“Everything. He’s the kind of guy who shows up late and picks a fight over nothing. Everything was trouble with him. Don’t know how he got hired in the first place.”
He rattled a locked door, then moved on to the next.
Apparently, Tinsley had not warned others not to talk to her. That would be a risky move, she knew, because she could and would call people to the stand to prove interference. It was easier for him to bide his time, she thought, and let the final hours drain away. The execution was set for the day after tomorrow, after all. The chances of her stopping it now were close to nil.
“You see much of Frank outside work?”
“Me? No,” he said, derisively. “Frank Castle is the kind of guy who hits you up for a beer at the bar, saying it’s his turn next, then disappears. Besides, we got nothing in common.”
“When was he fired?”
“Well, let me think on that,” he said, his shoes squeaking down the hall. He tried another door, this time to an old-fashioned press room. The door opened, and she glimpsed a room that looked like it had beenlifted from a movie starring Cary Grant. At one time, courthouses had these rooms for reporters during major trials. They would come here to type their stories, and rush to a bank of phones to call them in to newspapers across the country.
“Someone missed this one,” he said, pulling out the massive key chain on his belt and locking it. “If I’m remembering right, Frank didn’t last long. He got fired after a year or two. Not many stay in this line of work. It’s dull, when it’s not stressful.”
They could hear the rattle of a custodian’s bucket behind them as the man dragged it down the hall. The custodian was wearing a prison inmate uniform, Ruby noticed. The mop swished.
She and the guard went down a flight of stairs.
“Got any idea where he lives nowadays?”
“No idea, sorry.”
“He’s someplace.”
“Country like this, there’s a million places a man can live. Hunting cabins in the woods. Abandoned prepper compounds. We got plenty of land a man can eke out a life, especially if he got a supply of firewood. You got places like that where you’re from?”
Ruby thought of the rural areas of Oregon.
“We sure do,” she said, warmly.
“Working in a place like this, we get all beliefs. I try to be reasonable with people. I let them know that.”
“You ever see Frank back here, later?”
His hand froze on a doorknob he had probably touched a thousand times. His key chain shook.
“Not sure I have,” he said, and she felt he was lying.
“Jerrod Tinsley sign your checks, or the courthouse?”
“Miss.”
She thought of the exhibit boxes as they made their way down the final hall, where he checked doors.
“You all have a service entrance here?” she asked. “For staff to come through?”
“Yes. In the back.”
That was where the boxes left, she thought. They didn’t even have to go through the front. Where the lead security would have been that day, watching the last of the excited jurors leave, while people celebrated outside. No one would have witnessed it. There would be no need to lie and say,I never saw it. Because he never did.
They stopped back in front of the café, with an almost-empty glass case. In the corner was the table where she had sat, drinking her coffee and reading the dockets.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said, earnestly. “It’s your job, which is why I’m talking to you. But that man is guilty. You really shouldn’t be helping him like this.”
“What makes you think Mitchell is guilty?”
“The jury said so, didn’t they? And that evidence, it may have gotten lost, but it was there. They caught him red-handed.”
