‘That might be why he’s late, but we’ll give it a few minutes.’
Jimmy Bales didn’t walk in until one-fifteen. ‘Mac has no reason to be here, Reed,’ he said as he led them to his office.
‘I told you he’d be here as my representative,’ Reed Dean said.
‘Representative for what?’
Reed looked to Mac.
‘Representative for what happens next,’ Mac said carefully. ‘And that will depend on what is, and is not, in the state’s report.’
Bales turned to the computer behind him, pressed one button, then another. The small printer came alive and ejected two sheets. Bales handed them to Reed.
Reed held them up so they could both read. Most of the space on the pages was white. The verbiage was slight. There were three conclusions:
‘One individual is represented across the skeletal remains.’ The first sentence was clearly directed at Mac’s outburst during the autopsy, when he’d shouted that the skull did not belong to Betty Jo Dean.
‘Nothing usable for chemical analysis was extracted from the body. It had not been embalmed. The hands and fingers, in particular, have been resting in liquefied material for some long period of time.’ The second conclusion was no surprise.
‘A bullet entered the cranium through the left side of the anterior nasal aperture, then traveled across the foramen magnum and struck the posterior left rim of the foramen magnum.’
Mac looked up from the report. ‘What’s the “foramen magnum?”’
Jimmy Bales was smiling, an indulgent man. ‘I had to look it up, too. It’s the base of the skull, where the spinal cord enters to join the brain.’
‘This report says she was shot through the nose, and the bullet traveled downward to lodge at the back of her skull, at the base of her brain?’
‘You got it, Mac. Like this.’ Bales raised his chin so that his face was angled sharply upward. He then pointed his forefinger, as though it was the barrel of a gun, downward against his left nostril. In that position, a bullet would angle down, from front to back, through the skull.
‘You now have the official results from the Illinois State Police,’ Bales said, dropping his hand.
Mac looked at the signature line at the end of the report. ‘Someone named Darrel Thompson prepared this,’ he said.
‘So I saw,’ Bales said.
‘Why not Doctor Brown?’
‘He must have given his notes to this guy, Thompson, to write up.’
‘A lot must have gotten lost in translation.’
‘Like what?’
‘The press accounts in 1982 quoted the coroner, Sheriff Milner, and your own chief deputy, Clamp Reems, as saying Betty Jo Dean was shot from behind, at the base of the skull. None said she was shot through the nose.’
‘Obviously they were misquoted, because we got fresh, official results that say different. Betty Jo Dean was shot through the nose, with the bullet coming to rest at the base of her skull.’
‘Clamp see this yet?’
‘I’ll show it to him next time our paths cross.’
‘This report doesn’t speculate why the head needed to be removed.’
‘That’s still so obvious, Mac: to get at the bullet. And as regards your little outburst in the examining room, about that not being Betty Jo’s head because it had no skin? Randall White came to see me. He confirmed he told you Doc had to remove the head, and that in the process of extracting the bullet he used a lye solution which washed away her flesh and other soft tissue.’
‘Randy White is lying.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘To avoid being named a co-conspirator in covering up the identity of the killer.’
‘Well, aren’t you something special?’ Bales said, leaning across his desk. ‘You been looking into this matter for but a few days and already you’ve identified a grand conspiracy?’
Mac’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out. Rogenet had sent a text. He put the phone back in his pocket.
‘We need to find out how qualified this Thompson fellow is,’ Mac said.
‘We don’t need to find out anything. Obviously our state police has confidence in Thompson.’
Mac’s cell phone vibrated again. He pulled it out and caught sight of the time. It was ten past two. He opened the display.
Rogenet had texted again.
‘PRISON,’ he wrote.
FIFTY-FIVE
April was the first to call, five minutes after he sped east out of Grand Point. ‘Where the hell are you? Rogenet called three times. The first two, I told him I was sure you were on your way.’
‘I am.’
‘If you are, you’re damned late. The third time, he said he left you a message, and that it was no joke. What was it, Mac?’
‘Cryptic.’
‘Is Betty Jo Dean making you late to the most important meeting of your life?’
‘The report came in this morning. Reed Dean called, asked me to go-’
‘Ah, Jesus,’ she said, seeing it all, like she’d always seen it all. ‘You blew off Rogenet because Reed Dean called you to come fetch?’
‘I didn’t think-’
‘Damned right,’ she said, hanging up.
Maggie Day phoned one minute later. ‘Listen, Mac…’
‘You talked to April?’
‘She’s scared. I am, too. Your priorities are a mess.’
‘I’m on my way to see Rogenet right now.’
‘You better hope you’re not too late. That state’s attorney hates your guts.’
‘Which state’s attorney: Wainwright or Powell?’ he asked, trying for a laugh.
It didn’t work. She didn’t laugh.
‘Nice of you to join us,’ Ryerson Wainwright said, not bothering to stand up as his assistant escorted Mac and Rogenet into the office. ‘Seventy minutes ago Mr Rogenet arrived on time, saying you were going to join us. He began checking his watch. I told him that made me uncomfortable and suggested he wait in the hall, which he has done, for those seventy minutes.’
And that was where Mac had found him, sweating and out of breath. Wainwright’s assistant popped out before they could talk and escorted them both inside.
‘I was unavoidably detained,’ Mac offered up.
‘I’ll be honest,’ Wainwright said, leaning back in the chair that had cost too much. ‘I don’t know what you people think we can accomplish here. We’re set for a status hearing tomorrow. I suggest we discuss a plea-’
‘What sort of plea are you envisioning?’ Mac said.
The state’s attorney frowned; he didn’t like being interrupted. Rogenet reached to touch Mac’s arm.
‘Three years, minimum security facility,’ Wainwright said.
‘For whom? You or me?’
‘Damn it, Mac,’ Rogenet tugged at his necktie like it was choking him.
‘For what crime in particular?’ Mac said.
‘For an obvious felony,’ Wainwright said. ‘You misrepresented yourself as a resident of Linder County in order to maintain your status as an active county board member and collect income as such.’
‘No. This is about my arm on your frivolous spending when I headed the judiciary committee. This is about you blowing four thousand dollars on your chair. This is about your gilded, embossed personal stationery that cost a buck a sheet. This is about your sloppy, self-aggrandizing-’
Rogenet’s fingers clenched weakly at Mac’s knee, then fell away to fish a handkerchief from his pocket.
‘Office supplies?’ Wainwright asked, sneering. ‘I’m supposed to be an expert on office supplies? My office made mistakes. So what?’
‘They go to your embarrassment in front of the county board, your enmity toward me, and now your motivation.’ He held up the narrative he’d written. ‘They go to you willfully ignoring my openness and honesty about my purchase of a restaurant in Grand Point. You know I kept the board chairman and my fellow trustees completely aware of what I was doing. They saw no problem with it.’
‘Our concerns will be developed more fully in our countersuit,’ Rogenet said too softly.