by Roy Johansen
They finally settled on Gregory Harmon, a middle-aged examiner who received his polygraph training in the military. Myth insisted the D.A. place a five-year moratorium on Harmon’s services to its offices, so the examiner would have no reason to curry favor with the prosecutors.
The groundwork had been laid. Sabini knew it was now all up to him.
—
Gant wasn’t in a good mood as he drove into the Gas ’n Snack station on Cheshire Bridge Road. He had just come from talking to Carlos Valez’s widow, who sobbed throughout the entire conversation. She had been under sedation the entire day before, and only that morning had she been able to speak to him. He was troubled not by his empathy for her—but, rather, by his entire lack of empathy. He heard time and time again from the police shrink on the subject: It was a normal defense mechanism, and was not in any way a symptom of the officer’s dehumanization. Gant wasn’t so sure.
The crying woman had quickly identified the “brown-toothed man” who assisted Carlos Valez in the attack on Ken Parker. He was Kevin Farrell, and he often washed car windshields at this station.
Gant pulled to a stop and got out of the car. A tall, thin young man with a scraggly beard appeared from around the corner.
“Wash your windows?” he asked. One of his upper front teeth was dark brown.
Gant shrugged. “Sure.”
He watched the man spray his windshield and wipe it clean with newspaper. The window squeaked.
Gant held his badge in front of the man’s face. “I’m Thomas Gant. Atlanta P.D.”
The man stopped rubbing. “I didn’t ask for any money.”
“That’s not what I’m here about. I have no problem with you making a few bucks. You’re Kevin Farrell, right?”
Kevin nodded as he lifted the wipers and sprayed underneath.
“I want to talk to you about your friend Carlos.”
“Okay.”
“You know he’s dead, don’t you?”
Kevin moved to the passenger window. “Yeah. I know.”
“Someone killed him.”
“I heard.”
“Any idea who might’ve done it?”
“No.”
Kevin wiped his nose with his sleeve. He stepped around and squirted the rear window.
Gant followed him. “I hear you and Carlos beat up on a guy last week.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Don’t be stupid. There are witnesses. If you wanna go into a lineup, we’ll see how far you can hide behind that tooth.”
A tall man holding a beer appeared from around the corner. “Kevin, you don’t have to talk to that guy.”
Gant studied the second man. He wore faded jeans and a ripped muscle shirt, and his face was set in a scowl. “Are you his lawyer?” Gant said.
“I’m his friend. Kevin’s not exactly a rocket scientist, so I’m looking out for him.”
“It’s okay, Jesus,” Kevin said. He pronounced the name the same way Anglos pronounced the name of the Holy Savior. Good old Jesus.
Gant flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “Are you Jesus Millicent?” Gant pronounced the name Hey-Zeus.
“Don’t say it like that. It’s Jesus.”
Gant snorted. “Okay, Jesus, you just saved me a trip. I want to talk to you too. We heard Carlos Valez holed up with you after he beat up his father. Two officers showed up at your place and you wouldn’t let them in for a search.”
“I let them in.”
“Only after they came back with a warrant. I guess that bought Carlos enough time to get out, huh?”
“What do you want?” Jesus said.
“Stick around. If you have anything to add to the discussion, just chime in.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then we can discuss the fact that I can take you in for loitering and for consuming alcoholic beverages on the premises. Pretty minor except when we consider that you’re still on parole. Isn’t that right?”
Jesus glared at Gant.
“Do you think I killed Carlos?” Kevin asked.
Gant shrugged. “Is there any reason I should think that?”
“No. He was my friend.”
“What happened last week?”
“I didn’t do anything to that lie detector guy. I just held him. I—I didn’t know Carlos was gonna hurt him that bad!”
“Okay, tell me about it.”
Kevin told his story to Gant, from Carlos’s anger at losing his job to the blow-by-blow on Ken Parker’s beating.
“I know Carlos had a violent temper,” Gant said. “Did he have any enemies? People who may have wanted him dead for any reason?”
Jesus stepped forward. “If Carlos did to me what he did to that polygraph guy, I would have been his enemy.”
Gant looked at Kevin.
“I don’t know who would have done that,” Kevin said.
Gant gave Kevin and Jesus his card with instructions to call in case they thought of anything else. He looked back at his car. The windows hadn’t been so clean in weeks. He checked his wallet; all he had was a five-dollar bill. He gave it to Kevin.
—
“Good morning, Mr. Sabini. I’m Greg Harmon. How are you today?”
Sabini shook the examiner’s hand, relieved that his own palm was dry, not sweaty. So far, so good.
“Fine, thank you,” he confidently replied.
Sabini glanced around the office. As Ken had told him, there were large, impressive-looking diplomas on the wall. This office was clean, almost antiseptic, a marked contrast with Ken’s shabby, run-down work space. Sabini noticed a full-length mirror on the wall facing the examination chair. A one-way observation window, no doubt.
The examiner motioned toward the chair. “Please have a seat.”
The seat.
Sabini stopped short when he saw it. Oh, no. It was the chair Ken warned him about, the Reid seat. He didn’t dare try the pucker. Sabini said nothing as he sat and tried to get comfortable.
The examiner picked up a clipboard and sat across from him. “Okay, Mr. Sabini. Apparently, there was a great deal of money missing from your company. Can you tell me what the problem was there?”
Sabini nodded pleasantly. He knew the examiner was fully aware of all the circumstances surrounding the case—otherwise, how could he have made up the list of questions on that clipboard? Ken had drilled him on this part. As Sabini explained in his own words, the examiner would be watching and listening closely, trying to pick up on any verbal or nonverbal cues that might incriminate the interviewee. Eye contact, enunciation, and body language were crucial.
“It started when one of the company’s owners was getting divorced.” Sabini relaxed and spoke matter-of-factly. “His wife, or his wife’s lawyers, demanded an audit of the firm’s holdings. It was done, and we were something like twelve million short.”
He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it himself.
“We tracked it down and found that the funds were electronically transferred to four different banks in Switzerland, where they had already been withdrawn. By who, we don’t know. Some people obviously think I did it, since I know more about this area than just about anyone in the company. But I didn’t do it,” he emphasized calmly. “There’s really nothing that links me to this. It’s just circumstantial.”
The examiner nodded. “All right. I’m going to briefly go through some questions with you. If you’re not sure about any of them, or you want me to explain, please let me know.”
Sabini listened as the examiner went down the list. By the third question he knew it was the Standard Format Control Question Test. Good.
The examiner was a dry, humorless man whose every look, every glance, seemed accusatory. He spoke with a slight southern accent, yet his words were clipped and precise. He wore a tie and a short-sleeved dress shirt of a style that even Sabini no longer wore.
After the examiner finished previewing the questions, he attached the sensors to Sabini. This polygraph was sleek
er and shinier than Ken’s, with a frosty silver finish on its sides. Sabini noticed the examiner pressing a foot pedal, which he assumed would activate the Reid seat.
The examiner stood. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
The man disappeared through a doorway next to the mirror. He closed the door behind him.
Sabini almost smiled, knowing he was being watched from the other side of that glass. He and Ken had practiced this part too. Sabini leaned back in the chair and casually glanced around the office. His eyes finally settled on the wall as he did his best to look bored.
In a few minutes the examiner returned. He sat down, turned on the polygraph, and studied the graph readings. He leaned forward and forcefully clapped his hands together in front of Sabini’s face. The needles jumped in response.
“That was to see if you’re reactive enough for the instrument’s settings. This should be fine.”
The examiner positioned his clipboard in front of the polygraph. “Mr. Sabini, were you born in St. Louis, Missouri?”
“Yes.”
Sabini concentrated on his breathing. If he could just get a good breathing pattern going, the rest would follow.
“Have you been completely truthful and forthcoming to your company with regard to this case we have discussed?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that I will inquire only about issues we have already discussed?”
Verbatim from Ken’s test.
“Yes.”
“Have you ever lied to a superior at work?”
“No.”
The first relevant question was next.
There was a pain in his stomach.
His heart pounded faster and faster.
This hadn’t happened before….
“Did you, over the course of several months, transfer funds belonging to Vikkers Industries into accounts you opened for your personal benefit?”
Ambiguous question. Many accounts he opened on behalf of his company benefited him personally with regard to ease of use, relationships, and so on. He almost told the examiner so during the pre-exam.
Maybe he should have said something.
Stop it, he told himself. He was second-guessing, overanalyzing the situation.
He wanted to look at the polygraph. Was his exploding heart giving him away? All that practice, all that training, it was all falling apart….
“No,” he answered.
“Have you ever taken anything from your place of business that did not belong to you?”
“No.”
His collar was throbbing, taking the pulse from his neck. He struggled to keep his cool. But the more he struggled, the worse his readings would be. He couldn’t win….
“Did you arrange for the withdrawal of your company funds after they were transferred into banks in Zurich, Switzerland?”
There was dampness under his arms. Perspiration.
Oh, God, not now.
Surely the examiner could tell, if not from his polygraph, then from the ever-growing sweat stains.
Sabini tried to relax, pretending he was back at Ken’s office, looking at that spot of chipped paint on the wall.
“No.”
“Is your birthday March third?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever knowingly violated the rules, regulations, or policies of your company?”
Sabini wanted to swallow.
He didn’t dare. The machine would pick it up and brand him forever. One swallow, one movement of his throat muscles, one twitch, could mean the difference between prison and freedom. It could cost him years of his life.
“No.”
One more question to go. One more. This wasn’t the same as practicing with Ken.
“Do you have specific knowledge of other person or persons who executed the embezzlement of funds from Vikkers Industries?”
“No.”
The examiner made another mark on the graph paper.
Sabini stared at the wall, trying to hold it together until the machine was shut down.
The examiner switched off the polygraph, and Sabini felt as if his power had suddenly been cut too. He was drained. As the sensors were removed, he looked at the examiner. The man’s face revealed nothing.
“Thank you for coming in, Mr. Sabini. I’ll analyze the results and forward them as soon as possible.”
—
It was a long way to Myth’s, Ken thought as he crossed Peachtree Street and caught a glimpse of the Fox theater. Traffic was heavy on Ponce De Leon Avenue. Why on this of all nights did it have to be so slow? he wondered. He knew Myth must have Sabini’s results, and it was killing him to wait.
He could have called her, of course. But it seemed better for him to be with her when he got the news. Years before, when his father had taken a turn for the worse, his mother called him frantically, begging him to come home immediately. The doctors said his father had only hours to live. Ken took the first flight out of Alaska, and upon his arrival at the Atlanta airport, called Bobby to find out where he should go—the hospital or their house.
“Our house,” Bobby told him.
The words went through Ken like a knife. His father was probably dead. But he didn’t ask, choosing instead to get the news in person. He hoped Myth would give him better news.
The traffic thinned out closer to Myth’s house, and as he turned down the street, he noticed that her house was dark. The porch light wasn’t on, and it appeared no one was home. Ken parked and climbed the winding stairs. He was halfway up, when the door swung open.
Myth appeared and sauntered down the stairs to meet him. She came to rest on the step above his.
“Well?” he asked.
She smiled. “It worked.”
“He passed?”
“Yes!”
Ken sucked in a huge lungful of air, as if he were a pearl diver breaking through the surface. He laughed and grabbed her around the waist. “Yes! We did it!”
She laughed too. She leaned forward and kissed him. It started as a sweet, playful kiss, but suddenly went deeper.
He rubbed his hands over her body, pulling her dress taut at the seams.
“Let’s go inside,” she whispered.
She made a halfhearted attempt to turn around, but he pulled her down to a half-sitting, half-lying position on the stairs. Cloaked in darkness, they could barely be seen by each other, much less by any passersby on the street.
“Not here,” she weakly protested.
Ken’s breath moistened her neck, and a long shudder went through her. She pulled him close. “What the hell,” she whispered.
He ran wet kisses over her face, behind her ears, and down her neck. Her body relaxed beneath his as he unzipped her dress.
—
Myth reached for another hors d’oeuvre from the half-dozen platters surrounding her and Ken on her living room floor. They were both naked, wrapped in blankets. “You’re supposed to do it in elevators, not stairways.”
“You don’t have an elevator. I had to improvise.” He surveyed the feast laid out before them. “Aren’t you supposed to celebrate with champagne?”
“I don’t like champagne. Have another stuffed meatball. Or a turkey roll.”
“I’m still working on the boiled shrimp. Your mother tell you the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”
“No. Through here.”
Under the covers, she grabbed his sensitive lower extremity.
“Okay, okay! Take it easy, it’s gonna break off!”
She laughed and let go.
He pulled the blankets tightly around her and dragged her close. “If that’s what your mother told you, she’s a wise woman.”
“Wait till you hear what my father told me.”
“I don’t even want to know.” He tenderly brushed the hair from her face.
“Sabini will pay you tomorrow, in cash,” she said. “What are you going to do with it all?”
“What do people say when they win the
lottery? That it’s not going to change them? Screw that. It’s gonna change me.”
She laughed.
He leaned against a coffee table. “I can relax a little. My brother’s sick, and I’ve been giving him all the cash I can. It’s like a black hole. There’s never enough. I can’t even think about looking for a new line of work while he’s in such bad shape. But with this money, I can take care of him. He can stop worrying. I think that’s one of the reasons he can’t get better. The stress is just tearing him apart.”
“It’s been hard on you too.”
“Nothing like it’s been for him. But this money will help me make a new start for myself. How many people get that chance?”
She smiled warmly at him. “Not many.”
“Things are going to be different. Better.” He shook his head. “You know, when I said Bill stole Margot away from me, it didn’t really happen that way.”
He paused to put his thoughts into words. “I think…I think I pushed her away. It’s not that I didn’t think I deserved her. It wasn’t that. I guess I just wasn’t being very good to myself, and I wasn’t going to let anybody else be good to me either. Bill just happened to be there when she needed someone. I sure wasn’t there for her.”
He was surprised at the words tumbling from his mouth. Surprised because he was sharing them with someone, and because they were notions he was forming only at that very moment.
Myth moved closer. “Have you ever wanted her back?”
“I used to. Not anymore. That’s all in the past. I’m more interested in the future. I have a birthday coming. It’ll be the first one in a while that I’ll be able to enjoy. A long while.”
She smiled. “I’ll enjoy it with you.”
He was about to kiss her, when the phone rang.
Myth answered it. “Hello? Yes? Christ, Rogers, what makes you think you can—”
She fell silent, and a tense, anxious look crossed her face. She glanced at Ken.
“I’ll be right there,” she said.
—
Less than half an hour later, Myth walked down a grimy side street in the downtown area, five blocks from the Underground shopping and entertainment complex. As safe and well patrolled as the Underground center was, the surrounding area deteriorated rapidly, with each outlying block more seedy than the previous one. This was not a place for anyone—man or woman—to be walking alone in the middle of the night. She knew she shouldn’t have parked so far away, but Ken had insisted on riding with her, and she couldn’t risk his being seen waiting in her car.