Free Fury and the Power by John Farris Page A

or straight religion. Mostly paperbacks on his bookshelf, required reading material for school. He subscribed to Sports illustrated . The swimsuit issue was well thumbed. Posters on his walls were of local pro sports figures. Chipper Jones, Michael Vick. Photos of his mother and father, who lived with a new wife and an infant son in Phoenix. Jimmy and his siblings spent three weeks each summer and alternate Christmases in Arizona. There were snapshots of the kids with R. Palmer Nixon, burly and balding, prosperous in pawn broking and the used-car biz. Poolside at the house in Paradise Valley, horseback riding in a desert mountain setting. In the photos everyone seemed to be having a good time. Arms around each other, spontaneous smiles, no sulks or resentful faces as if the kids had been made to pose. The APD detective who had gone to Phoenix to talk to the heartbroken Palmer Nixon had heard nothing to indicate that Jimmy might have had a violent temper kept carefully under control.
    Albums of snapshots. Proms, parties. Jimmy with girls his age, but seldom the same girl twice. No one special in his young life. Team pictures dating back to Jimmy's first appearance in a Pee-Wee Football uniform.
    Gruvver took a closer look at a glossy photo recently Scotch-taped to the mirror over Jimmy's dresser. Jimmy with his dad and a woman who may have been his stepmother; the fourth person in the photo, between the others, seemed familiar to Gruvver. Showbiz type, looking straight at the camera, big smile. And the photo was autographed to Jimmy.
    "Know who that is?" Gruvver asked Matt Ronyak. "Can't place him. An actor?"
    "Magician, I think. Not David Copperfield." He puzzled over the signature, all loops and flourishes. "Gray, something. That's who he is. Lincoln Grayle. They must have done Vegas when Jimmy was out there this past summer, taken in some shows."
    "Anything else we need to look at in here?"
    Gruvver stared at a portrait of Jimmy, age about ten, all ears and teeth and with that sunny smile, face-to-face in winsome profile with his mother. It was a long stare, with sparse expectations.
    "Nice kid. No history of substance abuse. Well adjusted as kids come nowadays. Took the divorce okay... everyone says. Did his chores, got the grades, played football. He was hoping for a scholarship to a Division I school, but he was undersized for a college lineman these days, no foot speed his coach says. I guess he would have adjusted to that disappointment too. Four nights ago he has a good supper, kisses Mom good-bye, gets into his car, drives to Philips Arena, waits for his chance, then kills a man like a wild animal kills. Or the remote ancestor still hangin' around like a ghost in the atavistic brain. It's almost as if Jimmy—"
    Gruvver made a gesture of dissatisfaction and irritability.
    "What?" Ronyak prompted with a sour glance. Gruvver was using unfamiliar words again, a not-so-subtle reminder of his superior education.
    "I'm not sure." Gruvver shook his head. "Believe in the devil, Matt?"
    "Not since I stopped going to church in a mobile home and speaking in tongues."
    "I don't go none too regular, but I love Jesus and I still read my Bible. If the devil was real enough for Jesus, he's real enough for me. The devil and his legion."
    "Why drag religion into this? The kid just snapped."
    "No rhyme or reason. Yeah. I'm down with that." Ronyak nodded.
    "Good, Lew. Now let's us finish up here, without gettin' melodramatic."
    "Somebody could've been in the car with Jimmy Nixon as he drove downtown. Sat with him in the arena, whisperin' a different sermon in his ear."
    "Like who?"
    "That remote ancestor. Another Jimmy, one he didn't know a thing about."
    "Do I deserve this? The Lew Gruvver Twilight Zone Comedy Hour? How about you yank the wild hair out of your ass, and we try to be professional here. Save your bad hunches for your bookie."
     
    A few minutes after they sat down with Rita Nixon. It was obvious they weren't going to get