He looked up from his own pair of handcuffs and asked, “What’d they get you for?”
His breath stunk from whiskey and decay.
I turned my head away from him, swallowing hard to keep the bile down.
Upstairs, they chained me to a metal bench in a small interrogation room. Blue uniforms with different faces peeked in through the open door.
The cop with the orange mustache came in without his navy blazer. He had a fresh yellow pad and a pen in one hand and a tape recorder in the other. The armpits of his shirt were badly stained. He turned on the tape recorder, read me my Miranda warning for a second time, and started asking questions.
I didn’t want a lawyer, didn’t want them to think I was guilty, even though I knew the textbooks said not to talk once you got your Miranda. My instincts and my innocence were in control. The urge to convince them overwhelmed the distant lessons from my first-year criminal law class.
I told the cop what happened. I swore it was the truth. I had no idea how there could have been blood on my steering wheel. She had bumped her head. Lightly. I shoved her away. Not hard, no. I never saw blood, but maybe it was possible. Yes, I had a tackle box for fishing. I thought I had a fillet knife, why? No, I didn’t know her at all.
“Then why were you there?” he asked.
I opened my mouth and stopped. Outside the room, I could hear a muffled burst of laughter from somewhere over in the detectives’ offices. People’s lives going on as if mine didn’t matter. The detective clicked his pen. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. My face felt hot. My armpits were sweating.
“Can I take off my jacket?” I asked.
“Why were you there?” he asked again.
I closed my eyes. I could see Roger Williamson’s blue skin. Smell that hospital room.
You tell no one. Will you promise me that?
“I made a promise,” I said, opening my eyes.
The detective cocked his head and partially closed one eye. His lip and the mustache above it quivered slightly.
“I can’t,” I said. “I have to think. I’d better talk to a lawyer. A criminal lawyer…”
“You can’t tell me why?” he said.
“Minnick v. Mississippi,” I said.
He tilted his head the other way.
“I asked for a lawyer,” I said. “You’re permanently barred from asking me another question. That’s the case law…”
“You’re gonna need it,” he said with half a smile.
I looked away from him. The red eye of the tape recorder stared at me until he clicked it off. He snatched it up and stood, holding it in his freckled fist so that the skin was stretched smooth across his knuckles.
He left and I sat for a long time. I was beginning to think about making some racket. They owed me a phone call. I was combing my brain. I never saw a statute or any case law that told me how long they could make you wait for your phone call. Then someone else walked in.
He was a well-built little man-like a gymnast-with curly blond hair, a tan furrowed brow, and hazel eyes. I’d seen him before somewhere, angry, and not looking quite so elfish. He smiled at me suddenly, as if someone had cued him to do it. When he held out his hand, I shook it.
“I’m Dean Villay,” he said. “District attorney.”
He turned the chair around and sat down, leaning toward me. He wore a gray double-breasted blazer with brass buttons and gray slacks with grass stains at the cuffs. If he had a tie, it was gone. On the collar of his white shirt was a small chocolate-colored stain.
“I asked for my own lawyer.”
He flicked his hand in the air, swatting the notion away.
“They told me you cited Minnick,” he said, smiling even more broadly now. The pupils of his eyes weren’t round, but torn on the edges, giving me the sense I could see deeper into his friendly soul.
I felt a wave of relief. Finally, someone with some sense, some understanding of just how ludicrous this all was. Wasn’t the DA an elected official? Yes. Political allies? Even from the other party, we very well could be…
I shook my head, smiling now.
“You don’t know how crazy this was getting,” I said with a laugh.
He laughed too. His round cheeks were flushed and I noticed that his tie was dangling from the side pocket of his blazer. I wanted to hug him.
“Sorry,” he said. “Cops are cops. But we’ve got to get this straightened out. They’ve got a bloody knife that they’re pretty sure was the murder weapon.”
“A fishing knife?”
“Yes.”
“They asked me about that. I have no idea. I have one in my boat, but…”
“Jesus, Raymond,” he said, rubbing one hand from his forehead down the length of his face. “This is not good.”
“But it wasn’t me,” I said, my hands clenched.
“I believe you, but what the hell were you doing there?” he said. “People are going to want to know.”
“You can keep this quiet, right?” I said, lowering my voice and leaning toward him. “I mean, if you check this out, you’re the DA, you can keep this part quiet, but push the investigation the other way and find out who really did this, right?”
“Of course,” he said, leaning still closer.
I looked around, even though the room was a five-by-ten-foot closet and the door was shut.
“I promised someone I’d give her an envelope,” I said, in a low tone. “I have no idea what was in it. It had nothing to do with me getting the nomination. But the girl, she said she was having an affair with Roger Williamson.”
When that news hit him, the legs of the chair hit the floor and squeaked. His mouth opened, but he quickly put his top teeth over his lip and leaned back toward me again, although not as close.
“He was the one who asked me to deliver the envelope,” I said, whispering. “I saw him the day before he died. He asked me not to say anything to anyone. Just give it to her as soon as I got back from New York.”
Villay looked away and slowly nodded his head as he chewed his lower lip. He stood up suddenly and held out his small hand again.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s it. That’s easy. I’ll go and find the envelope and that’s going to go a long way to help you here. You delivered the envelope and you left. The knife, I don’t know, maybe the real killer planted it.”
“And you can keep the fact that I told you about the letter between you and me?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he said, smiling and tapping the side of his head. “You don’t get to where I’m at without keeping a few secrets.”
13
EVEN IN SPECIAL HOUSING, which is the box, they will give you an hour of recreation. Time to breathe fresh air and walk in circles. Off by yourself. On a rooftop surrounded by a high fence crowned with concertina wire.
I don’t go there.
I don’t want to see the sky. I don’t want to feel the wind on the back of my neck or the chill of snowflakes pricking my face. I am like an alcoholic who can’t bear to have a single mouthful of drink. I don’t want to even think about freedom and so I don’t want to taste even the foam from that glass.
During the days before my trial I was out on bail, consumed with proving my innocence and trying to act like everything in my life was going to be just fine. I tried to work on the acquisition of a drugstore chain for a big client, but kept finding myself in the law library scrutinizing every detail of every murder case I could get my hands on. I pestered my own defense lawyer incessantly, pushing to keep the trial date from being moved out. I refinished the hardwood floors in my house to keep my hands busy. And my relationship with Lexis limped along in the no-man’s-land between the redemption and total destruction of my life.