'Life meant more then.'

The librarian shrugged. 'Violent death used to be more sensational than it is now, and you're much too young to be talking about the old days. You probably mean the seventies…' She smiled and Cowart laughed with her. 'Anyway, death sentences are getting to be old hat in Florida these days. We've got…' She hesitated, pushing her head back and examining the ceiling for an instant.'… More than two hundred men on Death Row now. The governor signs a couple of death warrants every month. Doesn't mean they get it, but…' She looked at him and smiled. 'But Matt, you know all that. You wrote those editorials last year. About being a civilized nation. Right?' She nodded her head toward him.

'Right. I remember the main thrust was: We shouldn't sanction state murder. Three editorials, a total of maybe ninety column inches. In reply, we ran more than fifty letters that were, how shall I put it? Contrary to my position. We ran fifty, but we got maybe five quadrillion. The nicest ones merely suggested that I ought to be beheaded in a public square. The nasty ones were more inventive.'

The librarian smiled. 'Popularity is not our job, right? Would you like me to print these for you?'

'Please. But I'd rather be loved…'

She grinned at him and then turned to her computer. She played her fingers across the keyboard again and a high-speed printer in the corner of the room began whirring and shaking as it printed the news stories. 'There you go. On to something?'

'Maybe,' Cowart replied. He took the sheaf of paper out of the computer. 'Man says he didn't do it.'

The young woman laughed. 'Now that would be interesting. And unique.' She turned back to the computer screen and Cowart headed back to his office.