The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(31)

I bit back the urge to tell him where he could stick his rules. Instead, I sat down, took a deep breath, and tugged my folded rap sheet out of my pocket.

“You need to see this,” I said. “But first, were you able to get hold of Jennifer?”

Bentley’s brow furrowed. “Nobody’s seen her. Her, Nicky, Nicky’s, er, little helpers…”

“And your lawyer too,” Corman muttered, “but we know why that shyster went into hiding. Caitlin told him she’d skin him alive if he lost your trial.”

I unfolded the printout, smoothing it out on the table between us.

“I didn’t have a trial.”

“What do you mean?” Bentley asked. “Cormie and I were there, every single day.”

I tapped the corner of the page where the words faded into a smeared blob. “What’s this say? What day was I arrested?”

“September sixteenth,” Corman replied.

“And what day is today?”

“The eighteenth.”

“And how did four months pass between then and now?” I asked.

Bentley fished inside his vest, taking out a slim pair of bifocals. He slipped on the glasses, squinting at the page. Corman just frowned like he was trying to do long division in his head.

“Don’t know what you mean,” Corman said.

This wasn’t working. I had to find some way of attacking the curse at its root. Pointing out the impossibility of the date didn’t seem to dent it; the facts just slipped in one ear and out the other.

“Okay,” I said, “you were both at the trial. Who was the first witness?”

“It was—” Bentley started. He looked at Corman, who blinked.

“I think it was one of the cops,” Corman said. “Wasn’t it? It was.”

“It was,” Bentley agreed. The momentary confusion on their faces ebbed away, replaced by absolute clarity. Clarity that only became stronger as they told me about the polite young officer, filling in each other’s half-finished sentences and painting more and more details—more detail than anyone could possibly remember four months after the fact.

It’s like a virus, I thought. The damn curse is rooting itself deeper in their heads while I’m trying to purge it. Like a self-defense mechanism.

I tried a second time, asking about the jury. Starting from halting reminiscences, over the course of five minutes they went on to completely “remember,” and describe in photographic detail, all twelve jurors down to the color of their socks.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s try this. You both remember the last day of the trial?”

“Of course we do,” Corman said. “What are you getting at anyway?”

I held up a finger. “One question. Not about the trial, not about the courtroom, just that day. That morning. I want you to tell me…what you had for breakfast.”

“It was…” Bentley’s voice trailed off, leaving a space as empty as the look in his eyes.

Corman just stared at me, uncertain.

“C’mon,” I said. “It was the last day of the trial. I’m sure you can remember how you felt, the lawyers’ summations, all of it, right? It was a big, big day for all of us. So tell me what you had for breakfast.”

“I don’t seem to recall,” Bentley said. “Maybe my stomach was too upset to eat.”

“How about dinner?” I asked.

Corman winced. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a calloused knuckle against his forehead.

“Tell me anything about what happened outside the courtroom in the last four months,” I said. “Anything you remember. Bentley, you read at least one book a week. What were the last five books you read? Who were the authors?”

Bentley touched his glasses with trembling fingertips, staring down at the rap sheet.

“Oh dear,” was all he said.

“Corman, how’s your fantasy football league going? You play every year. I’ve seen you obsess over your team’s stats like it’s a matter of life or death. So. You winning?”

Corman leaned his head back, taking a ragged breath. His eyelids snapped open.

“You see it now,” I said.

“How did we not?” Bentley whispered, horrified. “You were arrested two days ago. I see it, plain as day, but just a moment ago I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. There was no trial, but I…I remember it. I was there.”

Corman dragged the printout closer, his fingers rapping against the blurry text.

“Someone laid one hell of a whammy on us,” he growled.

“Not just on you. On everybody. People I’ve never even met somehow lose the ability to understand a calendar the second my so-called ‘trial’ comes up.”

“I’m not fond of the word ‘impossible,’” Bentley said, “but if you’d asked me yesterday if such a thing could be done, I’d have dismissed it out of hand. Troubling. Very troubling.”

“It gets worse,” I said and gave them a rundown of my vision trip with Buddy and Cassandra. I left out the part about the assassins in the shower; they didn’t need me piling any more worry on their shoulders.

“It appears—” Bentley fell abruptly silent as a guard strolled past our table. He waited, then spoke in a grave whisper. “It appears that what we require, first and foremost, is an exit strategy.”