Hour Game

Williams slapped his leg. "Damn, I never even thought of that." He pointed a big finger at Bailey. "Neither did you."

King continued. "Conceivably, if the killer wasn't Eddie, he might have drugged Eddie, but he would have done it well in advance of killing Sally so Eddie would've been safely unconscious. He wouldn't have waited until after he'd killed Sally. What would have been the point? And typically, a murderer wants to get away, not take time injecting a knockout drug into someone for no reason."

"That makes sense," admitted Bailey.

"And the seven hours also made me start thinking about something else. If Sally was killed because of what she told me barely seven hours earlier, then my houseboat had to be bugged. How else could Eddie have known about it so quickly? He might have followed Sally to my place and been listening from his car. Anyway, I had to do something about that, so I got this."

He held up the small device. "It's a transmitter detector and frequency grabber with a range of one to three megahertz. It also has a sixteen-section bar graph to indicate RF strength so it'll home right in on the location of the bug."

"You found the bug but didn't remove it?" said Bailey.

"No. So long as Eddie thought the intelligence he gathered on it was valid, then I could use that to set him up."

"It was brave of Harry and Remmy to play along," said Michelle.

"Neither one of them knew it was Eddie until he spoke. I regret shocking Remmy like that, but I thought burdening her with the knowledge of her son's guilt beforehand would have been even worse."

"I was nervous about it," said Williams. "I mean, we had the place surrounded, but still he could have shot somebody."

"I was sure he wouldn't, not when he realized Harry had nothing to do with Bobby's death. Eddie played fair, I'll give him that. He killed, but he did so for specific reasons. But, just in case, I had Harry wear the bulletproof vest. It made his suit a little tight, but it was well worth the inconvenience. And of course, having a dozen armed lawmen in the same room didn't hurt." He opened his desk and took out another object.

"What's that?" asked Sylvia, looking at it curiously.

"It's a cipher disk, a way of decoding encrypted messages. This version was used by the Confederate army during the Civil War. Eddie has one in his artist's studio." He moved the disk around. "If you're just one tick off, like one minute on a watch face, the entire meaning of what you're saying changes. One tick, that's all it takes. I'm sure that's where Eddie got the idea for altering the watch times, depending on the victim. It would appeal to both his creative side and his love of Civil War history."

"But what I don't get is, he had alibis," protested Bailey. "We checked. For instance, when Ca

"Yes. But at night the reenactors sleep in their vehicles or else in their own tents. Eddie could easily slip out and no one would miss him. I clocked it on the map. At each murder he was only at most a two-hour drive away. He easily could be back in time to fight the next day."

Bailey said, "Wait a minute. We found people who'd been at those reenactments. They remembered Eddie's truck being there virtually the whole time. That's documented."

King answered, "I'm sure his truck was there. But his truck also has a tow hitch. I checked. At the two reenactments you're talking about, he didn't bring his horse trailer. But he could have towed another car close to the reenactment area and hidden it in the woods. Then he uses that vehicle to get to and from the murders, and everyone would believe he'd never left because his truck was still there. In fact, I think we'll find out that he had another car hidden somewhere that he used."

"God," said Sylvia, letting out a long breath. "We've all been so blind."

"Okay, Sean, you've told us how you figured it out, now tell us why. Why did Eddie kill all those people?" asked Williams.

"And in stupid-people language, if you can manage it," said Sylvia with a smile, repeating the phrase King had used at the morgue when she'd been about to explain the cause of Rhonda Tyler's death.

King didn't smile back. "Eddie Battle is a very complex man. And this plan has been forming in his mind for a very long time. I think it all started with the death of his twin brother."

"Bobby Jr., the one who was born severely retarded," said Bailey.

"No, Bobby Jr. wasn't born that way; he was born infected with syphilis. The brain damage came later."

"Syphilis?" exclaimed Bailey.

King picked up two pictures from his desk. "When Michelle and I were in Remmy's bedroom, Sava

" Hutchinson 's teeth, mulberry molars, optic nerve atrophy," said Sylvia as she stared at the young man's photo. "Yet how did Remmy contract syphilis?"

"From her husband. He was contagious either when he impregnated Remmy with the twins or had intercourse with her during the first or second trimester of that pregnancy."

"And syphilis can cross the placenta," said Sylvia in a hushed tone.

"Exactly. Bobby Jr. eventually became brain-damaged and suffered the other effects because it wasn't treated. He later died from cancer, but I'm sure the syphilis had severely weakened his body."

"But why wasn't it treated?" asked Sylvia.

"I've had a very awkward conversation with Remmy about that. She said that when her son started exhibiting strange symptoms, Bobby refused to take the boy to the doctor. He wouldn't even acknowledge he was ill. He probably wouldn't even admit to himself he had syphilis, because apparently he never went for treatment either. Anyway, by the time Remmy sought medical help, it was too late. The disease had done irreversible damage. Remember, this was over thirty years ago, and the level of medical knowledge wasn't nearly as far along as it is today. She's lived with that guilt for years."

"It's hard to believe a woman like Remmy wouldn't have taken her son to a doctor immediately," said Michelle.

"That's exactly what I was thinking," said Sylvia.

"I think there's a lot we don't know about Remmy and her relationship with her husband," said King. "A woman who talks with adoration and pride about her husband but doesn't wear her wedding ring and doesn't care if she gets it back? Those are some deep waters we'll never plumb entirely."

"But they had Sava

"Bobby was no longer contagious by then, and Remmy had received treatment for syphilis years before." King put the photos away and continued. "Now, historically, one major way the disease is spread is through sexual intercourse with prostitutes. As we know, Bobby had the reputation of consorting with such women. He contracted the disease from a prostitute and passed it to Remmy, who unwittingly passed it to Bobby Jr. He and Eddie weren't identical twins, but fraternal, so they didn't share the same amniotic fluid. That's probably why Eddie wasn't infected."

"And Eddie found out about this?" asked Bailey.

"Yes, although how I'm not sure. But I think he's been harboring this knowledge for a long time. A powder keg waiting to blow. I think Eddie too felt enormous guilt. He knew it was only by luck that he escaped that same fate. From all accounts he loved his brother very much."

"So Rhonda Tyler was-," began Williams.