Bryce had seen others like him. Their eyes were always flat; you couldn't see into their eyes at all. Their faces expressed Whatever emotion seemed required, although every expression was a shade too right. When they expressed concern for anyone but themselves, you could detect a bell-clear ring of insincerity. They were not burdened by remorse, morality, love, or empathy. Often, they led lives of acceptable destruction, ruining and embittering those who loved them, shattering the lives of friends who believed them and relied on them, betraying trusts, but never quite crossing the line into outright criminal behavior. Now and then, however, such a man went too far. And because he was the type who never did things by halves, he always went much, much too far.
Danny Kale's small, torn, bloody body lying in a heap.
The grayness enveloping Bryce's mind grew thicker, until it seemed like a cold, oily smoke. To Kale, he said, “You've told us that your wife was a heavy marijuana smoker for two and a half years.”
“That's right.”
“At my direction, the coroner looked for a few things that wouldn't ordinarily have interested him. Like the condition of Joanna's lungs. She wasn't a smoker at all, let alone a pothead. Lungs were clean.”
“I said she smoked pot, not tobacco,” Kale said.
“Marijuana smoke and ordinary tobacco smoke both damage the lungs,” Bryce said. “In Joanna's case, there was no damage whatsoever.”
“But I—”
“Quiet,” Bob Robine advised his client. He pointed a long, slim finger at Bryce, waggled it, and said, “The important thing is — was there PCP in her blood or wasn't there?”
“There was,” Bryce said, “It was in her blood, but she didn't smoke it. Joanna took the PCP orally. There was still a lot of it in her stomach.”
Robine blinked in surprise but recovered quickly. “There you go,” he said. “She took it. Who cares how?”
“In fact,” Bryce said, “there was more of it in her stomach than in her bloodstream.”
Kale tried to look curious, concerned, and innocent — all at the same time; even his elastic features were strained by that expression.
Scowling, Bob Robine said, “So there was more in her stomach than in her bloodstream. So what?”
“Angel dust is highly absorbable. Taken orally, it doesn't remain in the stomach for very long. Now, while Joanna had swallowed enough dope to freak out, there hadn't been time for it to affect her. You see, she took the PCP with ice cream Which coated her stomach and retarded the absorption of the drug. During the autopsy, the coroner found partially digested chocolate fudge ice cream. So there hadn't been time for the PCP to cause hallucinations or to send her into a berserk rage.” Bryce paused, took a deep breath. “There was chocolate fudge ice cream in Danny's stomach, too, but no PCP. When Mr. Kale told us he came home from work early on Thursday, he didn't mention bringing an afternoon treat for the family. A half-gallon of chocolate fudge ice cream.”
Fletcher Kale's face had gone blank. At last, he seemed to have used up his collection of human expressions.
Bryce said, “We found a partly empty container of ice cream in Kale's freezer. Chocolate fudge. What I think happened, Mr. Kale, is that you dished out some ice cream for everyone. I think you secretly laced your wife's serving with PCP, so you could later claim she was in a drug-induced frenzy. You didn't figure the coroner would catch you out.”
“Wait just one goddamned minute!” Robine shouted.
“Then, while you washed your bloody clothes,” Bryce said to Kale, “you cleaned up the ice-cream-smeared dishes and put them away because your story was that you had come home from work to find little Danny already dead and his mother already freaked out on PCP.”
Robine said, “That's only supposition. Have you forgotten motive? Why in God's name would my client do such a hideous thing?”
Watching Kale's eyes, Bryce said, “High Country Investments.”
Kale's face remained impassive, but his eyes flickered.
“High Country Investments?” Robine asked, “What's that?”
Bryce stared at Kale. “Did you buy ice cream before you went home last Thursday?”
“No,” Kale said flatly.
“The manager of the 7-Eleven store over on Calder Street says you did.”
The muscles in Kale's jaws bulged as he clenched his teeth in anger.
“What about High Country Investments?” Robine asked.
Bryce fired another question at Kale. “Do you know a man named Gene Teer?”
Kale only stared.
“People sometimes just call him ‘Jeeter.'”
Robine said, “Who is he?”
“Leader of the Demon Chrome,” Bryce said, watching Kale.
“It's a motorcycle gang. Jeeter deals drugs. Actually, we've never been able to catch him at it himself, we've only been able to jail some of his people. We leaned on Jeeter about this, and he steered us to someone who admitted supplying Mr. Kale with grass on a random basis. Not Mrs. Kale. She never bought.”
“Who says?” Robine demanded, “This motorcycle creep? This social reject? This drug pusher? He's not a reliable witness!”
“According to our source, Mr. Kale didn't just buy grass last Tuesday. Mr. Kale bought angel dust, too. The man who sold the drugs will testify in return for immunity.”
With animal cunning and suddenness, Kale bolted up, seized the empty chair beside him, threw it across the table at Bryce Hammond, and ran for the door of the interrogation room.
By the time the chair had left Kale's hands and was in the air, Bryce was already up and moving, and it sailed harmlessly past his head. He was around the table when the chair crashed to the floor behind him.
Kale pulled open the door and plunged into the corridor.
Bryce was four steps behind him.
Tal Whitman had come off the window ledge as if he'd been blown off by an explosive charge, and he was one step behind Bryce, shouting.
Reaching the corridor, Bryce saw Fletcher Kale heading for a yellow exit door about twenty feet away. He went after the son of a bitch.
Kale hit the crashbar and flung the metal door open.
Bryce reached him a fraction of a second later, as Kale was setting foot onto the macadamed parking lot.
Sensing Bryce close behind him, Kale turned with catlike fluidity and swung one huge fist.
Bryce ducked the blow, threw a punch of his own, connecting with Kale's hard, flat belly. Then he swung again, hitting him in the neck.
Kale stumbled back, putting his hands to his throat, gagging and choking.
Bryce moved in.
But Kale wasn't as badly stunned as he pretended to be. He leaped forward as Bryce approached and grabbed him in a bear hug.
“Bastard,” Kale said, spraying spittle.
His gray eyes were wide. His lips were skinned back from his teeth in a fierce snarl. He looked lupine.