On the far side of the door was a hallway lined with small rooms divided by what looked like cloudy glass. Terry was sitting in one of these. At the sight of him, floating inside a brown jumpsuit that was far too big, Marcy began to cry. She stepped into her side of the booth and looked at her husband through what was not glass at all but a thick sheet of Perspex. She put a hand up, fingers splayed, and he put his up against it. There was a circle of small holes, like those in an old-fashioned telephone receiver, to talk through. “Stop crying, honey. If you don’t, I’ll start. And sit down.”
She sat, Howie crowding onto the bench beside her.
“How are the girls?”
“Fine. Worried about you, but better today. We’ve got some very good news. Honey, did you know Mr. Coben’s speech was taped by the public access channel?”
For a moment Terry just gaped. Then he began to laugh. “You know what, I think the woman who introduced him said something about that, but she was so long-winded I mostly tuned out. Holy shit.”
“Yes, it’s an authentic holy shit,” Howie said, smiling.
Terry leaned forward until his forehead was almost touching the barrier. His eyes were bright, intent. “Marcy . . . Howie . . . I asked Coben something during the Q-and-A. I know it’s a longshot, but maybe it got picked up on the audio. If it was, maybe they can run voice-recognition or something and do a match!”
Marcy and Howie looked at each other and began to laugh. It was an uncommon sound in Maximum Security Visiting, and the guard at the end of the short corridor looked up, frowning.
“What? What did I say?”
“Terry, you’re on video asking your question,” Marcy said. “Do you understand? You are on the video.”
For a moment Terry didn’t seem to comprehend what she was saying. Then he raised his fists and shook them beside his temples, a gesture of triumph she had seen often when one of his teams scored or pulled off a cool defensive play. Without thinking about it, she raised her own hands and copied him.
“Are you sure? Like a hundred per cent? It seems too good to be true.”
“It’s true,” Howie said, grinning. “As a matter of fact you’re on the tape half a dozen times, when they cut away from Coben to show the audience laughing or applauding. The question you asked is just icing on the cake, the whipped cream on top of the banana split.”
“So it’s case closed, right? I’ll walk free tomorrow?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Howie’s grin faded to a rather grim smile. “Tomorrow is just the arraignment, and they’ve got a heap of forensic evidence that they’re very proud of—”
“How can they?” Marcy burst out. “How can they, when Terry was obviously there? The tape proves it!”
Howie put a hand up in a Stop gesture. “We’ll worry about the conflict later, although I can tell you right now that what we’ve got trumps what they’ve got. Easily trumps it. But certain machinery has been set in motion.”
“The machine,” Marcy said. “Yes. We know about the machine, don’t we, Ter?”
He nodded. “It’s like I fell into a Kafka novel. Or 1984. And pulled you and the girls in along with me.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Howie said. “You didn’t pull anyone, they did. This is going to work out, guys. Uncle Howie promises it, and Uncle Howie always keeps his promises. You’re going to be arraigned tomorrow at nine o’clock, Terry, in front of Judge Horton. You will be looking reet and complete in the nice suit your wife brought, which is now hanging in the prisoner storage closet. I intend to meet with Bill Samuels to discuss bail—tonight, if he’ll take the meeting, tomorrow morning if he won’t. He won’t like it, and he’s going to insist on home confinement, but we’ll get it, because by then someone in the press will have discovered that Channel 81 tape, and the problems with the prosecution’s case will become public knowledge. I imagine you’ll have to put your home up to secure the bond, but that shouldn’t be much of a risk, unless you plan to cut off the ankle monitor and run for the hills.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Terry said grimly. Color had risen in his cheeks. “What did some Civil War general say? ‘I intend to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.’？”
“Okay, so what’s the next battle?” Marcy asked.
“I will tell the DA that it would be a bad idea to present an indictment to the grand jury. And that argument will prevail. You will then walk free.”