Until Proven Guilty by J. A. Jance

jump if he tells them.”
    “For instance,” Peters said.
    “If he told them to eat dog shit they’d do it.” He said it quickly, with a ring of falsehood.
    “That’s not really what you’re talking about, is it?” Peters’ face was a mask that I had a hard time reading myself. Carstogi gave him an appraising look, then shook his head.
    Peters followed up on the opening he had made. “You’re afraid to tell us for fear you’ll end up being prosecuted too, aren’t you?”
    “It’s scary,” Carstogi admitted. “I didn’t realize until after I got out. You just do what he tells you, what everyone else is doing. It doesn’t seem so bad at the time. You don’t think that you’re hurting someone. The whole time Brodie is there telling you that suffering is the only way those sinners are going to heaven, that you are the chosen instrument of God.”
    “Shit.” Peters got up and left the table. He went into the bar and came back a few minutes later. A distinct odor of gin came with him. Maybe the juniper berries in gin had been promoted to health food status. Because I knew about Broken Springs, Oregon, and Peters’ own situation, I could feel for him, but to leave in the middle of an interrogation was inexcusable, to say nothing of drinking on duty.
    I made a mental note to climb his frame about it later. I don’t like personal considerations to get in the way of doing the job. If you’re a professional, that kind of thing doesn’t happen. Objectivity is the name of the game. While I was making that little set of mental notes, I should have remembered something they used to say in Sunday School about taking the beam out of your own eye before you start worrying about the mote in somebody else’s. But then, I was still very much the professional. J. P. Beaumont hadn’t reached his own breaking point yet. It was coming.
    Carstogi was exhausted. We put him up in the Warwick, which happens to be at Fourth and Lenora, a half block cornerwise from where I live. It made dropping him off and tucking him in a simple matter. He seemed more than happy for us to stick him in a hotel room and tell him we’d come get him in the morning.
    Peters came with me to my apartment. I got out my MacNaughton’s and located a dusty gin bottle with enough dregs for a reasonable drink or two. We tried to plan for morning, which by now was already upon us.
    “You think he’s telling the truth?” I asked Peters.
    He nodded. “Sounds like it to me, as far as it goes. He’s scared some of the shit is going to roll downhill and he’ll end up with charges lodged against him. I’m afraid he’ll rabbit on us before we can get him into court.”
    I had to agree with Peters’ assessment. If we went strictly with Carstogi, we would be leaning on a bent reed. “Do you suppose we can use him to bring Suzanne around?”
    Peters considered for a moment. “It would be worth a try, although I doubt it’ll work. Even considering what she’s been through, she won’t squeal on that Brodie bastard. That’s the mystifying part about brainwashing. She may know he’s a killer, but she’ll stick to him like glue.”
    “You could be right,” I allowed, “but we have the element of surprise on our side. She has no way of knowing that Andrew Carstogi is in town. Maybe if we brought him over and dumped him on her, it would jar her into slipping. After all, they were together almost ten years. She probably still has some feelings for him.”
    “It’s worth a try,” Peters agreed.
    We made arrangements to meet at the Warwick at eight. We’d take Carstogi with us to breakfast and then head for Gay Avenue. We’d try to get there before Suzanne had a backup group from Faith Tabernacle. Our best bet was to catch her alone.
    Peters left. In the quiet of my apartment, Anne Corley returned to tantalize me. I had managed to keep thoughts of her at a distance while Peters was there, while I was doing my job, but now her presence—or rather