Pendergast shook his head, too afraid to leave with Neil pacing like a leopard, narrating.
“Then she peeled off her stockings one by one and dangled them at you, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “And you know what I think?
I think you killed her but it wasn’t your fault. Really. You know why? Because she made you do it. I think it was really an accident.”
“No,” Pendergast pleaded.
“Yes. And it’s because she wanted to make you bad.” He snapped up a photo of her wearing only black stockings. “The thing is, Earl, Terry Farina was nothing but a little tramp. She preyed on men like you and me for money. And that’s what it was all about, money. You and a thousand other guys got suckered into laying down good money to watch her strip. But she went too far and tried to recruit you, told you you could have the real thing, right? I mean look at her.” And he spread the photos while Pendergast gaped without expression.
“I know what you like: pretty women, clean women. What normal guy doesn’t? But not the scullery maid even if she’s got gorgeous red hair. You were looking for Ms. Right, not her, because she was bad.” Neil nudged his shoulder. “Right?”
Pendergast nodded.
“You bet. She was dirty and she tried to make you dirty, and you got mad. And you know what? Maybe she got what she deserved.”
Pendergast grunted.
“Thing is, women like that get you to drop your defenses, make you act against your better judgment—create illusions and denial. It happens to me. Happens to everybody. Do something dumb and you repress it from your memory. It’s perfectly human. You’re a college professor, I needn’t tell you.”
Pendergast nodded weakly, not knowing where Neil was going.
“And that’s what happened. She was a licensed exhibitionist, probably turned tricks on the side. We’re talking your basic whore who played on men’s weaknesses, and she lured you into the bedroom.”
Up to this point, Neil had been pacing in front of Pendergast. But he circled behind him. “And there she was lying naked on the bed humping the air, teasing and taunting you. Then something went wrong. Maybe she said something that rubbed you wrong—an insult about your manhood. You were a little high from the wine and meds and she just wouldn’t let up, maybe riding your ass, playing the desperate whore. Then before you knew it, something snapped.” With that Neil produced a black stocking from his back pocket and twisted it around Pendergast’s neck.
For an instant Steve thought Neil would strangle him to death. But just as quickly he let go and pressed his face to Pendergast, who was gasping and massaging his throat. “That’s what you did. You blanked out and strangled her with that black stocking.”
“N-n-no.” He cowered from Neil, rubbing his neck.
“Yes. Yes. Yes.” And he grabbed Pendergast by his shirt and lifted him into the air. “You fucking little worm. You killed her because she was bad and wanted to make you bad.”
Pendergast shook his head. “No.”
“Fuck no!” And Neil stormed out of the room. A minute later he returned with two officers. “You’re under arrest. Take him away.”
“For what?”
“For the murder of Terry Farina. Read him his Miranda and get him the fuck out of here.”
The video came to an abrupt end.
Steve stared at the blank screen for several seconds as a rat uncurled in his gut.
36
It was after seven. The detective shifts were changing and the office was empty but for a couple of sergeants. In his office, Reardon was just packing his briefcase to leave for the weekend when Steve walked in.
“You look like hell.”
“That’s the good news.”
Reardon’s eyebrows shot up. “What’s the problem?”
We’re back to door one. And I don’t want to open it.
“You said you saw the Pendergast video.”
“Some of it, why?”
“You might want to take a closer look because I think we’ve got a problem.”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe he shouldn’t be in lockup.”
A television monitor with a DVD player sat on a table near Reardon’s desk, and Steve slipped in the disk. With the remote, Steve jumped to key segments. Reardon said very little while he watched, occasionally asking Steve to replay sections, occasionally muttering to himself.
“I double-checked the reports. We don’t have his DNA in the bedroom. And we don’t have a witness to his car being on her street. Those are fabrications. Plus he violated the guy’s rights all the way up. The D.A. sees this, she’ll blow a fuse.”
“Any way to confirm his alibi?”
“No.”
“What about the latents?”
“They may be old like he claims. He said he was up there once after a dinner date with her. But there’s nothing in the bedroom or anywhere else.”
“He could have wiped them.”
“True, but nobody’s going to like the claim we’ve got bedroom prints when we don’t.”
“But he lied when he said he was never up there.”
“Yeah, but it’s kind of a stretch for probable cause.”
“Why the hell didn’t he insist on his lawyer or just walk out? The guy’s got a Ph.D., for Christ’s sake. You’d think he knows his rights.”
“Neil kept tweaking him with threats of going to the press about his priors. And maybe he’s so walking wounded he wanted to be beaten up.” It was clear that Reardon had barely looked at the video but had taken Neil’s word. At the moment, Steve wanted to spit at him.
“Shit!” Reardon said.
“Looks like he arrested him for having sex with her.” He handed Reardon the DVD. He would make some calls on Neil’s claims about the latents and witness then review the DVD.
“Don’t go far.”
Steve went back to his office and took a tab of Ativan. That pea was now a bowling ball.
He sat at his desk, which had two piles of papers, pencils in one cup, pens in another. Things lined up, pathologically neat unlike the contents of his mind. His eyes fell on the photo of him and Dana from a trip to the White Mountains a few years ago. The air was crisp and keen and the sky an endless blue.
Suddenly his mind was a fugue again:
Well, Bunky, isn’t this a fine how do you do? Came in thinking the gargoyle was off your back. That maybe you’d been wrong. That it was just a weird set of coincidences. That her death didn’t belong to you. That it was that randy English prof after all, graduated from lewd and lash to murder most foul. And now we’re back to numero uno.
So, what’ll it be?
Could make it easy for yourself, walk right in there and tell the captain that you were the last to see her alive. Got the receipts. Got the number in your PDA phone. Took the forbidden Ativan cocktail and let Mr. Hyde out of his cage. Plus you’ve got a big fat time hole that you can’t account for—from 6:22 when you bought the champagne ’til Reardon’s call. Blanko, nada.
And what about those dreams of her? And Dana? Explain those if you’re not wracked with guilt that you did something wrong.
Autosuggestion and some form of psyche dysmorphia, to use the good doc’s term.
Bullshit. You were there. Felt the vibes as soon as you walked in.
Yeah, then where did the stocking come from?