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Leanne Samples was the state’s case.
    “They had Himes dead to rights,” Hawes persisted.
    “The FBI sure as hell didn’t think so,” Corso countered.
    Hawes made a disgusted face. “Oh, don’t start that crap again.”
    “I’ll tell you again—same thing I told you back then—the Bureau doesn’t miss photo opportunities. I’ve worked around them a lot.”
    Hawes got theatrical now. Parading around with his hands on his hips. “Back before you were a famous true-crime writer. Back when you were the golden boy of the New Yaaaawk Times ,” he mocked. “Haaaaaavard scholar. Nieeeeeeman Fellow.”
    Corso swallowed his anger, took a deep breath. “Yeah, Bennett, way back then…And you know as well as I do, that’s why local law enforcement hates working with them. No matter who breaks the case, they take the credit. Hell, it was a couple of Oklahoma troopers who pulled Timothy McVeigh over and made the collar. You remember seeing those good old boys up at the podium when they announced the arrest?” Before the older man could open his mouth, Corso said, “Yeah…me neither.”
    Bennett Hawes sighed and turned his back to Corso. He walked to the right side of the desk and sat heavily in the matching red leather chair. His face was sour. “And that tells you Himes was innocent?”
    “No,” Corso said. “What it tells me is that the FBI wanted nothing to do with the case against Walter Leroy Himes. That they wanted to distance themselves from the whole thing. I’m telling you, if Miss Samples out there keeps telling her present tale, we’re about to see the biggest public ass covering since Pontius Pilate.”
    Mrs. V. slapped a palm on her desktop. The resounding silenced the men. “Enough,” she said. “I’ve heard it all before. Ad nauseam,” she added.
    “And you remember what happened,” Hawes snapped. “We’re less than a week from a final resolution and I’m telling you”—he waved his arm at the skyline of the city—“these people want their pound of flesh. If they don’t get Himes, they’re gonna settle for whoever brings them the bad news.”
    No doubt about it. The execution frenzy was building to a peak. Just inside the prison gates, a herd of mobile television units aimed their concave eyes at the sky. Outside the gates of the prison, a tent city was growing. UPI estimated that by the time Himes was administered the lethal injection, three to four thousand souls would be gathered outside the gates to speed him on his way to eternity.
    Corso knew the execution crowds. The foam baseball caps and the battered motor homes. He’d rubbed elbows with the soapbox preachers and the legions of lonely women. He’d personally witnessed two electrocutions and a hanging. All part of being in a business where a phone call could drag you from the sanctity of your bed and send you kicking amid the rubble of a bombed-out building, watching your tasseled feet slide amid the blood and the baby shoes and the broken bricks of other people’s lives. The way Corso saw it, if you had the nerve to insert yourself into such moments of personal tragedy, the least you could do was not watch from the bleachers. You had to get down on the field and play. You owed it to both the living and the dead.
    “Where is Miss Samples?” Mrs. V. demanded.
    “Outside with Violet,” Corso said.
    She pushed a button on her phone. “Violet, would you please send in Miss Samples?” Violet said it would be her pleasure. A few seconds later, the door eased open.
    Leanne Samples stopped in the doorway, one hand gripping each side of the opening, like Samson about to pull down the temple. Her eyes darted around the room, taking in the gallery of mutton-chopped forebears whose portraits lined the walls. Her gaze finally came to rest on the portrait of Natalie Van Der Hoven that hung behind her desk. Mrs. V. got to her feet. “Please come in,” Mrs. V. prompted. Leanne stayed put, staring at the portraits. “The paper