by Chuck Watt ([email protected])

Bio: The author, a longtime poster in alt.tv.homicide, writes: "Though I have
not seen any episodes of H:LotS since the Movie, the premise for my story
has been percolating in my mind for a long time.  Once the storytelling process
got going, some of it was fun, and some of it was hard work. It'll be interesting
for me to look at it again after a year, and see it with fresh eyes."

Disclaimer: Characters used from "Homicide: Life on the Street" belong
to Baltimore Pictures and NBC Productions and are used without
permission.  This story may be copied or placed in public domain so
long as the original author credit and story remain intact.

Timeframe: The events in this story take place not long before the
advent of Gordon Pratt. Though the cases are completely unconnected,
perhaps the dominoes might later have fallen differently had the one
not preceded the other.

Category: Classic

            ..........................................

Inside the station house I was handed off to a uniform cop named Milotti,
who took me by the arm, squeezing with more force than necessary. He
walked me past desks and filing cabinets and partitions and other cops.
It was bewildering and I didn't try to pay attention, and things were a bit
of a blur anyway because I should've been wearing my glasses, but I'd left
them in their hard-shelled case in my pocket. Though I wasn't formally under
arrest, I didn't know if anybody would get rough with me and I didn't want
the glasses broken.

Somebody said, "Hey, Milotti." He pulled my elbow to stop me, turning to
face another cop coming toward us. Milotti told the man, "Two minutes,
okay? Just taking this guy up to homicide."

He tugged at me to get me moving, and his hand slipped up under my armpit,
which was wet with tension. He pulled his hand down fast, then found my
elbow and we went forward, past more desks and cops, and into a short
corridor, past a black woman in a bright red dress, standing alone, crying.

We took an elevator and arrived at the homicide squad room. Milotti knew his
way. He steered me around adjoining desks where four or five guys glanced up
momentarily from their typing and their phone calls and nodded at him. They
were probably detectives. An auburn-haired woman wearing a jacket and tie
also nodded, before shifting her attention to me, first casually, then with interest.
I couldn't see her face clearly, and I thought I'd reach out my glasses, but Milotti
turned me in a different direction, where a door stood open leading into a small
room. He directed me inside, told me to have a seat, and closed the door, leaving
me very much alone.

It was an interrogation room. I'd never seen one for real, but it couldn't be anything
else. I put on my glasses. The room was stark, windowless, in institutional yellow,
with a chair on the other side of a table where a prisoner could be handcuffed, and
two more chairs by the wall. On the opposite wall was what could only be a two-way
mirror. I wasn't about to stare at my reflection and make faces or pick my teeth,
nor was I going to try the door, and there was nothing much else to do, or look at,
or figure out, so I went around the table and sat.

It wasn't long before I found myself imagining a rogue's gallery of people who
had occupied this seat before. Some, truly evil. Others, people who had not
seen a choice. Still others, slaves of addiction. So many, now coping with their
jungle existence in prison. And so many now dead.

The door opened a crack, and after a moment it opened wider and the same
auburn-haired woman poked her head inside. She scrutinized me closely. I understood
her interest now, because physically we resembled each other to the extent that I could
have been her brother, maybe two years her senior. We had similar facial features with
the same pale coloring. The same wild auburn hair, hers a little redder, mine not quite as
long and not in my usual ponytail. The same slightness of build, and, at five-five, I doubted
I was any taller. But the resemblance ended in our choice of clothing. I didn't even so much
as own a jacket and tie. This morning I was wearing jeans and a faded old Colts jersey.

She pursed her lips and blew air out before ducking away and closing the door. I'd
lost my chance to ad-lib that I was pleased to make my acquaintance. But it was as
well I didn't. I was going to have to watch my mouth in this place.

The resemblance, I decided, had to be coincidental. I might have thought they were
pulling some kind of stunt if she hadn't seemed surprised to see me. Maybe she
actually did work in homicide and there wasn't any trickiness going on. Maybe they
weren't orchestrating any fancy schemes to soften me up.

And maybe they were keeping me waiting because they were just plain busy.
Instead of, say, busy observing me through the glass.

After a time the door opened. In came a tall man, lanky, with brown hair. He
stopped, appearing distracted, giving me a cursory look before turning with a
smile to someone outside. "No, really, Frank," he said, "you should think about
it. You should consider growing your hair out. Seriously. Like Samson. You grow
your hair, and your strength and power just build and build. Ever think of that?"

A baritone voice, possibly that of a black man, answered back, "You are
disturbingly full of crap this morning."

"You do remember about Samson..."

"Did Meldrick put you up to this?"

"Hair out to here, Frank." He covered his ears with his hands, then moved his
hands six inches out from his head. "With that much power, not only could you
single-handedly bring back the afro, you could smite every last criminal in Charm City."

"Munch did this. Munch would say smite."

"So? What do you think?"

“I think, you can lend me your jawbone."

The tall guy thought for a moment, frowned, and stepped back out again.
When he came back in, he was followed by a black man with hair so short
it almost wasn't there. Both had removed their suit jackets, and the black
guy wore suspenders. He was, I supposed, the closest thing to dapper that
I'd seen in a while. The tall white one closed the door. "This is Detective
Pembleton," he recited mechanically. "I'm Detective Bailus. I'm told you
were asking about your rights. Even though you're not under arrest, you have
the right to have an attorney present during questioning, which you've waived,
though you can always change your mind. Do you understand this?"

"Yes," I said. "And my name is Jordan Trapp. But I suppose you already know that."

Pembleton started walking around the room, with a predatory air, his eyes
never leaving mine. Then Bailus came around to stand behind where I was
sitting. Uncomfortable about that, I turned and looked up at him, thinking,
yeah okay, let the games begin.

"There's something I want you two to know," I said carefully. "I may not have
a lot of money, but if either one of you causes me harm in here, I will pay a
lawyer to file a complaint. I realize it'll never stick, but that's not the point.
The point is that it goes on your record, doesn't it?"

Bailus edged away and went to stand next to Pembleton, who was saying,
"My oh my oh my." They eyed me for a while, then turned to each other as
if communicating in a silent code.

I wondered if I was on to something I could use. I'd have to be careful and
feel my way along.

They faced me again in unison and bent forward to rest their hands on the
table, keeping their distance, but leaning in toward me.

"At or about a certain hour last night," Pembleton said, enunciating as if I
were hard of hearing, "a young woman in your apartment building became
the victim of a homicide. Her name was Anna Gable. Cause of death was
strangulation. This morning, patrolmen were assigned to canvass the building,
and one of them interviewed you at your door. Now, that officer has reported
that you not only gave unsatisfactory answers, you spoke and acted in an
unnecessarily nervous manner. A -- suspiciously -- nervous manner."

His words were formal, but the delivery was brash, accusatory. I hadn't even
given any information and already his tone was one of challenge. Everything
about him spoke of his belief in my guilt. His posture, the tilt of his head, his
eyes, the set of his mouth. But I told myself that this was almost certainly his
interviewing style, one of his tools of the trade. I decided to try not to butt
heads with him. I'd try being reasonable and patient.

I just didn't know how long that could last.

"I understand," I said, "what it looked like to the other officer. I can't blame
him for jumping to conclusions. It's just, I don't respond well to confrontation.
I mean, there's a knock at my door, I open up, and here's a great big cop
standing right in front of me. At first he doesn't say a word, he's just giving me
the hard stare. You know, the cop stare."

Bailus gave a little shrug and said, "Where's the problem? Unless you've
got a guilty conscience, maybe something to hide."

"No, it was the way he just stood there. That's not procedure. You can't
tell me that's procedure."

Pembleton turned to Bailus. "Tim, our guest sitting here is a man with no
priors, if I'm correct."

"You are correct."

"Yet he regards himself as well versed in matters relating to police work."

"Doesn't he just."

Pembleton turned to me. "The cop stare, huh?"

"Oh, come on," I said, "cops pull that shit all the time. Pardon my Romanian.
They look you straight in the face and don't say a word, and wait and watch,
hoping you'll blabber something you didn't mean to. Listen, I fully intend to
be straight-up and help you guys solve this. But don't jerk me off. Especially
don't act like goons or  bully boys. I don't respond well to that. I hate that."

"There you go again," Bailus said. "Suggesting we're going to smack you
around, or get out the rubber hose. Hey, take a look. There isn't even a
phone book in here."

Pembleton, all innocence, said, "Why would there be a phone book?
There isn't a phone."

"Well, no, Frank."

"So why would there be a phone book without a phone?"

"Uh, maybe, you could look stuff up? Do police work?"

"Last time I checked the Yellow Pages under 'Crooks' it said I should
see 'Dirtbags, Lowlifes, Masterminds, Nutcases, Organized, Petty,
Small-Time, Vicious, and White-Collar.' I threw my hands up in despair."

Bailus nodded. "Been there."

I thought of asking if they rehearsed this shit, but it was best to finish what
I'd already started to explain. "You guys mind? Can we stop wasting time
and you hear what I have to say? Holy shmoly, I can't believe this. Anyway,
when the officer at my door actually got around to telling me what'd happened,
I stood there like a fool. My mind was jumping ahead because I could only
see one way this would go. Sure, I did know Anna, course I knew her, I was
a friend, maybe her only friend in the building, and it could easily look like I
was the guy. Hey, I'm well aware a lot of murders are committed by people
who live near the victim. And I know I've got no alibi, I can't prove a thing.
So that's why this morning I'm standing there looking at the floor thinking of
eight things to say to that cop, and nothing comes out like I meant."

And, lord knows, it hadn't.

Pembleton pushed up from the table and straightened, and walked around
the room as he talked, still projecting, still louder than necessary. "No no no.
We do the proving. It starts when we catch people in their lies. We see the
holes in their patchwork stories, and we unravel the threads back to the
beginning, and expose the deceits for what they are. Are you deceiving us,
Jordan Trapp? Because it won't do you any good. You'll tell us in the end."

"Oh, attrition. You'll wear me down. Is that what you think? Even, I'm
actually gonna falsely confess? Just to get you off my back?"

"In the end, regardless of the time it takes, you'll tell us the truth."

"The truth is there's nothing to tell. You don't have one little thing on me
except I can't prove where I was last night." Then I asked, "Where's the
other cop? The one from this morning, I want to know what he said to you."

"Officer MacDonald is with his wife, who's in labor at the maternity ward at
Johns Hopkins. So there, you ask where Officer MacDonald is, that's where
he is. But otherwise, you've got things backwards. We're the ones who ask
the questions."

"You don't have a damn thing, do you? It's just like I expected. You don't
have a single thing to go on, but I'm the obvious place to start because I
didn't react well to a big cop standing at my door."

"The big cop at your door," Bailus explained, "stared at you because you
bear an amazing resemblance to a fellow officer in the department. It took
him a moment to gather his thoughts, and as he watched, it kind of seemed
like you were a guy with something to hide."

Well, son of a bitch. So that's what it was.

"Which means," Pembleton said, "we're going to eat you for breakfast."

I studied their faces, looking from one to the other. "So do I need to get
a lawyer in here?"

Bailus, watching me intently, said, "Well, do you? Do you need a lawyer?"

I hesitated, searching for a cautious answer.

"Well, no, wait," I said, "I don't at all, do I? I could just take a hike."

They eyed me expectantly, seeing if that's what I might actually want to do.

"But then if I did," I said, thinking out loud, "I'd just be dragging things out
and we'd only end up doing this all over again. Because while I'm your,
what is it, person of interest, you won't bother looking anyplace else."

Bailus straightened up from the table and said, "Give us more credit than that."

“Yeah? You haven't asked me a single thing about Anna, about who might
have harmed her, other people in her life I knew about, anything pertinent."

Bailus took his time, making me wait. "We were coming to that."

"But, for now I'm the guy."

Bailus gave a resigned shrug, and feigned sympathy.

"And if I do walk," I said, "you'll keep hounding me. Keep showing up in
my life at awkward times and places."

Pembleton gave me a big wide beaming smile.

Bailus said, "Besides which, if you don't cooperate, it really does look
like you've got something to hide."

"You can't just keep showing up. You can't just intrude in my life.
I can't have that."

"Well? Up to you."

"So all right," I said, "let's keep going. Let's see if there's a way I can
convince you. I admit I can't prove anything, but maybe I can convince
you." I had no idea how, but in the end, the truth had to count for
something, and the truth was that I hadn't killed Anna.

"There are little physical telltale signs, you know," Pembleton said to me,
more softly now, in an almost confidential tone. "You've heard about the
subtleties of body language, and how the eyes are the windows of the soul.
In this room a great number of lies are spoken, but the words don't ring true.
The signs betray the falsehoods." He smiled again, briefly. Then the oratorical
tone was back. "Moral of the story, in this room it's half-assed amateurs
against seasoned professionals."

"Mmm. 'Your dojo.'"

"Excuse me?"

"Mr. Miyagi. 'The Karate Kid.' It's something like saying 'your turf,' but different."

"You into martial arts?"

"Nope. Movies."

Then Bailus turned to Pembleton and said, "Frank, you know, maybe...
it might be time to give him a chance. How about he just talks on his own.
Tells us what he knows." He faced me with an earnest expression. "Jordan,
how about... I want to hear what you have to say, in your own words.
In your own time."

For crying out loud, I was just getting used to Pembleton's frontal assault,
and now Bailus was putting on the white hat and turning into my buddy.
Sure he was. "Seems to me," I began, "you've got a funny kind of name,
for a cop. Bailus. Bail-us. Shouldn't it be more like Jail-us?"

The earnest expression vanished into incredulity. Then just as quickly his
eyes showed a raging flash of anger, and I regretted having gone too far.
He controlled his temper almost immediately, but I knew what I'd seen.
"It's Bay-liss," he said. "Bay. Liss."

"Oh. Sorry. It sounded like, well, anyway, sorry, let's drop it." I'd gotten
ahead of myself, and I couldn't let that happen again.

But now I knew who I had to watch out for.

"So all right," I said. "Here's what there is. I live alone. My address you already
know. From my apartment it's a nine minute walk to the Plaza Theater, where
I've worked for eleven years."

"On Charles Street, sure," Pembleton said. "Nice place, not as grand as
the Senator, but then what is? So how was business yesterday?"

"Good. But tonight it'll be packed. Nobody stays home watching the
tube on Friday."

"You work at night? When?"

"I work two in the afternoon until roughly midnight, sometimes later,
whenever the last show winds up. I'm a projectionist. When work is
finished I always walk straight home. Last night I came in about
twelve-thirty. Nobody saw me. I went directly to my apartment."
Well, not quite, but I left it at that. Not much choice, was there?

Pembleton asked, "You don't ever stop anyplace after work for
something to eat?"

"No, I carry a lunch bucket and eat at work during the quiet times.
Saves money, but also, I always know who prepared my food,
if you know what I mean." Of course I neglected to mention one
other fact, that my lunch bucket was also big enough to conceal
my gun, a piece of shit Bryco 380 whose only merits, aside from
its price on the street, were that it was light and compact.

"Is there any other reason you always go straight home after work?"

"What, you think I want to get mugged? The price of parking means
I don't take my car to work. Walking, I'm only nine minutes away,
but you know what the streets are like after midnight." And even
with the gun in my lunch bucket, there was no point taking stupid
chances. The gun was a measure of last resort.

Bayliss said, "You say you live alone. Did you always?"

"No, for a long time my former girlfriend used to live with me.
She broke up with me eight months ago. She split."

"How come?"

"What difference does it make?"

"You give her reason?"

"Not to my mind."

"Ever slap her around?"

"Not a chance."

"Meaning, she was deserving? But you didn't?"

"Save the ventriloquism for when you're off duty. You don't
put words in my mouth."

"Then talk to us."

"Look, there was somebody else, okay? It's not relevant,
just leave it alone."

"We'll decide what's relevant," Bayliss said. "So how about Anna?
You said she was a friend. What kind of friend?"

"A friend kind of friend. There was no attraction or anything.
Usually redheads aren't attracted to redheads, right? It wasn't
like we ever dated. I spent near zero time at her apartment, and
vice versa. Mostly, almost exclusively, our time together was when
we went for walks."

This was where I had to be careful. I didn't want to get into the
reason for those walks. "She was just a comfortable person to be
around. And talk with. Very non-judgmental and non-confrontational.
She liked movies. She was really into movies, she could talk about
them knowledgeably for hours. Well, once you got her going. She
wasn't at all like she seemed at first, which was distant and stuck-up.
Turned out, she was just really shy." I didn't mention that it was Anna
who one day had come up to me and struck up a conversation.
Best not to explain the circumstances.

Pembleton took one of the spare chairs and turned it around
backward and sat, straddling it.

"Oh, nice touch," I said.

Bayliss nodded. "One day he'll be teaching it at the academy."

Pembleton said, "More ludicrous crap. Me -- teaching."

"Maybe instead," Bayliss said, "you could teach at some college.
Think about it,  Frank. You could get each of your students into
your little office and find out what they know."

I motioned to Pembleton straddling the chair. "Did you steal that
trick from an old  crime film?"

"Give me a break."

"Do you like noir? And don't take that the wrong way."

Pembleton said, "In this room, I live noir."

He left that with me for a moment, then said, "And you can
take that any way you like."

There was an awkward silence.

Bayliss said, "Frank, your train of thought? Jordan was filling us
in about Anna."

"Yes. Yes he was."

Pembleton seemed to weigh his ideas. He said to me, "Hypothetically now.
Purely hypothetically. What would it have taken for you to get into a fight
with Anna?"

I couldn't envision any scenario ending in us fighting. "Nah, impossible.
Wouldn't have happened. When either of us ever needed our space,
we just said so, and went our ways till the next time."

Pembleton frowned, then thought of something else. "So tell me what
it would take to get you into some kind of scuffle. With anybody.
What makes you just go wild and completely lose it? Enough to lay
hands on someone? Nothing to do with Anna now. What pushes your buttons?"

"Hey, whoa, I'm no fighter."

Bayliss stepped a little closer. "Yeah you are," he said. "Sure you are.
Always have been -- at least at heart. Problem was, when you were
young you weren't big enough or tough enough to be a scrapper. In
fistfights at school you were always on the receiving end, never the
hammer, always the nail. You'd have sold your soul to be like those
muscle guys in the ads, and send bullies running away with their tails
between their legs. But when you got older, you learned there were
other ways. Such as, not putting yourself in situations where someone
else had the advantage. It's a way to live, nobody threatening you,
nobody intruding in your world. It's a way to have control."

There was maybe one way Bayliss could have come up with that.
I looked up at him  towering over me, and watched his reaction as
I played my hunch. "Hey, who'd have thought? So you weren't always
such a big tall guy yourself, huh? Times have  hanged. Used to be you
got yourself picked on, am I right or am I right? Was it one guy after
another, a parade of morons year after year? Or was there always
just that one special asshole? Or... was it at home?"

Bayliss gawked at me, lost for words. Good.

Pembleton tried something else. "Impressive. No two ways about it,
you show true insight. Being able to see things, grasp things, through
someone else's eyes. You're perceptive, and a thinker, aren't you,
compared to lots of folks. Would you also say, you're kind of the
introspective type? The type who knows himself really well?  Hmm.
Who was it that said, 'Know thyself?'"

"Shakespeare or something. That stuff's all Greek to me."

"Socrates was Greek. But you knew that, didn't you?" Pembleton
wagged a finger. "Don't dissemble. In anything. We'll find you out."

Damn. I'd forgotten that thing about Samson and the jawbone.
Pembleton was sharp in areas a person might not expect.
"You're a bright guy," I said to him. "My good fortune I get you
two to deal with, smart enough to eventually see I'm innocent.
Couple of the other dudes out there look thicker than John Holmes' dick."

Pembleton attempted a smile. It looked pained.

Bayliss said, "Frank, where are you going with this?"

Pembleton ignored him, and asked me, "Ever have any thoughts,
indulge in  speculation, do any daydreaming... about taking a human life?"

"Yeah, lots."

"Really."

"Uh-huh."

"Are you being sincere?"

"Yes I am."

"Make me believe you."

"Okay, but it's not exactly the way you meant. It was more like, after the fact."

Pembleton seemed to lean farther forward in his chair.

"Couple months ago," I explained, "I had a part in a man's death,
so it's only natural I go over it every day in my head. I was on my way
to work, walking fast because it  was pouring rain, and at Charles and Palliter
there's a traffic light and Charles is always super busy. So I press the pedestrian
button to make the light change. It does, and a van doesn't stop and t-bones this
car starting forward. Broadside in the door, which is not good. I find out later,
the innocent guy dies in the ambulance. Now all of a sudden, I'm part of something
I don't want to be part of. This is something I absolutely don't need in my life.
Always knowing, if I pressed that button just one second earlier or later,
that man would be alive today."

There was a silence. Pembleton was digesting this.

"Wasn't you," Bayliss said, "ran the light."

"I know."

"Wasn't like you were to blame."

"I know."

"That doesn't matter?"

"Listen. The guy that ran the light, believe it or not, he lives in my building.
So this thing that's happened, this thing I absolutely don't need in my life,
the actual guy that caused it, Richard Vandermeer is his name, he lives
in my building and I actually have to see him and meet up with him regularly.
I don't need this shit, getting my nose rubbed in something I never asked for,
and if he packed up and moved out tomorrow, it couldn't be too soon, right?
But he won't. He isn't motivated to do anything these days except get drunk
and be a nuisance, then zonk out at night on tranquilizers."

“I get it now," Bayliss said. "This bad thing that happened, this tragic event.
It happened to you."

"Whatever," I said. "Anyway, what does all this psychoanalysis
have to do with Anna Gable?"

"We need to know you," Pembleton said. "And understand you.
And watch for the  guilt in your eyes. And listen for it in your voice,
and in your words. And smell it in the air."

I just folded my arms and looked aside and shook my head.

Attrition. I couldn't let them grind me down. But, the fact was, I hadn't
been here very long and they could almost certainly keep this up for hours.
Me, I couldn't. Sooner or later they'd deke around my diversionary tactics
and the questions would get harder.

But, there were a couple or three cards to play. "The only thing in the air,"
I said,  looking Pembleton in the eyes, "is the stink of cigarette smoke that
clings to your clothes. You should quit."

They both glared at me, saying nothing. After a while Pembleton again
gave a forced little smile, nothing as wide and arrogant as that first one.
"There's guilt in this room. We see it and we hear it," he said. "Come on,
movie man, let's get to the last reel. You'd love to tell us what you're hiding,
wouldn't you? We know you. We know who we have sitting here. You'd
just be tickled pink to spell out how you outsmarted us for so long."

"What you know, not guess but know, is what I've told you.
What you see, is what I've allowed you to see. But it also happens
to be what's real and true."

"No, it's part truth and part illusion. Isn't it, movie man? Tell me I'm wrong.
Tell me that very soon now all your pretense won't wither, and dry up,
and turn to dust. And be... gone with the wind." He looked pleased
with himself. "Should I go on?"

I said, "Frankie, my dear, I don't give a damn."

He wagged a finger at me again. "Not true. That is just so obviously not true.
We  want truth, Jordan Trapp, not cleverness. So tell us something that is true
and  genuine and honest. Let your next words resonate with conviction. Talk.
The floor is yours."

And he wouldn't say more. He kept his eyes locked on me for a long time and
refused to make the next move. He waited, and waited some more, and
I knew he'd continue to wait, as long as it took for me to speak the next words.
He just watched, his head cocked at an inquisitive angle.

All right then. Another card.

“By the way," I said. "One more thing about the smashup. A third car slid on
the wet road and couldn't quite stop and bumped into the pileup. The driver
couldn't have  been paying attention, but it turned out to be a cop. Can't trust
anybody, huh? It was a black guy in a raincoat, with a goatee, and this wacko hat."

Bayliss and Pembleton looked at each other knowingly.

But then their attention was trained on me again.

Another card.

"Okay, fellas, tell you what," I said. "Enough time wasted. I want a polygraph.
Get a machine in here and hook me up to it. I'll give you thirty minutes to make
it happen, otherwise I walk."

Bayliss asked, watching me again, "Ah... you'll be wanting a lawyer present?"

"Never mind the lawyer."

"You'll do a polygraph without a lawyer?"

"Bring it on."

"What, exactly," Pembleton asked, "are you expecting out of this?"

"That you, or a technician, are going to ask me in plain simple English,
'Did... you...  kill... Anna Gable?' And I'll go, 'No... no... no.' And
the machine will say, 'True, true, true.'"

"Forget it," Pembleton said.

"Excuse me?"

"I said forget it."

"What the hell."

"You can only get so far baiting us. You're done."

"Are you charging me? Otherwise..."

"Oh, no, you're free to go."

"What? You mean that's all it took, willingness to do a lie detector?"

"I'm sure you know polygraph results are inadmissible in court."

"Yeah, so?"

"So likewise the lie detectors Tim and I have in our heads.
They say you're guilty. The readings in our heads say we have
a guilty man sitting here in front of us. But it's just, we don't have
the evidence. At least, not yet. We're going to go out and find
that evidence. When we do, and we will, you'll be back inside
here with us reprising your little act, playing bantam rooster
with an attitude."

Bayliss made a little motion with his hand that I should stand up.

I hesitated.

Pembleton was less patient. "Get the hell out of my box."

I rose quickly and moved toward the door, which opened.
I recoiled and took a step back as a huge black man came in.

"We're letting you go," the man said to me, almost with a scowl.
"They found a suicide in your building. He left a note taking responsibility
for the strangulation death of Anna Gable."

I stood waiting, thinking the man would say more. But he turned to go
back out, and I asked, "Do you know the person's name?"

The big man had spoken coldly and it occurred to me that he'd probably
been watching through the glass.

Pembleton said, "Gee? Do you want us to go out there?"

"No, I don't have a name. And yes, Frank, get going."

Without a word to Pembleton or Bayliss I slipped out and started walking.
I thought I heard Bayliss say quietly, "Your box?"

I kept walking and headed for the elevator. Neither of them called out after
me to offer me a ride. Fine with me. I'd had my fill of those two.
And I couldn't ever end up back in that room with them. This had been
merely an interview, not an interrogation. There could never be an interrogation.

Mind you, I didn't think there would be. Not if I had the details covered.
And no way in hell would I be shooting my mouth off in a bar, the way
criminals seemed to do  with stupefying regularity.

Of course I really didn't need to know the suicide's name. It was the same
Richard Vandermeer whom I had come to know and detest. He was dead
of an overdose of Seconal and alcohol. He had indeed scrawled on a piece
of paper that he was sorry he'd killed Anna. And he truly had been,
wretchedly so. He'd told me as he wrote it.

Last night, arriving back at my building after work, I'd gone directly up
to Anna's apartment as I so often did, where I would use the key she'd
given me for those nights when she went to bed early. But in the corridor
I'd caught sight of Vandermeer closing Anna's door, and I ducked back
so he wouldn't see me. When he was gone I unlocked the door, and as
soon as I opened it I saw Anna lying on the floor, her face blue, her dead
eyes staring. And as I stood frozen, the apartment was so wrongly still and
silent. Usually Roxie would come running up to me, to stand on her hind legs
and scratch my pantlegs with her forepaws. Roxie was a westie, a west highland
white terrier. But as I stepped in I saw her lying on the rug, her head at an
unnatural angle. Still carrying my lunch bucket, I bent and put it down, then
picked Roxie up, cradling her in one arm, and got the lunch bucket again.
I checked outside in the corridor to see if anyone was there, and left the
apartment. I was going after  Vandermeer.

I knocked softly on his door. He opened it, a glass in his hand.
He was swaying a little, visibly drunk, his graying blond hair dishevelled,
a food stain on the front of his shirt. I pushed past him. The apartment
was cluttered with junk. Vandermeer lurched to a sofa and flopped down.
I placed Roxie on the floor in front of him.

What he said then in his drunken slur amounted to the fact that he was
desperately sorry about Anna, he didn't know how things had gone so bad,
and he wished she hadn't let him in to talk in the first place. She just shouldn't
have let him in. He knew she and I were girlfriend-boyfriend, because he used
to see us all the time walking her stupid dog, so he was surprised she let him in.
I asked him what had happened, and he said he didn't know, he just got madder
and madder because she wouldn't tell him things about her, and when the dog
nipped at him, he broke the stupid thing's neck. And that was how he ended up
needing to keep Anna quiet.

I told him he had things wrong. I wasn't Anna's boyfriend. Anna was an okay
person and a good companion, but the truth was that she'd kind of latched
onto me because of Roxie. She adored Roxie. She used to dog-sit Roxie
for me most nights while I was at work.

If you'd only killed Anna, I said to him, we'd be waiting for the cops.
But you broke Roxie's neck.

I opened my lunch bucket and pulled out the 380. I said he was going
to get his bottle of tranquilizers from the bathroom or the bedroom and
eat them all. He closed his eyes for a moment, swaying, and said, yeah,
why not, probably be better that way. And he did it. He washed them
down with scotch. When he was done, he finished off the last of the scotch
in the bottle. I hoped he wasn't going to puke the whole thing up. Then,
before he began to get droopy, I told him to write the note.

It occurred to me that I'd have to decide whether to take the chance
of putting Roxie back in Anna's apartment. I didn't know how long it
would be before Vandermeer's body and the note would be discovered,
and in the meantime I didn't want the cops nailing me for Anna's murder.
So if they found Roxie there it would point suspicion away from me
because I wouldn't have killed my own dog. But on the other hand, how
was I going to explain not going to get Roxie after work as I always did?
Because if I had, why didn't I report the murder? Or, if I'd found Anna
and Roxie dead... then what had I done afterward for the next few hours?
So I'd keep Roxie with me and arrange a proper burial tomorrow. I'd need
to have answers ready for the cops. I'd need to avoid all mention of Roxie,
even deflect any questions that might lead to more questions. But it was worth
the risk. It was worth it to have Roxie lying there in front of Vandermeer while
that cretinous piece of shit faded to black.

And I made sure he got the point. I told him, couple of times.

You don't get to kill my dog.