imagines him using those callused meat hooks on his wife, on his sons.
“I got a bigger fish,” he spits out.
Arpeggio shakes his head. “It’s dinnertime, Rusty. Start talking or we’re out of here.”
Keller isn’t sure it’s the right play, but it works.
“I can give you Vince.”
Arpeggio goes still for a moment. “Explain,” he says.
“You get me a deal, and I promise, I know where he is.”
“You can lead us to Vince Whitaker?” Arpeggio asks, his tone skeptical.
“Get me the deal and I can.”
Keller says, “I won’t speak for Union County, but on the federal side, you’ll have to forgive me for being skeptical. It’ll take more than a promise if you want us to go up the chain on this.”
The AUSA concurs: “Yeah, we need more than just your word for me to—”
“I don’t give one shit about your silly cigarette charges,” says Rusty. He turns to Arpeggio and Hal. “I want a deal on the murder.”
“Mr. Whitaker,” his lawyer says, “I’m going to advise you that you shouldn’t say more until I—”
“Shut up,” Rusty tells his lawyer. “Go talk to whoever you gotta talk to,” he says to the group across the table. “But you want to find Vince, you’d better do it soon.” He lowers his head, scratches his chin on the back of his hand, his shackles clanking. “You ain’t getting anything until you give me a deal and put it in writing. You can make it conditioned on you finding Vince, if you want.”
“We need to talk about it,” Arpeggio says.
“Don’t take too long,” Rusty says, “the offer expires tonight.”
* * *
“What do you think?” Arpeggio asks the group in the corridor outside the interview room.
“I don’t trust him,” Keller says. “At the same time, he’s willing to make the deal conditional on us finding his son.”
Arpeggio looks at Hal.
Hal says, “A dilemma. Trade one killer for another.”
“I think we should make a deal,” Arpeggio says. “For the families. It’s been fifteen years and we can give them some closure.”
Hal looks to the AUSA. “If we make a deal conditioned on capturing Vince Whitaker, will you all throw in the cigarette charges to sweeten the deal?”
The AUSA shrugs. “I’ll have to confirm that the Secret Service is okay with it, but probably.”
Keller frowns. But she understands. If the state wants a deal badly enough to take a plea on a slam-dunk murder charge, the Feds will likely extend a professional courtesy.
Keller thinks about Rusty. He seems so certain he knows where to find his son. It’s odd because Rusty would be the last person she imagines Vince would reach out to.
Keller thinks back through Chris’s description of seeing his brother for the last time. Rusty and a group of drug fiends, a twitchy, threatening man. It’s then she has a thought, a theory.
“Do me a favor?” she says to Hal and Arpeggio.
Arpeggio gives her a noncommittal look, but Hal nods.
“Talk to me before you make any deal. I have an idea.”
“What is it?” Arpeggio asks.
“A hunch. But one that may allow us to have our cake and eat it too.”
CHAPTER 61
Keller is irritable, but she isn’t sure if that’s because she’s just been in close quarters with Rusty Whitaker or because she and her twins are ravenously hungry. She should pull over, eat dinner, but she wants to run down her hunch first. On the drive she calls Atticus.