Page 78 of Never Flinch

“What about after Duffrey was murdered in prison?”

“El said something like, ‘Kiddie fiddlers deserve what they get.’ He said he hated pedophiles, because so many people assume that gay men are child molesters or groomers or whatever the current buzzword is.”

“What about when Cary Tolliver came forward?”

Carstairs sips her coffee. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead…”

“Ellis won’t mind, and it could help our investigation.”

Although for the life of her, Izzy doesn’t know how. This wasn’t Act 5 ofRomeo and Juliet, but Act 5 ofRomeo and Romeo. Their problems might have looked solvable by the light of another day, the idea of suicide an absurdity, but at the time the idea of dying together in bed, holding hands, must have seemed the ultimate in romance… not to mention revenge.They’ll all be sorry then, they might have thought.

“El said, ‘We did what we promised to do, that’s all. Those awful magazines had his fingerprints on them, and besides, if he didn’t do this, he probably did something else.’?”

“So you wouldn’t say he was guilt-ridden?”

“He felt guilty about Jay’s family not having anything to do with him, but about the trial? I don’t think so.”

“And Jabari? How did he feel?”

“I only brought it up once. He kind of shrugged and spread his hands and said the jury found him guilty on the evidence that waspresented. He said there were a couple of holdouts, but they came around on the second day. The others convinced them. He was sorry about what happened.”

“Sorry but not guilty?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

9

When Izzy returns to 8-A, the bodies have been removed. The smells of shit and puke, however, remain.It was never thus in Shakespeare, Izzy muses, then has to smile. It’s such a Holly thought.

“What’s funny, Easter bunny?” Tom is standing by the slider giving on the late Ellis Finkel’s balcony. There’s a good view of the lake from here.

“Nothing. Can we rule out murder?”

“Sure,” Tom says. “Our boy Bill doesn’t murder jurors, only people in thenamesof jurors.”

“Can we assume he won’t be killing two men as surrogates for Finkel and Wentworth?”

“We can’t assumeanythingabout the guy, because he’s crazy. But he can’t guilt-trip them if they’re dead, can he?”

“No. And the bastard probably assumes he drove them to it, when the Duffrey trial had nothing to do with it.”

“Au contraire, my little chickadee. That’s where they met.”

“True. That’s where they met.” She thinks about it and says, “I would love for the press to find out the real reason, just to take away this psycho nutball’s satisfaction. But we can’t let that out, can we?”

“Wecan’t,” Tom says, “but somebody will. If Buckeye Brandon doesn’t have it on his shitpod and shitblog tomorrow, it’ll be the next day. This department leaks like a defective Pamper.”

“Just as long asyoudon’t leak it, Tom.”

He gives her a smile and a Boy Scout salute. “Never would I ever.”

“Did you find anything in his studio?”

“You mean like Bill Wilson’s real name written on a piece of paper?”

“That would be good.”

“I found nothing but a bunch of photo albums. The raciest thing in them was Jabari Wentworth in swim trunks. There might be other stuff on his computer or up in the Cloud, but that’s not our biz. And even if you decide Mr. Bill Wilson won’t have to murder two random strangers in the names of Finkel and Wentworth, he’s still got plenty of jurors, plus maybe the judge and the prosecutor. Partner, we got nothing. Do we?”

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