Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [86]
“The prisoner will be brought in as soon as you’re ready,” the guard told them. “I’ll be right here the entire time you’re in there with him.”
“Thanks,” Adam nodded.
The guard ushered the two of them into the room, and pushed a button that resulted in a muffled buzz somewhere behind the door, which was set to one side of the back wall. The door opened, and Edward Paul Webster, in ankle shackles, his hands cuffed behind him, shuffled in. He looked over his visitors without comment, then seated himself opposite Kendra and stared at her from lifeless brown eyes.
Finally, she said, “Do you know who I am?”
“They told me that you’re the sister of one of the boys they say I killed.” His face, pale and pocked with old acne scars, was without expression. “I did not kill him or that other boy, let’s get that out of the way right up front.”
He turned to Adam and sneered, “Hear that, Mr. FBI?”
“You were tried and convicted by a jury—” Adam pointed out.
“It was all bullshit,” Webster interrupted, the surface of his raw anger scratched. His fleshy lips curled upward on one side and his face distorted into an ugly mask. “There were no bodies, no evidence to even link me to either of them. I was railroaded. My biggest crime that day was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, that, and stealing that car . . .”
“What about Christopher Moss?” Kendra asked with a touch of sarcasm. “Have you forgotten about him?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten about him,” he singsonged his response, mocking her. “That kid was a basket case when I picked him up on the side of the road. He was crying and shaking and babbling and clutching that jacket, just like I told the police then. I’m telling you the same. I never saw your brother or that other kid, I never touched the Moss boy. I stopped to give him a ride because he looked like, well, he looked like he’d seen a ghost or something, okay? Like something had spooked him big time.”
“The police thought maybe you had spooked him, Webster.” Adam rested his arms on the table. “The jury believed that you were responsible for Christopher’s hysteria.”
“That kid hadn’t been in my car for more than five minutes when the police stopped me.”
“The car was reported stolen from one of the campsites that was located in the immediate area where the boys were hiking.”
“Yeah, I stole the car. I never denied that. The keys were in the ignition, I was tired of walking, it was hot, I figured what the hell.”
“What were you doing up there? Up there in the hills?” Adam continued his questioning.
“Well, Mr. FBI, I’m willing to bet if you thought it was important enough to make this trip, that you’ve already read the file your boys have on this case.”
“You were hanging out with friends,” Adam said dryly.
“That’s right.”
“The police were never able to find those friends to talk to them.”
“Maybe they didn’t want to be found.”
“Maybe they were underage boys.”
“Maybe they were.” Webster shrugged. “So what?”
“Wouldn’t that have been a violation of your parole?” Adam asked.
“Maybe so.” Webster smirked. “So, what’s the point of this?”
“I was hoping you’d . . .” Kendra sighed.
“What? Confess?” He laughed out loud. “Lady, I have nothing to confess. Not about those boys, anyway. I said when I was arrested, I said when I was tried. When I was sentenced. When that lady came out here—the mother of one of those kids later became a senator or something and she made my life a living—”
“She was my mother,” Kendra interjected.
“She still a senator?”
“She died a few years ago.”
“Gee, I’m real sorry to hear that,” Webster said with neither sympathy nor sincerity.
“I can see that you are.”
The two stared at each other for several long minutes. Neither of them blinked.
“Look, we were just hoping that you’d give us an idea of where the bodies were—” Adam began.
“You deaf, buddy? I don’t know anything about those boys. And what’s the big deal now, anyway? Why’s this coming up again now?”
“There’ve been a series of murders out East,” Adam told him. “Young women. Seven of them, in a short period of time.”
“What