Kelly stood up, the cigarette tucked behind his ear. “I’d sure like to get out of solitary. Think you could do something about that? I mean, it’s not like they’re accusing me of being a murderer or something.”
Afterward they stood on the steps of the building, caught in the glare of the afternoon sun. Holliday lit a cigarette, ignoring Connolly, looking deliberately at the street. Only a few cars broke the quiet.
“Well, that explains the warm welcome,” Connolly finally said.
Holliday just continued smoking.
“How do you want to play this?” Connolly said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Holliday said, his voice low.
“Yes you do. They can’t railroad a confession like this. Who the hell do they think they are, anyway?”
“I don’t know that one either.”
“Is this just some more Wild West stuff? What do they think’s going to happen when he talks to a lawyer?”
Holliday sighed. “Well, that’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Lawyer gets him to change his statement and he’ll hang for sure.”
“But he didn’t do it.”
“He did the first one all right.”
“Then let him take the rap for that.”
“Well, aren’t you the hanging judge. I don’t know as I’d recommend that if I was his lawyer.”
“They’re going to hang him anyway.”
“Maybe. But we don’t know that. Maybe he thinks it’s worth the chance.”
“This is what they’re doing in Germany, for Christ’s sake.”
“In New York City too, I hear.”
“We don’t beat phony confessions out of people just to make the police look good.”
“No? Well, then I stand corrected.”
“You’re not going to do anything about this, are you?”
Holliday turned to face him, his expression more weary than angry. “Just what did you have in mind?”
“It’s not right.”
“I didn’t say it was. But it’s done. Kelly’s a little punk who’s probably going to get better than he deserves. The boys here are going to take credit for solving crimes they probably couldn’t ever have solved anyway. Nothing worse than a murder hanging over you. People don’t like it, makes them feel uneasy. So now everybody can just go about his business. Until the next guy goes out in the parking lot-but at least he won’t have Kelly getting his rocks off and playing with knives. So maybe everybody’s better off all around.”
“Except us. We’ve still got a murder to solve.”
Holliday didn’t say anything.
“You’re keeping the case open, aren’t you? You know he didn’t kill Bruner.”
“I can’t, Mike,” Holliday said quietly. “He’ll have my badge. I can’t go against him like that.”
“Don’t, then. Just don’t close the case.”
“It’s closed.”
“Doc, you’ve always been straight with me. At least I think you have.”
“Then don’t ask me to do something I can’t do,” he said, his voice resigned.
Connolly stared at him. “You know I can’t let this go.”
“Maybe. But as a police matter, it’s closed. What you get to up there on the Hill is your business.”
“I still need your help.”
He looked at the street, deciding. “What, exactly? I can’t hold every drifter who passes through town.”
“And I can’t go talking to everybody who lives around San Isidro. Only the police can do that.”
“Why San Isidro?”
“Because Bruner was killed there. Somebody must have seen something. There’s always somebody.”
Holliday raised his eyebrows. “Then why move him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want you snooping around, just in case somebody did see something. No crime, no questions. People don’t volunteer, do they?”
“Not much.”
“And they didn’t want him found.”
“So they move him to the center of town.”
Connolly sighed. “Yes.”
“Damnedest thing, isn’t it? You roll a guy, and instead of running away you take him away. All right. You don’t want him found-put a little distance between you and the law. So you’ve got all of God’s country around here, you can just drop him off somewhere in the woods and let the coyotes have him. But you don’t. You take him right back into town, where you know he’s going to be found. And then you take his ID, everything, so he’s not exactly found. Nobody knows who he is. Sounds like you can’t make up your mind one way or the other.”
“Go on,” Connolly said quietly, watching him.
“Now you take Mr. Kelly here. That’s a whole lot of trouble for him to go to. He’s more what I’d call the careless type. Love ’em and leave ’em. Don’t think he’d bother much about covering his tracks. He’d just get the hell out.”
“We know it’s not him,” Connolly said impatiently.
“And it’s not anybody like him either.”
Connolly looked up at him. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I don’t think he was rolled. I think it was somebody he knew. Or anyway who knew him.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying all along.”
Holliday grinned. “I never said you were dumb. Just an arrogant son of a bitch.”
“So why would whoever it was want him to be found?”
“Well, he was going to be, wasn’t he? You don’t just lose a security officer in a top secret government base. They’d be all over the place. In fact, you were.”
“So we’re back to square one. Why move him?”
