Apache Country by Frederick H. Christian Read Free Book Online

Ironheel said, staring sullenly at the
floor. “Negative. No comment.”
    “We’ve got you, Chief,” Jack said, Hostile
Cop pressing hard now. “And you know it. We’ve got you at the
scene, we’ve got you with the billfold, we’ve got you with the
blood. Do yourself a favor, tell us the truth.”
    Ironheel looked at Easton again. There was
anger in the dark eyes now and, Easton thought, a kind of
desperation.
    “Doo nt’é da!” he said, his voice rising, his
face sullen and hostile. “Nothing more!”
    This was going nowhere, Easton thought. He
gave it a final shot.
    “Last call, Ironheel,” he said. “Talk, or
take your chances with the judge.”
    “Wouldn’t make any difference if I did!”
Ironheel burst out, his voice bitter. “You already got your minds
made up.”
    “Tell me something I want to hear,” Easton
said, softly. “And I promise I’ll listen.”
    Ironheel’s head came up very slowly and again
Easton thought he saw something in the dark eyes– could it have
been entreaty? – but again the Apache turned away before Easton
could be sure he’d seen it. Again he softened his voice.
    “Anything?”
    Ironheel looked at Irving and Cochrane and
then looked away.
    “That’s it then,” Easton said, and stood up.
“You got till tomorrow to change your mind.”
    Jack Irving recorded the time and switched
off the recording machine. They buzzed Patti to let them out and
then walked Ironheel back to his cell where Patti locked him in. As
the cage clanged shut he looked at Easton again and this time the
message in the dark eyes came through loud and clear: help me.
    The three men went back to the receiving
office and sat down in the waiting room. It was dark outside now.
Tom Cochrane took his cigarettes out of his pocket and looked at
the pack thoughtfully for a moment before speaking.
    “We’re getting no place with this guy,” he
said.
    Jack Irving nodded agreement. “No fucking
comment,” he muttered.
    Easton said nothing, the implications of
Ironheel’s silent signal still spinning around in his mind. He
couldn’t have read it wrong. But what did it mean?
    “That reminds me,” he told them, shaking off
his preoccupation. “Charlie Goodwin’s office is sending an attorney
over to represent him.”
    Goodwin was the senior partner in the law
firm that contracted much of the County’s public defender work.
When Easton told him Ironheel had waived his right to an attorney,
his reaction was immediate. McKittrick knew better than to allow a
suspect in a murder case to waive, it was a direct infringement of
Ironheel’s Constitutional rights, he’d get someone over as soon as
he could, and so on. Of course, Easton thought sourly, the fact
that representing a suspect in a high profile murder case with
national media attention could be very good for business had
nothing whatever to do with it.
    “So when does this hotshot arrive?” Tom
Cochrane asked.
    “Sometime tomorrow morning would be my
guess.”
    “Tell you what,” Cochrane said,
mock-brightly. “Let’s go back in there with a riot baton and appeal
to his better nature.”
    Easton smiled and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I know how you feel, Tom,” he said. “You gave it your best
shot.”
    Cochrane shrugged philosophically. “There’s
still time,” he said. “That guy is hiding something. I could see it
in his eyes.”
    “Yeah,” Irving said. “But what?”
    Help me, Easton thought. He couldn’t have
been mistaken. What Ironheel had silently said was help me.

Chapter Five
    When Easton got home, Grita was in the den
watching TV. She gave him one of her you-did-it-again looks and
lumbered off into the kitchen with her nose in the air. He followed
her in.
    “I made burritos,” she said. He could feel
the weight of her reproach.
    “Things ran late,” he said. “Honest, I’m
sorry.”
    “Is okay,” she said, her tone making it clear
that okay it most definitely was not. In Grita’s world, people ate
their