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.”

But will he? Marcy wondered. Will we? When they claim to have his fingerprints, and people who saw him abducting that little boy, and then coming out of Figgis Park covered in blood? Will we ever be free as long as the real killer stays uncaught?

“Marcy.” Terry was smiling at her. “Take it easy. You know what I tell the boys—one base at a time.”

“I want to ask you something,” Howie said. “Just a shot in the dark.”

“Ask away.”

“They claim to have all sorts of forensic evidence, although the DNA’s still pending—”

“That can’t come back a match,” Terry said. “It’s not possible.”

“I would have said that about the fingerprints,” Howie said.

“Maybe someone set him up,” Marcy blurted. “I know how paranoid that sounds, but . . .” She shrugged.

“But why?” Howie asked. “That’s the question. Can either of you think of someone who would go to such extraordinary lengths to do that?”

The Maitlands considered, one on each side of the scuffed Perspex, then shook their heads.

“Me, either,” Howie said. “Life rarely if ever imitates the novels of Robert Ludlum. Still, they’ve got evidence strong enough for them to have rushed into an arrest I’m sure they now regret. My fear is that, even if I can get you out of the machine, the shadow of the machine may remain.”

“I was thinking about that most of last night,” Terry said.

“I’m still thinking about it,” Marcy said.

Howie leaned forward, hands clasped. “It would help if we had some physical evidence to match theirs. The Channel 81 tape is fine, and when you add in your colleagues, it’s probably all we need, but I’m greedy. I want more.”

“Physical evidence from one of the busiest hotels in Cap City, and four days later?” Marcy asked, unaware that she was echoing Bill Samuels not long before. “That seems unlikely.”

Terry was looking off into space, brows drawn together. “Not entirely unlikely.”

“Terry?” Howie asked. “What are you thinking about?”

He looked around at them, smiling. “There might be something. There just might be.”

15

The Firepit was indeed open for brunch, so Ralph went there first. Two of the staff who had been working on the night of the murder were currently on duty: the hostess and a crewcut waiter who looked about old enough to buy a beer. The hostess was no help (“We were mobbed that night, Detective”), and while the waiter vaguely remembered serving a large group of teachers, he was equivocal when Ralph showed him Terry’s picture from the previous year’s FCHS yearbook. He said that, yes, he “sorta” remembered a guy who looked like that, but he couldn’t swear it was the guy in the picture. He said he wasn’t even sure the guy had been with that bunch of teachers. “Hey, man, I might have just served him a Hot Wing Platter at the bar.”

So that was that.

Ralph’s luck at the Sheraton was at first no better. He was able to confirm that Maitland and William Quade had stayed in room 644 on Tuesday night, and the hotel manager was able to show him the bill, but it was Quade’s signature. He had used his MasterCard. The manager also told him that room 644 had been occupied every night since Maitland and Quade checked out, and had been cleaned every morning.