“That’s your absolute right,” Virgil said. He turned and looked over his shoulder and said, “Shrake, you wanna recite the chapter and verse?”
Shrake recited the Miranda warning, and when he’d finished, Virgil asked, “Did you understand that?”
Masilla swallowed and said, “Yes. And I want one.”
Virgil said, “So I won’t ask any more questions, but I’m going to make a speech, that you can repeat when you call your lawyer. And you better get one quick, because I’m also going to make you an offer, but the offer is only going to be open for a short time. Like, two hours. Do you understand?”
A weak “Yes.”
Virgil told him about the three murders, and all the blood drained out of Masilla’s face. “How I… I don’t know anything about violence.”
“Well, your coconspirators do. If you’re convicted along with them, you’re going to go to prison… well, for you, forever. This kind of murder is going to be thirty years, no questions asked,” Virgil said. “What you need to do, and right quick, is come to an agreement to provide evidence in return for leniency and reduced charges.”
“But I didn’t… I… I better call my attorney.”
“You call. We’ll come back”—Virgil looked at his cell phone clock—“in an hour.”
“That’s not enough time—”
“Fine. Make it ninety minutes. But if we can’t reach an agreement, Mr. Masilla… you’re toast.”
Jenkins and Shrake stood up, and Virgil nodded at Masilla: “Ninety minutes.”
The secretary saw them to the elevator, but didn’t ride down with them, and inside, Jenkins said, “That worked.”
Virgil, “You think?”
Shrake said, “I got a hundred dollars that says it did. But, come to think of it, if I were you, I’d call up our own attorneys and make sure they’ll support a deal. I mean, you’re sort of out here on your own.”
“That’s called self-reliance,” Virgil said.
“That’s called having your head up your butt,” Jenkins said.
Outside on the sidewalk, they were at loose ends, and Virgil said, “Let’s go look around.”
“Maybe find a gun store, or something,” Shrake suggested.
Jenkins said, “I saw a sign for a museum.…”
They were crossing the street toward the auto repair shop, and Virgil saw a man looking up past their heads. He turned and looked, and on the fourth story of the Masilla, Oder building, Fred Masilla had lifted his venetian blinds and opened one of his tall windows. He was standing there, looking out, almost pensively, and Virgil blurted, “Oh, boy, look at this.”
Jenkins and Shrake turned and looked up, and Masilla looked down at them. Virgil thought, Fifty feet, sixty feet? Really wouldn’t make any difference if he jumped.
Shrake was walking back toward the corner and bellowed: “Fred! Hey, Fred! Shut the window! Shut the fuckin’ window!”
Masilla looked down at them for another beat, then seemed to sigh, nodded, and shut the window. A moment later, the blinds came down.
Jenkins said, “Good going,” and the partners bumped knuckles.
Shrake asked Virgil, “You gonna put me in for a citation? I saved that guy’s life.”
“Quiet,” Virgil said. “I’m listening.”
“For what?”
“The gunshot.”
They all looked up at the window, but Masilla never came back.
20
The three of them spent some time in a café, eating pecan pie with ice cream, and Virgil called his friend at the attorney general’s office and told him that he was about to offer “consideration” to Masilla for any help he could give them.
“He’s a fool if he takes it, because we’ll repudiate it instantly,” the attorney said.
“I will testify in his behalf, if he gives these people up,” Virgil said. “I don’t have any reason to think he was in on the killings.”
“Do what you want, but you could get your ass kicked in court, in any number of directions,” the attorney said.
“So you’re saying I should do what I want, and it’s okay with you?”
After a moment of silence, the attorney said, “No, that’s exactly not what I said. I’m advising you not to do this, and if you do, you’re on your own. I’ll tell everybody I know that I never heard of you.”
“Thanks, that’s what I needed,” Virgil said. “It’s okay with you.”
He clicked off, and when the attorney called back seven seconds later, he didn’t answer. “I think we’re good,” he said to Jenkins and Shrake.
They spent some time at the public library, which looked like either a courthouse or a post office, but not a library, trying to read magazines, but that was boring, so Virgil went outside and sat on a bus bench and called Frankie and they talked about nothing, and eventually it was time to go back to Masilla, Oder.
Masilla was sitting in his office chair, in shirtsleeves, and a large, pink-faced, sweaty man in a blue suit sat in a corner chair. When Virgil, Jenkins, and Shrake arrived, there weren’t enough chairs, but a secretary quickly wheeled in another one, and they all sat down, and the man in the blue suit said, “I’m Benjamin Rogers, Mr. Masilla’s attorney, and Mr. Masilla isn’t going to say anything at all until I hear your story, and then we’ll decide how to proceed.”
Virgil said, “Well, the Buchanan County school board has been stealing a lot of money, could be as much as a million dollars a year, and this has been going on for some time, and Mr. Masilla is in on it.”
Masilla blurted, “I am not.”
The attorney said, “Shut up, Fred. Just keep your mouth shut.” He turned back to Virgil and said, “Mr. Masilla rejects your claim, of course. I would like to hear what you have to support it, just as a matter of curiosity.”
“Sure,” Virgil said, keeping his tone amiable. “A reporter working for the newspaper down in Trippton was shot to death last week. Upon investigation, we found his notes, along with copies of the school district’s financial records. Even if we didn’t have the records, we have so many entries into this embezzlement that the whole scheme is coming down. More important than the theft, however, is that three murders have been committed to cover up the thefts. They are part of the whole process of the crime, of course, so everybody involved is going to Stillwater prison for thirty years… unless they get some consideration for their testimony.”
Masilla cried, “Murders—”
“Shut up, Fred,” Rogers said. He turned to Virgil and said, “I can tell you, son — can I call you son?”
Virgil said, “No.”
Rogers said, “I’ll tell you, son, if, hypothetically, Fred could tell you anything at all about this case, he’d need absolute and total immunity from prosecution, and I’d have to insist on a written arrangement with whatever county attorney you’ve got covering this case.”
“I’m actually working this out of the AG’s office.” He looked at Masilla, and enlarged: “The state attorney general’s office. I’ve got a name you could call, but I’ve got to tell you that we have no time. A man was beaten to death last night, and the man we believe is the killer can’t be found. We’re talking to three different people, and the first person who puts a finger on him gets the consideration. Everybody else hangs.”
Masilla groaned, and Rogers glared him into silence, then said to Virgil, “Give me the name of your guy in the AG’s office.”
Virgil gave him the name, and asked, “You want to call him from here? We could step outside if you want privacy.”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Rogers said.
Virgil led the way out, and the instant he was in the hallway, pressed the redial number for his friend in the attorney general’s office, who answered: “What? I’ve been trying to call you—”