A Judgment of Whispers by Sallie Bissell Page B

size of a poker chip embedded in one ear lobe. Whaley recognized him from his mug shot. It was Two Toes McCoy.
    â€œCome tell me if this looks like the bedroom of a normal thirty-seven-year-old man,” Janet Russell called, standing at the doorway at the far end of the hall.
    Whaley hurried to catch up. As he did, she opened the door and stepped aside, as if revealing some grisly but compelling scar. Whaley looked into the room and saw a twin bed with a plaid bedspread, made up with military precision. In one corner was a barbell with a set of weights and a police scanner. On the walls hung posters for X-Men movies and a sad little diploma from a security guard training course. The only photograph was of Butch himself, red-haired as his mother had once been, standing serious and sober in his campus cop uniform. Over his bed was a gun rack, filled with semiautomatic weapons. Whaley took a deep breath, trying to catch the odor of cigarettes, but he smelled only the sharp aroma of gun oil and dirty sheets.
    â€œI’m not even allowed in here,” said Janet Russell. “If I was, it would smell far better than this. Bad odors invite bad karma.”
    â€œAnd you think Butch invites bad karma?” Whaley felt silly asking the question. He wasn’t even sure what karma was.
    â€œThis is the room of someone profoundly afraid,” she replied. “Someone shut off from the possibilities of the universe.”
    Whaley wondered if Butch wasn’t trying to shut off the possibility of life without parole, but he said nothing.
    â€œHe’s been like this ever since Teresa went into the light, so long before her time.”
    â€œI see.” Whaley stepped inside the room to see a small security camera in the corner, its lens pointed at the door. On the opposite wall was another one, aimed at the window. A chill went down Whaley’s spine. He imagined the bedrooms of the sickos who shot up schools and shopping malls probably looked a lot like this one.
    â€œHe watches those cameras on his cell phone,” said Janet Russell. “He trusts no one. Not even me.”
    â€œSo where is Butch now?”
    She glanced at the red numbers of the digital clock on Butch’s desk. “I imagine he’s just left work. He’s a security guard at the college. He likes to work the early shift, so he can get home before dark.”
    â€œSeriously?” Whaley frowned. Janet Russell made Butch sound more like seventy-seven instead of thirty-seven.
    She leaned toward him, spoke in a whisper. “Do you know he’s never been married? Never even asked a girl out? He goes to work, comes home, and watches television with me! No wife, no sweethearts, no friends at all.”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that.” Stepping back, Whaley pulled a card from his wallet. “Tell him to call me at his earliest convenience. Mostly, we’re just updating our files, but I would like to talk to him.”
    â€œI’ll see that he gets this.” With one hand Janet Russell made some kind of sign at the threshold of Butch’s room, then re-closed his door.
    â€œI don’t suppose you have any new leads on Teresa, do you?” she asked as she followed him back down the hall. “Not, of course, that you’d tell me if you did.”
    â€œJust updating our files,” he repeated as he again passed the picture of her with Two Toes.
    â€œWell, Butch will cooperate, as always.” She opened the front door for Whaley to leave, then she put a hand on his arm. “Please find the killer this time. All this suspicion sucks the life out of people.”
    â€œThat’s what we’re trying to do, ma’am.”
    â€œThen Godspeed.” Once again she pressed her palms together, jingling her necklaces again. “And peace.”
    Whaley made his way back to his car, feeling a curious sadness for the families on Salola Street. Their lives had been blighted by Teresa