The Twelfth Card

the matter?” Cooper glanced over at his boss, concerned.
    Rhyme shouted, “Command, redial!”
    The computer responded on the screen: I did not understand what you said. What would you like me to do?
    “Redial the number.”
    I did not understand what you said.
    “Fuck it! Mel, Sachs . . . somebody hit redial!”
    Cooper did and a few minutes later the criminalist was speaking once again to the warden in Amarillo.
    “J. T., it’s Lincoln again.”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Forget inmates. I want to know about guards .”
    “Guards?”
    “Somebody who used to be on your staff. With eye problems. Who whistled. And he might’ve worked on Death Row before or around the time Tucker was killed.”
    “We all weren’t thinkin’ ’bout employees. And, again, most of our staff wasn’t here five, six years ago. But hold on here. Lemme ask around.”
    The image of The Hanged Man had put the thought into Rhyme’s head. He then considered the weapons and the techniques that Unsub 109 had employed. They were methods of execution: cyanide gas, electricity, hanging, shooting a group of bullets into the heart, like a firing squad. And hisweapon to subdue his victims was a baton, like a prison guard would carry.
    A moment later he heard, “Hey there, Detective Rhyme?”
    “Go ahead, J. T.”
    “Sure ’nough, somebody said that rings a bell. I called one of our retired guards at home, worked execution detail. Name of Pepper. He’s agreed to come into the office and talk to you. Lives nearby. Should be here in just a few minutes. We’ll call you right back.”
    Another glance at the tarot card.
    A change of direction . . .
    Ten insufferably long minutes later the phone rang.
    Fast introductions were made. Retired Texas Department of Justice officer Halbert Pepper spoke in a drawl that made J. T. Beauchamp’s accent sound like the Queen’s English. “Thinkin’ I might be able to help y’all out some.”
    “Tell me,” Rhyme said.
    “Till ’bout five years ago we had us a executions control officer fit the bill of who y’all were describin’ to J. T. Had hisself eye trouble and he whistled up a storm. I was just ’bout to retire round then but I worked with him some.”
    “Who was he?”
    “Fella name of Thompson Boyd.”

IV
D EAD M AN W ALKING

Chapter Twenty-Nine
    Through the speakerphone, Pepper was explaining, “Boyd grew up round these parts. Father was a wildcatter—”
    “Oil?”
    “Field hand, yes, sir. Mother stayed at home. No other kids. Normal childhood, sounded like. Pretty nice, to hear tell. Always talkin’ ’bout his family, loved ’em. Did a lot for his mother, who lost a arm or leg or whatnot in a twister. Always looking out for her. Like one time, I heard, this kid on the street made fun of her, and Boyd followed him and threatened to slip a sidewinder into the boy’s bed some night if he didn’t apologize.
    “Anyway after high school and a year’r two of college he went to work at his daddy’s company for a spell, till they had a string of layoffs. He got fired. His daddy too. Times was bad and he just couldn’t get work round here, and so he moved outa the state. Don’t know where. Got hisself a job at some prison. Started as a block guard. Then there was some problem—their executions officer went sick, I think—and there was nobody to do the job so Boyd done it. The burn went so good—”
    “The what?”
    “Sorry. The electrocution went so good they give him the job. He stayed for a while, but kept on movin’ from state to state, ’cause he was in demand. Became an expert at executions. He knew chairs—”
    “Electric chairs?”
    “Like our Ol’ Sparky down here, yes, sir. The famous one. And he knew gas too, was a expert at riggin’ the chamber. Could also tie a hangman’s noose and not many people in the U.S.’re licensed for that line of work, lemme tell you. The ECO job opened up here and he jumped at it. We’d switched to lethal injections, like most other places, and he became a whiz at them too. Even read up on ’em so he could answer the protesters. There’s some people claim the chemicals’re painful. I myself think that’s the whale people and Democrats, who don’t bother to know the facts. It’s hogwash. I mean, we had these—”
    “About Boyd?” asked impatient Lincoln Rhyme.
    “Yes, sir, sorry. So he’s back here and things go fine for a spell. Nobody really paid him much mind. He was just kinda invisible. ‘Average Joe’ was