Night Work (22 page)

“That’s what I’m wondering, yes.”

“When I was sixteen, I took my mother’s husband’s car and tried to drive it to California. He reported it as stolen.”

“Your mother’s husband. You mean your stepfather.”

“No, I mean my mother’s husband.”

“Where was your natural father at this time?”

“You got me. He took off when I was three years old.”

Rhinehart looked at Shea. Shea took a breath and shook his head maybe one quarter inch to each side.

“Once again, on paper …” Rhinehart said. “On paper, mind you, this might suggest some issues.”

“Such as what?”

“An absent father. Another man, whom you won’t accept as an authority figure.”

“You lost me. I’m sorry.”

Rhinehart bent over and picked up the photograph of Laurel from the floor. He put it back in the folder.

“We talked to your mother,” he said. “She says you haven’t called her in a while.”

“Why in God’s name would you talk to my mother?”

“It’s all part of the picture, Joe. You don’t get along with her very well, do you …”

“She made some bad choices in her life. I never did deal with it very well. Maybe I still don’t. That’s all I can say.”

“That’s not much.”

“Anything else is between her and me, and none of your business.”

“You know who else I talked to today?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Harrington.”

That one landed. He could see it in my eyes. “You talked to Laurel’s parents?”

“Under the circumstances, we had no choice.”

“You have no idea what you’ve done to them,” I said. “You just destroyed them.”

Rhinehart put up his hands. “We had to, Joe.”

“Her father …” I tried to picture the man, sitting in that chair by the window while Laurel’s mother talked on the phone. He was the one who had found her in the bedroom. He was the one who touched her cold skin. I had tried to keep in contact with both of them those first few months, but one day Mrs. Harrington had told me it was killing him a little bit more every time he heard my voice. I told her I understood. I hadn’t spoken to either one of them in over a year.

“Both Mr. and Mrs. Harrington were quite upset to hear about these recent murders,” Rhinehart said. “Understandably.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. Understandably, he says. A two-year living nightmare starting all over again, and this man says they’re understandably upset about it.

“We talked about you, Joe. Again, it was something we had to do. Mr. Harrington had some things to get off his chest, I’ll say that much.”

“Laurel’s father and I never did quite hit it off.”

“One more person you didn’t get along with.”

“Three people in the entire world,” I said. “In Laurel’s father’s case, he just didn’t want his daughter to marry a probation officer. He wanted her to go back to her old boyfriend, the big-shot stockbroker. That’s who he wanted as a son-in-law. End of story.”

“He painted a different picture for me, Joe. He said he always thought you were a little unstable. His exact word. Unstable.”

“Like I said, we never hit it off. I was in a no-win situation.”

“He said you had quite a temper. He said he was even afraid for his daughter’s safety sometimes.”

“That’s crazy,” I said. “Don’t you see what you’re doing here? You’re giving the man something to grab on to. After two years of not knowing who killed his daughter, some cop calls up, says, ‘Hey, we think it might have been the boyfriend. We’d like you to help us put together a case against him. Whaddya say?’”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“You could have told him it was Bigfoot. Or a man from outer space. He would have been all over it.”

“I understand what you’re saying … But no, I don’t think so. There are just too many other things adding up here.”

“Meaning what? What’s adding up?”

He opened the folder one more time. Instead of pulling out the photo again, he pulled out several sheets of paper. “Do you know what this is?”

“No.”

“It’s the original police report on the murder of your fiancée.”

“Okay…”

“Have you read it?”

“I don’t believe I ever did, no. I didn’t need to. I know everything that’s in it.”

“I glanced at it when I first got down here, but I admit, I never really read it carefully until today. You want to know the interesting part?”

“I’m not sure any of it is ‘interesting,’ but go ahead.”

“The interesting part is that she was killed somewhere between two thirty and three o’clock in the morning. Now, I know you had to answer this two years ago, and it’s all written down here … but just for the heck of it, tell me where you were when your fiancée was murdered.”

“You can’t be serious.” I could feel the room tilting now. “You’re not seriously asking me that question.”

“The only information I see here in the report is the fact that you were apparently out with your friends. Including Detective Borello. That’s the whole thing
right there, Joe. There’s no direct statement about exactly when you came home, or exactly how much alcohol you may have consumed that night. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that whoever was writing this report wasn’t really motivated to fully pursue those questions.”

“Somebody from the Westchester Police Department wrote that report,” I said. “It wasn’t Howie. Detective Borello, excuse me. Or anybody else up here in Kingston.”

“I realize that. But as I look at this now, two years later, I can’t help putting myself in that Westchester detective’s shoes. Here’s a man whom it might occur to me to suspect, but he’s just lost his fiancée. His best friend, a fellow detective in a neighboring county, can vouch that he was with him around the time of the murder.”

“Yes. He was with me. I was here in Kingston. He asked the question, he got his answer, and he wrote it down. End of story.”

“He was with you, yes.
Around
the time of the murder. But let me ask you … It takes about what, ninety minutes to get down to Westchester from here? Maybe sixty minutes if it’s late at night and you’re really moving?”

“Do you honestly believe,” I said, my hands clenched together in a ball, “that I would …”

That word. I could barely say it.

“That I would strangle … to death … the woman I was about to marry? The only woman I’d ever really
loved, and probably ever will love for the rest of my life. Do you honestly believe …”

“I believe you
could
have,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “I believe you had just enough time to get down there, especially if you weren’t quite as drunk as your friends seemed to think you were. Your friends who I’m sure
were
quite drunk that night.”

“Ever since you got here,” I said, “you’ve been moving toward this, no matter what I say. No matter what I do.”

“I came here with an open mind,” he said. “Both of us did.”

I looked over at Shea. I couldn’t read anything on his face. Anything at all.

“So say it, Detective. One of you. Go ahead and say it.”

“We’re running out of options,” Rhinehart said. “You know that.”

“Say it. Say the words.”

He leaned forward a little more. “You want to hear me say it.”

“Yes, I do.” This was why I kept talking to them, I realized, when I knew I shouldn’t have. I had to hear them get to this point, so I could try to make it go away. The classic mistake any suspect makes, thinking he can explain his innocence if his accusers will just listen to him.

“Okay, then,” Rhinehart said. “Here it is. As of today … after exhausting every other possibility … and I mean every possible alternative …”

He stopped. I waited.

“I am finally convinced,” he said, “by the overwhelming set of circumstances … that you not only killed Marlene Frost and Sandra Barron this week, but that you also killed your fiancée, Laurel Harrington, two years ago.”

Somehow, no matter how much I knew it was coming—from the moment he had pulled out that photograph of Laurel again, I had known exactly where we were going to end up—somehow, I still felt surprised, by it. I felt surprised, and I felt sick about feeling surprised when I shouldn’t have been, and I felt the absolute terror of what this could mean for me, all at the same time.

“We’ll try to understand everything,” Rhinehart said. “We promise. But you have to help us here.”

“No,” I said. “No. You guys are totally on the wrong track. I’m telling you.”

“This man who’s supposedly following you around, killing these women … the man you tried to catch the other night … He doesn’t really exist, does he …”

“Yeah, that’s right. I made him up.”

“He’s you, isn’t he? The man you’re chasing is yourself.”

“Okay, now you’re just starting to sound ridiculous.”

“I’m serious, Joe. Whatever happened, two years ago … what you did to Laurel … you must have buried it deep inside yourself. Am I right? But it can
only stay bottled up for so long … When it finally comes out again …”

“I have one question for you, Detective.”

“It’s over, Joe.”

“You brought me in here for questioning, and you had to read me my rights because at this point you were finally ‘officially’ considering me as a suspect. Better late than never, I guess. I’m not sure the DA will be liking that too much. But no matter.”

“Did you hear me? It’s over.”

“Here’s my question, Detective. Am I charged?”

“Come on, Joe.”

“Am I charged at this time or am I not charged?”

“Don’t play it this way. It’s not going to work. I’m serious.”

“If I’m not charged and I’m simply being held for questioning, then I only need to stay for a reasonable amount of time. You know the law as well as I do. I think we can both agree that a reasonable amount of time has come and gone. Which means I’m free to leave.”

I stood up.

“You cannot leave, Joe. You have to talk to us.”

“If you don’t want me to leave, then arrest me. Get your handcuffs out and arrest me right now.”

I stared him down. He didn’t say a word.

“You can’t arrest me,” I said, “because you don’t have a case. You don’t have a case because I didn’t do it.”

“Let me walk you out, at least,” Shea said.

“You really suck at playing the good cop,” I said to him. “You should go back to being the hotshot kid with the stupid earring.”

“You need to stay in town,” Rhinehart said. “We’ll be talking to you again very soon.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” I said. “I’ll look forward to ending both of your careers, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re such a great detective, you figure it out.” I swung the door open and walked out, heading straight for Chief Brenner’s office. Howie, I thought, I need you, man. You’re working second shift now, right? Where the hell are you?

I looked into the chief’s office. It was empty.

You have to tell them they’ve got it wrong, Howie. You have to tell them I was with you that night.

I went down the stairs to the night sergeant’s desk.

You have to tell them, man.

Two steps from the bottom, I saw the chief. He was just about to head up the stairs, his usual look of complete composure nowhere to be found tonight.

“Joe,” he said, “what are you doing? Did your lawyer get here yet?”

“Where’s Howie?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, Chief. Where is he?”

“I’m serious. I don’t know. But you shouldn’t be talking to him, anyway.”

“Since when?”

“I know he’s your friend, but as of tonight, he has
a big conflict of interest. Best thing for everyone is for him to keep his distance for a while.”

“I need him, Chief. He has to set those BCI guys straight.”

“If they want to talk to him, they will. But right now, there’s nothing he can do to help you.”

“No, Chief. You don’t understand.” You obviously don’t have a friend like Howie, I wanted to say to him. You don’t go all the way back to two kids on the playground, looking out for each other.

“I do understand, Joe. You want to be a friend? Go home. Or go find your lawyer. Don’t drag a good cop into the middle of all this. I told you, he’s not in a position to help you right now.”

I pushed past him, went out the back door into the night. The sun had been up when I had gone in. Now the rest of the day had been eaten up waiting in that windowless interview room, then listening to the accusation, the sky not only dark now but dark like it had settled in hours ago. I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven.

I called Howie on my cell phone. It rang four times. He didn’t answer.

“Howie,” I said when the beep came. “Call me. Right away.”

I hung up and started walking, dimly remembering being driven down here in the back of Rhinehart’s car, my own car still up by the gym. As I trudged up the hill, I remembered the night I chased the man without a face up this very sidewalk. I turned as I walked now,
looking behind me, wondering if he was back there in the darkness somewhere, watching me, maybe even laughing.

The feeling stayed with me all the way up Broadway, one set of eyes on my back at all times. Unless I was imagining it now. Maybe it would always feel this way, for the rest of my life.

The gym was dark. I didn’t go inside. Instead, I got in my car and drove right back down Broadway. I cut over to the bridge and rode high above it. I could keep going, I thought. Drive all the way down to I-84, then head west, the whole country opening up from that one highway. I could be in Ohio by morning.

Then right back here by nightfall, Joe. Sitting in the county jail.

I took the turn right after the bridge, went to Howie’s condo overlooking the creek. I didn’t see his car parked in front, but I knocked on the door anyway. Elaine answered.

She smiled for all of a half second, until she actually looked at my face. “Joe, what’s the matter?”

“Where’s Howie? I need to talk to him.”

“He’s at work.”

“No, I was just there. He’s not answering his phone, either.”

“Get in here,” she said, practically yanking me off my feet. “Tell me what the hell’s going on.”

She closed the door behind us while I gave her the one-minute version. Her jaw dropped when I got to
the part about the accusation. “Please tell me you’re kidding me, Joe. Please.”