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“But I don’t have a motive,” Virgil said.
“Neither do I!” Heath slapped the arms of his chair with both hands. “The furniture in this room is worth more than any amount of money I might have stolen.”
Lucas: “Really? It looks like repro...”
“Repro? Get out, get—”
Virgil: “Wouldn’t you like to know why we are here?” He took his cell phone from his pocket. “I made a recording...”
“Which, I suppose I should tell you, Agent Flowers transcribed and included in a report to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Durey said.
Virgil put the phone on the coffee table in front of Heath, who looked at it like he might have looked at a rat. With the heavy drapes, cushioned seating and carpet, the room was very quiet, and when Virgil clicked on the recording, Hinton’s voice was clear to them all.
Heath listened to the recording until Hinton said:
“...I don’t recruit the surgeons, Noah does that. But, I believe at least three are phony, and maybe five, all from Cuba. Cubans who supposedly work in Central America. Hard to track down. We pay five Cuban surgeons and five surgical nurses, plus travel and supplies, and it comes to between three hundred and fifty and four hundred thousand a year.”
Virgil’s voice: “Jesus, if the guy wasn’t rich, he’s getting that way.”
Hinton: “It’s a good gig. Not something I could have pulled off, because you know, you had to have some status in the community to do it. He has the big house, used to have the hot wife until she died... Oh. Hey.”
—
Heath stood up.“All right. All four of you, out. Get out. I’m calling my attorney. I won’t speak to you again. The charges are ridiculous. Hinton was covering for himself.”
Lucas: “Did he hit himself on the head with a hammer and bleed into the back of his van?”
“Out! Out!” Heath pointed at the door.
They stood, and Durey took a paper from his inside jacket pocket and thrust it at Heath.
“Search warrant. We’re entering your office right now. We’re seeking another for your house, but the judge hasn’t quite decided yet. Don’t try to remove anything. When you drive out onto a public street, you’ll be stopped and your car will be checked. I don’t want to see any smoke coming out of your chimney.”
“Outrageous!”
“Tell that to KSTP. They should be showing up anytime now,” Russo said. “The station made a Freedom of Information request, and under state law we had to comply. I think they’re at your office right now.”
“Out,” Heath bellowed.
—
Out on thesidewalk, Virgil said, “I hope he doesn’t kill himself.”
Russo was looking toward the front window, where Heath stood watching them. “Why? The guy is a waste of air.”
Lucas: “You agree with us? You think he killed Pollard and Hinton?”
“I do now,” Russo said. “I’ve probably interviewed a thousand guilty guys. I know the smell and I could smell it on him.”
Durey: “He’s not only guilty, he’s crazier than a crack-house cockroach.”
Lucas: “But can we convict him?”
“Not yet,” Durey said. “I’d really like to get into his house with a crime scene team.”
“The judge won’t go for it,” Russo said. “I picked my favorite guy to ask, and he said we’re not that close. We need one solid thing. We don’t have it. We can do the office because both the victims worked there...”
Durey held up a hand to Virgil and Lucas: “Don’t be strangers.”
