54
Lazarus left the courtroom just as Owen Whittaker was led away, and they exchanged a single glance. Piper was speaking to Carol but excused herself and met him out in the hall.
“What’d you think of her?” Piper said.
“I probably believe her.”
“Probably?”
“Certainty’s a rare thing.”
She reached out, gripping his arm and stopping him in place. “What is your problem?”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“You’re still acting like Sophie’s a suspect. I saw nothing but a traumatized girl on that stand.”
“I never said I think she’s a suspect.”
“What then?”
“I don’t understand why she was left alive, that’s all.”
They walked to the elevators in silence and headed down.
“Did you know he told her to run?” Lazarus said.
“No.”
“Russo’s going to have a heyday with it. That she never mentioned it before now.”
The elevators opened on the first floor and Piper stepped off, but Lazarus didn’t move. “Forgot somethin’. Catch up later.”
Lazarus leaned against the wall as people with name tags got on, looking like they might be jurors. He smiled at some of the older ladies. Everyone was quiet as they rode the elevator back up, probably because a judge told them not to talk.
He went back to the courtroom and the door leading to the holding cells and knocked. A bailiff opened the door, a middle-aged man with a sloppy haircut and a large frame. Lazarus knew him.
“Hank, what you say I come in there for a minute and you go get a cup of coffee?”
He glanced back. Owen was the only one there.
“I say it takes me two minutes to get a coffee.”
Lazarus pulled out a twenty and gave it to him. “Get a donut, too.”
The bailiff grunted, snatching the bill from Lazarus. His bulky frame lumbered past, trailing menthol cigarettes.
Lazarus watched him disappear through the double doors of the courtroom.
Fluorescent lights flickered, casting an eerie glow across the four small adjoining holding cells. Thick bars and cloudy plastic panels separated each cramped space. All were empty except the last cell. There, Owen Whittaker perched on the concrete bench, hands cuffed, wrists raw. His pristine white slippers weren’t dirty from the grimy floors yet.
Lazarus sat across from him on another bench. He took out his package of cigarettes and lit one, and held it out for Owen. The little man took it and inhaled a long pull. Lazarus lit one for himself and leaned back.
“I know there’s somethin’ dark in the world that lives right alongside us. It whispers. Gets us to do things we never thought we could.”
Owen said nothing.
“See the thing is, the dark stops whispering and starts barking when it knows it has you. And you don’t want it anymore, but it’s not leaving. It’s lost its taste, but the hunger’s still there.”
He smoked awhile.
“We’re numbed nerve endings trapped in decaying flesh, being tossed around in the storms of the universe. But sometimes we have a choice. Sometimes we don’t need to do what the dark whispers. You can make a choice and show mercy. Don’t put that girl through a trial. You can at least do that for her.”
Owen lowered his gaze, taking a drag from his cigarette, while a thin trail of drool escaped the corner of his mouth, tracing a path down his chin.
Owen discarded his cigarette and raised his gaze, revealing the grotesque burns that marred his face. The right side contorted eerily as he bared his teeth, hissing at Lazarus until he was out of breath.
Lazarus dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. He stood. “You shouldn’t drag this out. The anticipation of an early death will break you. If you get the chance, you should kill yourself.”
He left the holding cells and didn’t look back.