Cut to the Bone(22)

“It’s true! I swear it is!” Bloch said. “I gave my parole officer this address. Why would I do that if I was coming here to kill someone?”

“‘Cause you’re an idiot?” Marty said.

Bloch glared, then turned to Branch. “How’d you find me? Maybe that’ll prove something.”

Branch shrugged. “Someone told us you and the Reynolds family had history. We entered your name in the National Crime Information Center. Stillwater popped from the registry of prison inmates. We called the warden, who gave us your parole officer. He faxed us this address. We identified you through the window. You know the rest.”

“See?” Bloch said. “I wasn’t hiding. The warden knew I was here. My parole officer. Your computer, too. If I was gonna whack someone in Naperville, I woulda told everyone I was moving to El Paso. That proves I’m telling the truth.”

Branch shook his head. “All it proves is you moved here the week before a brutal double homicide. Far as I’m concerned, you’re good for it.”

“And if you haven’t heard,” Marty said. “We’ve got us an electric chair. With a governor so anxious to use it he wets himself.”

Bloch looked like he might, too. “Hey! Wait! You got my sheet, right?”

Emily rattled the printouts.

“Then you know I never killed no one. Not man, woman, or kid. Sure, I beat ‘em up. Just to get my green, though. I needed my green, and they had it.” He pointed to the rap sheet. “Here’s one you don’t know about because I never got caught,” he said, reeling off a date and name of a convenience store. “A rice-head behind the counter had my green. Wouldn’t give it up. ‘Skloo you, Chollie!’ he hollers. ‘My money! Get ugly face out my store!’“

He became more animated.

“I beat that ricer till his undies bled. A gun’s supposed to mean something, you know. He’s not supposed to keep fighting when I put a gun in his face. Just give it up.”

“But he didn’t,” Branch said.

“Right!” Bloch said, like agreeing meant they were pals. “So I busted him up.”

“And you’re telling me this why?”

“To prove what I been saying - I never kill any of them. I’m very careful about that. Don’t mind risking the can but I don’t want no death penalty. Didn’t kill anyone in Stillwater, neither. Busted up plenty of homeboys, but they had it coming. Being I was AB and they was blacker than the crack of my-”

“Finish the story about the convenience store clerk,” Branch said.

“Alive when I left,” Bloch said. “Not one bullet or blade, and I carried both when I did a job. Just to scare the suckers into giving me my green. I never killed no one, no way.” He took a deep breath. “That’s it. Proves my story, right? I hope I get some consideration.”

“I hope you get dick cancer,” Marty said.

Branch arched an eyebrow at Emily.

“I’ll check out his story,” she said.

Branch nodded, yanked Bloch to his feet.

“Hey!” Bloch protested. “I thought we had an understanding.”

“You thought wrong. You’re under arrest.”

“For what?”

Branch eyed the mess in the kitchen. “Littering.”





11:59 p.m.

The Executioner stared over downtown St. Louis, pleasantly buzzed from bourbon and prime rib. Lightning white-strobed the hotel room, with violet afterglows. The picture window groaned from the cyclonic wind bursts. The Arch, that fusion of art and steel he so admired, had disappeared behind the curtain of rain.

Not to worry, he told himself. The storm would be gone by morning.

As would he.

He slid under the crisp white sheets and immediately fell asleep.

August 10, 1966

The potbellied janitor scrubbed for two full minutes, then sliced footwide streaks of clean through the suds. He checked the window for stubbornness, moved on to the next.

Folks like you made America great, thought Assistant State’s Attorney Wayne Covington. Not greedy punks like Earl Monroe.

Tanned arms darted around his face and ruffled his Brylcreem.

“Hey, bro,” Wayne said, laughing as he wriggled away from his kid brother Andrew.

“Hey yourself,” Andy said, adding a noogie. “You get over there this morning?”

“Is the pope Catholic?” Wayne said, borrowing Andy’s aluminum comb to slick his thick blond hair into place. Once a week at sunrise, the Covington sons gathered for breakfast at the parental Queen Anne in downtown Naperville. “Don’t worry, though, Ma forgives you.”

“She always loved me best.”