43

The facility where Indy’s accused are detained is in the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, one door to the south of IPD. It has cell blocks on the second, third and fourth floors and, generally speaking, the accommodation is not felicitous. I know. I’ve spent nights there. More than once.

This time, at least, I went in through the Sheriff’s Department door rather than through the connecting passages from IPD. I made my way to the officer who controls visitation to inmates. The nametag on her chest read “X. Orbaum.” She sat at a desk covered with potted plants and pictures of children. “Sir?” she said.

“I am an investigator working for the defense counsel of Ronnie Willigar. I need to see Mr. Willigar, please.” I gave her the letter on Perkins, Buker, Pinkus and Lestervic stationery that confirmed my status.

X. Orbaum read the letter carefully. “It says here you’re an investigator.”

“Yeah.”

“License, please.”

I pulled out my old one. “I was suspended for a while, but I was reinstated last Thursday. I don’t have the new actual license, but I am legal.”

“Not here, you’re not.” She gave my old license back.

“Perkins, Buker, Pinkus and Lestervic wouldn’t have hired me if I wasn’t legit.” She looked bored. “You don’t want to be the cause of a mistrial, do you?”

“I won’t be. Not for denying entry to someone without the right paperwork.”

I didn’t want to ask her to call Holloway. The only thing I could think of to say was, “Call Homer Proffitt at IPD. He’ll vouch for me. Lieutenant Homer Proffitt. This is urgent.”

Officer Orbaum stared without moving for so long I was about to give up and go away. But then she said, “Sit over there,” and pointed to a couple of chairs.

I sat over there.

She made a call. She read from my accreditation letter. She glanced my way and looked like she was trying not to smile. When finally she hung up, I began to rise, but she held up a hand and then made another call. At last she beckoned me over.

I couldn’t have been more like a dog begging for a bone if I tried.

She pointed to a door. “Knock on that door and go through. Officer Jarlett will search you and then show you where to go.”

“Thank you.” I turned but hesitated long enough to say, “May I ask what the ‘X’ stands for?”

“It marks the spot.”

“What spot?”

“Where you find my heart if you dig deep enough.”

X. Orbaum was, no doubt, a bundle of laughs. Officer Jarlett was not. He was big, rough and thorough. He took his time. When finally he was finished I felt so searched.

Lawyers—and lawyers’ representatives—meet their clients in small rooms not unlike the interview rooms in IPD. They have a table and chairs. There’s a glass panel in the door.

I sat where I would see Ronnie Willigar as he entered. The idea of meeting him face-to-face felt necessary, while I was outside. The guy’s legal defense was, effectively, gone. No one at IPD was considering anyone else for the bodies-in-the-trunks rapes and murders. I’d wanted to see the guy for myself. See him with my own eyes. The new ones that saw things. I needed to know if he needed me to bat for him when so many others had struck out. At least that’s what I needed before I got there.

Now, the longer I waited for him, the less comfortable I became. The guy had probably killed five women… At least five women. I wanted to be alone in a room with him… why?

Willigar was brought in handcuffed. He was about my height but thin, with dark stubble and short, black hair slicked back. His prison uniform looked too big, but he moved easily, athletically. He sat in the chair across the table from me.

“I’ll be outside,” Jarlett said. “Give you about half an hour. Knock if you want out sooner.” He left and closed the door.

Willigar flicked his head in the direction of the departing guard. “He don’t like me much.”

“No?”

“He don’t say it, but I can tell.”

“Yeah?”

“You want to know something?” He bent toward me across the table.

It was all I could do to keep from jumping back and running for the door. “What?”

“I don’t care much for him neither.”

“Oh.”

Ronnie Willigar’s face stayed close to mine. It tilted downward slightly but he kept me fixed with his light brown eyes. “That fella has secrets,” Willigar said of the guard. “Bad secrets.” He winked confidentially.

“You think so?”

“I know so. I can see that in people. I can see their secrets. It’s a gift.” He nodded. He smiled. “People don’t care much for it, ’cause they can’t hide what they want to hide. All I have to do is look them in the eyes and I can see it all.”

“That sounds… disconcerting.” I picked the word because I was disconcerted.

“I got the gift, all right, but you don’t have to worry. I don’t see nothing bad in you, not bad out of the ordinary way.”

“No?” I shook my head.

“It’s true,” he said. “I’m right.”

But that wasn’t why I was shaking myself. I was trying to get a grip. I was trying to get control of the conversation. I wanted—needed—to find out if he was a killer, and a rapist. I said, “Tell me something.”

He scratched under his chin with a finger. “Fire away.”

“Tell me what you see when you look in a mirror.” Did he see what Miller saw in Willigar’s eyes? Guilt? Undeniable rape-and-murder guilt?

But instead of answering, the man before me rocked back in his chair and loosed a bunch of short, loud hoots. They caught me by surprise.

And then he tipped himself forward again. Both his elbows were on the table and he was almost out of his chair. “Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.” I nodded.

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Wouldn’t be secrets then, would they?”

“Then tell me something else,” I said. “When you look into a woman’s eyes, do you see her secrets too?”

For just a moment his face went dead. Was that when I finally lost belief in the possibility of his innocence? He said, “Sometimes.”

“Good secrets, or are they always bad secrets?”

“Most secrets are bad.” He twisted in his chair, though without losing eye contact.

“I didn’t know that.”

“They are. Most of them.”

Willigar and I stared at each other. He and Miller both believed they could see truths in people’s eyes. Did that make them the same?

Willigar smiled.

Fuck it. They were different. Jerry was right and Willigar was crazy. In any real world, that difference mattered.

Willigar scratched the back of his neck and the way he looked at me changed. It was as if he was focusing on the man in front of him instead of trying to see inside my head. “Who the hell are you, mister?” he asked. “They said you’re my lawyer, but you ain’t Chris and you ain’t Karl.”

“I’m an investigator. I’ve been working for Chris and Karl.”

“But not any more?”

How could he tell? I didn’t answer.

“You’re not going to get me out of here then, are you?” He leaned forward again. “Are you? Are you?”