Fury (4 page)

“Will I what?”

“Will you make them listen to me?”

Corso thought about it. With the exception of Himes’s ACLU lawyer, nobody but nobody was going to want any part of this story. In six days, dozens of heartbroken souls were finally scheduled to be granted some small measure of relief. A flawed but final resolution to a three-year-old nightmare and…what? Somebody was going to come along and say, Oops…waitaminute…there’s been a minor glitch here. Back to square one. Feel free to return to your grieving.

Corso’s insides suddenly had that sheet-metal feel. The feeling he’d first experienced in New York and had carried with him, on and off, ever since. A cold, dull ache in the pit of his stomach, as if he’d swallowed ball bearings. A pain that only subsided when he was floating alone on deep, green water.

He got to his feet and looked to the windows on the far side of the room. Outside, the steel-wool sky engulfed Queen Anne Hill. A steady rain coated the streets, leaving the cars to hiss along inside silver canopies of mist.

“Come on,” he said.

Halfway down the hall to the elevator, Blaine Newton came across the red-tile floor toward Corso and Leanne, holding his oversize lunch bag by his side. Newton was about thirty and already lapping over his belt. Blaine Newton had been, for the past few years, Hawes’s pet-reporter project. Another fancy dresser from the University of Washington journalism department, where Hawes moonlighted as an assistant professor. He was a better writer than a reporter. Next in line for the metro-crime beat, whenever Nathan Hopkins could be persuaded to retire. Corso disliked him on principle. When he recognized Corso, his big pink cheeks very nearly squeezed his eyes shut.

“Finally find yourself a date, Corso?”

“I’m saving it for Judith. She’s all I can handle.”

“Har-har,” Newton barked. “Very funny.”

“Give us a chorus of ‘
Danke Schoen
,’” Corso said as they passed.

Newton stopped in his tracks. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You always say that like it’s supposed to be a big joke or something.”

Corso kept walking. “Ask Judith,” he said.

“You’re so funny,” Newton said to his back.

Leanne leaned in and whispered, “Who’s Judith?”

“His wife,” Corso said in a loud voice. “She’s very demanding.”

Leanne giggled and squeezed his arm. When the elevator opened, Corso stepped aside and allowed her to enter first.

Monday, September 17
3:25
P.M.
Day 1 of 6

The pictures on her desk made the facts of her life clear. Sons in college? Two. Husbands in residence? None. Violet Rogers was a sturdily built, no-nonsense woman of forty-five. Motherly, she wore her long hair braided and wound around her head like shiny black ropes.

The sound of the elevator pulled her eyes from the computer screen to the sliding door. “Why, Mr. Corso,” she said with a smile. “It’s been far too long.”

She removed an earpiece from the side of her head and got to her feet. They shook hands. “Violet,” Corso said, “this is Leanne Samples.”

“I know…I know. It’s not often we have such a celebrity up here.”

Leanne blushed and began to stammer, “Oh…I’m not a celebrity…no, please…”

Corso inclined his head toward Mrs. V.’s office and raised his eyebrow. Violet instantly picked up on his drift. She took Leanne by the hand.

“What can I get you, honey?” she asked. “Coffee? Tea?”

Leanne swiveled her head around the room. “Is there a…a facilities on this floor?”

Violet emitted a deep, booming laugh. “Honey, this is the executive floor. We’ve got a facilities you won’t believe. You just come along with me.”

Corso watched the women wade through the ankle-deep carpet and disappear around the corner. Without knocking, he pulled open the door and stepped into Natalie Van Der Hoven’s office. Bennett Hawes was pacing the center of the room with his hands jammed in his pants. Mrs. V. was seated behind her ornate mahogany desk opening mail with a silver letter opener.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Corso,” she said.

Corso crossed the room and shook the woman’s hand. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. V.,” he said. “You’re the only thing about this business I miss.”

“You flatter me, Mr. Corso.”

“It’s true,” Corso insisted.

“I’m enchanted that you think so.”

“You wanna tell us what she said, or what?” Hawes huffed.

Corso gave them the short version of what Leanne had told him. As always, Hawes refused to tilt his head back far enough to maintain eye contact with Corso and listened while staring at Corso’s shirtfront.

From a newspaperman’s point of view, one question now begged an answer. Mrs. V. was all over it. “Who else has she told?”

Corso handed her the ADA’s business card.

“And how was her information received?” she asked.

“Just as you’d imagine. They threatened her and threw her out.”

“You think they’ll go public?” Hawes asked.

“No way. They’ll stonewall for as long as they can.”

“And she told nobody else?” Hawes pressed.

“She says the Beal guy called in a couple of suits. I’m guessing cops.”

“So we print what? ‘Himes Innocent’?” Hawes asked sarcastically.

“We print ‘State’s Witness Says She Lied’” Mrs. V. said.

Before Hawes could open his mouth, Corso said, “She’s all the case they had.”

Natalie Van Der Hoven sighed and rocked back in her chair. She knew where this was going. May as well let them work it out of their systems, she thought.

“He confessed,” Hawes insisted.

According to the arresting officer, as he and Himes stood together in the corridor outside central booking, Himes had admitted to killing the girls.

“Himes always claimed the cop was lying.”

“The killings stopped, goddamn it,” Hawes spat out. “Let’s not waste our time arguing about all this crap again. From the day they picked that slimeball up, there’s never been another Trashman killing, period.” He dotted the air with his index finger.

“No period,” Corso said. “As I recall, they found the eighth victim several days after Himes was arrested.”

“She was killed beforehand,” Hawes said. “Took that long to find her.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” Corso said quickly. “I seem to recall there was some reason or other why the time of death couldn’t be established for the last girl.”

“They had other forensic material,” Hawes insisted.

“If they had a match, they’d have used it.”

The official word on the forensics had been that although they had collected a great deal of forensic material, the fact that the victims had been found in Dumpsters raised the unfortunate specter of outside contamination to such a level that any competent defense attorney could easily get the forensics excluded. As far as Corso was concerned, in the end, Leanne Samples was the state’s case.

“They had Himes dead to rights,” Hawes persisted.

“The FBI sure as hell didn’t think so,” Corso countered.

Hawes made a disgusted face. “Oh, don’t start that crap again.”

“I’ll tell you again—same thing I told you back then—the Bureau doesn’t miss photo opportunities. I’ve worked around them a lot.”

Hawes got theatrical now. Parading around with his hands on his hips. “Back before you were a famous true-crime writer. Back when you were the golden boy of the
New Yaaaawk Times
,” he mocked. “Haaaaaavard scholar. Nieeeeeeman Fellow.”

Corso swallowed his anger, took a deep breath. “Yeah, Bennett, way back then…And you know as well as I do, that’s why local law enforcement hates working with them. No matter who breaks the case, they take the credit. Hell, it was a couple of Oklahoma troopers who pulled Timothy McVeigh over and made the collar. You remember seeing those good old boys up at the podium when they announced the arrest?” Before the older man could open his mouth, Corso said, “Yeah…me neither.”

Bennett Hawes sighed and turned his back to Corso. He walked to the right side of the desk and sat heavily in the matching red leather chair. His face was sour. “And that tells you Himes was innocent?”

“No,” Corso said. “What it tells me is that the FBI wanted nothing to do with the case against Walter Leroy Himes. That they wanted to distance themselves from the whole thing. I’m telling you, if Miss Samples out there keeps telling her present tale, we’re about to see the biggest public ass covering since Pontius Pilate.”

Mrs. V. slapped a palm on her desktop. The resounding silenced the men. “Enough,” she said. “I’ve heard it all before. Ad nauseam,” she added.

“And you remember what happened,” Hawes snapped. “We’re less than a week from a final resolution and I’m telling you”—he waved his arm at the skyline of the city—“these people want their pound of flesh. If they don’t get Himes, they’re gonna settle for whoever brings them the bad news.”

No doubt about it. The execution frenzy was building to a peak. Just inside the prison gates, a herd of mobile television units aimed their concave eyes at the sky. Outside the gates of the prison, a tent city was growing. UPI estimated that by the time Himes was administered the lethal injection, three to four thousand souls would be gathered outside the gates to speed him on his way to eternity.

Corso knew the execution crowds. The foam baseball caps and the battered motor homes. He’d rubbed elbows with the soapbox preachers and the legions of lonely women. He’d personally witnessed two electrocutions and a hanging. All part of being in a business where a phone call could drag you from the sanctity of your bed and send you kicking amid the rubble of a bombed-out building, watching your tasseled feet slide amid the blood and the baby shoes and the broken bricks of other people’s lives. The way Corso saw it, if you had the nerve to insert yourself into such moments of personal tragedy, the least you could do was not watch from the bleachers. You had to get down on the field and play. You owed it to both the living and the dead.

“Where is Miss Samples?” Mrs. V. demanded.

“Outside with Violet,” Corso said.

She pushed a button on her phone. “Violet, would you please send in Miss Samples?” Violet said it would be her pleasure. A few seconds later, the door eased open.

Leanne Samples stopped in the doorway, one hand gripping each side of the opening, like Samson about to pull down the temple. Her eyes darted around the room, taking in the gallery of mutton-chopped forebears whose portraits lined the walls. Her gaze finally came to rest on the portrait of Natalie Van Der Hoven that hung behind her desk. Mrs. V. got to her feet. “Please come in,” Mrs. V. prompted. Leanne stayed put, staring at the portraits. “The paper has been in my family for over a hundred years,” Mrs. V. tried.

Leanne let go of the doorway and took several tentative steps into the room. Hawes slipped behind her, closed the door, gently placed a hand on her shoulder, and began to aim her to one of the chairs to the right of Mrs. V.’s desk. Leanne, however, was having none of it. She shook off his hand and made a beeline for Corso, who, in the manner of a matador, eased the young woman past the edge of the desk and into the guest chair. She sat, halfway into the seat, leaning forward, her hands clasped in her lap.

“Can I get you something?” Mrs. V. inquired. “Coffee? A soft drink? A bottled water?” Leanne shook her head.

“A hundred years is a long time,” she said after a moment.

“And quite a responsibility,” Mrs. V. added. “The portraits make me feel as if they’re all watching over me. Making sure I do the right thing.”

“That’s why I came here today,” Leanne said.

Mrs. V. settled back into her seat. “To do the right thing?”

Leanne nodded. “I had to. I couldn’t let somebody—Mr. Himes—be dead on account of me.”

“I owe it to all of my readers to make sure that what I print in this paper is accurate.” Mrs. V. locked Leanne with her gaze. The young woman seemed to steel herself, sitting up straight. Stilling her hands.

“What I told Mr. Corso is true.” She looked back over her shoulder at Corso. He gave her a nod. “I lied about Mr. Himes, and now I have to fix it.”

“That won’t be easy,” Mrs. V. said.

“I know,” Leanne said softly.

“This is a very serious matter,” Hawes added.

“I know,” she said again, softer this time.

“Then I’m certain you will want to—” Mrs. V. began.

Leanne exploded like a cherry bomb. “No,” she shouted. “Don’t you dare start telling me what I want. I
know
what I want.” She looked over at Hawes. “My whole life people have been telling me what I really want or what I really mean—like I’m such a retard I don’t even know what’s going on inside of me.”

She turned finally to Corso. “Mr. Corso…he just listens to me like he listens to everybody else.”

Natalie Van Der Hoven looked to Corso for an explanation.

“She means I treat everybody like they’re retarded,” he said.

Leanne covered her mouth and laughed. Mrs. V. returned to her seat behind the desk, leaned forward, pushed the red button on her phone. “Violet, could you come in here, please?”

“Yes, Mrs. Van Der Hoven,” crackled the voice.

Mrs. V. looked over at Leanne. “Do you still live with your parents?”

Leanne shook her head. Said she was living in a group home on Harvard Avenue. Transitioning into the workplace, as it were. Place was called Pathways.

The office door opened. Violet stepped in. “Are either of the boys home from college, Violet?” Mrs. V. asked.

“No, Mrs. Van Der Hoven. Not for a couple more weeks.”

“How would you feel about spending the next few days in a fancy hotel ordering room service?”

Her face lit up. “I don’t believe I understand—” she began.

“Miss Samples is going to be a guest of the paper for a few days. I was wondering if it would be too much of an imposition to ask you to act as her chaperone.”

It took a bit of talking, but they worked it out. Leanne suddenly found herself beyond where she’d thought things through and took a little convincing. Violet wouldn’t hear of Mrs. V. fielding her own calls and insisted on arranging a suitable temp for herself. They settled on the Carlisle Hotel where the
Sun
had an account they used for out-of-town visitors. They were to get a couple of rooms. Not use their own names. Violet was going to stop at home and gather whatever personal things she might need for an overnight stay. Anything Leanne needed would come out of petty cash. Mrs. V. gave Violet her personal cell phone number and told her to call Pathways as soon as they were settled. Wouldn’t want them sending out a search party. Violet was explaining the concept of room service to Leanne as they walked out the door. “Honey, you can order anything!” she said. “You ever had a surf and turf?”

Leanne kept her eyes locked on Corso. He waved. She mustered a tight smile she didn’t mean and backed out the door.

Mrs. V. turned to Hawes. “Call Mr. Robbins at the plant. Have him up tonight’s street run by fifty percent.”

Hawes sighed. “He’s gonna say it can’t be done.”

“He always says it can’t be done. Just tell him I said to do it. And tell him I want the first papers in the machines by four-thirty.”

They watched as Bennett Hawes hurried out the door.