Trying to conceal her elation, Caitlin gave what she hoped was an accommodating smile. “Of course he does. I’m happy to stay. Take a couple of hours if you need it.”

Sherry took the pain pump controller from Henry’s hand and pressed its button once. “Hit that every twelve minutes if he falls asleep,” she said. “He can’t OD from it. The maximum dose is preset. But you don’t want to get behind the pain curve.”

“Every twelve minutes,” Caitlin promised.

Sherry hiked her purse strap over her shoulder, then walked to the window ledge and picked up a vase of bloodred roses. As she passed Caitlin, she took the plastic card holder from among the flowers and held it up for her to see. The card read: To the World Champion Nigger-Lover. Die soon, okay?

“I didn’t show him this one,” she whispered.

“We need to give that card to the FBI. Do you mind?”

Sherry shrugged.

Caitlin took the plastic rod with its three-pronged pitchfork end and stood it upright inside her purse.

“What are you girls talking about?” Henry asked in a jealous tone.

“None of your beeswax,” Sherry said. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t you hit on this pretty girl while I’m gone.”

Something like a laugh came from Henry’s puffy lips.

Then Sherry was gone.

Caitlin opened her computer case, took out two photographs, then moved quickly to the right side of the bed and leaned over Henry. She figured she only had a couple of minutes before the Dilaudid knocked him out. “I needed to see you alone. Don’t speak any more than you need to. Just lift your hand to show you understand or if you mean yes. For no, move your hand sideways. Okay?”

Henry lifted his bandaged hand slightly.

“Good. I’ve been through almost everything from your safe-deposit boxes.”

Worry flickered in Henry’s eyes.

“Sherry doesn’t know about Swan Norris, does she?”

“No.”

“I’ll make sure she never does, if that’s how you want it.”

He nodded.

“But I did something big today, Henry. I want you to be the first to know. I have proof that Brody Royal killed Albert Norris. Pooky, too.”

The reporter’s eyes went so wide that it frightened her.

She touched his wrist. “Take it easy. I went back and saw Katy Royal, and she opened up about her father. She told me she’d been sexually abused in that sanatorium in Texas. Then she implicated her father in Albert’s and Pooky’s murders. Dr. Robb’s, too. She even said that Brody killed her mother. Drowned her in the bathtub. And that’s how she died, all right. I checked. But the main thing is, I recorded almost every word of it.”

A high color had come into Henry’s cheeks. “My God … after all this time. On tape, you said?”