by Cassie Miles
"I thought the appointment wasn't until three o'clock."
"There might be complications. I want to get there early."
"Complications?"
"You never know with the prison system," he said. "To make this appointment with a death row inmate, I had to get clearance from Eddy Adderly's lawyer, a judge and the warden. Not to mention an okay from Eddy himself."
She pulled a short-sleeved cotton sweater over her head and opened the door. "I'm ready."
He studied her for a moment. In spite of the warm appreciation in his eyes, he shook his head. "No way can you go into a prison dressed like that. You look too sexy."
"Sexy is in the eye of the beholder." She went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "Don't worry. I'll cover my wildly erotic slacks and a sweater with a blazer."
"Great." He turned away and paced toward the Jacuzzi. Then to the kitchen. Back again.
His tension was palpable, and she couldn't blame him for being nervous. If Eddy Adderly really was the Fisherman, David was about to come face-to-face with the man who'd brutally murdered his sister. Maintaining journalistic distance might be hard for him.
"For what it's worth," she said, "I don't think Eddy is the Fisherman."
"I agree." He continued to pace, talking too fast. "I think Justin Hunter had it right. Eddy saw the Fisherman arrange the body of mermaid number six. He waited until the killer left, then he took a closer look at the dead woman. He touched her. He kissed her, leaving his saliva in her mouth and dropping a couple of hairs that you tested for DNA. When he took off, a witness spotted him."
"That would be my guess," she said.
"But how did he know the details of the other crimes? Why did the killing stop after he was arrested?" He came to an abrupt halt. His hands rested on the tabletop. "Why the hell did he confess?"
"You and I both know that a lot of confessions are false," she reminded him. "They come from fear. Or from a sick need to be recognized, even for something as horrifying as serial killing."
"I sat through the whole trial," he said. "Eddy's lawyers never claimed he was innocent. Only insane."
She placed her hand atop his, wishing she could ease his frustration, knowing that the only cure would be when the real Fisherman was apprehended. She reached into her backpack and took out the car keys. "You drive."
"Really?"
She nodded. If she intended to truly accept herself, she needed to give up her phobia about having someone else behind the wheel.
Hesitating, he looked down at the car keys in his hand. "Are you going to give me a hard time about every traffic hazard, real and potential?"
"Not a bit. I trust you."
"Thanks."
When he looked into her calm, beautiful face, David felt a little less edgy. Her faith in him might be the boost he needed for this interview. From past experience, he knew that jailhouse visits were never fun. This one might be worse than all the others combined.
Outside the motel, the sun shone brightly in an azure sky rimmed with puffy white clouds. Canon City was a pleasant little town backed up against Sleeping Ute Mountain and bordered by the Royal Gorge, a tourist attraction that featured the highest suspension bridge in the world.
"Is it just me?" Blair asked. "Or is this a particularly gorgeous day?"
"Both," he said.
"Why do you suppose all these prisons sprouted up around here?"
"Politics. Fremont County housed the earliest territorial prisons in the 1860s. They bidded for the others and won. Plus this area is naturally isolated but not far from larger cities like Colorado Springs and Pueblo. In this area, there are nine state prisons and four federal penitentiaries including Supermax."
"Super maximum security?"
"Right. It's been home for a lot of criminal celebrities, like the Unabomber, Tim McVeigh and John Gotti. If we'd been trying for an interview there, it would have taken weeks to get clearance."
It was a surprisingly short drive from the bustling little town to the prison complex situated on several acres surrounded by chain-link fences topped with barbed wire, then enclosed by solid walls and guard towers.
At each checkpoint David's tension increased. By the time they were escorted into the penitentiary building— a structure with all the architectural charm of a giant shoe box—his heart hammered so loudly that he was sure other people could hear it.
"I hate jails," Blair said. "How many prisoners are here?"
"Over seven hundred in maximum security."
"And on death row?"
"A handful."
"All this hate and violence bottled up in one place." Her voice trembled. "It's scary."
David wasn't afraid but apprehensive. Uncertain of his own reaction. He might be speaking to the man who murdered his sister, a man he despised. "Digging out the truth is never easy."
"And if he lies?"
"We'll find something," he said with a show of confidence. His palms were sweaty, and he wiped them on his trousers before he grasped Blair's hand and squeezed.
She didn't seem to need much reassurance. As they proceeded through the system, her attitude was calm and friendly. It was much the way she behaved in the Coroner's Office—efficient, cooperative and in control. She chatted with the guards in khaki shirts who walked them through a scanner and relieved them of all personal items—keys, cell phone, David's wallet and Blair's backpack.
David held up his small tape recorder. "I checked with the warden. He said this would be okay."
"Sure," the guard said. "Now, here are the rules. You'll be shown into a small room. Both of you sit on one side of the table. There will be no physical contact between you and the inmate. You'll be observed on a video monitor. An officer will be present."
They were patted down and escorted through a narrow hallway into a plain, windowless room, not much larger than the cells where the prisoners were housed. David took a seat at the Formica-topped table.
Almost immediately the door opened and Eddy Adderly entered. His face was gaunt and sallow. The cancer had taken a toll. His wrists were cuffed to his belt. His ankles were shackled.
The first words out of his mouth were, "You've got to get me out of here. I belong in the infirmary."
David's tension vanished, quick as the snap of his fingers. His professional manner took over. "If you cooperate with us, we'll see what we can do."
Eddy slouched in the chair on the opposite side of the table. "You're nobody. You can't do nothing."
"Trust me, Eddy. We're all you've got." He turned on the tape recorder. "There's been another Fisherman-style killing."
"I heard."
David posed the number one question on his list. "You never killed those other women, did you? It was somebody else. And he's acting again."
"It was me." Eddy's flat eyes were dark holes in his skeletal face. "I'm the famous Fisherman."
"A criminal genius," David said, playing along. "There's a computer Web site with all the details. Ever heard of it?"
"Yeah, the guy who runs it sends me fan mail."
"What's his name?" David asked.
"Hunter, Justin Hunter. He says if I send him written notes, he can auction them off."
His scrawny shoulders straightened. He was proud of his notoriety.
"What kind of notes?" David was interested in this connection between Hunter and Eddy Adderly. "Notes like the ones you sent to the newspaper?"
He nodded, seeming to lose interest. His gaze wandered toward Blair. "Who are you?"
"Dr. Blair Weston," she said.
"You're pretty." He gave a rheumy cackle. "Why don't you take off that jacket and give a dying man something to look at."
Instant rage exploded in David's gut. His need to protect her was instinctive and strong. With an effort he suppressed his anger. They only had twenty-five minutes. Every second counted. "About those notes, Eddy. Why did you send them to Ted Hurtado?"
"Because he's got the same name as me. We're both Edward. Eddy and Teddy.
I seen him on television yesterday. What a loser!"
"Sounds like you know him," David said.
"He interviewed me. Like you're doing now." He grinned at Blair. His face was a death mask. "I got you figured out. You're the chick who does autopsies."
"That's right," she said.
Blair glanced toward David, silently asking if she should interrupt his questions. He nodded.
Clearing her throat, she said, "You used a sedative on your victims—"
"My mermaids," he said.
He disgusted her. The physical wasting of his body didn't bother her. She'd seen much worse. It was his utter depravity that turned her stomach.
For the first time in a career that included some truly grotesque autopsies, she felt like throwing up. "Where did you get the sedatives, Eddy?"
"Around."
"Who gave them to you?" she asked.
"I got them on the street."
She doubted that very much. In one case, he'd used a hypodermic to administer a sedative. "Okay, I have a different question. How did you feed your victims?"
"Through the mouth." He cackled again. "Took off the gag and put food in their mouth."
"Why?"
"They were hungry," he said.
"But you intended to kill them. Why would you care if they were hungry?"
"You're trying to trick me." He lurched toward her, rattling his chains. "It won't work. I'm the Fisherman. Me. That's what it's going to say on my gravestone."
The prison guard at the door stepped forward, placing a restraining hand on Eddy's shoulder. The guard said, "You have ten more minutes."
Blair had other questions about how he kept the crimes so clean, how he'd washed the victims and what he'd worn But there was no point in asking. She was certain that this pathetic creature, Eddy Adderly, had not killed those women.
David said, "Did you have any help? Maybe there was somebody who helped you carry the bodies."
"Nobody. It was me. Alone."
"The cops found newspaper clippings about the murders in your apartment. Did you talk to anybody about what you'd done?"
"I heard plenty," he said.
"Where?" David asked.
Blair noticed the vacant quality in Eddy's expression. He must be on pain medication.
"Where?" David repeated. "Did you hear people talking about the Fisherman on the street? In a bar?"
"That's right." He leaned against the back of his chair. "The Red Rover. A bar where cops go. I used to sit and listen to them trying to figure out what the Fisherman was doing. What I was going to do next."
Blair almost gasped out loud. The Red Rover must be where Eddy had gotten his inside information on the cases. "Why wasn't this bar mentioned in the police reports?"
"They're stupid," he said.
The omission of this information was more than stupid. It was tantamount to a cover-up.
"Any cop in particular?" David asked. "Maybe one of the Feds."
"Cops are cops." He glowered at the prison guard. "Pigs."
"Give me a name," David said. "Who did you hear talking in the bar?"
"You're crazy. I never been in a bar."
Blair wanted to shake the truth out of him. "You're dying, Eddy. Tell us. Before you die, tell us what really happened."
His thick tongue protruded. He licked his dry lips. "You can be my next mermaid, Doc. I can make you famous."
"Godiva chocolate," she said.
"Huh?" His eyes darted, searching for the answer she wanted to hear. Then, he bobbed his head. "That's right. I fed my mermaids chocolate."
"Why?"
"Get me out of here. Get me a bed in the infirmary. I'll tell you anything."
"More lies," David said.
"You don't know nothing."
The prison guard stepped forward. "Time's up. Let's go, Eddy."
His scrawny body wrenched upright. His chains rattled as he shuffled toward the door with shoulders slumped. A dying man. She didn't think he'd last another month.
"Eddy." David stood. "What part was true?"
"You figure it out." He turned his head and gave them a look of pure evil. "See you in hell."
Chapter Fourteen
Throughout the reverse process, as he and Blair left the maximum security prison and drove through the checkpoints at the perimeter, David kept his thoughts to himself. Unsure whether he was closer to the truth or deeply misled, he had much to consider.
Eddy Adderly had implicated the law-enforcement community. He'd overheard police conversations in the Red Rover bar that gave details of the Fisherman's crimes.
The fact that Eddy chose to hang out in a bar frequented by cops didn't surprise David. There were a lot of guys who hung around the edges of law enforcement like groupies with rock bands. These "cop groupies" fantasized about wearing a badge and gun, having that kind of authority. Or becoming a criminal who was even smarter than his heroes.
Unfortunately, this revelation didn't point to the real killer. What Eddy had gotten from his barroom eavesdropping was information. Confidential information. Likely, he used those details to confess to the famous Fisherman crimes and gain the notoriety that was even more important to him than life itself.
David found it more interesting that Eddy admitted knowing Justin Hunter, who was a groupie of another sort. Or was he? Hunter was smart enough to be a leader instead of a follower. Behind those innocent-looking Harry Potter glasses, he had a kind of deviant cleverness. But was he a mastermind? Capable of manipulating Eddy and the investigators, capable of getting away with murder?
As soon as they passed the final gate outside the penitentiary complex, Blair said, "What if the Fisherman was a cop? He could have arranged for Eddy to overhear the details of the crime and then framed him."
"Too random," he said. "How could he frame Eddy?"
"By luring him to the scene of the last crime," she said.
"Then what? Convince Eddy to leave his DNA on the body? I don't think so. The Fisherman is into control. He wouldn't trust a pathetic loser like Eddy Adderly to keep his secrets."
"How can you be sure?" she asked.
"I can't." He pulled onto the shoulder of the road and set the parking brake. "Come here."
She eased across the space between the seats and into his waiting arms. Her warmth comforted him, reminded him that there were good things in the world as well as the danger, the secrets and lies. "I need a change," he said.
"From what?"
"Crime reporting. I'm sick of it. The criminals. The cops. The creeps like Justin Hunter. Suspects. It feels like, for the past five years, I've been wallowing in filth." His decision was clear. "This is my last crime story."
"Will you go back to sports reporting?"
He snuggled her closer against him, rested his cheek on the top of her head. Her short, silky hair smelled clean. "Oh, yeah, that sounds like heaven. A lazy afternoon at a baseball game with the sun shining on my face. The green grass in the field. The athletic precision of a battle between pitcher and batter. I love that stuff."
"Why did you quit doing it?"
"You know the answer." He'd been obsessed with crime, ferreting out the truth. "I had to make sense of my sister's murder."
"Ironic," she said. "You're ready to leave investigative procedures behind. I'm thinking about going back. We've both changed." She looked up at him. "I wonder why."
He dropped a light kiss on her forehead. "Mostly I want to change because of you, Blair. When I'm with you, the future seems like a good, decent place."
"I'm glad." She snuggled against his chest.
"All of a sudden I'm hearing birdsong, smelling the scent of piñon pine on the breeze. It used to be when I closed my eyes I'd see horror. Now my vision is you. Wet from the tub. Naked. Beautiful."
She exhaled a soft sigh. "Like Justin Hunter said, you're good at creating ambiance."
"You bet. Words are my business."
"And autopsies are mine."
Though their prof
essions didn't seem to share much in common, he knew better. They both aimed for a similar goal. "You're a doctor, Blair. A healer."
"Really? I've never had one of my 'patients' wake up from an autopsy."
"But you provide a cure." She used her skill to find the answer to crime. To find the truth. "You heal the people left behind. People like me."
"Seems to me," she said, "that we both have bright lives ahead of us. We should get busy, get this investigation over with."
He nodded his agreement.
She continued, "And I still think we should take a closer look at the cops involved with the Fisherman case. At the very least, there was a cover-up. If Eddy overheard details of the crime at a bar, his confession should have been suspicious."
"You're forgetting something. After Eddy was arrested, the killing stopped." That was the most damning evidence against Eddy Adderly. Circumstantial or not, Eddy confessed and nobody else was murdered. Case closed. "The cops wanted him to be guilty."
"But he's not." She tilted her head back to stare at him with intent, searching eyes. "Eddy didn't buy those sedatives on the street, and he certainly didn't have the expertise to administer a hypodermic injection with the proper dosage."
An image of Kevin MacKay, the anesthesiologist, flashed across David's mind. Kevin would know all about proper methods of sedation.
Blair continued, "When we talked to him, Eddy didn't recognize me. He didn't even know who I was. The mention of Godiva chocolate confused him."
"Maybe he was lying. Trying to throw us off."
"He didn't fake that blank stare," she said. "Even though he's on pain meds, he wouldn't forget about the Godiva chocolate. It would have been really hard to convince those women to swallow the candy."
He brushed a wisp of hair off her smooth cheek. Her skin was so soft. She was so delicate and lovely. She deserved poetry, sonnets praising the curve of her chin and the tip of her nose. So how come they kept talking about murder?
David dragged his focus back to the topic. "Bottom line—you think a cop might be involved."
"Might be the killer," she said. "We've speculated about how the Fisherman got these women to come along with him. If he was a cop, they'd trust him."
