Armand nodded.
“I walk and walk, and I’m not even sure the thing ends.”
Because he didn’t know what to say, Armand sipped his drink. Then: “We’re gonna catch who did this, you know. We’re gonna catch him.”
The old man sighed, drank. “Let’s talk about something else. How long have you been on the force?”
The bartender came by with his rag and wiped the bar.
“Thirty-one, thirty-two years. Long time.”
“Seen it all?” Farber asked him.
“Sometimes I still get surprises.”
Farber nodded. “My son wanted to join the force, big dreams. Went to CMSU to study criminal justice. Never finished.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Armand said. “It’s hard work, you almost never make people happy.”
The old man smiled at that. “Well, my kid’s doing great anyway. Has a good job, good wife. You married?”
Armand took another sip, then ordered a new drink. “I was,” he said.
It felt good to tell someone about Carol, even if it was more or less a stranger. Refreshing. He hadn’t really talked about her with anyone since she died. And eventually the conversation drifted away from their lost wives to simpler things, the Royals, politics, the bartender joining in after the bar emptied out.
And the next day he woke up strangely refreshed. He hadn’t dreamt about Carol or the wreck. He didn’t have a hangover, which was strange. Washington swung by in the Caprice and picked Armand up. “I’ve got news,” Washington said, “you smart fuck.” He was smiling.
“Yeah?”
“They’re holding Beispiel down at the station right now. Melichar and Greenleaf picked him up this morning.”
“Beispiel? What?” He’d been thinking Beispiel was a bullshit lead.
“The lab says he’s a match for the DNA of the second vic.” Washington laughed. “I gotta say, whatever you saw in the guy—”
Armand laughed too.
“They’re holding him for us at the station. Room A. A for ‘Armand’. He’s your collar, after all.”
Armand laughed. It would be something for Jerry Farber to know it.
“There’s more,” Washington said. “On a hunch, I called a friend down at city hall. Ten years ago, Beispiel lodges a couple of formal protests about a property his dad owned—”
“—River Market?” Armand said.
“River Market. Wanted some old warehouse protected, said it was a landmark. City seized it, paid him fair market value, tore it down. Built the steamboat museum on top of it.”
“The Royal Shoe warehouse?”
“Eminent domain.”
“What did they pay him?”
Washington laughed. “Well, it was a while ago. And the place was an empty shell.”
Armand nodded. It would be worth a bundle now, after gentrification. After the yuppies moved in. It had probably been gnawing at him for years.
The figure waiting for Armand in room A didn’t look anything like the Philip Beispiel Armand had seen standing among the onlookers at the last crime scene. He was dressed for work — a nice blue suit, wingtip shoes — but his eyes were empty, his hair ruffled. He had a bruise on his head, the kind a perp acquires getting into a squad car against his will. He looked like he wasn’t going to be talking. But he hadn’t yet lawyered up either. That was good news.
“Whaddya say?” Armand said. “Howya doing?” Washington was standing by the door, his arms crossed. Somewhere, a tape was recording.
Beispiel lifted his head a bit, looked at Armand, then back down at the table.
Armand pulled up a chair so it squeaked against the floor. He always made it squeak; it unsettled the perps. “You gonna talk to us?”
Beispiel looked up at Armand and attempted a sort of boyish grin. It didn’t come off.
“You been read your rights?” Beispiel said nothing. Armand looked at Washington.
“Yeah,” Washington said. “He’s been advised. Melichar read ’em.”
“Okay, then.”
Beispiel was silent.
“Look,” Armand said. “We know about the Royal Shoe warehouse. That was your father’s?”
Beispiel leaned back in his chair and watched Armand silently. Almost sadly.
“But I want to talk about the murders.”
Beispiel said nothing.
Washington shifted behind Armand.
“You want to talk about it?”
Beispiel sighed and moved in his chair. He looked at his fingers. Armand turned to Washington. “He doesn’t want to talk about it,” he said.
“Yeah,” Washington said. “You’d think at least he’d talk about the old lady.”
Armand nodded.
“At least,” Washington said, “since she wasn’t bothering nobody. Now, the other four? Maybe they bothered you. But the old lady?” He addressed Beispiel directly now. “I mean, that was your screwup. The old lady didn’t live in some yuppie loft apartment. She had nothing to do with all this. She was innocent.”
Beispiel looked up angrily. Something connected there.
“Yeah,” Armand said to Washington. “He’s gotta feel bad about that.” Then, to Beispiel, “She was just a nice old lady and now she’s dead. And her husband—” Armand thought about the old man, about Jerry, how at the end of the evening, at the thought of going back home to an empty house, he’d suddenly looked like he was going to cry. “You sick fuck,” he said.
Beispiel looked angry now. “I didn’t kill the old woman,” he said. “That wasn’t me. I saw that on TV. I just came down to see.”
Washington laughed. “He don’t want credit for the one he screwed up,” he said.
Beispiel just stared at them, red-faced. “I’m innocent,” he said weakly.
That night, Armand dreamt about the car wreck again. He watched the car flip over and over again, saw it come to a rest finally in the snow. In his dream, the radio was playing a song from his youth, Frankie Avalon, a sappy song. And as if he were flying above it, Armand could see the whole landscape, the first couple of cars whizzing past, unaware, then a car stopping, a young couple scrambling from the front seats, running through the snow to the wreck. And later, an ambulance pulling up, lifting Carol so gently and carefully from the collapsed car onto a stretcher. Then, like in the movies, Armand zoomed in on her face, which should have been peaceful, but it wasn’t, her mouth open as if in amazement, the black of her mouth, her white teeth. Her front tooth was chipped. Like the old woman’s, her tooth was chipped and bloody, and suddenly, in the dream, his wife and the dead old woman were one. The setting had changed, Jerry Farber was standing beside him, weeping. His arm was bandaged. When he looked up, his eyes were cold and dry—
He woke gasping for breath. What had happened? He remembered the tooth and it seemed important to him. He closed his eyes in the dark and recreated the dream image. There was a little blood on it, her blood. He turned on the light.
Was it her blood?
He had a few phone calls to make.
That afternoon, Washington stopped by the house in the Caprice again. “The news,” he said, “is Beispiel’s copping to the whole thing.”
Armand sat silently beside him. “To all five?”
“All five,” Washington said, smacking the steering wheel to the music, George Clinton, something like that. “He’s gonna talk about all five. Hopes a little cooperation will get him some leniency with the courts. He doesn’t want the DP.”
Armand thought about it. “You know, Jerry Farber’s gonna be a rich man, don’t you? He had a big policy on the old lady.”
Washington smiled. “Good,” he said. “The old man deserves it. Creep killed his wife.” He was nodding his head to the music.
“I suppose so.”