He continued to stare at her, and she dropped the newspaper she was holding back onto the pile.

I study criminology. "Media and Crime." Wednesdays, five-thirty P.M. to seven-thirty P.M. It's an elective. Criminology 307. Professor Morin. That's why I collect newspapers.'

She let her eyes sweep over the desk again.

'I'm getting an A,' he added. He restored the mocking tone to his voice. 'Now, tell me what you want, he insisted.

'All right,' she said. The force of his gaze was making her uncomfortable. She stepped away from his desk and returned to face him directly.

'When were you last in the Florida Keys? Upper Keys. Islamorada. Marathon. Key Largo. When did you go down there to talk to some civic group?' She made no attempt to conceal her sarcasm.

'I've never been in the Keys,' he replied.

'No?'

'Never.'

'Of course, if I had someone telling me the contrary, that would say something, wouldn't it?' She lied easily, but the implicit threat seemed to wash off him.

'It would say someone was feeding you false information.'

'You know a street called Tarpon Drive?'

'No.'

'Your friend Cowart's been there.'

He didn't reply.

'You know what he found there?'

'No.'

'Two dead bodies.'

'Is that why you're here?'

'No,' she lied. 'I'm here because I don't understand something.'

A cold rigidity rode his voice. 'What don't you understand, Detective?'

'You, Blair Sullivan, and Matthew Cowart.'

There was a momentary silence in the room.

'I can't help you,' he said.

'No?' Ferguson had the ability to make someone uncomfortable simply by remaining still, she thought. 'All right. Tell me what you were doing in the days before your old buddy Blair Sullivan got juiced.'

For an instant, a look of surprise sliced across his face. Then Ferguson answered, I was here. Studying. Going to classes. My course list is on the wall there.'

'Right before Sullivan went to the chair. Did you take one of your little trips?'

'No.'

He pointed at the wall. She turned and saw a list taped to the faded paint. She went over and wrote down the times and places and professors' names. Professor Morin and 'Media and Crime' were on the list.

'Can you prove it?'

'Do I have to?'

'Maybe.'

'Then maybe I can.'

Shaeffer heard a siren sweep by in the distance, its sound penetrating into the small room.

'… And he was never my buddy,' Ferguson said. 'In fact, he hated me. I hated him.'

'Is that right?'

'Yes.'

'What do you know about the murders of his stepfather and mother?'

Ts that your case?'

'Answer the question.'

'Nothing.' He smiled at her, then added, 'No. I know what I read and saw on television. I know they were killed a few days before his execution and that he told Mr. Cowart that he managed to arrange the deaths. That was in the papers. Even made the New York Times, Detective. But that's all.' Ferguson seemed to relax. His voice abruptly took on the tone of someone who enjoyed verbal fencing.

'Tell me how he could arrange those killings,' she asked. 'You're the Death Row expert.'

'That's right, I am.' Ferguson paused, thinking. 'There are a couple of different ways…' He grinned at her unpleasantly. 'First thing I'd do is pull the visitor lists. They log every visitor onto the Row. Every lawyer, reporter, friend, and family member. I'd go back to the day Sullivan arrived on the Row and I'd check every single person who came to see him. There were quite a bunch, you know. Shrinks and producers and FBI specialists. And of course, eventually, Mr. Cowart…' Ferguson's voice had a slightly animated edge to it '… And then I'd talk to the guards. You know what it takes to be a guard on Death Row? You've got to have a bit of the killer in you, you know, because you're always aware that one day it could be you strapping some poor sucker into the chair. You've got to want to be that man.' He held up his hand. 'Oh, hell, they'll tell you that it's just a job and nothing personal and nothing different from any other part of the prison, but that ain't true. You got to volunteer for Q, R, and S wings. And you got to like what you're doing. And like what you might have to do.'

He looked up at her, eyes alert. '… And I don't suppose if you don't think it's such a damn hard thing to strap somebody into a chair and fry their ass it'd be such a damn hard thing to go tie somebody in a chair and cut their throat.'

1 didn't say they had their throats cut.'

'It was in all the papers.'

'Who?' she asked. 'Give me a name or two.'

'You're asking me to help you?'

'Names. Who on the Row would you talk to?'

He shook his head. 'I don't know. But they were there. You could tell, you know. The Row is a society of killers. It didn't take too long to figure out that some of the jailers belonged on the other side.'

He continued to grin at her. 'Go and see for yourself,' he said. 'Shouldn't take a sharp detective like yourself too long to figure out who's bent and who's not.'

'A society of killers,' she said. 'Where did you fit in, Mr. Ferguson?'

'I didn't. I was on the fringe.'

'How much would you have to pay?'

He shrugged. 'I don't know. A lot? A little? Currency is a hard thing to estimate, Detective, because the right person will do the wrong thing for a lot of different reasons.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, Blair Sullivan, for example. He'd likely kill you for no reason at all. With no other payment than the sheer pleasure of it, huh, Detective? You ever meet anybody like that? I don't bet so. You look a bit young and inexperienced for that.'

His eyes followed her as she shifted position. 'And you know, Detective, there's some men on the Row hate the police so bad, they'd kill a cop for free. And enjoy every second of it. Especially if they could, you know, draw it out. Make it last.'

He mocked her with lilting tones. 'And they'd take a special pleasure in killing a lady cop, don't you think, Detective? A special, unique, and very terrible pleasure.'

She didn't reply, simply letting the harsh words flow over her like cold water.

– '… Or Mr. Cowart. Seems to me he'd do just about anything for a good story. What do you think, Detective?'

She felt a surge within her. 'What about you, Mr. Ferguson? What payment would you ask to kill somebody?'

His smile slid away. 'Never killed anybody. Never will.'

'That's not the question, Mr. Ferguson. What payment would you ask for?'

'It would depend,' he replied, with ice quiet riding his voice.

'Depend on what?' she demanded.

'Depend on who it was I was going to kill.' He stared across the room at her. 'Isn't that true for everybody, Detective? There are some killings that would require big money, right? Others you'd do for nothing.'

'What would you do for nothing, Mr. Ferguson?'

He smiled again. 'Can't really say. Never thought about it.'

'Really? That's not what you told those two Escambia detectives. Not what a jury found.'

Barely contained rage creased the complacency of his face, and he replied in bitter, low tones, 'That was beat out of me. You know that perfectly well. Judge threw it out. I never did anything to that little girl. Sullivan did, he killed her.'

'And the price?'

'In that case,' Ferguson said coldly, 'the price was paid in pleasure.'

'What about Sullivan and his family? What do you think he'd have paid for those deaths?'

'Blair Sullivan? I suspect he'd have paid with his soul to take them with him.'

Ferguson leaned forward, lowering his voice. 'You know what he told me, before I figured out he was the person who killed the little girl that had put me on the Row? He used to talk about cancer, you know. Like some damn doctor, he knew so much about the disease. He would simply start in talking about deformed cells and molecular structures and DNA breakdowns and how just this little, tiny, microscopic wrong was working away within you, wreaking evil right through your whole body and working hard so that it would get in your lungs and colon and pancreas and brain and whatever, just make you rot away from within. And when he'd finish his lecture, he'd lean back and say why he was just the same damn thing, no different at all. What do you think of that, Detective?'