Decker grabbed his shoulders, steadied him. “I’ll ride in the ambulance. But you have to call your brothers and sisters, Michael. No one else can do it except you. Understand?”

Michael stood unresponsive, paralyzed with shock.

“Understand?” Decker repeated.

Michael nodded vigorously.

“Tell them to meet us at…” Decker turned to one of the paramedics. A skinny kid with a big Adam’s apple. “Where are you taking him?”

“New Chris.”

Decker swallowed hard. “Tell them to meet me at New Chris.”

The paramedic looked at Decker. “You know you got a bullet wound in your right arm?”

Decker pulled back his sleeve, regarded the shredded fabric of his suit jacket. He quickly removed it. As expected, his shirt was torn as well. He rolled up his sleeve. Next to his bicep was a round patch of raw meat.

The kid said, “C’mon. I’ll patch it in the ambulance.”

The wound was leaking blood. Suddenly, it hurt like hell.

31

“We’ve been going at this for over an hour,” Martinez said. “You’re making life difficult on yourself, Mr. Waterson.” The detective leaned across the table in the interview room. “Dolores Sparks shot her son, hoping to make it murder/suicide. He’s been on the operating table for the last three hours, hanging on to life by a thread. The woman wants to die, Waterson.” He snapped his fingers. “She turned you in like that!”

“You’re gonna fry, sir,” Webster jumped in, “unless you do something to help yourself.”

“If you talk to us,” Martinez said, “tell us what happened…give us the triggerman…and then maybe Mr. Kent over here will deal.”

Mr. Kent was John Kent, a fifty-five-year-old Fundamentalist Christian who had put in over twenty years with the DA’s office. Fight religious with religious—Decker’s idea.

Kent smoothed his tie and said, “You talk to us honestly, Mr. Waterson. Then maybe I can save you from the chair.”

“How many times must I repeat myself. Dolores Sparks is a very sick woman.” Waterson’s eyes darted about the interview room, deep, wet circles under the arms of his suit jacket. He ran his hand through white, thin hair. “She’s been on medication for years. She’s not a credible person. No jury will believe anything she says.”

“So y’all willing to go to trial,” Webster said. “Good luck to you.”

Martinez said, “You know, Mr. Waterson, if you don’t start talking—”

“I didn’t do anything,” Waterson insisted. “I killed no one.”

Webster said, “But you know who pulled the trigger because you hired them.”

“All you have is Dolores’s word against mine. Is it my fault that some demented lady mistook my kindness for craziness?”

Kent said, “Sir, you don’t stand a chance.”

“I wish I had a nickel every time a lawyer said that to me.”

“Spare your life, sir. Then use it to repent to Jesus to spare your soul.”