River’s End

you choose. Society’s, the law’s, this house’s. But I can say that at some point, he decided to do his time clean.”
    Diterman unlaced his fingers, pressed them together, laced them tidily again. “‘Tanner’s authorized me to give you access to his records and to speak to you frankly about him.”
    He works fast, Noah mused. Fine. He’d been waiting a long time to begin this book, and he intended to work fast himself. “Then why don’t you. Supervisor, speak frankly to me about Inmate Tanner.”
    “According to reports, he had a difficult time adjusting when he first came here. There were a number of incidents— altercations between him and the guards, between him and other prisoners. Inmate Tanner spent a large portion of 1980 in the infirmary being treated for a number of injuries.”
    “He got into fights.”
    “Consistently. He was violent and invited violence. He was transfered to solitary several times during his first five years. He also had an addiction to cocaine and found sources within the prison to feed that addiction. During the fall of 1982 he was treated for an overdose.”
    “Deliberate or accidental?”
    “That remains unclear, though the therapist leaned toward accidental. He’s an actor, a good one.” Diterman’s eyes remained bland, but Noah read sharp intelligence in them. “My predecessor noted several times that Tanner was a difficult man to read. He played whatever role suited him.”
    “Past tense.”
    “I can only tell you that for the past several years he’s settled in. His work in the library appears to satisfy him. He keeps to himself as much as it’s possible to do so. He avoids confrontations.”
    “He told me he has an inoperable brain tumor. Terminal.”
    “Around the first of the year he complained of severe, recurring headaches, double vision. The tumor was discovered. Tests were run. and the consensus is he has perhaps a year. Most likely less than that.”
    “How’d he take it?”
    “Better than I think I would. There are details of his file and his counseling and treatment I can’t share with you, as I’ll require not only his permission, but other clearance.”
    “If I decide to pursue this, to interview him, to listen, I’ll need your cooperation as well as his. I’ll need names, dates, events. Even opinions. Are you willing to give me those things?”
    “I’ll cooperate as much as I’m able. To be frank, Mr. Brady, I’d like to hear the entire story myself. I had a tremendous crush on Julie MacBride.”
    “Who didn’t?” Noah murmured.
    He decided to stay the night in San Francisco, and after settling into a room with a view overlooking the bay, he ordered up a meal and set up his laptop. Once he’d plugged into the Internet, he did a search on Sam Tanner.
    For a man who’d spent two decades behind bars without granting a single interview, there was a wealth of hits. A number of them dealt with movies, his roles, summaries and critiques. Those could wait.
    He found references to a number of books on the case, including unauthorized biographies of both Sam and Julie. Noah had a number of them in his library and made a note to himself to read through them again. There were articles on the trial, mostly rehashes.
    He found nothing particularly fresh.
    When his meal arrived, Noah ate his burger and typed one-handed, bookinarking any areas he might want to explore again.
    He’d seen the photographs that popped before. The one of Sam, impossibly handsome, and a luminous Julie, both beaming beautifully into the camera. Another of Sam, shackled, being led out of the courthouse during the trial and looking ill and dazed.
    And both of those men, Noah thought, were inside the cool-eyed and calculating inmate. How many others would he find before his book was done?
    That, Noah admitted, was the irresistible pull. Who lived behind those eyes? What was it that gripped a man and drove him to butcher the woman he claimed to love, the mother of his child? To destroy everything he swore mattered to him?
    Drugs? Not enough, in Noah’s opinion. And not in the court’s opinion either, he recalled. The defense had fallen back on drugs during the sentencing phase, attempting to get the sentence reduced due to mitigating circumstances. It hadn’t swayed the results.
    The brutality of the crime had outweighed everything else. And, Noah thought now, the pathetic video testimony of the victim’s four-year-old child. No jury could have turned their