“You think he killed Payton for Leo Marston?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you first get the idea Marston was involved?”

“From the deputy who saved us the other night. Ike Ransom.”

“Well . . . I hope you can trust him. Because I’ve got to tell you, everything my people have found on Marston indicates that he’s a liberal, as far as race goes, anyway.”

“I know. I think the murder might not have been about race at all.”

Her mouth opens slightly. “What else could it have been about?”

“I don’t know yet. Have your people learned anything about Dwight Stone?”

“Yes. One of our reporters in Alexandria, Virginia, says Stone was dismissed from the FBI in 1972 for alcohol-related problems.”

“Anything else?”

“He was second-generation law enforcement. His father was a state trooper in Colorado. Stone himself served with the marines in Korea and won a handful of medals I don’t know the significance of. He went to law school after he got out of the service, and joined the Bureau in 1956. He spent sixteen years in, and received several commendations before being dismissed.”

“Althea Payton told me Stone was sympathetic to her, that he really wanted to solve the case. I wonder if the fact that they both served in Korea was the root of that?”

“I guess it could be.”

“Something strange happened at the prison tonight, Caitlin.”

“What?”

“The director of the FBI showed up.”

“John Portman? Why would he show up at the Hanratty execution?”

“To warn me to stay out of the Del Payton case.”

“What?”

“Portman and I have a history. When you asked about the Hanratty case on the plane, I left out some details. When Hanratty committed that first murder in Compton, he was seen by a dozen witnesses before he fled the scene, and they ID’d him from photographs under his real name. An LAPD detective remembered that Hanratty had been the star witness in a federal hate-crime trial a while back. His testimony put a half dozen white supremacists in jail and made a star out of the U.S. attorney of Los Angeles.”

“Portman,” Caitlin says softly.

“Exactly. The LAPD went to Portman, who told them Hanratty was under witness protection and couldn’t have committed the crime. Political pressure started building. The next day Hanratty ‘escaped’ from the program and wound up in Houston with his brothers. The rumor was, Portman tried to cover up the murder to keep his reputation clean. I’m pretty sure now that it’s true. Hanratty referred to it tonight in his deathbed statement. Anyway, Portman wanted to neutralize the rumor by throwing the book at Hanratty in the L.A. courts.”

“And you stopped him.”

“Exactly. The guy hates my guts.”

“But what does that have to do with the Del Payton case?”