April put the tape recorder she had brought down on the table. “Mr. Block,” she said politely, “this is Sergeant Joyce and Sergeant Sanchez. You can sit down.”
He nodded and plunked himself back in the chair, eagerly regarding the tape recorder. “Thank you,” he said.
Sanchez and Joyce looked at each other. What the hell was this? This guy couldn’t lift a five-pound sack of flour, much less press a hundred-and-five-pound corpse a foot and a half over his head and hang it up on a chandelier. What’d he do it with, a winch? Sanchez coughed into his hand.
April ignored him.
“Mr. Block, why don’t you tell the sergeants here what you told me about Saturday night.”
Albert Block nodded again, stuck his thumb in his mouth, and looked from one cop to the other, checking out their faces, three, four times, as if testing their patience. No one moved. He had them in thrall.
Finally he removed the thumb from his mouth and started to talk.
24
What’s that for?” Albert pointed at the tape recorder.
“So we can remember what you said.”
“I’m confessing.” Albert frowned at the tape recorder. “Where’s the D.A.? If I confess, I know the D.A. is supposed to be here. I don’t want to talk to that. I want to talk to him.”
“We have to do everything properly, Mr. Block,” April said pleasantly. “Right now we’re talking. We’re establishing what, if anything, you know.”
“I told you I did it.” He became belligerent. “What else do you want?”
Sanchez and Joyce glanced at each other.
“Why don’t you just tell the two sergeants here what you told me about Maggie,” April prompted, “and we’ll worry about the D.A. later.”
“Who are they?” Block crossed one black-jeaned knee over the other and jiggled a green lizard cowboy boot nervously.
“I told you. This is Sergeant Joyce, Supervisor of the Detective Squad in this—”
“Did you read him his rights, Detective?” Sergeant Joyce interrupted.
“Yes,” April said, “I did. Twice.”
“Do it again, Detective. For the record.”
Albert kneaded his freckled hands.
April read his Mirandas for the tape. “You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to be represented by a lawyer. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you. Anything you say can and will be used against you. Do you have any questions, Mr. Block?”
“No,” he said faintly.
“Would you like a lawyer?” Sergeant Joyce asked gently.
“Who’s doing this, you or her?” Block flared up, his moment of weakness gone in a flash.
“Who would you like to do it?” Sergeant Joyce asked.
Sanchez coughed.
“Shut up!” Albert slammed his hand on the table.
Okay. The guy was a nut with a temper.
April took a deep breath. “Why don’t you just tell us about Maggie, Mr. Block. You knew Maggie.”
“Maggie?”
“Yes, tell us how you met Maggie.”
Block sniffed. “Will you get the D.A. in?”
“No promises. Just tell us the story.” April kept her eyes on him. He was weird. Earlier the words had just come tumbling out. Now he was acting like a hardcase. She should have taped him then.
“Okay.” He lapsed into silence, staring off into the far distance, where the green wall had a long crack down the side that resembled the California coastline. “Fuck you” was scrawled over Mexico. There was no window in the room except the wired window at eye level in the door. It was getting stuffy and tense.
“I met Maggie last winter.”
Silence.
April licked her lips. They waited.
“Uh-huh. Could you give us the time frame on that?”
“Huh?” Block shifted his gaze.
“When you met Maggie.”
“Oh, in February. Right after she moved here. I decided to go out on my own.”
Silence.
“What do you mean, Mr. Block? Did Maggie convince you to go out on your own?”
“I was working for a firm. You know the kind of tight-assed kind of place.” He looked at them expectantly. They didn’t.
“I’m an accountant. Harry encouraged me to go out on my own. Harry’s the owner of All Dressed Up. That’s the store on Columbus next to the bookstore.” He waved a tiny hand in the direction he thought it was.
Sergeant Joyce nodded. They knew where it was.
“I had his account. He told me to go up and down to all the stores and restaurants on Columbus and ask if they were happy with their accounting. Nobody’s ever happy with their accountant, you know.” He challenged them to disparage accountants.
Sanchez and Joyce kept their faces neutral. It was the last thing they would do. They didn’t know a lot about accountants. Their taxes were easy. One source of income, no bookkeeper necessary. Joyce glanced at April. April had the feeling she’d be toast if this guy kept Sergeant Joyce there for hours and gave them nothing. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Don’t rabbit on me now, Block, she prayed silently.
“Harry said to tell everybody I could do it faster and cheaper and he’d back me up. Then I should go to Amsterdam and Broadway, you know.”
“So you went to The Last Mango, looking for work,” April said softly, “and there you met Maggie.”
He shook his head. “No, first I quit my job. Got some new clothes. You know, for my confidence.”
“Then you went to The Last Mango, looking for work.”
“Yeah.”
He relapsed into silence.
“Jesus,” Sanchez muttered.
“Hey, you want me to tell the story or not?” Albert turned on him furiously. “I don’t like this guy. I want the D.A.”
April took a deep breath. “The D.A.’s office is very busy. We can’t just get somebody to come over every time someone comes in to talk to us. Please, Mr. Block, just tell the sergeants here what you told me about Maggie.”
“And then you’ll get the D.A.?”
What was his thing about the D.A.?
“Look, I watch TV. I know you don’t indict without the D.A.”
He wanted an indictment. The guy had no priors, no sheet of any kind. He hadn’t ever caught so much as a speeding or a parking ticket in his whole life, and he wanted to be indicted for the murder of Maggie Wheeler.
Sergeant Joyce checked her watch and made a move to get up. “Why don’t you give me a call later,” she said.
Block twitched. “Okay, okay. You don’t give a guy a break, do you?”
“Yeah, you have our full attention,” Sergeant Joyce told him, leaning back in her chair. “I’m here if you want to talk. I’m gone if you don’t.”
He looked at the wall again, rubbing his palms together. Now April could see he was sweating into his plaid shirt.
“Like I said, I went into The Last Mango, looking for the owner. Maggie had just come to work there, maybe a week before. She wasn’t the manager yet.”
“Did she become the manager?” Elsbeth Manganaro never said she was the manager.
“Oh, yeah, Maggie did almost everything in the store. Except she couldn’t fire that stupid bitch.”
Sanchez raised an eyebrow at April. Well, that part was true. Olga Yerger was no rocket scientist.