By reason of insanity

58

Catherine O'Rourke returned to the general prison population as a conquering heroine. All the other inmates in the pod knew Holly Stephenson deserved whatever she had coming to her. Forget the fact that it wasn't a fair fight; O'Rourke could draw blood. The pictures of Holly's face, unconscious and red with blood, had been broadcast to televisions across the nation, including those inside the pod at the Virginia Beach jail. Catherine's short, spiked hair only accentuated her new tough-guy image. Catherine O'Rourke, street fighter.

The Widows welcomed her back as one of their own. The name "Barbie" was no longer uttered with such disdain. Her thirty-second fight had given her the one thing every inmate craved: respect.

Helping matters along, Marc Boland had apparently pulled the right strings to get Holly moved to another pod. Jail was no picnic, but at least now the inmates were picking on other fish. Catherine was one of the girls.

That morning, Brian Radford, Cat's former coworker at the paper, had called again requesting an interview. This time, Cat said yes without running it by Marc Boland. Cat was being demonized in the press. The visions, the DNA evidence, the vial of methohexital, and now the jailhouse brawl had combined to convict her in the eyes of the public even before a jury could be impaneled.

Radford initially scheduled the interview for 7:00 p.m., the start of visiting hours, but then apparently called the prison officials with a conflict. Incredibly, a prison guard came to Cat at 4:30 and hauled her into a conference room to accommodate Radford's schedule. The guards bending over backward for her? Marc Boland must have rattled somebody's cage big-time.

Brian arrived wearing jeans and an untucked T-shirt, obeying the unwritten rule that cool newspaper reporters had to dress more casually than anybody else with an advanced degree.

Cat knew Radford's chubby young face was deceiving; he could stick the knife in your back and turn it with the best of them. She would be cautious, but she would also be authentic. From their seven years covering stories together, Radford knew Cat was no serial killer.

Brian apologized for the schedule change and placed his tape recorder on the table. He started the tape.

"Is it okay if we tape this session?" he asked, pulling out his reporter's pad.

"Sure," said Catherine, though Brian's businesslike manner bothered her. They were former coworkers. He could have at least asked how she was doing.

Brian recited some background information into the tape and then started with his questions.

"Are you the serial killer who calls herself the Avenger of Blood?" he asked.

"No warm-ups?" asked Catherine. "Just, 'Have you stopped beating your wife?' right out of the blocks?"

"I believe in getting to the point."

"I used to know a guy named Brian Radford," Catherine said. "He was fair and cared about the truth." She sighed. "No, I'm not the serial killer who calls herself the Avenger of Blood. I am not a killer at all. I'm a newspaper reporter just like you."

Brian showed no reaction, and Catherine started to second-guess her decision to grant this interview.

"How do you explain a piece of your hair on the envelope flap of the Donaldson letter?"

Catherine paused before answering. His tone was more hostile than she had anticipated, though she had expected the question. "I can't explain it," she confessed. "I guess the Avenger somehow managed to find a piece of my hair."

"And the DNA evidence on the paper towels?"

For the next twenty minutes, Radford dragged Catherine through all the evidence, piece by piece, without ever really giving her much of a chance to explain. She became frustrated with the adversarial nature of his questions and found herself saying "I don't know" entirely too much. If she had known Radford was going to treat her this way, she would never have agreed to the interview. It felt like a chess match, and she knew that Radford had enough material to write the article with any slant he wanted.

Cat had been on the other side of the table too often. You could massage a quote here, add a fact there, and pretty soon the defendant looked guilty as sin.

"Can we go off the record?" Cat asked.

Radford looked surprised. "Sure." He put down his notepad.

Cat reached over and turned off the recorder.

"What's going on here, Brian?" She tried to read her former colleague, but his eyes had an aloof coldness to them, the type of emotional detachment reporters employed when they were going to skewer the person on the other side of the interview table. "I thought you wanted to hear my side. I thought you'd give me a fair shake."

"I'll tell your side," Brian said, "in your words."

Cat stared him down. "What are you holding back?"

"We're back on the record," Brian said, turning on the tape recorder. "Did you know that earlier this afternoon, the police found Paul Donaldson's body?"

Donaldson's body? The news floored Cat, causing her world to spin off balance. "Where?"

"In the Dismal Swamp Canal. He was strapped into his own car. Somebody had wedged the gas pedal down and popped it into gear. A fisherman discovered the vehicle."

Cat sat in stunned silence, trying to take it in. A new lead-it could only be good news for her; it could only lead closer to the real killer. Yet, for some reason, Brian's tone said otherwise.

"Were you aware of this?" he asked.

"No. But I'm hopeful this will help police find the real killer."

It was then, just before Brian asked his next question, that something dawned on Cat. The prison officials hadn't been helping her. They had allowed Brian Radford to move up the interview by a couple of hours so he could catch Cat off guard before the information hit the airwaves. They knew that the cops couldn't interview Cat, so they were using Radford as a surrogate.

"When Ed Shaftner, the editor of the Tidewater Times, first told you about Paul Donaldson's death, did you ask him whether Donaldson had a gash on his head?"

Cat remembered the conversation and felt the blood drain from her face. Her heart pounded fiercely; its deafening noise seemed to drown out all other sound. "I'm not going to answer that," she stammered.

"When you subsequently talked with Jamarcus Webb, did you tell him to call you when they found the body of Paul Donaldson? Did you tell him to check for a gash on the skull?"

Cat's racing mind pieced it together. Webb was still an inside source for the paper. Only now he was working with Radford, against Catherine.

"Did you?" Radford pressed.

"I'm not answering that question either." Cat spit the words out, disgusted with herself. She had walked into a trap set by her own friends. She could see the headlines now.

"You know as well as anybody, Cat-this isn't like a police interrogation or the courtroom. If you don't answer, I'll have to put that in my story. You're better off telling your side and getting it out there."

"Get out of here," Cat said. "This interview's over."

"Are you sure?" Radford asked.

"I don't know how you can live with yourself," Cat snarled.