Glass Houses by Jane Haddam

happy drunk. I drink to be happy. It gets cold enough, I go to Margaret and Elizabeth’s if there’s no room in the shelters. Besides, in the shelters you get robbed. You go to the drunk tank, they take your wallet and your other stuff and hold them until you’re let out; and then nobody can pick your pocket.”
    â€œRight,” Russ said. He looked more stunned than ever.
    Henry was beginning to feel positively happy. There was actually a place—just drunk enough, not really drunk—where he felt good; and his big problem became trying to figure out how to stay in the place without going beyond it. This required him to drink in a measured and deliberate way, but the place was one where both measure and deliberation were impossible, and so he almost immediately started to slide. Soon, if he didn’t get out of here on bail, he would start to slide in the opposite direction. He would become sober enough to hate himself and everything he was looking at. At the moment, though, he was in just the right place, sliding back from the abyss of overdrunkenness. That’s what came of spending four hours in the police station not drinking anything but Coca-Cola and water.
    â€œNow,” Russ said, “we’re going to ask for bail, and I think you’ve got a good chance of getting it. I don’t think you’re a flight risk. If you disappear, we’ve got a good idea of where to look for you. You’re not about to run off to Canada or Wisconsin.”
    â€œI don’t even know where they are,” Henry said, mock solemnly.
    â€œYes, well, you have to understand that we’ve got to be careful though. The judge has no obligation to grant bail in a capital case. You’re going to be charged with one murder tonight. She’s going to know you’ll probably be charged with another sometime tomorrow. And there’s public feeling to consider. There are eleven women dead, and the general public thinks you killed them.”
    â€œI did kill them,” Henry said.
    â€œYou’ve got to stop that, Henry. You understand that? You’ve got to stop that.”
    â€œI did kill them,” Henry said again. “They explained it all to me at the police station before you got there. They showed me how I did it. I must have been really drunk; I don’t remember any of it.”
    â€œYou don’t remember any of it because you didn’t do it,” Russ said. He sounded infinitely, elaborately patient. “They found you near that woman, and they figured they had their arrest in the Plate Glass case and they ran with it. You didn’t do anything but be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    â€œBut I confessed.”
    â€œPeople make false confessions every day. If they locked you up and refused to give you bail, there would be another Plate Glass Killing in a month, or two; and then they’d be flat on their, excuse me, flat on their backs—”
    â€œAsses,” Henry said helpfully.
    â€œYou can’t go around saying you did it,” Russ said. “You got that? I can get you out of this mess you’re in, but not if you go around saying you did it. You’ve got to do and say just what I tell you to and nothing more—or less. Can you do that?”
    â€œSure. I’ve been doing it for Elizabeth and Margaret for years. Especially Margaret. Except when I’m drunk.”
    â€œAnd that’s another thing,” Russ said. “For the duration of this situation, you can’t get drunk. We’re going to clean you up, dry you out, and make you look respectable, so if you do have to go into court for a trial the jury will be sympathetic to our side and not of a mind to dismiss you as a lowlife. If you do get drunk while you’re out on bail, you’re likely to find yourself right back behind bars, especially if it’s during a trial. No judge is going to let you sit at the defense table spiked to