Switch

by William Bayer

  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 me—what'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 right—let'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, Lieutenant—he 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 sparse—two 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 everything—the 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 so—yeah. 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 clos
e. 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 it—don'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."

  "Then where's the money?"

  "I don't know."

  "You took it. You saw she was dead, you cleaned her out, then you locked the door and went downstairs and called 911, very, very cool."

  "I didn't take anything."

  "Where'd she keep it?"

  "In the closet. In a pocket of her coat."

  "What coat?"

  "A long gray overcoat she's got in there. There's a zippered pocket in the lining. She kept the money in there."

  "And you think it's still there?"

  "I don't know."

  "It better be there, Prudencio. Detective Howell is taking you over there now, and he'd better find that money just where it's supposed to be, because if it's not there we're going to fry you. You understand, Prudencio? You're going to need a lawyer real bad if that money isn't there."

  The pimp nodded. Janek shrugged and left the viewing corridor. He thought Bitong was telling the truth. He was a small-time amateur, venal, slippery, slimy, not the sort to cut off a pair of heads, switch them around, then try to make them fit.

  Stanger brought in Gary Pierson at four o'clock. He was medium-tall and slim, about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. Friendly face, pleasant smile, soft wavy brownish hair. He wore expensive resort-style clothing, his shoes shone like mirrors and his trousers were perfectly creased. Neat as a pin, compulsive, a little rigid in his posture. Janek watched and listened while Stanger doodled him around: hometown, position at Weston, how he'd spent the first half of the summer painting watercolor beachscapes on Nantucket, where he'd rented a little cottage from his aunt.

  How had he met Amanda Ireland? They'd both started at Weston three years ago this fall and had struck up a friendship at once. She'd spent a week with him on Nantucket in July—idyllic days reading and painting on the beach, stargazing and intimate conversation at night. During school terms they ate lunch together nearly every day, often spent weekend evenings attending movies or chamber-music concerts at the YMHA and the Metropolitan Museum.

  When Janek had a sense of him he stepped in, was introduced, then motioned Stanger to leave. He looked at Gary hard. The young man evaded his stare. He was nervous, but then he wasn't accustomed to being in a windowless interrogation room where the air didn't smell very good with a gray-faced detective glaring into his eyes.

  "How would you describe your relationship?"

  "With Mandy? We were very close."

  "Lovers?"

  Gary smiled. "I'm gay, Lieutenant. I told Detective Stanger that."

  "We certainly appreciate your honesty."

  "I don't hide it."

  "That's very nice. Now what about your relationship? Did you ever sleep with her or not?"

  He shook his head. "We necked sometimes. We were more like confidants."

  "You exchanged confidences?"

  "Yes. She knew everything there was to know about me and I knew everything about her."

  "Like what?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "What did you know about her?"

  "I told you—everything." He paused. "Maybe a lot of the time I talked about myself. I guess I liked to talk about my problems and she just liked to listen."

  "So it was one of those one-way confidential relationships?" It pained Janek to be sarcastic, but he didn't know any other way.

  "She knew all about my affairs. My lovers. My problems. Everything."

  "And what did you know about her?"

  "I knew who she was."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Her values, feelings. She was a wonderful girl. Decent and sensitive. Thoughtful. Intelligent. I think Mandy Ireland was the most compassionate person I've ever known."

  "Was she gay, Gary?"

  "Absolutely not!"

  "No need to get jumpy about it. If she was I need to know."

  "She wasn't gay."

  "And she didn't date?"

  "No."

  "Then what kind of sex life did she have?"

  "That's a lousy question."

  "I don't think so. We're investigating a homicide."

  "I mean what the hell? What difference does it make? She's dead now. She didn't talk about that at all."

  "Maybe she didn't trust you."

  "I think she did. I just don't think there was much to tell."

  "What's not much?"

  "I think she was more or less celibate."

  "She was good-looking."

  "Very."

  "And young and single. I don't get it. It doesn't add up. She lived in Manhattan, met people at work, people who must have been attracted to her, at least enough to ask her out. You're telling me she didn't have any kind of sex life. I say that's unlikely. Someone came into her apartment and stabbed her all over her chest. Like sticking his big cock right into her. Like a very sick kind of rape. Now, that's a sex life, or a sex death, whatever you want to call it. In my experience that's some kind of sex."

  Pierson was beginning to perspire.

  "Shakes you up, doesn't it?"

  "Yes. It shakes me up."

  'Who did it, Gary? Any ideas on that?"

  "I've thought about it, naturally. I told Detective Stanger. She didn't go out. Hardly ever. And she wouldn't let people in unless she was expecting them. She had a chain lock and she used it. She didn't have a boyfriend. I just can't imagine who would want to harm her. She didn't have an enemy in the world."

  "Funny the way you reacted when you found her."

  "I got sick. It was a sickening sight."

  "You never saw anything sickening before?"

  "Not sickening like that."

  "You
live in the Village. You go to bars. Ever go to a leather bar?"

  "That's not my scene."

  "Been to them, haven't you?"

  "Maybe a couple of times."

  "Right, and they didn't make you sick? Come on, Gary, all that sado stuff right out there for everyone to see..."

  "Yes, it made me sick. That's why I never went back."

  "You turned away when you saw her."

  "Anyone would have turned away."

  "You notice something funny, Gary?"

  "What?"

  "Something funny?"

  "What was funny?"

  "Strange. Funny-strange. Maybe something about the way she looked."

  "There was blood."

  "What else?"

  "It was awful. Horrible. I felt sick right away."

  "You wear glasses?"

  He shook his head.

  "You're an artist. An art teacher. You're a visual man. You didn't see anything funny when you looked in there, maybe something that made you feel sick?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about!"

  "Then let me spell it out for you. Did you notice, perhaps, that she'd been decapitated? That someone had cut off her head?"

  Gary Pierson looked straight into Janek's eyes, peered into them to see if he was telling the truth, and when he saw that he was he began to choke. He turned his head to the side and Janek could see the tendons in his neck quiver and his throat contract and then something like drool appear on his lips. Watching Gary Pierson try to control himself and swallow, Janek was not proud of the way he had delivered the gruesome news. It was an old interrogator's trick and it generally worked. He stood up, moved behind the boy and placed his hands on his shoulders to calm him down.

  "Take it easy, son. It was a very bad scene. She was attacked through her shower curtain. The killer was waiting in there when she came in to brush her teeth. We think she had just come back from walking her dog. And just as she started to brush, this guy started stabbing away. He killed her instantly, but he kept stabbing and then later he took something else, a sword maybe, and he cut off her head."

  Gary started to choke again, and Janek was just about convinced. He knew there were killers who were excellent actors, and there were coldhearted people who pretended to be squeamish, sociopaths who didn't feel anything but could fake it, thinking that's what everybody did—since they couldn't feel anything they assumed nobody else did, either. But Gary Pierson didn't seem like one of them, and there wasn't anything fake about his convulsions and his sweat. Janek could feel his shivers right through his shoulder bones. He believed the kid. He'd never really thought he'd done it, but he had needed to be sure.