Hour Game

"Eddie's way of symbolically punishing the prostitute who'd infected his father all those years ago and thus doomed his brother. Tyler had the great misfortune to come across Eddie at some point."

"The unusual wrinkling on Bobby's aorta and the brain lesions," said Sylvia. "All that points to syphilis," she said in a very chagrined tone, putting a hand over her eyes.

"You weren't really looking for it, Sylvia," said King kindly. "And those things could be caused by other diseases as well."

Michelle picked up the explanation. "Steve Ca

"Eddie is devoted to Remmy," said King. "I'm sure he saw the bastard child as a direct slap against her. Janice Pembroke was simply in the wrong place, wrong time."

"One tick off," said Bailey.

"Right. Same with Diane Hinson. One tick off, to cover his tracks and to further break the co

"And Junior Deaver?"

"Eddie thought he'd stolen from his mother. That was enough. When he found out he'd been wrong, he took it out on Sally. You can see his sense of fair play and justice, however twisted. The mud prints in their foyer should have told me it was him. Sava

"Slightly!" exclaimed Williams.

"And then he set up Harold Robinson to take the fall. Why he picked him I don't know."

"Wait a minute. The man the little boy saw was Eddie?" asked Michelle.

"Yes."

"Why didn't Eddie just kill him too?"

"He might have thought if the boy believed it was his dad, it would help to seal Robinson's fate further. That actually happened. Or maybe despite all he's done, he couldn't bring himself to kill a child. As I said, Eddie is a very complex man."

"You mean a monster," said Williams.

"Does Dorothea know?" asked Sylvia.

Bailey nodded. "I told her. Remmy and Sava

"But why did Eddie impersonate famous serial killers?" asked Williams.

King inclined his head at Bailey. "I think that was directed at you, Chip."

"Me?"

"It would make sense if he wanted to flaunt his superiority. Beat you at your own area of expertise."

"But why? We were friends. I saved his life."

"No, you blew his kidnapping scheme out of the water."

Bailey came right out of his chair. "What?"

"I'm convinced he arranged his own kidnapping. He hired the man you killed. He wanted to punish his father for the death of his brother two years before, and the only way the twenty-year-old college student could think to do that was by smashing him in the wallet to the tune of five million dollars. I'm sure he was the one who was burning the money after you killed his partner. He didn't want his father to get it back. But he ran out of time. He had to tie himself back up and play dumb when you got there. I told you he'd been harboring this hatred for his father a long time."

"Unbelievable," said Bailey as he slowly sat back down. "That's unbelievable," he said again. "And all these years he's pretended everything was great and he was really hating my guts?"

"Eddie is a consummate actor and liar. And let's put it this way: consider yourself very fortunate you weren't found with a watch around your wrist."

"Jesus!" the FBI agent said.

"But, Sean," said Williams, "it's been twenty years between the kidnapping and all these murders. What set Eddie off?"

"I believe it was his father's stroke. Perhaps he felt Bobby would die before he could show him his version of justice. I don't know that for sure, but the timing I think is beyond coincidence."

"So what now?" asked Michelle.

Williams answered, "Eddie's being arraigned tomorrow at the courthouse."

"No doubt his trial will get a change of venue," said King. "If it goes that far."

"What, you mean insanity?" asked Williams. "No way. The bastard knew exactly what he was doing."

"In a way he was exorcising demons that have been with him most of his life," said King. "I'm not excusing anything he did, and if he gets the death penalty, so be it. But if he hadn't had Bobby Battle as his father, I don't think any of this would have happened."

They all looked at each other in silence.

"And there but for the grace of God go I," said Sylvia in a very low voice.

CHAPTER 88

WHEN EDDIE BATTLE WAS DRIVEN over to the courthouse the next morning in a special convoy provided by state police and uniformed FBI agents, the crowd of townspeople and media was so enormous the convoy couldn't get through. Indeed, fueled by the national attention the story had received, seemingly everyone from a five-state area had come to watch. And there was an angry look to the throng.

"Shit," bellowed Chief Williams as he stared out at the crowds from the lead van. "I was afraid of this. We've been getting death threats against Battle ever since the story broke about his capture." He eyed the mobs in their way. "No telling if somebody out there has a gun either." He scrutinized a group of tough-looking men standing beside pickup trucks with building materials in the beds.

"That's probably a bunch of Junior's good old boys, and they don't look like they're here to pat Eddie on the head."

"Isn't there an underground entrance to the courthouse?" said Bailey, who was in the rear seat behind Williams.

"Don't you think if there were I would have already gone there? Maybe we should take him back to the jail and let it settle down."

"Settle down! It's not going to settle down for months. We might as well get it over with now, while we have the manpower with us."

Williams studied the crowd some more, then barked into his walkie-talkie. "Okay, let's move it right down the middle of the street. Take it slow; I don't want any civil lawsuits because we ran over somebody. We'll pull onto the lawn directly by the front steps. You clear and secure that area. I want a ring of body armor there, you understand? Then we'll open the doors and hustle him through fast for his arraignment. But before he comes back out, we're going to disperse this damn crowd and get these media trucks out of here, that's for damn sure."

"You're go

"To hell with the First Amendment! I've got a prisoner to keep alive. Even if it's just so they can execute him."

The area was secured, the van pulled in front and Eddie Battle was whisked into the courthouse as screams and epithets rained down on the men encircling him, along with bottles, cans, rocks and other thrown items but fortunately no bullets.

Battle 's court-appointed lawyers met him outside the courtroom. They spoke briefly and went inside, where Eddie pleaded not guilty. His counsel didn't ask for bail to be set, not that such a request would have been seriously considered. His lawyers might have been terrified that a free Eddie would come and visit them in the middle of the night.

"We'll be in touch," said his lead attorney, a tall, portly woman with a bad haircut.

"I'm sure," said Eddie, his strong body nearly bursting out of the too small orange prison jumpsuit. "You think you can get me off with good behavior?"

Eddie and his bodyguards headed back out but were stopped by Williams and Bailey long before they got to the exit doors.