DETECTIVES HENDERSON AND RAMIREZ stood side by side in front
of the wide one-way mirror that allowed a clear view inside the green interrogation room. Kyle Byrne slumped in a chair across a table, facing them without being able to see them. The partners stood quietly for a moment, observing two very different scenes.
Ramirez saw a man fighting to control his fear, someone aware that he was being stared at and trying a little too hard not to look concerned, a clever liar trying to fake his way out of a bad situation. But to Henderson, Kyle Byrne seemed neither nervous nor scared. He didn’t look like someone who was racked with doubt after having been arrested for burglary and while being held at the Roundhouse on suspicion of murder. He just looked bored.
“Doesn’t seem too worried, does he?” said Henderson, pulling at the gray hairs growing out of his ear.
“He’s trying very hard not to.”
The man in the interrogation room stretched in his chair, yawned, lolled his head across the back of the chair.
“And doing a damn good job of it,” said Henderson.
Byrne had given himself up as the uniforms climbed the stairs with guns drawn. His hands were raised, he was smiling weakly, he said, “Don’t shoot. My name’s Kyle Byrne. I’m not trespassing. This is my father’s office.” He was alone, the cops said, and they found nothing on him other than a wallet, which confirmed his identity, and a flashlight. No gun, no contraband, no lock-picking tools, nothing but a few bucks and some loose change. He was so amiable and so nonthreatening that the uniforms had only cuffed him in strict compliance with procedure.
“I would have thought you’d be more excited, Henderson, seeing all your old saws come to fruition. First he attends the funeral of the victim, next he returns to the scene of the crime.”
“That makes him guilty of stupidity, not much more.”
“It’s a start,” said Ramirez. “I thought you said old saws still cut?”
“I did, but then again, sometimes old saws are too rusty to be of much use. Has he asked for a lawyer?”
“Not yet.”
“He call anyone?”
“No.”
“Who notified us?”
“Anonymous call from a pay phone.”
“Pay phone, huh? Those things still around?”
“Apparent ly.”
“What did he say he was doing in there?”
“Visiting his father’s old office before they shut it down. Looking for something to remember his father by. A keepsake or such. Sounds a bit demented if you ask me.”
“You get along with your father, Ramirez?”
“I did, at least when he wasn’t drinking. He died when I was in high school.”
“How did it make you feel?”
“It hurt, and then I got over it.”
“And now you don’t feel abandoned, betrayed, bitter?” “I feel nothing,” she said. “Let me do him alone. We started building a rapport at the funeral—until he figured I was a cop. Give me half an hour and I’ll push him into coming clean.”
“That’s the problem with your technique right there. Rapport is fine, but pushing’s good for giving birth and not much else. Does he know we can’t hold him for the burglary?”
“Not yet, and I don’t want to tell him before we have to.”
“I’m not surprised the landlord won’t press charges. He’s had enough bad publicity over the murder, and he’s going to have to rent the place soon. But what was Mrs. Toth’s excuse?”
“She said she felt sorry for him,” said Ramirez. “Said her husband was such a skinflint he refused to give the kid a break even though he’d promised to financially support the mother.”
“I guess she got over her fit of weeping at the funeral.”
“Maybe we can change her mind by telling her the boy is a suspect in her husband’s murder.”
“Is that what he is?”
“What do you think?” said Ramirez.
Henderson looked at Kyle as he sat slumped in a strange quiescence. There was something lost and yet full of serene acceptance in his expression, as if he had no idea of what was going on and found the situation both familiar and comforting.
“I think he’s a confused kid who misses his dad,” said Henderson.
“You’ve gotten soft over the years.”
“Maybe I have. But before you finger a man for murder, you ought at least to have some reasonable motive.”
“Like the widow said, this Toth had promised to make payments from the law firm to the kid and his mother after the father’s death, then reneged. Maybe it was revenge. Or maybe he just broke in for that keepsake he was looking for and found the victim in the office working late and panicked.”
“And he looks like the panicky type to you.”
“No need to get wise. We still haven’t gotten a straight answer about how this Liam Byrne died. Maybe Toth was somehow involved, maybe the Byrne boy found out how, maybe he decided on a little payback.”
“Why now?”
“Why not? And if he did do the shooting, it could certainly explain why he was in the office last night. If he lost something accidentally during the shooting, something that could connect him to the murder, he’d have to come back to find it. Like that cuff link we found under Toth’s desk.”
Henderson eyed Byrne’s ragged T-shirt. “He look like a cuff-link kind of guy to you?”
“He was wearing a suit at the funeral.”
“What kind of shirt?”
Ramirez thought for a moment and then frowned. “Button-down oxford.”
“Good for you,” said Henderson. “You might make a detective yet.”
“Screw off, old man. Whether you like it or not, I’m here already. And what the hell did you mean about a problem with my interrogation technique? My interrogation technique is spot-on, it’s legendary, it’s why the brass put me here.”
“To learn, maybe. You can’t go in trying to bully a suspect, unless you want him to close like a clam. You have to care about him as a human being.”
She snorted. “I can pretend to care with the best of them.”
“No, see, that’s just it. It’s not a parlor trick, not a technique. You have to really care.”
“They’re scumbags.”
“Most of them, yeah, but before they became scumbags, they were somebody’s little boy, somebody’s best friend. That’s all still somewhere inside. This kid has been missing his father since he was twelve. That did something to him, and he’s just looking for someone to tell it to. But he’s not going to tell it unless he believes you care.”
“Oh, I care, all right.”
“About him? As a human being? Because what happened in that office wasn’t just about a victim. You ever shoot that gun of yours, Ramirez? You ever kill anyone?”
“Not yet.”
“You sound like you’re looking forward to it.”
“I’m ready to do what I need to do.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever ready for that.”
“What’s the point, old man?”
“Whoever pulled the trigger in that office, he didn’t just kill Toth, he killed a part of himself, too. You can’t forget that. The killer needs to pay a price, but he’s hurting about what he did. You want answers, you got to be able to weep for them both.”
“I do my weeping at the movies,” said Ramirez. “Can I get on with it?”
Henderson stared at her for a long moment, wondering when the newbies got so young, thinking for the hundredth time about retirement, and then said, “Knock yourself out.”
RAMIREZ SAT DOWN across from Kyle Byrne. His eyes were sleepy. He smiled at her, like she was merely paying him a friendly visit.
“Well, now,” he said. “This is quite a coincidence. Here I was, thinking about you, and bam, just like that you show up.”
“Thinking about me?” said Ramirez.
“Yeah, sure. Ramirez, right?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m sorry, I forgot your first name.”
“Detective.”
“Wow, your mother must have been psychic or something. But I was thinking about your smile.”
“My smile?”
“And the way things ended a little awkward between us last time. When I got pulled in here, I was hoping that you’d show up so I could apologize for being kind of short with you at the end of our conversation. It was just the questions you were asking, like I was a murder suspect or something, and it all being done at a cemetery, somehow it seemed a little too strange.”
“And it’s not too strange now, you and me across a table in an interrogation room at police headquarters.”
Kyle Byrne sat up a bit, looked around. “Is that what this is? I thought it was just a waiting room, though I did wonder about the mirror over there. And why there were no vending machines. I didn’t have any breakfast and could sure go for a sack of Doritos right about now.”
She stared at him for a moment, was taken in somewhat by his smile. He was a charmer, the cocky bastard. Time to get a little hard, to wipe the smirk off his face.
“How did you get into Byrne & Toth’s building this morning, Mr. Byrne?” she said.
“Call me Kyle.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Through the back door.”
“The landlord assures us that the door was locked. He checked it himself. He’s been understandably careful since the murder.”
“I guess he wasn’t careful enough.”
“Do you have any experience picking locks?”
“You mean, like, with a paper clip?”
“Or lock-picking tools.”
“No, but I always wanted to learn. That and nunchucks. I always wanted to learn that nunchuck thing, too. Whap-whap-whap. Do they teach you guys that?”
“There were scratch marks around the metal of the lock, as if it had been picked, sloppily. As if it had been picked by someone who’d been drinking. Do you know how the marks got there?”
“Maybe a drunk trying to stick in a key.”
“Were you drinking last night?”
“What was it, a Wednesday night?”
“Yes.”
“Then I probably was. But really, all I did was open the door.” “And waltzed in.”
“Something like that, yeah. Do you dance, Detective? Because sometimes they have some pretty good bands at the North Star up on Poplar, and I was wondering if maybe you’d—”
“Is that how you slipped in the time before, through that same door?”
“What time before?”
“Friday night.”
“Friday night? Isn’t that when Mr. Toth was killed?”
“That’s right. If you come clean now, I can make things easier for you. I’ll put in a word with the D.A.”
“And what word would that be? Doritos? Because that’s the only thing I would want right now from a D.A. Until Mr. Toth’s funeral, I hadn’t been anywhere near him since right after my father died. And you want to know why?”
“Sure,” she said, leaning forward.
“Because he scared the crap out of me. That old man was like the ogre in my dreams. When other kids were certain that furry green monsters were hiding in their closets, I was certain it was Laszlo Tot h .”
“And that’s why you killed him?”
Kyle laughed. “No, that’s why I stayed the hell away from him. But if I’m your best suspect, then I guess you’re not having much luck with your investigation.”
Ramirez stared at Kyle Byrne for a moment, caught the glitter of a smile in his eyes, then looked down at the file. Truth was, they weren’t having much luck. They hadn’t yet found the missing watch or computer screens, hadn’t yet found the murder weapon or anything else that might help.
“Do you own a tuxedo, Mr. Byrne?”
“Why? Are you inviting me to some Policeman’s Benevolent ball? If so, I could rent.”
“Do you have any shirts with French cuffs?”
“No, but I have a dickey.”
“A what?”
“You know, one of those turtleneck collars that go under a shirt.”
She stared at him for a moment more and then turned to the mirror. She couldn’t peer through it, but she didn’t have to see Henderson’s face to know he was laughing. She would have bet that old bastard had a whole drawerful of dickeys. Care, he had said, about the person. And against all odds, she did sort of like this kid. She glanced again at the mirror and then stood and pulled her chair around until she was sitting catty-corner to Byrne.
“It’s Father’s Day this weekend,” she said.
“Is it?”
“Do you get lonely every year on Father’s Day, Kyle?”
“Not really. I celebrate in the usual way, I suppose. I throw a ball to myself in the yard, tousle my hair a bit, play a game of Stratego with myself. And then, when I misbehave, I tell myself I’ve been bad and send myself to bed without dinner. It’s all warm and fuzzy.”
“Tell me about your dad.”
“What’s there to tell? I was his bastard son. He pretty much ignored me when he was alive. And then he died.”
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
“Where?”
“Jersey, I think.”
“Did you blame Toth for what happened to him?”
“No, why would I? Did he have anything to do with it?” “I’m asking you.”
“And I’m asking you. Do you have any information linking Laszlo Toth to my father’s death?”
“No.”
“My dad was old already when he met my mom. It was bound to happen sooner or later. It just happened sooner, is all.”
“So what were you doing in that office last night?”
“Looking for him, I suppose.”
“Kyle?” Her hand slipped atop his. The gesture was calculated, she meant to show her concern as this Byrne tried to open up. But funny, it didn’t feel calculated. It felt good, real.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” said Kyle. “How’s your dad doing?”
“He’s dead.”
“So you understand.”
“No, not really.”
“Yes you do, you just don’t want to admit it. I didn’t get a chance to work out everything I needed to work out between him and me.”
“Work out what?”
“I don’t know. The father-son thing. The what’s-going-on-in-theworld thing. The meaning-of-life thing. Isn’t that what fathers tell you? I’ve always felt as if part of my answer is missing and everything else is just frozen while I search for it. I hoped I might find some answers in that office.”
“Were they there?”
“No.” He reached up and scratched his cheek. “You have something there. A little something—no, not there.” He reached up, brushed her cheek with his thumb, rubbed his thumb clean with his other fingers. “There.”
“Is it gone?”
“Yeah. The whole time you were asking all those questions, it was bothering me. Like a car crash, it was hard to take my eyes off it.”
She was still feeling the rub of his thumb on her cheek when the interrogation door opened and Henderson came in, accompanied by a beautiful Korean woman in a business suit. Ramirez yanked her hand from atop Kyle’s, yanked it away almost guiltily, as the woman in the suit tossed a card onto the table.
“Detective Ramirez, my name is Shin,” said the woman, “Katie Shin, from the law firm of Talbott, Kittredge and Chase. I’ll be representing Mr. Byrne.”
“Yo, Kat, what’s happening?” said Kyle.
“Shut up,” said Shin.
“Okay.”
“My understanding is that Mr. Byrne was found within his father’s old office and that neither the landlord nor the tenant’s widow, who is now holder of the lease, is pressing charges. Is that correct?”
“Possibly.”
“Then why is Mr. Byrne still being held?”
“We were just talking, Kat, no biggie,” said Kyle.
“What did I say?”
Kyle zipped up his lips.
“The talking has ended, right now,” said Shin. “There will be no more talking. Are you charging him with anything, Detective?”
“Not at the moment,” said Ramirez.
“And is he free to leave?”
“He’s always been free to leave.”
“Good, then we’ll both say good-bye.”
“Breakfast at Snow White?” said Kyle.
“If you want,” said Kat.
Kyle stood up, leaned toward Ramirez. “It was really a pleasure talking to you, Detective. You have your own father thing to work out, I can tell. We don’t have to do the dancing if that makes you feel awkward. Not everyone is comfortable with their body. Maybe we can just have a drink and talk. If you want to write down your number, I could give you a call.”
“I’m not that thirsty,” said Ramirez. “Keep out of trouble.”
“That’s my life’s goal.”
“No, I’m serious,” said Ramirez. “And don’t leave town, please.”
“Don’t you worry, Detective. Now that I know I’m a suspect in a real live actual murder case, I’m going to watch my every little step. But if you want to keep your eye on me, that’s fine. That’s more than fine.”
“Kyle,” said Katie Shin. “Are you actually flirting with the detective who locked you in this room in abject violation of your rights?”
“Well, yes,” said Kyle. “Why? Is that wrong?”
“I’m so sorr y, Detective,” said the law yer. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to offend.”
“No offense taken,” said Ramirez.
“Come on, Kyle,” said the lawyer, “let’s get the hell out of here.”
Ramirez stood as Kyle Byrne and his cheeky lawyer headed out of the room. Henderson had watched the whole thing with evident amusement.
“You sure broke him into little pieces,” said Henderson when Byrne and his lawyer had left and the door was closed behind them. “But putting your hand on his, that was good. Just think how far you would have gotten if you meant it.”
“He’s lying about how he got into that office,” said Ramirez.
“Of course he’s lying.”
“And how did this Katie Shin even know he was here?”
“Talbott, Kittredge and Chase. A bit high-toned for an unemployed slacker accused of burglary.”
Ramirez picked up the card. “ ‘Katie Shin,’ ” she read. “ ‘Tax department.’ ”
Henderson laughed. “A friend.”
“Or a girlfriend.”
“Maybe, but a friend who was called by someone other than our boy. Which means Kyle Byrne wasn’t alone in that office. Somebody picked the lock for him. Maybe the other guy was waiting outside after he opened the door. Maybe he was inside and our uniforms missed him. Or maybe it was Katie Shin herself. But it doesn’t matter, the kid won’t talk to us anymore.”
“Oh, he’ll talk,” said Ramirez. “He can’t wait to talk.”
“You going to do some dancing?”
“Maybe. If only to piss off the lawyer girlfriend. But he didn’t have anything to do with the killing, did he?”
“No.”
“So we’re back to my drug-addict-and-open-door theory,” said Ramirez.
“That’s a little simplistic, don’t you think? Falling back on Occam’s razor.”
“Say what?”
“Where’d you get your diploma, Ramirez, Wal-Mart? Occam’s razor is a philosophical principle which holds that, all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the correct one.”
“Oh, yeah? Sounds good to me. What precinct does this Occam work, and does he need a partner? Because he sounds like someone I might actually be able to learn something from.”
ACROSS THE STREET from the Snow White Diner, on the corner of Second and Market, another old restaurant had been tarted up into a swinging nightspot called The Continental, bringing in hip urban sophisticates and high-living suburbanites. But Snow White remained what it had been for decades, a greasy little greasy spoon with coral vinyl upholstery and spinning stools at the counter. Rumor had it Ben Franklin ate scrapple there. The way Kyle figured, compared with the stylishly coiffed, high-heeled nightspot across the street, Snow White was like a decrepit old aunt with a bent back and support hose, snapping her gum as she rubbed her sore feet.
Which sort of described the joint’s waitresses.
“Here you are, hon,” said one of those waitresses, sliding a plate in front of Kyle piled with eggs, over easy, hold the wiggle, home fries, grilled sausage, rye toast. She put a toasted English muffin in front of Kat. “More coffee, dears?”
“Sure,” said Kat.
“She’ll have it shaken, not stirred,” said Kyle with a sly smile.
The waitress looked at Kyle for a moment with one eye closed and then made her slow, arthritic way back to the counter.
“Don’t deny it,” said Kyle as he tucked into his breakfast. “You are so Bond. ‘Shin, Katie Shin.’ That cop’s expression was perfect, the way her jaw dropped as you said it. ‘Shin, Katie Shin.’ ”
“I don’t have much time,” said Kat, grabbing for a jelly packet from the dispenser. “I’m meeting a client this morning.”
“But it’s Saturday.”
“The capitalist engine never sleeps.”
“I thought we could do the hang today, take a run, maybe catch a movie on cable.”
“Don’t complain about my job too much. It pays for the apartment and the cable.”
“Skitch could get you your cable for free.”
“No thanks, I’ll keep the job. And it puts me in a position to yank your butt out of a sling whenever I need to, like this morning.”
“Yeah, well, thank you for that.” Kyle looked up from his eggs, grinned. “Just when I was about to score.”
“Was she rough on you?”
“She tried to be.”
“Did you pull your routine on her?”
“I told her she had nice eyes, if that’s what you mean.”
“How big an idiot are you?”
“But she does.”
“She hauls you into an interrogation room for questioning about a murder and you think you’re playing tonsil hockey at a pickup bar.”
“I don’t know, there’s something about a girl with a gun.”
“You’re into muzzles, go gay, it’s safer.”
“How’d you even know I was there?” said Kyle.
“Skitch. What the hell were you doing teaming up with that moron to break into your dad’s old office anyway?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“There’s your mistake right there. Anything hatched with Skitch around is not a good idea. Skitch is a good-idea-free zone.”
“Skitch is all right.”
“He’s not a bad guy, he can’t help himself. But really, right now, with the cops looking hard at you in relation to a murder, he’s not who you want to be hanging with. Besides, I think he’s into something he shouldn’t be. After he woke me up with news of your arrest, he started talking about this deal he’s working on and offered me an equity position.”
“Equity?”
“And he was talking a bit fast, like he was a little more desperate than he wanted to let on.”
“Don’t give him anything.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not. It was just . . . uncomfortable.”
“I’ll tell him to back off.”
“Good. Are you coming Sunday?”
“Nah.”
“Please. My dad would love to see you.” She paused, looked down at her coffee. “And my mother wants you to come, too.”
“Liar.”
“No, really. She’s making her famous jangeo-gui just for you.”
“For me?”
“Well, maybe not just for you.”
“What is it?”
“Broiled eel.”
“You’re cute, but I’m going to pass. You know how I get at these Father’s Day things, seeing as I don’t really have one. And your mom will always hate me for that time I got you suspended in middle school.” “That was ages ago. She’s over it.”
“No she’s not. Your mom holds grudges like banks hold cash.” “True.”
“It’s actually one of her best features. Instead I think I’ll just ingest something really bad for me, watch the ball game on TV, and pass out clutching the remote.”
“You are such a model for the young people of our city. And you’re also going to ignore my legal advice, I assume, when I tell you no more breaking into offices, no more flirting with cops.”
“But you saw her.”
“I don’t care.”
“And I think she likes me. You want some sausage?”
“Just what I need, sausage breath when in an hour I’ll be huddling with the CFO of a Fortune 500 company with offshore-tax issues.”
“Shin, Katie Shin.”
“It’s time for you to stop the joking, Kyle, stop screwing up, stop playing at detective. You’re in the middle of a murder investigation. This is turning serious.”
Kyle glanced down at his plate, shoveled some egg and potato onto his toast, took a bite.
“No answer?” said Kat. “You’re not going to tell me to go to hell?”
“Go to hell.”
“Feel good?”
“Yes, actually,” said Kyle. “And screw yourself. That felt good, too.”
“But you’re not going to stop.”
“Doesn’t it seem strange that this pretty cop keeps asking me how my father died and I don’t have any real answers? Maybe I should find out what I can before it’s too late?”
“Too late for what?”
“For the answers to still be there. Laszlo Toth is already dead. Who else is going to disappear before I learn the truth?”
“Your father died from a heart attack. They cremated his body. You still have some of the ashes in that bubble-gum box you’ve been holding since you were twelve.”
“Don’t you think I should get to the bottom of the whole thing right now?”
“I think you’ve reached it, baby.” Pause. “So what are you going to do?”
“There was a file cabinet missing from my dad’s office. I think my dad might have taken it before he died and a file might be in it that has some answers. I’m going to find it.”
“Any idea where it might be?”
“Yeah, one. But checking it out would be like marching naked into the den of Godzilla. Frankly, I don’t have the guts for it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m sending in Skitch.”