“What do you mean?”

“For one thing, Ava dropped me, too. After that, I proceeded to get myself drunk and stayed that way. I’d earn some money, cash a paycheck, and go on a bender. When I ran out of money, I’d sober up and work long enough to pay for the next round of drinking. That’s pretty much how things stood—­right up until just before you and that other detective showed up to arrest me.”

“What changed?”

“A ­couple of months before you came after me, I met another woman—­a good one, this time—­Bernadette Benson.”

“Amanda’s mother?”

He nodded. “She was a peach.”

“And she stuck by you?”

“Yes, she did—­all through the trial and even after I got sent up. She came to see me every week until she died in a car wreck.”

“Getting back to Ava. I understand she testified against you at the trial.”

“That’s true. Amos always said she was bad news. Much as I hate to admit it, I’m pretty sure he was right.”

“What about that other friend, someone named Ken?”

“That would be Ken Mangum,” Lassiter said at once. “He testified at the first trial. When it came time for the second one, my attorney couldn’t find him. He had disappeared into thin air. I heard later that he had died—­that he’d been murdered somewhere up north—­Portland or Seattle, one of those—­but I didn’t find out any of that until years after the fact.”

“I understand from Warden Huffman that you’ve had zero bad-­conduct problems while you’ve been here, so it sounds as though you’ve made some changes.”

Lassiter nodded. “That’s the thing; once you’re inside, you’ve only got two choices. You either get better or you get worse. I decided to do what Amos did and get better.”

“Right,” Brandon agreed.

“He did five years of hard time right here in Florence. Read his way through the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica while he was at it, initialing the bottom of each page with a pencil when he finished reading it. By the way,” Lassiter added, “they still have the same set. Encyclopedias don’t wear out because not enough ­people use them.

“So I did the same thing Amos did—­reading it and marking the pages as I went. Doing that made me feel closer to him as I read, like I could understand him better. I read the Bible, too. One is for my mind and the other for my soul. I like the encyclopedia better,” Lassiter added with a grin. “The librarian ended up getting so tired of having me underfoot all the time that she lets me take the volume I’m reading back to my cell.”

“So you’ve walked the line as long as you’ve been here?”

Lassiter nodded. “Pretty much,” he agreed. “I did it for Amos—­in his memory. That’s what he would have wanted me to do, because staying out of trouble in prison is the best way to stay alive. At first, because I was big and tough, competing gangs tried to drag me into one faction or another. I refused to go, and eventually they gave up. Later on, after I got sick, they left me alone completely. That’s the one good thing about MS. Most of these guys are too dumb to realize that it’s not contagious.”

Aubrey Bayless stirred in his corner and pointed at his watch. Glancing at his own, Brandon was surprised to see how much time had passed.

“What’s in the box?” Lassiter asked as curiosity got the better of him. “You went to the trouble of bringing it, but we haven’t touched it.”

“We seem to have run out of time today,” Brandon said. “We’ll look into the box the next time around. In the meantime, I have one last question. You’ve been here a long time, more than thirty years. If you didn’t kill Amos Warren, who do you think did?”

“Ava,” Lassiter answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Had to be her. I took her to Soza Canyon a ­couple of times, just to screw around.”

“So she knew that was one of the places you and Amos went?”

Lassiter nodded. “I may have even told her that’s where I thought Amos was after the fight in El Barrio.”

“Did you mention your suspicions about Ava to either JFA or Junior Glassman?”

“I did, but they weren’t interested,” Lassiter said. “Those ­people are all about getting me off, not proving me innocent and finding the guilty party. There’s a big difference between the two.”

“Yes,” Brandon agreed, “a big difference.”

If Lassiter was lying, Brandon had to admit this was a convincing performance. “Look,” he said finally, “two separate juries have found you guilty of first-­degree homicide. Justice for All has come up with grounds for either a plea deal or another trial. Apparently you’re not interested in either one. Why not?”

“Because the plea deal means exactly that,” Lassiter said. “It means I plead guilty to second degree and get out with time served. But I won’t do that, Sheriff Walker. I won’t plead guilty to something I didn’t do. Besides, I don’t want to get out.”

Brandon was taken aback. “You don’t? Why not?”

“Look at me,” Lassiter said. “I’m the next thing to helpless. Some days I can’t even get out of bed by myself. At least in prison they assign ­people to look after me. Aubrey here, for example,” he said, gesturing toward the black man waiting patiently in the corner. “Who would I have to take care of me on the outside?”

“What about your daughter?” Brandon suggested. “I’ve met her. I know she cares about you and has been working tirelessly on your behalf. She’s the one who brought in JFA in the first place. She has MS-­related health issues of her own, but I’m sure she’d figure out a way to help you get whatever assistance you need.”

“No!” Lassiter roared, bringing his fist down with a surprisingly powerful blow that made the tabletop shudder. A moment later he winced as pain from damaged nerves shot through his body.

“No,” he said again, more quietly. “Amanda Wasser is not my daughter; she belongs to somebody else. The ­people who raised her are her real parents. I relinquished my right to be her father the moment she was born. If they release me, I might end up being a burden on her, and I refuse to do that. I’d rather stay where I am.”

“Then what’s the point?” Brandon asked. “If you don’t care about getting out, why do you want TLC to investigate Amos Warren’s homicide?”

“Because I didn’t do it,” Big Bad John Lassiter said. “And if I ever do meet Amanda Wasser in person, I don’t want to look the woman in the eye until the rest of the world knows I didn’t do it.”

Brandon thought about that for a moment. For reasons he couldn’t entirely explain, he realized that he believed the whole thing. He believed that John Lassiter, a twice-­convicted killer, wanted to be cleared in his daughter’s eyes, no matter what else happened. And since that twice-­convicted killer was someone who had once befriended Brandon’s troubled son, now proving John Lassiter innocent meant something to Brandon Walker, too.

CHAPTER 18

IN THIS VILLAGE—­THIS KIHHIM—­LIVED A young girl who was always smiling and happy. For this reason she was called Tondam Ge:s—­which means Shining Falls. She was a helpful girl who sometimes looked after the fires and sometimes played with the children. Shining Falls said that she was not afraid of the Evil Giantess, and so she was put in charge of the children of the village and told to keep them safe.

One day, when Shining Falls took the children up to play among the rocks, she slipped and fell. Shining Falls was badly hurt and could not walk. The children were frightened. When they saw the black cloud that was the hair of the Evil Giantess approaching, they began to scream.

Just then, Shining Falls saw a turtle, Large Old Turtle—­Ge’echu Komikch’ed. Shining Falls called Turtle and asked him to take the children back to the village, but first Turtle needed to find someone else to send a message because he would have to go ever so slowly with the little children. Turtle called to the children and started with them down an easy way to the village.