“Nah. I just wanted to say that I was kidnapped and raped by all the disciples,” she said. Then, “Just a minute.” She stood up and pulled her cat tail off, dropped it on the interview table, and sat down again. “That’s better.”

“Let’s go all the way back to the start,” Lucas said. “Do you know if Pilate or the disciples murdered an actress named Kitty Place last year?”

“I wasn’t there, but they told me about it,” she said. She looked at Lucas for a moment, then at Frisell, back to Lucas: “Pilate and the guys all fucked her and then they cut her up and threw her in the ocean. But—she wasn’t the start. Not even close. I think that’s what they were going to do to me, when they were done with me.”

“What was the start?” Lucas said.

“I wasn’t there for it—but way back, I don’t know . . . maybe five years? They killed some guy by bashing his head with a rock. On a beach, near Malibu. They put him in the ocean, too. See, when they kill someone, they either put them in the ocean or they bury them up in the hills.”

“How many have they done that to?” Frisell asked.

“Well, the second one they killed, one of the girls told me this, was a traveler guy, and he had this walking stick with a bird’s head on it. Pilate kept it and every time they kill someone, he cuts a notch in it. There are like maybe . . . ten notches.”

“Not really,” Frisell said.

“Really.” She nodded, and added, “I hate it when they kill somebody, because they get all excited and then they gang-rape me.”

“Do you know where Pilate is now?”

“Well, he’s around somewhere. But he’s smart—he wasn’t going to be the first person to show up at the Gathering. He sent his spies in, first. Raleigh was spying on you back at the other Gathering, he saw you and that girl that Pilate hit. Raleigh thinks she’s your daughter. Wait: he thought she was your daughter. Guess he’s not thinking anything, anymore.”

Lucas felt the chill: he didn’t want Letty and Pilate linked in any way. Didn’t want Pilate or any of his disciples even aware of Letty. “But Pilate’s around,” Lucas prompted.

“Somewhere. Up here, I think. Raleigh was supposed to call him at midnight tonight and give him the all-clear.”

“We arrested those two guys that you and Raleigh talked to, the guys on the blanket.”

“Jase and Parker, yeah, they used to rape me all the time,” she said. “Sometimes, both of them at once. They call it a double-team.”

“Were they involved in the killings?”

She considered for a moment, then said, “Jase always was, Parker, maybe a couple of times, but he wasn’t so much into it. I mean, he’d do it, but he wasn’t really all hot for it. He was afraid we’d get caught—they’d get caught—and get sent to the electric chair.”

Frisell: “You said this Pilate guy’s got ten notches . . . How many were you there for?”

She stuck out her lip, considering again. “Maybe four? They were doing it a long time before they kidnapped me.”

Lucas said, “Sit here for a minute. We’ll be right back.”

Petrelli said, “Hey, I’m helping you guys. What do I get out of it? I want something . . .”

“We’ll talk to your lawyer about it,” Lucas said. “He’s on his way here.”

He led Frisell out in the hall and Lucas said, “She’s worse than Walker. There’s something wrong with her.”

“If she’s been raped by everybody, for years . . .”

“Could be trauma,” Lucas agreed. “After a while, your brain blows up. On the other hand, she could be trying to manipulate us—she knows the jig is up. Let’s see if Walker’s lawyer is here yet. If he’s not, we could get her out—”

“I thought you said we weren’t supposed to talk to her.”

“We’re not supposed to ask her any more questions—but we can talk to each other while she’s around. If she blurts something out, I mean, we’ve told her not to talk to us anymore. On the video.”

“What would we be talking about?” Frisell said.

•   •   •

THEY GOT WALKER OUT of the holding cell and took her to the back of the building to the vending machines where Lucas bought her a Diet Dr Pepper and a sack of Cheez-Its. He said to Frisell, “If Linda’s telling the truth, we’ll get everybody for rape, too. Not that we really need it.”

“At least ten murders,” Frisell said. “They really are going to get the needle. All of them. Ten. Fuckin’. Murders. Just unbelievable.”

Walker said, “Linda? You got Linda?”

Lucas: “Yeah. Probably shouldn’t tell you this, but one of your pals, what’s his name . . . ?”

Frisell: “Raleigh?”

Walker said, “You got Raleigh and Linda?”

“Raleigh tried to shoot his way past us,” Lucas said. “He was killed.”

Her mouth dropped open: “You’re lyin’.”

“No. He was shot. Had a great big chrome revolver under the front seat of his Subaru, tried to pull it on us,” Lucas said. “Now Linda’s telling us the whole story: ten murders, at least. She’s been kidnapped and raped—”

“Linda? Linda’s the worst one,” Walker said, gaping at them over the Dr Pepper. “She wasn’t raped: she’d fuck anything that moved. Any way they wanted it. She’s the one, you know, that boy out in the Black Hills, she’s the one who cut off his cock. She was dancing around with it, and he was still alive. If you look in her car, you might find it. She said she was going to make a leather weed pouch out of it.”

They stared at her for a while, then Frisell said, “Oh, boy.” And a few seconds later, to Lucas, “Where do these people come from? How do they get like this?”

“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “I told my daughter you’d hear all these urban legends, all these bullshit stories. I told her they never turned out to be true. Well, guess what?”

Frisell looked at Walker, then at Lucas and asked, “How do we know which one is lying? One of them must be.”

“We got more people to question,” Lucas said. “We better motor on over there.”

•   •   •

THEY TOOK PETRELLI to the holding cell and locked her in, and put Walker in the interview room, locked up, and told the night deputy that the lawyer could talk to Walker, and probably Petrelli, but that he should talk to Lucas before he spoke to either of the women. “Tell him it’s important to call me,” Lucas said.

•   •   •

THE TWO MEN at the city lockup were named Jason Biggs and Parker Collins; the city had two holding cells, both as bleak as the tan-tiled cell at the sheriff’s office, designed to fend off vomit and urine in the most efficient way possible. Biggs was in one cell, Collins in the other.

Barnes and Bennett, who transported them down from the park, said, “They’re pretty hard-core. We tried to chat and Biggs told Collins to ask for a lawyer. They asked us for a lawyer. I told him that we didn’t know anything about that, and you’d tell them, or Rome would.”

Lucas asked Frisell, “You up for another conversation?”

“Sure.”

A city officer asked if they wanted to use the interview room, and Lucas said, “Not yet.” And to Barnes and Bennett, “You guys get their cell phones?”

“Yeah.” Barnes nodded. “We bagged them.”

“Look at all their recents and write them down. See if any of them list a P or a Pilate.”

The city cop took them down to the first holding cell, where Biggs was locked up. They stepped inside, and Biggs, sitting on the tile bench, still wearing the vicious happy clown face, said, “You’re not a lawyer.”

“I’m a cop. You’ve got the right—”

“No shit. I want a lawyer. Now.”

“Absolutely right,” Frisell said from Lucas’s shoulder. “Screw him. Why should we give him a break? We got everything we need from Linda and Melody. I’d stick the needle in this guy myself.”

Biggs grinned at them through the red, white, and black face paint: “Hey. I been bullshitted by better cops than you. I want the lawyer.”

Lucas and Frisell backed out of the cell and the city cop locked the door behind them. Frisell said, “No Academy Award for that.”