“Don’t shoot me!”

“Show me your face in two seconds and I’ll consider it.”

When he finally crawled out from behind the sofa, using only one hand, he looked clammy and pale, his eyes a bit dilated, and he was cupping his right arm, held up and close in a blue sling.

“Stand up!”

He managed to hoist himself to his feet. He held out his good hand, palm open, toward them. “Who are you? What is this?”

“Pay attention, Mr. Everett. We’re FBI,” Savich said, and pulled out his shield, waved it at Everett. “Why don’t you have a nice seat over on that La-Z-Boy? No stupid moves, Don. I don’t want to have to kill you on such a lovely summer day.” He punched in Dane’s number and said, “No problem here. We’ve got him. Come on up.”

Everett said, “It’s not lovely, it’s too hot, it sucks. Dude, can’t you see me? Look at my arm. I’m sick, real sick. What do you want? I didn’t do anything. I don’t know anything about any Slipper Hollow.”

Sherlock turned to see Dane step into the room from the fire escape, and Ollie standing in the front doorway, both with their SIGs drawn.

“All cool here,” Sherlock said.

Dane and Ollie moved past them to look through the rest of the apartment. “Hey, what are you clowns doing? This is my place. Don’t you go through my drawers!”

“Be quiet or they might do more than just go through your drawers,” Sherlock said, and patted him down. “Now, to be honest here, Don, you did try to shoot me. However, I will say you look pretty down and out.” Sherlock got right in his face. “Do you remember that very nice doctor you visited in Virginia? The one who took out the bullet, pumped you full of painkillers and antibiotics? You didn’t even pay him. Nope, you hauled him down in his basement, all trussed up?”

“I didn’t hurt him, now did I?”

“That was a good decision on your part,” Sherlock said. “We got a lovely DNA match from that gallon of blood you left on the kitchen floor in Slipper Hollow. The FBI agent who brought you down also identified you. We’ve got you, Don. Your pitiful butt is now ours forever.”

Everett said, “Fuckin’ DNA.”

“I’ll forgive your French this time, Don,” Sherlock said, “given your dismal situation.” She studied his gray face for a moment. “Hey, you’re hurting pretty bad, aren’t you? I’ll bet I can talk my boss here into taking you to the hospital if you tell us the truth about Slipper Hollow.”

He weaved where he stood, moaned, and Savich pushed him down onto the La-Z-Boy. “I wasn’t at no Slipper Hollow. I was huntin’ ducks,” Everett said, and looked up at Savich. “Mallards, a whole crap pile of them out at Eagle Lake. Look, I need another pain pill real bad. I was going to the bathroom to get one when you hammered on my door.” He shook his head. “I’m in such pain that it ruined my judgment. I looked at you close, real close before I opened that damned door. How could I know a pretty girl like you was a rat cop?”

“Hey, Dillon, the man here thinks I’m pretty for a rat cop—what do you think about that?”

“The lowlife has good taste.”

“There now, all of us agree. Why don’t you tell us where you buried Clay Huggins. You’re not in trouble over that since you’re not the one who shot him. I’ll bet you feel kind of bad about him being dead. He was a friend, wasn’t he—well, at least a professional ally? And now he’s rotting in a field somewhere like he wasn’t important enough to even stick in a casket.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know any Clay Higgins.”

“Clay Huggins.”

“Whatever.” He looked at Savich. “Dude, I want you to get out of here, leave me alone. I don’t know anything about any doctor in a basement, I was just agreeing with you to be cooperative. I want to take my pain pill and go back to bed. You didn’t even have a box from Gun Smith Euro, did you?”

“Sorry, no box. It really hurts me, Don, but occasionally I have to lie in my job.”

Savich said, “Okay, Don, listen up. It’s either a small, uncomfortable jail cell with Big Bubba for a roomie, or a nice hospital bed, with clean sheets. Up to you.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“You know what, Don,” Savich said, his voice slowing, becoming scary deep and as cold as ice, “I’ve found sometimes—well, rarely—that lawyers can really help a guy. In this instance, though, a lawyer isn’t going to help you wiggle out of this. Now, if the lawyer’s not a moron, he’ll advise you to cooperate with us and tell the truth since we already have you dead to rights with your DNA. Neither of us is unreasonable. You want to deal? We’ll deal.”

Everett said, “I don’t know anything, I—”

Savich slapped Everett’s face.

Everett moaned, hugged his slinged arm against his chest. “Hey! Dude, what’d you do that for? I’m hurt here, no call for you to hit me.”

“I want your attention right here, Don, right on my face. That’s right. Look at me. I want you to tell me who hired you and the now-deceased Clay Huggins. I want you to give me the names of the other man and woman who were with you when you went to kill Rachael Janes in Slipper Hollow. I want you to tell me right now, or the only thing I’ll guarantee you is a thirty-year stretch at Attica.” Savich lightly laid the butt of his SIG across Everett’s open mouth. “No, don’t sing me your I’m-so-innocent song.” He leaned closer, whispered in Everett’s ear, “Something else I might enjoy doing, Don, and that’s to let it out to the inmate population that you’re a child molester.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Sherlock had rarely seen absolute horror on a person’s face like she saw now on Donley Everett’s. For the moment, it knocked his pain right out of his mind.

“Dude, it isn’t true. You can’t, dude. Oh, man, you can’t.”

Savich ran the muzzle of his SIG against Everett’s ear. “When they’re through with you, you’ll sure wish you’d talked to us, Don. On the other hand, you tell us what we want to know, and I’ll see to it personally that you’re in a cell by yourself and there’s not a single whiff of child molestation in your traveling papers. What do you say, Don? Tell me you understand all your options.”