Four Blind Mice

horrific, cold-blooded murders. We have no intention of helping a murderer go free. I’m afraid that I’m convinced Cooper is a murderer too. I won’t be supporting an appeal. I’m sorry that I don’t have better news for you.”
    After our meeting, Sampson and I were escorted back through the labyrinth of hallways by General Borislow’s aide. We were both silent as we made the long walk to the main lobby.
    Once we had left the building and gone outside, he turned to me. “What do you think?”
    “I think the army is hiding something,” I said. “And we don’t have much time to find out what it is.”

Chapter 29
    THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Thomas Starkey got a clear picture of just how far things had gone for him. The clarifying incident took place less than two miles from his house in North Carolina.
    He had stopped at the local strip mall for copies of
USA Today
and the
Rocky Mount Telegram
plus some raisin cinnamon bagels from the New York–style deli. It was raining hard that morning, and he stood with the newspapers and warm bagels under the overhang at the mall, waiting for the downpour to slow.
    When it finally did, Starkey started to wade through deep puddles toward his Suburban. As he did, he spotted a couple sloshing toward him across the parking lot. They had just gotten out of an old blue pickup, and they’d left the headlights on.
    “Hi, excuse me. Left your lights on,” Starkey called as they came forward. The woman turned to look. The man didn’t.
    Instead, he started to talk, and it was clear he had a speech impediment. “Wir frum San Cros head’n La’nce. Forgath muh wuhlet n’mah pantz —”
    The woman cut in. “I’m awful sorry to bother you. We’re from Sandy Cross goin’ to Lawrence,” she said. “So embarrassing. My brother left his wallet in his other pants. We don’t even have money for gas to get back home.”
    “Kin you hep’s?” asked the sputtering male.
    Starkey got the whole thing immediately. They’d left the goddamn truck lights on so he could be the one to make the first verbal contact, not them. The man’s speech impediment was a fake, and that’s what really did it to him. His son Hank was autistic. Now these two shitheels were using a fake handicap as part of their cheap con to get money.
    Swiftly, Starkey had his handgun out. He wasn’t sure himself what was going to happen next. All he knew was that he was really pissed off. Jesus, he was steamed.
    “Get on your knees, both of you,” he yelled, and thrust the gun into the male’s unshaved, miserable excuse for a face. “Now you apologize, and you better talk right, or I’ll shoot you dead in this fucking parking lot.”
    He struck the kneeling man in the forehead with the barrel of his gun.
    “Jesus, I’m sorry. We’re both sorry, mister. We jus’ wanted a few bucks. Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot us. We’re good Christians.”
    “You both stay on your goddamn knees,” Starkey said. “You stay right there, and I don’t want to see you around here again. Ever,
ever
.”
    He put his gun back in his jacket as he stomped off toward his car. He got to the Suburban and thanked God his teenage daughter had been listening to rock music and not watching what had gone on in the parking lot. Melanie was off in her own little world as usual.
    “Let’s skedaddle home,” Starkey said as he scrunched down into the front seat of the Suburban. “And Mel, could you turn that damn music
up?
”
    That was when his daughter looked up and spotted the couple kneeling in the lot. “What’s the matter with those two?” she asked her father. “They’re like,
kneeling
in the rain.”
    Starkey finally managed a thin smile. “Guess they just been saved, and now they’re thanking the Lord,” he said.

Chapter 30
    ON A COLD day in early October, Sampson and I made the six-hour trip by car back to Central Prison in Raleigh. We talked very little on the ride down. The clock had run out on Ellis Cooper.
    Two days earlier, Cooper had been officially informed of his execution date by North Carolina’s Department of Correction. Then he had been moved to the prison’s deathwatch area. Things were proceeding in an orderly, and deadly, fashion.
    Sampson and I had been authorized by the Division of Prisons to visit Sergeant Cooper. When we arrived at Central Prison, about a dozen protesters were out in the parking areas. Most were women, and they were singing gentle folk songs that harkened back to the