Everyone else was very busy, as Ben could easily see as he glanced about. The firemen were mustering on the steps again, surrounded by scores of uniformed policemen and Alabama Highway Patrol. They stood in ranks, or gathered together in small knots, but always separate from each other, the firemen looking oddly sad and disengaged, while they warily watched the police swagger up and down the stairs, their thumbs notched in their thick black gunbelts. For a moment Ben remembered how often he’d seen Breedlove do exactly that, his shoulders hunched, his long shadow cutting jaggedly at the steps as he moved toward the glass door. Now he tried to imagine what Breedlove must have thought as he laughed with the Langleys, or joked with his partner, or slammed Coggins against the wall of the detective bullpen with such pretended fury that even Daniels had been fooled by it, and had finally moved in to stop him. But it had all been an act, and it seemed to Ben that to create an atmosphere in which such acting could be called for, in which decency had to wear a grim disguise, was itself a grave and desperate wrong. He wished that he’d known about Breedlove before it was too late, because he realized now that he would have behaved differently toward him, perhaps touched his arm from time to time, or offered him a subtly pointed look, anything that might have let him know that even within the ranks of his fellow detectives, he was not entirely alone.
Ben looked at his watch and tried to imagine some way to kill the next two hours. For an instant he saw Doreen’s face in his mind, then Esther’s, then Ramona’s as she swung beneath the tree, watching Doreen saunter toward her from the other side of the field. After that it was a stream – Kelly Ryan swaying in summer heat, then Bluto’s body swelling with decay, and after him, Breedlove, his arms stretched out like broken wings, his shattered head drooping toward his chest. It was as if some dark angel had descended upon the city, randomly swinging its sword, slicing whoever stood within its path.
He glanced back up toward City Hall. The Chief had just stepped out of the building, casting his short, stubby shadow across the stairs. The men on the steps stiffened immediately, and they were still standing at attention when Ben hit the ignition and fled down the avenue and away.
‘You got anything for me?’ Ben asked as he walked up to Patterson’s desk.
‘The girl’s in the ground, Ben,’ Patterson said resignedly, ‘and it’s going to be just like it would have been with any other little girl from Bearmatch.’ He shrugged. ‘I knew it would. I said so from the beginning.’
‘I mean on Breedlove,’ Ben told him.
Patterson straightened up from the paperwork on his desk. ‘You working that case, too?’
‘Just a little,’ Ben said. ‘Sort of unofficial.’
‘Unofficial? I never heard of that.’
‘I don’t know who they’ll finally turn it over to,’ Ben told him. ‘But for now I’m just checking up on it. You know, on the side.’
Patterson stared at him suspiciously. ‘Which means what, exactly?’
Ben did not answer.
Patterson smiled slyly. ‘They don’t have anybody else they can trust, do they?’
Ben remained silent.
Patterson shook his head. ‘Is it really that bad?’
Ben shook his head. ‘It’s complicated, Leon,’ he said.
‘Like everything else lately.’
‘I guess so.’
Patterson stood up. ‘Well, what do you want to know?’
‘I’d like to take a look at the body.’
‘Okay,’ Patterson said. He led Ben back into the freezer room, opened the vault and pulled back the cover. Breedlove’s body lay naked on the stainless steel carriage.
‘He was shot in the mouth,’ Patterson said. ‘Then they cut him up and tied him to the tree. He was dead when they did that.’
‘Has he been officially identified?’
‘By his wife,’ Patterson said.
‘His wife? She came down here?’
‘Yeah.’
‘When?’
‘About an hour ago,’ Patterson said. ‘And she was real upset. And not just about her husband. Other stuff.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, when the body came in, the wedding ring was missing,’ Leon said. ‘She made a big stink about that. I even made sure that he’d worn a ring.’ He lifted Breedlove’s left hand and held it up to the light. ‘He’d had a ring all right,’ he said as he pointed to the faintly pale circle around Breedlove’s finger. ‘But I never saw it.’
‘Where do you think it is?’
‘Could have fallen off during all that was happening to him,’ Patterson said. He returned the hand to the carriage. ‘Who knows?’
‘I’ll call the sheriff up there,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe they found it in the field or in his car or something.’
‘Were you up there?’ Patterson asked as he pushed the carriage back into the wall.
‘Yeah.’
‘Pretty soggy, I guess.’
Ben looked at him. ‘Soggy?’
‘Well, from the look of Breedlove’s shoes.’
‘It was a grassy field,’ Ben said. ‘It wasn’t soggy.’
Patterson’s eyes took on a sudden intensity. ‘Well, Breedlove’s shoes were covered with some kind of thick, pasty clay. White clay.’
‘Then he picked it up somewhere else,’ Ben said. ‘Did you run any tests on it?’
Patterson shook his head. ‘No.’