Page 135 of Never Flinch

Stewart half-turns and holds out his hand like a game-show host displaying tonight’s big prize. Corrie sees a shape lying on the crisscrossing beams at what was once center ice. Almostmeltingthere. She realizes with growing horror that it’s a dead body, and further realizes that what she’s smelling isn’t just the residue of whatever this lunatic drugged her with.

As if reading her mind, Stewart says, “The poor girl is starting to stink, isn’t she? I could even smell it outside.”

Please let me go, I’m not the one you want, Corrie tries to say, but of course nothing comes out through the hole in the tape but muffled sounds that bear no resemblance to actual words.

“Killed the other one, but not you,” Stewart repeats. “And I think I know why.”

Even with her headache and still woozy from the shot, Corrie thinks she also knows why. Stewart says it for both of them.

“You’rebait.”

2

1:15 PM.

Trig returns to the Mingo and backs the Transit van up to the service entrance door. He goes inside the little kitchen, sees Corrie’s shoe, and stuffs it deep in the trash. She won’t be needing it again.

He takes the stairs, not wanting the Black singer and her dressing person to hear the elevator, know he’s back, and come down with annoying requests. He’s got his own business to attend to, his own plan. Which is crazy, of course. He knows that. He’s read that the odds of winning two dollars on a one-buck scratchoff ticket are four to one. He thinks the odds of this scheme working are considerably higher. Not astronomical, human nature being what it is, but high. Maybe fifteen to one.

I’ll get some of them, no matter what. If I could talk a potentially hung jury into convicting Alan Duffrey, I can get at least some of them.

“I was positive he was guilty,” Trig says as he reaches the top of the stairs.“Positive.”But there was plenty of blame to go around. Plenty of fault. They should have had the courage of their convictions. They shouldn’t have buckled. Shouldn’t have flinched.

Lowry saying let’s vote again, I’m losing business at my store, and that time he finally voted guilty. That just left Bunny. How did I do it? How did I talk them around?

“I just channeled my father,” he says. “It was easy.”

He can hear women’s laughter from the third floor. Sista Bessie and the skinny one, Alberta what’s-her-face. He goes into his office. He pats his sportcoat pocket to make sure he’s got Corrie’s phone. He has a call to make on it, but that’s for later. Right now he checks his computer for the numbers of Sista’s band and support staff. Barbara Robinson’s name and number were a late add, but as his daddy used to say, better late is gooder than never.

Trig picks up the ceramic horse. Caresses it. It’s sort of a good luck charm. Daddy said Trigger was a palomino. Expensive horses to buy, and Daddy also said that Roy Rogers had Trigger stuffed when he died, which somehow seems likebadluck, but never mind that.

Trig calls Barbara, and Robinson answers on the second ring. In the background he can hear laughing voices, shouts, and thetinksound of metal bats on balls. He deduces she’s spending her off day at Dingley Park.

Trig has thought of and rejected half a dozen pretexts to bring Barbara Robinson back to the Mingo before realizing that he doesn’t need one, not really. He just has to sound suitably serious.

“Hi, Ms. Robinson. This is Don Gibson, the Mingo Program Director?”

“Hi. What can I do for you?”

“Well… Ms. Brady is asking for you. She’s here at the Mingo.”

“What does she want?” The sounds from the ballfield are fading as she walks away from them. She’s caught his sober tone. Good.

“I don’t know,” Trig says. “She won’t tell me. She’s in her dressing room, and it sounds to me like she’s crying.”

Barbara says, “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“Thank you,” Trig says. “I think that would be best. I’ll wait for you at the service entrance and let you in.”

Easy as that.

He ends the call, opens his desk drawer, and removes a slim black leather case. In it are six more hypodermic needles loaded with pentobarbital. He doesn’t expect to need all of them, but always safe, never sorry. He plucks out one of the capped-for-safety needles and stows the case in his pocket.

3

1:35 PM.

Holly is entering the lobby of the Garden City Plaza Hotel, having made her way through the growing crowd outside—fans of Sista Bessie, fans of Kate, people hating on Kate. No one pays any attention to Holly, which is just the way she likes it.

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