Chapter 14

I was walking across the parking lot with Alex Taglio, toward the main entrance of the Bethel County jail.

"What good does it do my guy to talk with you?" Taglio said.

"What harm?" I said.

"Say somehow, crazy as it is, you convince people that Clark isn't guilty," Taglio said. "My guy already rolled on him. Where would that leave us?"

"Maybe if he's innocent, he shouldn't be rolled on," I said.

"He is not innocent," Taglio said. "I said what if you convince people."

"If he's guilty, I don't want to get him off," I said.

"Oh, fuck," Taglio said, "I don't know what I'm arguing about. Rita already talked me into it."

"Sexual favors?" I said.

"I wish," Taglio said. "You ever?"

I shook my head.

"Married?"

"Sort of," I said.

"Sort of?"

"You?" I said.

"Mary Lou Monaghan," he said. "Five kids. She caught me fooling around, she'd cut off my wanker."

We went into the jail.

They got us seated, as far as I could tell, in the same interview room where I'd talked with Jared. When the guards brought Wendell in, they put him in the same chair. Might have been the same guards.

"First of all, Wendell," Taglio said, "Mr. Spenser's got no legal authority here. You don't have to talk with him if you don't want to."

"Like I got something else to do?" Wendell said.

He was a big, robust kid with pink cheeks and thick lips and smallish eyes. He had a white-blond crew cut. And he seemed to swagger even sitting down.

"He asks you something you don't like, you don't have to answer," Taglio says. "He asks you something and I tell you not to answer, you don't answer. Unnerstand."

"Sure, you bet, Alex. I do just what you say and everything'Il be really fucking sweII," the kid said.

Taglio sat back and let his face go neutral.

"I want to talk with you about Jared Clark," I said.

"No shit," Wendell said.

"Which one of you got the guns?" I said.

"Man, I told everybody already. I don't know where the guns came from. They were just there, man, when we decided we needed them."

"Why'd you need them?"

"To shoot up the fucking school, man. Whaddya think?"

"Whose idea was that?" I said.

"I told everybody this shit before," Wendell said. "Ten times. The cops, the lawyers, the jerkoff fucking shrinks. My old lady. Ten times. We wanted to do it. We did it. Here we are. End of story."

I nodded. Fun.

"What do you think of Jared?" I said.

"Huh?"

"Jared," I said. "What do you think of him."

"He bailed on me, man. He put his little sissy tail between his legs and snuck out, left me to deal with the cops."

`And it wasn't supposed to be that way?"

"Hell, no."

"How was it supposed to be?" I said.

"Stand-up, man. Two stand-up guys in there giving the cops the finger when they finally came in."

"But Jared got scared?"

"Looks like it," Wendell said.

"That why you rolled on him?" I said.

"Rolled?"

"You ratted him out to the cops."

"The fuck wasn't going to leave me with the bag."

"Plus, you got a deal," I said.

"That is between us and the District Attorney," Taglio said. "There's no reason for you to discuss that, Wendell."

"Whatever," Wendell said.

"So how do we know you didn't just make it up that Jared was there?" I said.

" 'Cause the fucker confessed, man. Would that be some kind of fucking clue."

"Good point," I said. "Must be a drag after being close with a guy all this time, he bails on you the minute things get rough."

Wendell shrugged. "We wasn't so close."

"You enter into a plot to kill seven people with a guy you weren't close to."

"Sure, it was like, you know, business partners," Wendell said and laughed. "Wasn't like we was gonna get married or something."

"But you must have had reason to think you could trust him."

Wendell shrugged.

"But you couldn't," I said.

Wendell shrugged again.

"Make you mad?"

"Fuck him, man. I got it done without him."

"Got what done?" I said.

"I took care of business," he said.

"You shot those people without him?"

Taglio put a hand on Wendell's arm. Wendell looked at him. Taglio shook his head.

"I'm not talking about that," Wendell said.

"You know who shot whom?" I said.

Wendell shook his head.

"Did you shoot more or did Jared?"

Wendell shook his head.

"There were fifteen people shot," I said. "One of you must have shot more than the other unless both of you shot at least one of the same people."

Wendell shrugged.

"Maybe you both shot them all," I said.

"Fuck you," Wendell said. "I ain't talking to you no more."

"Everybody says that to me," I said. "Sooner or later."