Free Stone Shadow by Rex Miller Page A

too clever for us. So nu? So big deal. You go to your just rewards with nobody knowing whatever it is you have going for you. Obviously you're a mean motor scooter, all right, but if you don't want to be serious with us about your methodology, it just makes it look like you had one or more accomplices."
    “That's a load of shit, man! I did those people all alone! Why would I—” He stopped yelling and Jack could see the concentration working, Ukie feeling himself losing it, fighting to keep control. “Why would I need anybody but me? Oh, shit, aaaaaah.” And at that he suddenly got the giggles and there was that flicker of recognition in the eyes that said, Shit, you hooked me that time. All right, copper, that's one for your side. And he said, “I admire your style. That was very deft."
    “Deft?"
    “Deft, man, you know, as in facile, smooth, able, skillful, dexterous, adroit, sure, expert-fucking DEFT. Christ, I gotta get a Roget's so we can talk, you need a fucking interpreter to understand English."
    “You could buy me a little pocket dictionary with your advance you get from the book contract. Not to mention the movie contract."
    Ukie was quiet.
    “I assume that's what Noel Collier is for, right?"
    “You assume wrong, Sherlock Homeboy. No book. No movie. And we made a deal. I gave you bodies. You give me attorney confidentiality. That means no mikes. No cameras. No bullshit surveillance. No—"
    “I don't recall making a deal like that with you at all, Ukie, but I'd certainly be willing to if I could make those kinds of guarantees, Unfortunately I can't. Those sorts of deals have to be negotiated. And with the killer of the century, or however you put it when you were describing yourself, you can see why you'd have some pretty heavy-duty surveillance. What if you'd suddenly concentrate real hard while you were making potty and the Way of the Viper would wipe out a wall. You'd be gone. We'd look dumb. Dallas cops are tired of looking dumb. So that's a problem. On the other hand, attorney-client privilege and confidentiality is guaranteed you, as you know. What can I say? All I can do is tell you that if you don't cooperate with us, if you blow verbal smoke screens and play mind games with us, it's not going to help you. It simply isn't in Ukie Hackabee's best interests."
    “That's your opinion. I disagree."
    “Well, I'll be glad to come back and talk with you if you want to give us more solid information, but this other stuff...” Eichord dismissed it with a gesture. “What can I tell you? You're just spinning, your wheels and ours. Pointless. So ... smoke it over.” Jack got up and headed for the door. “And maybe we'll talk again."

Garland
    H e had his own official loaner and he almost took it but he was into something, his mind on oily lock and load, and he just couldn't face the Big D traffic, the meet with the illustrious female counselor, and all the little furry things scampering around the dark, cobwebbed recesses of his mind, so he let Wally Michaels VIP him again with a driver, and he sat on the passenger side with a notepad, doodling, working on a headache.
    This was one of his crossword-type doodles he'd been working on for an hour or so back in the squad room and he was still chewing on the words. Tuning out everything, letting his mind slip and slide, float free as he doodled out the puzzle or anagram or acrostic or whateverinhell it would prove to be.
    At the lower left there was the neatly printed list of homicide victims. Just names on corpses to him. He would start with just the positives. The victims who were tied together in the jumble of mixed MOs, tied only in death, by circumstance, time lines, geographical linkages, forensics, perhaps entrance wounds made by plunging steel from the same knife blade. Joined in death by the random madness of Mr. Hackabee and/or perpetrators unknown.
    It began with a vertical HAMMONTREEE, FLIPPO coming across from the left horizontally and the Os