Mrs. Givens thanks me for coming, then moves purposefully toward the door.

"You switched to prizefighting for a living?" Joe Cantor is standing beside me, a glint of humor in his eyes.

My hand instinctively goes to my bruised eye. "I fell."

"We still miss you at the office," he says, shaking my hand with a grip reminiscent of Shad Johnson's. "Nobody works a jury the way you did, Penn."

"I wasn't working them, Joe. I was speaking from the heart."

"That's what I'm talking about. They don't teach that in school. You were also the only assistant with the balls to argue with me. I kind of miss that too, believe it or not." He leans closer. "Watch out for Portman. That prick's had a hard-on for you ever since Hanratty's trial. And call me if you ever get tired of writing books."

Then he is past me, shaking hands with someone else, working the crowd even here.

As I pass into the hall beyond the door, I find myself face to face with John Portman. His guards stand two feet behind him, their jackets unbuttoned to provide easy access to their weapons. Portman studies me with gray eyes set in his windburned face, a badge of privilege he has cultivated since youth. I decide to fire the first shot in this skirmish.

"I can't figure out what you're doing here, Portman. You must have known you were exposing yourself to something like what just happened."

"I can absorb what just happened," he replies, his voice edgier than I remember. "It was worth it to see that genetic debris put down."

A couple of reporters stop to question the FBI director, but the guards hustle them through the door.

"You're friends with Special Agent Peter Lutjens, aren't you?" Portman says.

A cold wind blows through my soul. "Just tell me."

"He's being transferred to Fargo, North Dakota. Lovely winters, I hear."

"The guy is blameless, John."

"Internal security is one of the hallmarks of the new Bureau," he replies in a PR voice. "Agent Lutjens didn't understand that."

As I wonder how Portman learned of my contact with Lutjens, he says, "Stick your nose into Bureau business, you get rhinoplasty. It's that simple."

I usually try to avoid confrontations like this. They profit no one. But John Portman has a special place in my pantheon of dark spirits, and my guilt for what happened to Lutjens already weighs on me like a heavy stone.

"I go where the cases take me," I tell him. "And you'd do well to remember what happened the last time you went up against me."

After years of near omnipotence as a federal judge, a man becomes unused to resistance. FBI directors must enjoy similar insulation from unpleasantness, because Portman's thin lips narrow to a white line, and his eyes blaze. Before he can threaten me further, I simply walk past him and down the hall. A rush of footsteps comes after me, and a hand jerks me around.

It's Portman, his face livid. "You fucking dilettante-"

"You're not a judge anymore, Portman. You're a civil servant, serving at the pleasure of the President. And presidents are pretty sensitive to negative publicity."

His grimace morphs into a twisted smile. "You don't know what power is, Cage. But if you keep pushing, you're going to find out."

"All this over a little Mississippi murder," I murmur. "I push in Natchez, you feel it in Washington. I find that very interesting. I think a lot of people will."

This time when I walk away, Portman doesn't follow.

As I descend the staircase and cross the dark pavement outside the death house, I feel my pulse pounding in my temples. There's nothing quite like threatening the director of the FBI to get the blood circulating. I quicken my steps toward the parking lot, wanting to get out of the prison as swiftly as I can. Life is back at the hotel with Annie and Caitlin, not here at the Walls.

But Portman won't leave my thoughts. I can't shake the feeling that he came to Huntsville specifically to see me, and not Arthur Lee Hanratty. He knew he could speak to me here without appearing to have sought me out. His ruthless punishment of Peter Lutjens proves that my interest in the Pay-ton murder has touched a bureaucratic nerve, at the very least. And at worst? I can't even guess. Anything is possible.

As I near my rental car, a couple of reporters from the witness room start shouting questions at me. Do I really believe the death penalty is a deterrent? Am I absolutely convinced of Hanratty's guilt? What were John Portman and I talking about? What was the FBI director doing here at all? I climb into the car, resisting the temptation to pour gasoline onto the fire of the Payton case. I need to think. I need to see Annie and Caitlin.

As I drive through the gate of the Walls, passing the now silent crowd standing their candlelight vigil in the rain-swept darkness, one thing comes clear to me. This is the last trip I will make to this prison. The yellow glow of the candles grows smaller in my rearview mirror. Three more men pass their days on death row because I put them here.

They will die without me present.

CHAPTER 21

When I reach the hotel, Caitlin is waiting for me with a cold can of Dr Pepper and a chicken sandwich. I'm starving. It took two hours to get back to Houston through the rain and traffic, but knowing that Annie might not go to sleep without me close kept me from stopping for food. I shouldn't have worried. She is sound asleep in one of the double beds, while the television plays CNN in muted tones. Caitlin is wearing silk pajamas that somehow look demure and sexy at the same time. I collapse at the table by the window and devour the sandwich, then drink the Dr Pepper in a few gulps. Her instincts are as accurate as always; she says nothing while I eat.

"Thank you," I tell her, tossing the sandwich wrapper into the wastepaper can. "Really."

"I saw a clip of you coming out of the prison. Was it bad?"

"Bad enough. That's the last one I go to."

"Let's change the subject, then. Annie only woke up once, and I rubbed her back till she fell asleep again."

"I really appreciate you staying with her."

"No problem. She's great." Caitlin reaches out and touches my knee. "You really look tired. You want me to go to my room so you can crash? Our flight to Gunnison leaves at eight-thirty."

We're renting a Cherokee in Gunnison for the drive up to Crested Butte. "I don't think I can get to sleep yet."

"Okay." She scoots back in her chair and folds her legs beneath her. "Let's talk business, then. Your assistant called. Your ATF friend called her and confirmed that Payton's car was destroyed by C-4 plastic explosive. They found traces of something called RDX in the shrapnel. He said there should be plenty more embedded in the metal of Payton's car. No problem to prove in court."

Half my fatigue disappears in the shot of adrenaline this produces. "So, Ray Presley planted the blasting caps and dynamite. And someone falsified the lab report."

She nods. "I've been studying your copy of the police report. It's mostly gossip, really. Wild theories. The interesting thing is that there were rumored suspects the detectives never talked to, local guys who had done other race crimes. Almost as if Creel and Temple knew those suspects weren't guilty."

"Presley may well have planted that C-4 himself. He's killed before. But for money usually. If he killed Payton, it wasn't on his own hook."

"You think he killed Payton for Leo Marston?"

"Yes."

"Where did you first get the idea Marston was involved?"

"From the deputy who saved us the other night. Ike Ransom."

"Well… I hope you can trust him. Because I've got to tell you, everything my people have found on Marston indicates that he's a liberal, as far as race goes, anyway."