He lowered his eyes to the contents of his coffee mug and stared into it for a long time before taking a drink. He tossed it back, draining the mug as though it were a shot of whiskey.
“Did you kill my mother, Mr. Lambert?”
Since she hadn’t been able to accurately gauge his reaction the day before, she wanted to see it now.
His head snapped up. “No.” Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on the desk and gave her a level stare. “Let’s cut through the bullshit, okay? Understand this right now, and it’ll save us both a lot of time. If you want to interrogate me, Counselor, you’ll have to subpoena me to appear before the grand jury.”
“You’re refusing to cooperate with my investigation?”
“I didn’t say that. This office will be at your disposal per Pat’s instructions. I’ll personally help you any way I can.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart?” she asked sweetly.
“No, because I want it over and done with, finished. You understand? So you can go back to Austin where you belong, and leave the past in the past where it belongs.” He got up to refill his coffee mug. Over his shoulder he asked, “Why’d you come here?”
“Because Bud Hicks did not murder my mother.”
“How the hell do you know? Or did you just ask him?”
“I couldn’t. He’s dead.”
She could tell by his reaction that he hadn’t known. He moved to the window and stared out, sipping his coffee reflectively. “Well, I’ll be damned. Gooney Bud is dead.”
“Gooney Bud?”
“That’s what everybody called him. I don’t think anybody knew his last name until after Celina died and the newspapers printed the story.”
“He was retarded, I’m told.”
The man at the window nodded. “Yeah, and he had a speech impediment. You could barely understand him.”
“Did he live with his parents?”
“His mother. She was half batty herself. She died years ago, not too long after he was sent away.”
He continued to stare through the open slats of the blinds with his back to her. His silhouette was trim, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped. His jeans fit a little too well. Alex berated herself for noticing.
“Gooney Bud pedaled all over town on one of those large tricycles,” he was saying. “You could hear him coming blocks away. That thing clattered and clanged like a peddler’s wagon. It was covered with junk. He was a scavenger. Little girls were warned to stay away from him. We boys made fun of him, played pranks, things like that.” He shook his head sadly. “Shame.”
“He died in a state mental institution, incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Her comment brought him around. “You’ve got nothing to prove that he didn’t.”
“I’ll find the proof.”
“None exists.”
“Are you so sure? Did you destroy the incriminating evidence the morning you ostensibly found Celina’s body?”
A deep crease formed between his heavy eyebrows. “Haven’t you got anything better to do? Don’t you already have a heavy enough caseload? Why did you start investigating this in the first place?”
She gave him the same catchall reason she had given Greg Harper. “Justice was not served. Buddy Hicks was innocent. He took the blame for somebody else’s crime.”
“Me, Junior, or Angus?”
“Yes, one of the three of you.”
“Who told you that?”