He blinked, and I noticed that his eyes didn’t blink simultaneously. He grinned, and the chains around his wrists rattled as he brought his hands up on the table between us.

“I ain’t killed her, ya know.”

I didn’t say anything. I knew the jail recorded these conversations, so I couldn’t do anything that made it look like I was trying to speak with someone who was already represented, so all I did was raise my eyebrows a little bit.

“It weren’t me. That shit-for-brains Stevie is who ya wanna talk to. He had a hard-on for Patty since they was kids. She was trashed, and he saw his chance, that’s all.”

The door opened and Pritcher walked in. He froze when he saw the two of us together. When the guard shut the door behind him, he sat down and said, “I don’t even need to ask if you’ve been speaking to him without me present, do I?”

“Anderson, have I said anything to you?”

“No, sir, ya just been sittin’ there while I talked some.”

Pritcher opened a briefcase and put a digital recorder on the table. “The proper thing to do would’ve been to leave the room when you saw he was alone. I think this will be an issue we take up with the judge.”

He hit record.

“I’m kinda in the middle of something,” I said. “Can we get this over with?”

“Oh yes, your father. How is he doing? Heard he was hospitalized.”

He caught me by surprise with that, and I didn’t like being caught by surprise. “You heard that already, huh?”

The only people who knew were Gates and me and the hospital staff, which meant he had someone on the hospital staff feeding him information. Truth was, he likely had people everywhere in this town feeding him information. I knew this because, were I him, that’s what I would do.

“I’d like it put on the record that my client is giving this interview against the strenuous advice of counsel.”

“So noted. And I’d like it put on the record that your ponytail makes my skin crawl.”

Anderson laughed. His chains rattled, and he smiled widely and said, “I ain’t heard ya were funny. I like that. Wish I coulda hired ya, but my daddy payin’ for it, and he says Russell here is the best. Don’t seem like he done nothin’ for me. I’m in here while he out there.”

I took out my cell phone. I opened the recording app. “Tell me what you wanna tell me.”

He glanced at his lawyer and his eyes blinked, one after the other. I looked down to his forearm and noticed the tattoo of the woman’s naked body and the snake.