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“Yes, sir,” the captain said, then saw that Ziegler was smiling and gave him a dirty look.

Hessinger went on: “And hurry it up, please, Mr. Ziegler. I want to take Claudette home as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” Ziegler said.

The captain’s face told Ziegler that the captain had picked up on Hessinger’s “take Claudette home” remark and was puzzled by it. Ziegler smiled.

The captain saw the smile and glowered at him.

Ziegler thought: I’ll pay for those smiles when my TDY with these DCI people is over.

So what? It was worth it to see Hessinger cut Captain Chickenshit off at the knees.

And maybe I can arrange to stick around this DCI for a long time.

—

As soon as the door to Interrogation Room Three closed, Claudette started to get out of her chair.

Hessinger shook his head and held up his hand, signaling her to stay put.

Thirty seconds later, he walked to the wall and put his back to the one-way mirror, completely covering it. Confident that he could not be seen if anyone was still on the other side of the mirror, he signaled Claudette to come to him.

She went to him. He opened his arms and embraced her.

“Oh, Freddy!” she said, and then began to sob.

He patted her back comfortingly.

“There’s a reason you’re upset,” Hessinger said. “It’s to be expected. Killing someone isn’t easy.”

She pushed herself away from him far enough so that she could look up into his face.

“What I’m upset about is that I’m upset. If I hadn’t shot those bastards, they’d have killed me. And Florence. What’s happened to her?”

“She’s been taken to the 98th. She had to be sedated. MPs are sitting on her, and as soon as Max can get his people over there, they’ll sit on the MPs.”

“And Jim Cronley?”

“I think right now he’s on the telephone to Wallace, telling him what we know.”

“What I need right now is a bath and clean clothes,” she said. “I didn’t know that heads really explode when you put a bullet in them.”

She pushed herself farther away from him and looked at his body.

“And some of what landed on me is now on you. Sorry, Freddy.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“And after . . . before I get out of my clothes and into the shower, I need a drink.”

He reached into one of the pockets of his tunic and came out with a leather-covered flask.

“Cognac,” he said, as he handed it to her.

“Freddy, you’re amazing,” Claudette said, as she unscrewed the top.

“I know.”