Speaking in Tongues

car directly toward the gate, got his speed up to about forty and bounded over logs and potholes in the neglected surface. He saw the infamous grayMercedes parked in the staff-only carport. He saw a faint light in one of the windows.
    He had no plan other than the obvious and as he skidded around a fallen pine and straightened for the final assault on the gate he pressed the accelerator down harder, sealing his resolve.
    He pressed his hands into the steering wheel, pinning himself into the seat. The car plowed through the chain link. The air bag popped with an astonishingly loud bang. He’d forgotten about it and hadn’t closed his eyes. He was momentarily blinded and lost control of the car. When he could see again he found the vehicle skidding sideways, narrowly missing the Mercedes. The Volvo crashed obliquely into the cinder blocks, stunning him.
    Tate leapt out of the car and ran to the first door he could find. Gripping his pistol hard, he flung all his weight against the double panels.
    He was expecting them to be locked. But the doors swung open with virtually no resistance and he stumbled headfirst into a large, dim lobby.
    He saw shadows, shapes of furniture, angles of walls, unlit lamps, dust motes circling in the air.
    He saw faint shafts of predawn blue light bleeding in through the windows.
    But he never saw the bat or tire iron or whatever it was that hummed through the air behind him and caught him with a glancing blow just above the ear.

IV
THE SILENCE OF
THE DEED

Chapter Twenty-nine
    A hand stroked his hair.
    Lying on his side, on a cold floor, Tate slowly opened his eyes, which stung fiercely from his own sweat. He tried to focus on the face before him. He believed momentarily that the soft fingers were Bett’s; she’d been the first person in his thoughts as he came to consciousness.
    But he found that the blue eyes he gazed into were Megan’s.
    “Hey, honey,” he wheezed.
    “Dad.” Her face was pale, her hair pasted to her head with sweat, her hands bloody.
    They were in the lobby of the decrepit hospital. His hands were bound behind him with scratchy rope. His vision was blurry. He got up and nearly fainted from the pain that roared in his temple.
    Aaron Matthews was sitting on a chair nearby watching them both like the helpless prisoners that they were.
    What astonishing black eyes he has, Tate thought. Like dark lasers. They turned to you as if you were the only person in the universe. Why, patients would tell him anything. He understood why Bett had beenpowerless to resist him earlier that night when he’d come to her house. Konnie too. And Megan.
    Then he saw that Matthews was hurt. A large patch of blood covered the side of his shirt and he was sweating. His nose too was bloody. Tate glanced at Megan. She gave a weak smile and nodded, answering his tacit question if she was responsible for the wound. He lowered his head to the girl’s shoulder. A moment later Tate looked up. “You’ve lost those five pounds you wanted to,” he said to her. “You’re lean and mean.”
    “It was ten,” she joked.
    Matthews finally said, “Well, Tate Collier. Well . . .”
    Such a smooth, baritone voice, Tate reflected. But not phony or slick. So natural, so comforting. Patients would cling to every word he uttered.
    “I was just doing my job,” Tate finally said to him. “Peter’s trial, I mean. The evidence was there. The jury believed it.”
    Megan frowned and Tate explained about the trial and the boy’s murder in prison.
    The girl scowled, said to Matthews, “I knew you’d never worked with him on cases. Those were just more lies.”
    Matthews didn’t even notice her. He crossed his arms. “You probably don’t know it, Collier, but I used to watch you in court. After Pete died I’d go to your trials. I’d sit in the back of the gallery for hours and hours. You know what struck me? You reminded me of myself in therapy sessions. Talking to the patients. Leading them where they didn’t want to go. You did exactly the same with the witnesses and the juries.”
    Tate said nothing.
    Matthews smiled briefly. “And I learned some things about the law. Mens rea. The state of a killer’s mind—he has to intend the death in order to be guilty of murder. Well, that was you, all right, at Pete’s trial. You murdered Pete. You intended him to die.”
    “My job was to prosecute cases as best I could.”
    “If,” Matthews pounced, “that was true then why did you quit