She had known him, and he must have known her—given her size and ethnicity, she’d be a hard woman to forget. Yet in the cab he had called her ma’am. Why was that? Because even if he knew her face from the Y, he didn’t remember her name? That was possible, but Ralph didn’t like it much. As names went, Willow Rainwater wasn’t all that forgettable, either.
“Well, he was under stress,” Ralph muttered, either to himself or to the drowsing photocopier. “Also . . .”
Another memory came to him, and with it a reason for Maitland’s use of ma’am that he liked better. His kid brother, Johnny, three years younger, had not been much good when it came to hide-and-seek. Many times he’d just run into his bedroom and throw the covers over his head, apparently thinking that if he couldn’t see Ralphie, Ralphie couldn’t see him. Wasn’t it possible that a man who had just committed a terrible murder might be prone to the same sort of magical thinking? If I don’t know you, you don’t know me. Mad logic, sure, but it had been a madman’s crime, and it could explain more than just Terry’s reaction to Rainwater; it could explain why he’d thought he could get away with it even though he was well-known to lots of folks in Flint City, and an actual celebrity to sports fans.
But then there was Carlton Scowcroft. If he closed his eyes, Ralph could almost see Gold underlining a key passage in Scowcroft’s statement, and preparing for his summation to the jury, perhaps stealing an idea from OJ’s attorney. If the glove does not fit, you must acquit, Johnnie Cochran had said. Gold’s version, almost as catchy, might be, Since he didn’t know, you must let him go.
It wouldn’t work, it wasn’t even close to the same, but—
According to Scowcroft, Maitland had explained the blood on his face and clothes by saying something in his nose had ruptured. It went like Old Faithful, Terry told him. Is there a doc-in-the-box anywhere around here?
Only Terry Maitland had, with the exception of four years in college, lived in Flint City all his life. He wouldn’t have needed the Quick Care billboard near Coney Ford to direct him; he wouldn’t have needed to ask in the first place. So why had he?
Samuels came back with a Coke, a burger wrapped in foil, and a go-cup of coffee, which he handed to Ralph. “All quiet in there?”
“Yep. They’ve got another twenty minutes, by my watch. When they finish, I’m going to try to get him to give us a DNA swab.”
Samuels unwrapped his burger and cautiously lifted the bun for a peek. “Oh my God,” he said. “It looks like something a paramedic scraped off a burn victim.” Nevertheless, he began to eat it.
Ralph thought about mentioning Terry’s conversation with Rainwater, and Terry’s odd question about the doc-in-the-box, and didn’t. He thought about bringing up Terry’s failure to disguise himself or even to try to hide his face with sunglasses, and didn’t mention that, either. He had raised these issues before, and Samuels had swatted them aside, maintaining—and rightly—that they had no significance when stacked against the eyewitnesses and the damning forensic evidence.
The coffee was as awful as Samuels had predicted, but Ralph sipped at it anyway, and the cup was almost empty when Gold buzzed to be let out of the interview room. His expression made Ralph Anderson’s stomach contract. It wasn’t worry, anger, or the theatrical indignation some lawyers could muster up when they realized a client was in deep shit. No, this was sympathy, and it looked genuine.
“Oy vey,” he said. “You two guys are in big trouble.”
20
FLINT CITY GENERAL HOSPITAL
DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY AND SEROLOGY
To: Detective Ralph Anderson
Lieutenant Yunel Sablo
District Attorney William Samuels
From: Dr. Edward Bogan
Date: July 14th
Subject: Blood Typing and DNA
Blood:
Several items were tested for blood type.
The first was the branch used to sodomize the victim, Frank Peterson, a white male child, 11 years of age. This branch was approximately 22” long and 3” in diameter. A section about halfway down has been stripped of its loose bark, likely because of rough handling by the perpetrator of the crime （see attached photograph）。 Fingerprints were found on this smooth section of the branch; they were photographed and lifted by State Criminalistics before the evidence was conveyed to me by Detective Ralph Anderson （Flint City PD） and Trooper Yunel Sablo （State Police Post 7）。 I therefore state that the chain of evidence remains intact.