Janek
met his eyes. Ireland was angry, and he was showing his anger the only way he could. He wasn't the kind of man who spoke bitterly very often, but now,
Janek
saw, he would begin to speak bitterly more and more. His friends would notice and say his daughter's death had marked him. They'd point to Ireland's bitterness and his wife's lament and whisper cautiously of tragedy.
"We take this case very seriously, Mr. Ireland. We're not going to forget about it even if the papers do. There are five of us, detectives, and we're working on it very hard. We'll continue to work until we find who did it and bring him in with proof."
"And then what? He plea bargains, goes to a mental hospital or makes a deal with the prosecutors and gets six to eight in Attica? We know what goes on and I tell you now it won't make one iota of difference to me. I have personally resolved never to inquire into your investigation. I don't want to know about it, because however it comes out it's not going to satisfy me at all. Now I don't want to be rude, but I don't think there's anything else I have to say. She came down here of her own free choice and lived her life and ended up getting killed. Some succeed down here and some fail and some find love and happiness and some get killed. Mandy was unlucky, her life is over and now we have to cope with that. I appreciate your efforts, certainly, but I can't relate to them. All I'm thinking about is how to keep my wife from going crazy and how to help her heal this awful wound."
Stanger hadn't said a word during the interview. He remained quiet after they left the motel. Mr. Ireland was out of the case now, but it would be hard to forget what he'd said. However much talk there was of justice and one's duty to uphold the law, policemen were motivated by a need to make things even, redress the wrongs inflicted on a victim, and now Ireland had canceled out that need.
Out on the street
Janek
was thinking about the various ways human beings express their grief: anger, cynicism, bitterness, tears, mental breakdown, or just feeling a hard sore knot inside, the way he'd felt on Sunday when he'd seen what Al had done.
"You're walking by the car, Lieutenant."
Janek
turned. Stanger was waiting.
Janek
nodded, walked back and got inside.
"Better check out that super again."
"I did. He's clean. No wife or son or anyone else with access to his keys. Very careful. Hangs the ring on a hook in his closet when he isn't wearing it on his belt. Worked that row of buildings for fifteen years. Everyone swears by him. Even has an uncle on the force. I still say our guy came in through the window. Makes sense, since her keys are gone."
"Okay, then tell me why the guy would bother. Climb up a fire escape, open the window, wait in the shower, stab her and cut off her head. Just tell me, please, for Christ's sake, Stanger, why the hell anyone would do something like that, and not take anything, or rape her, or use her in any way. Tell meâwhat's the goddamn point?"
Stanger had the ignition on. He was revving the engine. "He did take something, Lieutenant. He took her head. He used her head. That's a major robbery. A lot bigger deal than a rape."
Janek
looked at him, felt ashamed at his outburst, and now it occurred to him that maybe Stanger wasn't as mediocre as he'd thought. "All rightâlet's get into that. Say he stalked her like you said. Say he saw her as a certain type, the schoolmarm type, the virgin type, a nice clean lonely girl with a nice clean dog and he decided he wanted her head. Did he just pick her out at random, notice her on the street, or did he know her some other way before?"
"You want to talk to Pierson today?"
"Damn right I do."
"He's nice. A very mild guy."
"You told me that yesterday."
"I don't see him doing a thing like this. You going to get rough with him?"
"No, not rough, Stanger, but I'm going to apply a little stress." Stanger nodded. "Something else. If Amanda knew this guy and let him in, it doesn't make sense that he'd hide in her shower."
"Like I keep telling you, Lieutenantâhe came in off the fire escape."
Janek
called Caroline from a booth outside the precinct house. She wasn't in; he got her machine: "This is Caroline Wallace. I'm out. Please leave your name and number and I'll get back." Her recorded voice was clear and crisp. "This is
Janek
," he said when he heard the tone, "thinking about you. Call you later. Hope you're free tonight."
After he put down the phone he felt dissatisfied. Why hadn't he said he was mad for her, that she was the best thing to happen to him in years? He put in another dime, and told that to her machine. He felt better. Maybe, he thought, she was going to be his guardian against the demons that ruled the night.
Aaron referred to interrogation rooms as shithouses. "Let's take him to the shithouse," he'd say when he thought a stressful talk would be appropriate. The two cubicles off the special squad room on the second floor of the Sixth were small and grubby and faced with acoustic tiles. Furniture was sparseâtwo hard chairs and a small wooden table. The aroma was precinct intensified to double strength. Caged hundred-watt bulbs burned from the ceilings. From inside, the one-way viewing slits looked like clouded mirrors.
Janek
and Aaron spent a good part of an hour cramped together in the listening corridor watching Howell pump Brenda's pimp. His name was
Prudencio
Bitong
and he was not, as it happened, Chinese, but a dark-skinned Filipino with a vaguely Oriental face, black eyes, and black hair greased and slicked straight back. Together he and Howell played a nice duet, Howell the brute inquisitor,
Bitong
the slippery detainee. Howell wanted information.
Bitong
wanted to save his ass. The dialogue was crude and predictable.
Janek
smiled as he listened. Aaron rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"You got keys to Brenda's place?"
"Don't have keys."
Bitong
pulled out his key ring. "Go ahead, Mister. Check."
Howell ignored the key ring. "You ditched her keys after you came out of there. You got scared and called 911 and then you ditched them, right?"
Bitong
shook his head.
"Want to hear a tape of yourself? You know what a voice print is?"
Pause. "Okay. So I knew her."
"You called 911, didn't you?"
"So, I called 911. Big deal."
"After you killed her?
Right?
"
Bitong
shook his head furiously. "I loved that kid. I'd do anything for her. How could I harm that kid?"
"She was holding out on you."
"She wasn't."
"You wanted to teach her a lesson."
"She didn't need a lesson."
"You bounced her around a little and then she got hurt and you got scared. You checked, saw she was dead, then you ran out. Isn't that how it went?"
"No. I came in and found her. I saw the blood. I didn't even go close and look."
"
You didn't look?
"
Bitong
shook his head. Some of his slicked hair fell loose. "You saw something funny. What?"
Aaron elbowed
Janek
. When
Janek
glanced at him he gestured downward with his thumb.
"It didn't look like her."
"Who the hell did it look like? You trying to tell me that was someone else?"
"It didn't look like her. Just a dead broad in Brenda's bed."
"So you
did
look close?"
"I looked to see if it was her."
Janek
elbowed Aaron, gestured thumbs-up. Aaron made a fifty-fifty gesture with his hands.
"
Was it?
"
"Didn't look like her."
"Shit,
Prudencio
, we got an ID. We took her fingerprints. We know who the hell we got. You trying to tell us she was someone else?"
Bitong
appeared confused. "It didn't look like her. That's all. It wasn't her face."
"So who was dead in the fucking bed?"
"I don't know what the hell is going on."
Bitong
smiled crookedly.
Janek
shook his head.
"Let me at him, Frank," Aaron whispered. "Howell's not bad, but he isn't taking him anywhere."
Janek
nodded. Aaron smiled. He strode into the cubicle, took Howell's chair, turned it around, sat in it, then rested his arms across the wooden back.
Watching Aaron after Howell was like watching a master take over from a novice. Destination was everythingâthe best interrogators knew where they wanted to end up. Aaron knew that and also how to find a cavity, tickle it, wiggle around in it, make it start to hurt. After his first question
Bitong
was looking scared.
"You got a lawyer,
Prudencio
?"
"What I need a lawyer for?"
"You got a lawyer?"
“No.”
"Maybe we can find you one. I think maybe you're going to need one later on."
"Why the hell I need a lawyer?"
"You're in a lot of trouble. This is homicide."
"She was my girl."
"You think a john did it?"
"I think soâyeah. But she was careful. I taught her. She didn't let everybody in."
"How did she handle it?"
"She'd tell them to call her from the corner. She could see the booth from her window. If she didn't like the look of the guy she'd tell him she was sick. She wouldn't give him the address."
"And if she
did
like the look of him?"
"Then she'd go down and meet him. Sometimes she'd take him on a walk around the block. She was very careful. I told her to be careful, because she was up there all by herself."
"What about if she knew the guy?"
"If he'd been there before she'd tell him to come right up."
"How'd she keep them straight?"
"I don't get what you mean."
"How'd she know if she'd been with him before?"
"When he'd call from the corner she'd look out the window. If he'd been with her before she'd recognize his face. If she didn't, like he was a businessman from out of town and it had been a year or so and she'd forgot, she'd go downstairs and look at him up close. Those were the rules. She always followed them."
"She never deviated?
Never?
"
Bitong
shook his head.
"You the only one with the keys?"
"Just the two of us."
"You just blundered in there when you felt like it?"
"She had a signal. She'd leave the shade half up."
"Was the shade up Monday morning?"
"No."
"So why did you go up?"
"I hadn't heard from her. She wasn't answering the phone. I wanted to see what was going on."
"Then what?"
"I rang. No answer. So I let myself in. I took one look and then I ran."
"And locked the door after you?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I just locked itâdon't know why."
"Then you called 911?"
"Yeah."
"From the booth on the corner?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you use her phone?"
"I wanted to get out of there."
"You didn't take anything?"
"No."
"You just looked and then you ran out and locked the door?"
"That's it."
"You took the elevator?"
"No. The stairs."
"And then you called 911 from the corner?"
"I told you that."
"They cut off people's heads in the Philippines, don't they,
Prudencio
?"
"What the hell you talking about, man?"
"If, say, a girl's been bad and her man's upset, real pissed off, he just goes to her and cuts off her head. That's the tradition, right?"
"I never heard of that."
"You're a Filipino pimp and you never heard of that? You must think I'm stupid,
Prudencio
. If I heard of it you
got
to have heard of it. You'd do it, too, wouldn't you, if you were mad enough?"
"I wasn't mad. What happened to her head?"
"You tell me."
"I don't know. It looked like someone else. You're telling me that wasn't her head?"
"Was it?"
"I didn't think so then."
"Because it looked different?"
"I thought I was freaking out."
"You do drugs?"
"Sometimes."
"But you weren't so freaked out you didn't clean out her stash?"
"I never touched her stash."