Chase: Roman

made it possible for me to be there in the first place. It's easy to set standards of performance, select limits of right and wrong, when you never get closer than ten thousand miles to the place where it's all coming down!’
        Judge attempted to comment but could not break in.
        Chase said, ‘I didn't even want to be there. I didn't believe in it, and I was scared shitless the whole time. Mostly, all I thought about was staying alive. In that tunnel, I couldn't think of anything else. I wasn't me. I was a textbook case of paranoia. And now, dammit, I won't let you or anyone else blame me for what a textbook example did!’
        ‘You do feel guilty, though,’ Judge observed.
        That doesn't matter.’
        ‘I think it does.’
        ‘It doesn't matter, because no matter how guilty I feel you haven't the right to pass judgment on me. You're sitting there with your little list of commandments, but you've never been anywhere that made a list seem pointless, anywhere that the environment forced you into reacting in a manner you loathed.’ Chase found, amazingly, that he was crying. He had not cried in a long time.
        ‘You're rationalizing,’ Judge began, trying to regain control of the conversation.
        Chase would not permit that. He said, ‘And remember that you've not followed that commandment yourself. You killed that boy, that Michael Karnes.’
        ‘There was a difference,’ Judge said. Some of the hoarseness had returned to his voice.
        ‘Oh?’
        ‘Yes,’ Judge said, on the defensive now. ‘I studied his situation carefully, collected evidence against him, and only then passed judgment. You didn't do any of that, Chase. You killed perfect strangers, and you very likely murdered innocents who had no black marks on their souls.’
        Chase slammed the phone down.
        When it rang at four different times during the following hour, he was able to ignore it completely. His anger remained sharp, the strongest emotion he had experienced in long months of near-catatonia.
        He drank three more glasses of whisky before he began to feel a bit mellow again. His anger had burned up all traces of the drunkenness which his first few drinks had brought. The tremors slowly stilled in his hands.
        At ten o'clock he dialled the number of the police headquarters and asked for Detective Wallace, who at that moment was out. He dressed, drank another glass of Jack Daniel's and tried again at 10:40. This time Wallace was in and willing to speak to him.
        ‘Nothing's going as well as we hoped,’ Wallace said. ‘He doesn't seem to have been printed. At least, the prints on that knife don't match up with anything in federal or state files.’
        ‘They could have checked the files this quickly?’
        ‘Yeah,’ Wallace said. ‘They have computers that scan and compare much faster than a team of investigators could - something like the computers that read handwriting and sort mail at post offices.’
        ‘What about the ring?’
        ‘Turns out to be a cheap accessory that sells at under fifteen bucks retail in about every store in the state. Impossible to keep track of where and when and to whom a certain ring might be sold.’
        Chase committed himself reluctantly. ‘Then I have something for you,’ he said. In a few short sentences he told the detective about Judge's calls.
        Wallace was plainly angry, though he made an effort not to shout. ‘Why in the hell didn't you let us know about his before?’
        ‘I thought, with the prints, you'd be sure to get him.’
        ‘Prints hardly ever make a difference in a situation like this,’ Wallace said. There was still a bite in his voice, though it was muted now. He had evidently taken a moment to consider the stature of his informant.
        ‘Besides,’ Chase said, ‘the killer realized the chance of the line being tapped. He's been calling from pay phones and keeping the calls under five minutes.’
        Wallace said, ‘Just the same, I'd like to hear him. I'll be over with a man in fifteen minutes.’
        ‘Just one man?’
        Wallace said, ‘We'll try not to upset your routine too much.’
        Chase almost laughed at that. He said, ‘I'll be waiting.’
        
        The man who came with Wallace was introduced as James Tuppinger, and he was not said to have any rank with the police department, though Chase figured him as Wallace's equal.