Twisted

stuck out in all directions. His clothes were muddy and hadn’t been washed in months, it looked like.
    “Sit down, shut up,” Boz barked. “We’re holding you ’cause Nate Spoda ID’d you as the one stashing Armored Courier bags down by the river tonight.”
    “That son of a bitch!” Lester roared and started to rise.
    Boz shoved him back in his seat. “Yep, ID’d you right down to that tattoo of yours, which is the ugliest-looking woman I have ever seen, by the way. Say, that your mother?”
    “That Nate,” Lester muttered, looking at the door, “he’s meat. Oh, that boy’s gonna pay.”
    “Enough of that talk,” Ed said. Then: “We’re going downstairs for five minutes, see the Commonwealth’s Attorney. He’s gonna wanta talk to you. So you just cool your heels in here and don’t cause a ruckus.”
    They stepped outside and locked the door. Boz cocked his head and heard the shuffle of chains moving toward the table. He gave Ed a thumbs-up.
    At the end of the corridor, thick with August heat and moisture, they found Nate Spoda by the vending machines, sitting at a broken Formica table, sipping Pepsi and eating a Twinkie.
    “Come on down here, Nate, just got a few more questions.”
    “After you, sir,” Ed said, gesturing with his hand.
    Nate took another bite of Twinkie and preceded them down the hall toward the interview room. Ed whispered to Boz, “He’ll scream. But we gotta give Lester time to finish it before we go in.”
    “Okay, sure. Hey, Ed?”
    “What?”
    “You know I never shot anybody before.”
    “It ain’t anybody. It’s Lester Botts. Anyway, we’ll shoot together. At the same time. How’s that? Make you feel better?”
    “Okay.”
    “And if Nate’s still alive, shoot him too, and we’ll say it was—”
    “—accidental.”
    “Right.”
    Outside the door, Nate turned to them, washed down the Twinkie with the soda. There was Twinkie cream on his chin. Disgusting.
    “Oh, one thing—” the kid began.
    “Nate, this won’t take long. We’ll have you home in no time.” Ed unlocked the door. “Go on inside. We’ll be in, in a minute.”
    “Sure. But there’s something—”
    “Just go on in.”
    Nate hesitated uncertainly. He started to open the door.
    “Nate,” a man’s voice called.
    Boz and Ed spun around to see three men walking up the hall. They were in suits. And if they weren’t federal agents, Boz thought, I’m Elvis’s ghost. Shit.
    “Hi, Agent Bigelow,” Nate said cheerfully.
    He knows them? Ed’s heart began to race. They interviewed him while we were gone? . . . Okay, think, goddamnit. What’d he tell ’em? Whatta we do?
    But he couldn’t think.
    Wood for brains . . .
    The agent was a tall, somber man, balding, his short blond hair in a monk’s fringe just above narrow ears. He and the others flashed IDs—yep, FBI—and asked, “You’re deputy Bosworth Peller and you’re deputy Edward Rankin?”
    “Yessir,” they offered.
    Boz was thinking: Lord, failure to secure a prisoner is a suspendable offense.
    Ed, thinking pretty much the same, turned to Nate and said, “Tell you what, Nate, let’s us go back to the canteen. Get another soda?”
    “Or Twinkie. Those’re good, ain’t they?”
    “It’s cooler in here,” Nate said and pushed inside the room where Lester and his well-honed knife awaited.
    “No!” Boz shouted.
    “What’s the matter, Deputy?” one of the FBI agents asked.
    “Well, nothing,” Boz said quickly.
    Both Boz and Ed found themselves staring at the door, behind which Nate was probably being stabbed to death at this moment. They forced their attention back to the federal law officers.
    Wondering how they could salvage it. Well, sure . . . if Lester came out in a rush, all bloody, holding the knife, they could still nail him. The agents might even join in.
    Damn, it was quiet in there. Maybe Lester had slit Nate’s throat real sudden and was trying to get out through the window.
    “Let’s go inside,” Bigelow suggested, nodding toward the door. “We should talk about the case.”
    “Well, I don’t know if we want to do that.”
    “Why not?” another agent said. “Nate said it was cooler.”
    “After you,” Bigelow said and motioned to the two deputies.
    Who looked at each other and kept their handsnear their service revolvers as they stepped through the door.
    Lester was sitting in a chair, legs crossed, cuffed hands in his lap. Sitting across the table from him was Nate