After they’d seen the act, Tolson went outside to talk to the news folks who had gathered and were sitting in open cars, smoking and chatting amongst themselves. Paulson stood in the doorway. Tolson said simply, “The apparent situation is that an intruder broke into the basement of this home. The owner who was upstairs alleges that he was alerted by a sound. He went downstairs. The man made threats to his family. The owner hit the man and the blow killed him. The intruder is as yet unidentified. We are working on an identification and checking all aspects of the case.”
Tolson and Paulson went back inside. “We’ll probably be here until about dawn,” they told the family.
“Why?”
“Everything takes time. The techs need time. Also, we’ll need to get DNA and fingerprints from you.”
“From us?”
“Yes.”
“Is this normal?” Samadi asked. He drew himself up. “Is this because we are Iranian?”
“Not because you are Iranian. It’s normal practice. We need to corroborate your account so you don’t get in trouble. Please don’t worry,” Paulson said in his honey voice. “This will soon be in the past.”
The atmosphere softened a bit after that. The grandmother yawned and slept in a chair. The family made toast, but then started to forage for larger items of food from the fridge. “What can I prepare for you?” the mother asked the detectives.
The partners managed to refuse her offer of food and drink, but they sent a patrol cop to Ritter’s to pick up middle-of-the-night sandwiches for themselves and the techs.
After they finished taking DNA swabs and fingerprints, they allowed the family to go to bed, all except Yousef, who more than agreed to be the point person. “I don’t sleep much anyway,” he said.
“Why is that?”
“Arthritis, gout, business worries.”
“I’m curious. Why did you choose Schenley Farms?” Paulson asked. “I mean, of all the places in the city. Foreign visitors seem to like living in the suburbs.”
“My wife teaches at CMU.”
“She’s a professor?” Paulson didn’t hide his surprise very well.
“Yes. Fairly famous.”
“What subject?”
“Business.”
There. They’d made a gaff. Assumed the wife was a stay-at-home because she looked a certain polite way and didn’t mouth off.
The next day they got an ID on the intruder. He was Jacob Wilson. He’d been in trouble before, for drugs. He’d lived in the Hill District. They went to see his mother and delivered the bad news.
She took it like a soldier, very strong. She provided pictures of Jacob, and when the cops could see his face and the structure of his very fine skull, they saw he’d been an extremely good-looking guy. He’d been twenty-three years old. His mother said, “I knew he had some trouble awhile back. He went to meetings. He got clean twice. He … must have backslid, I guess. I didn’t think so, but I guess he did. If I tell you he was a good kid, you won’t believe me, but he was. He was an addict but not a criminal. He was an innocent boy, all his life. An innocent.”
“Who were some of his friends?” Paulson asked. “We’d like to talk to them.”
Lila Wilson, not crying, but clearly in a deep sadness that took her voice down to a whisper, gave the names of two young men who might have seen her son in recent weeks.
The detectives went to their car. They sat for a moment.
“Nice lady,” Tolson said.
“Why are we still looking into this?”
“Tie up the ends. Be sure.”
“Right. Right. Here’s what I’m thinking. If I met Azita when I was younger …”
“She might like them older.”
“Younger than I am now … You know what I mean.”
“Right. That’s why we’re looking.”
Wilson’s friends were not that easy to track down. Finally, the detectives caught up with one of them, Pierre Smith, who told them where the second friend, Joe Sandusky, could probably be found. Pierre, looking at the pictures of first Yousef, then of Javeed, then of Azita, said no, he’d never seen them or heard of them. “Wouldn’t mind knowing the girl,” he said wide-eyed.
The other friend, Joe Sandusky, didn’t recognize the photos either. When asked about his friend, he said it was a terrible tragedy and that he didn’t believe the crap about Jacob breaking into a house. “Maybe he had a hookup with the chick. He liked women.”
“How would we find out if he knew her?”
“Beats me.”
“Tell us where the hangout was. Where he bought stuff. Where he might have met her.”
“What you talking about?”
“I think you know,” said Paulson. “Drugs. Recreational drugs.”
“I don’t know about any of that.”
“You want to be obstructing an investigation?”
“Nope.”
“You want to think again? Place where the high school kids buy their stuff.”
“Upper Craig Street.” He gave a number. “Maybe there. You’re going to pin the blame on Jacob no matter what. This sucks.”
“His mother told us he was backsliding. What was he on?”
“Just weed. Just fucking weed. He stopped messing with the other stuff.”
“Ecstasy?”
“Maybe sometimes.”
The owner of the apartment on Craig was Amsel Dickens, a big, muscular African American. “I ain’t answering anything,” he said.
“We don’t want to bust you for the weed. We don’t care about the weed. The E. Any of that. Just want to show you a picture. Ever seen this boy?”
“Nah.”
“This girl?”
“No.”
“Willing to take a lie detector?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Look again. What about this guy?”
“Yeah. Now I see him, yeah.”
“He buy much?”
“Not too much.”
“You see a lot of him?”
“No.”
“Okay. Look at the girl again.”
Amsel looked hard, extra hard, as if it took awhile to study her face, as if she was plain and unmemorable. Tolson switched the picture they’d taken of Azita with her wounded cheek with another photo, her high school glamour shot— not that she looked shabby in the police photo. Amsel kept studying, looking this way and that.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Tolson said.
“We’re going to end up not having any proof,” Paulson said when they were back in the fleet car.
“When did you get the feeling we were had?”
“Today. Breakfast, I was thinking, let them go, you know, the man was defending his house—but then I saw Wilson’s picture and I got a whole ’nother story going in my head.”
“You think race comes into it?”
“When does race not come into it?”
“I don’t know.”
“By now this Samadi’s lawyered up, I bet.”
“I’d say.”
“Cause we took the DNA. He didn’t like that.”
“He was believable. Very believable. Shaking and all. Maybe everything he said was true.”
“Maybe, yeah. We don’t want to be prejudiced.” Paulson smiled.
“Are we jumping on them?”
“Because they want to nuke the world? Because they have four houses and I can’t afford faucets for my one? I’m thinking it through.”
* * *
Later that day some results came in. They asked Mr. Samadi to come up to the office. They thought he would have a lawyer with him and were surprised that he didn’t. They sat with him in a nonthreatening meeting room and said, “Seems you hit the victim three times.”
“Did I?”
“All from behind.”
“I can’t remember. It’s a blur.”
“You were upset.”
“What man in his right mind wouldn’t be?”
“The knife had your prints on it, h
is prints on it. They were overlapping, like his then yours, then his, in that order. Can you tell us about that?”
“I did move the knife. He dropped it when I hit him and I shouldn’t have moved it, but I did—I put it near the body.”
“I see,” said Tolson. “So you were the last one to touch it?”
“I think so. I don’t remember. I was very upset.”
“The scenario we saw was not totally complete?”
“Look. What are you doing? I was protecting my property. I know enough about this country to know I have a right to that.”
“Your daughter’s fingerprints were on the man’s belt buckle.”
There was a long silence.
“I don’t know each move. She was defending herself. I’m sure she pushed.”
“What will you tell us about her DNA being found on the guy?” Everything stopped. Samadi froze momentarily. Tolson was police-tricking. The DNA hadn’t been tested yet. It would take weeks. His phrasing, he thought, was clever. He never said it was there, only asked what Samadi would say.
“If you had a beautiful daughter and she was being raped, what would you do?”
“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”
“Scum run the news here. That’s what you do in this country. American scum know nothing about a girl’s reputation, her honor. This is not something to broadcast.”
“Had he already raped her?”
“No. He had a knife. He had her clothes half off. He was holding the knife to her head and making her … kneel in front of him.”
They ran the questions a couple more times for consistency. “How about we take a polygraph and be done with this?”
“I think … I think I will consult a lawyer. I do not wish to be treated this way.”
After Samadi left, Paulson said, “I do have a beautiful daughter and if she was a teenager, I might lose it in a situation like that. I would try not to. But I might not be able to help myself.”
“Three times? From behind?” Tolson was never sure in the devil’s advocate game they played which one of them would take up which argument. This time they switched back and forth, each playing both “nuke the guy” and “foreign prince defends honor.”
“Maybe two.”
It took time.
Tolson’s personal life made a deeper dive in the interim. He tried to contact Jenna. She told him to get lost.
Meanwhile, they kept an eye on the drug house. They attended the Wilson boy’s funeral and talked to neighbors, school chums—everyone said Jacob was a sweet boy, not a criminal of any sort, just sometimes depressed. No job, hadn’t liked school, worked here and there, and got down on himself. He was handsome so he relied on that to pick himself up. Women. Adoration. Being loved. And that usually led to sadness because they invariably decided he had nothing to offer them.
“Hmph,” said Tolson.
Paulson said, “I feel for that kid. That could have been me if I hadn’t got it together.”
“You’re not so handsome. This kid was handsome.” Tolson grinned.
In the next week, they called neighbors at the Florida address. The telephone work was time consuming and seemed to go nowhere for days, but eventually they learned that the family had actually enrolled the kids in school last January. That was a little odd. It took them forever to find the school. The principal, when she answered, said, “Yes, I remember. I thought the children were charming. The girl was a stunner. But then the family whisked them out of school.”
Tolson put the call on speakerphone so his partner could participate. He asked, “You know why they didn’t stay in school? I mean, why start and stop?”
She hesitated. “I don’t want to say anything untrue.”
“Well, what part do you know?”
“I think … the father thought the girl was going wild.”
“Was she?”
“I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, if I looked like that, I would have a royal good time. Why shouldn’t women have the same chances to play that men do?”
“I totally agree,” Paulson put in. “This is Detective Paulson here. I know a lot of men who don’t agree, but I’m ready to say they have that right. She was what? Sixteen?”
“I think so. Yes, sixteen.”
When they ended the call, Tolson said, “You speak with a forked tongue.”
“How so?”
“Aren’t you the guy who said you’d kill anybody messing with your daughter?”
“Right. Various codes. What other girls can do, what your own daughter can do. Also what’s not okay to do under the age of thirty-five. After thirty-five, they’re on their own. If you ever have a daughter, you’ll understand.”
Tolson shook his head. “Well, let’s call the Frenchies.”
The conversation with the foreign officer started out pretty well in pidgin French and pidgin English. But the questions they needed to ask were too complex to continue. They eventually had to stop at wishing each other well and sending mutual respect across the ocean.
Another couple of weeks went by. The DNA test results came in. Most of it confirmed who touched the knife, who touched the bat, who touched the belt. But there was additional information. Azita’s DNA was everywhere, on the guy’s mouth, cheeks, neck, chest, and yes, his penis. It didn’t form a picture of a forced encounter.
They called Samadi’s lawyer and set the polygraph for two days hence, rehearsing the questions that might shake the guy’s story.
And then they had some luck. They drove to the drug house the next day when school was letting out, and, though they expected nothing, really expected nothing, they got a bit of something. Azita, followed by two eager boys, was going into the house.
“She doesn’t look too upset or sad these days,” Paulson observed.
“No. If she knew the guy, why would none of her friends come forward? Say something?”
But they both knew she had some sort of magical power. You wanted to protect her, you wanted to be loved by her.
About ten minutes went by while they talked about what they would ask when she emerged. But she didn’t come out. Finally, they idled the car forward, parked, and went to the door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s us. Detectives Paulson and Tolson. Just want to talk to Amsel, briefly, outside. No arrests.”
The door opened slowly and Amsel slipped outside, holding a set of keys.
“The girl. The one you didn’t know. Do you recognize her from this picture now?” Tolson pulled out the glamour photo.
“Yeah. What? Am I under arrest?”
“Not if you tell the truth. What’s she doing in there?”
“She has a boyfriend. She’s just hanging with him.”
“Front room, back room?”
Amsel looked at them with hard eyes. “You guys are creeps. She’s in the back room, okay?”
“Was she ever in the back room with this other guy?” Tolson pulled out the other photo, now getting worn from sitting at the back of his notepad.
“Yes. Yes.”
“He was her boyfriend?”
“Yes. Am I under arrest?”
“No, you’re cool. Just let us in. We’ll talk to her. Her father is going to want her home soon.”
Amsel dangled the keys. He looked terrified. “Okay,” he said, and he let them in.
Tolson felt like a creep.
Paulson tapped lightly on the bedroom door. “Azita Samadi. We need to talk to you.”
Tolson felt oddly frightened in a way he hadn’t before. Of the girl. Of her father.
Azita came out of the room. She was disheveled, her eyes defiant. She was breathtaking. “What do you want with me?”
“Just … a talk.”
“I have a right to a life.”
“Come to the car. We’ll talk in the car.”
“Will you be feeling me up?”
“No. No, we won’t be doing that.”
The two detectives tried to walk casually to th
e car so as not to excite any trouble, though Tolson edged a little in front so she wouldn’t run. Somebody pretty soon had to start telling the truth. They put her in the passenger seat. Paulson sat in front with her and Tolson climbed in back. He nodded to Paulson to start. He was figuring out how he wanted to do this.
“Here’s the part we know,” Paulson said. “You have boyfriends. That’s your business. You like to smoke weed. We’re not going to bother you about weed. At one point Jacob Wilson was your boyfriend. So you don’t have to deny any of that.
You can just say yes.”
“So?”
“So he’s dead.”
There was a long silence. Tolson added after a while, “We’re told he was a young man who didn’t quite know himself. Maybe he went after women who were too young. That’s not good. But we don’t know that he did anything he should have died for. We’re told he was gentle. Is that true?”
Some of her fight was gone. “Yes.”
“Did he rape you? We’re going to need to do a lie detector, so you might as well tell the truth.”
“No.”
“Did he try to?”
“No.”
“Did he pull a knife on you?”
“No.”
“Had you had sex with him before?”
Defiant again, she said, “Yes. What of it?”
“He died. He’s dead.”
Her hand went to her mouth and she started to cry. She did it very beautifully again. Tolson wanted to touch her. Paulson said, “Why would your father think it was a rape? Did you cry rape to save yourself from your father’s anger?”
“I didn’t say anything. He was there with the bat before I knew what was happening.”
“And then he messed with the lock and the knife.”
She swiped at her eyes and seemed as if she would not answer. “Yes.”
“We have to do right by Jacob Wilson.”
She nodded. “He was sweet. Not too savvy but very sweet. I love my father. What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’s going to go to jail,” Tolson said. He was glad she was finally talking.
“For sure?”
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