Speaking in Tongues

was in small type; he doubted anyone would notice.
    In twenty minutes he was walking into the police station. No one paid him any attention. He signed the log-in book and walked into Konnie’s office.
    A heavyset woman, red eyed and crying, looked up.
    “Oh, Mr. Collier. Did you hear?”
    “He’s going to be all right, Genie.”
    “This’s so terrible,” she said, wiping her face. “So terrible. I can’t imagine he’d take to drinking again. I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s going on.”
    “I’m going to help him. But I’ve got to do something first. It’s very important.”
    “He said I should help you when he called. Oh, he sounded so drunk on the phone. I remember he used to call me up and say he wouldn’t be coming in today because he had the flu. But it wasn’t the flu. He sounded the way he was tonight. Just plain drunk.”
    Tate rested his hand on the woman’s broad shoulder. “He’s going to be all right. We’ll all help him. Did you make a copy of the receipts?”
    “I did, yes. He always tells me, ‘Make a copy of everything I give you. Always, always, always make a copy.’ ”
    “That’s Konnie.”
    “Here they are.”
    He took the stack of receipts, owners of Mercedeses who’d bought new Michelins. On four receipts the cash/check box was marked. He didn’t recognize any of the names.
    “Could you run these tag numbers through DMVand get me the names and addresses of the registered owners?”
    “Sure.” She sniffed and waddled to her chair, sat heavily. Then she typed furiously.
    A moment later she motioned him over.
    The first three names matched those on the receipts.
    The fourth didn’t.
    “Oh my God,” Tate muttered.
    “What is it, Mr. Collier?”
    He didn’t answer. He stood, numb, staring at the name Aaron Matthews, Sully Fields Drive, Manassas, the letters glowing in jaundice yellow type on the black screen.

Chapter Twenty-four
    The Court: The prosecution may now present its summation. Mr. Collier?
    Mr. Collier: My friends . . . The task of the jury is a difficult and thankless one. You’re called on to sift through a haystack of evidence, looking for that single needle of truth. In many cases, that needle is elusive. Practically impossible to find. But in the case before you, the Commonwealth versus Peter Matthews, the needle is lying out in the open, evident for everyone to see.
    There is no question that the defendant killed Joan Keller. He was seen walking with the victim, a sixteen-year-old girl, by Bull Run Marina. He was seen leading her into the woods. He was later seen running from the park five minutes before Joan’s body was found, strangled to death. The mud in which her cold corpse lay matched the mud found on the knees of the defendant’s jeans. When he was arrested, as you heard from the testimony, he blurted out to the officers, “She had to die.”
    And in the trailer where he lived, the police found hundreds of comic books and horror novels, depicting big, hulking men doing unspeakable things to helpless women victims—victims just like Joan Keller.
    The defense can see that shiny needle of truth as clearly as you and I can. There’s no doubt in their minds, either, that the defendant killed that poor girl. And so what do they do? They try to distract us. They raise doubts about Joan’s character. They suggest that she had loose morals. That she’d had sex with local boys . . . sometimes for money. Or for liquor or cigarettes. A sixteen-year-old girl! These are nothing more than vile attempts to distract you from finding the needle.
    Oh, they talk about accidental death. “Just playing around,” they say. The killer was a troubled young man, they say, but harmless.
    Well, I’d say the facts of the case prove that he wasn’t harmless at all, don’t you think?
    Harmless men don’t strangle innocent young women seventy pounds lighter than they are.
    Harmless men don’t act out their sick and twisted fantasies on helpless youngsters like Joanie Sue Keller.
    Ladies and gentlemen, don’t let the defense hide that needle of truth from you. Don’t let them cover it up. This case is simple, extremely simple. The defendant, through his premeditation, his calculation, his knowing, purposeful intent, has taken a life. The life of a young girl. Someone’s friend . . . someone’s sister . . . someone’s daughter. There is no worse crime than that. And he must be held fully responsible for it.
    The great poet Dante