by Harlan Coben
"Just answer my question," the cop said.
This had been going on for two hours now. The adrenaline had died down, and the ache was starting to gnaw on my bones. I'd had enough.
"Yeah, okay, you got me," I said. "First, I put cuffs on both my hands. Then I broke up some furniture, fired several bullets into the walls, choked her nearly to death in my own apartment, and then called the police on myself. You got me."
"Could have worked that way," the officer said. He was a big man with a waxy mustache that made me think of a barbershop quartet. He had given me his name, but I stopped caring three cops ago.
"Excuse me?"
"A ruse maybe."
"I dislocated my shoulder and cut up my hands and broke my bed to divert suspicion?"
He gave a classic cop-shrug. "Hey, I had a guy one time, he cut off his dick so we wouldn't think he killed his girl. Said a bunch of black guys attacked them. Thing is, he only meant to cut it a little but he ended up slicing all the way through."
"That's a great story," I said.
"Could be the same thing here."
"My penis is fine, thanks for caring."
"You tell us about some guy breaking in. Neighbors heard the shots."
"Yes."
He gave me the skeptical eyes. "So how come none of your neighbors saw him running out?"
"Because and this is just a wild stab in the dark it was two in the morning?"
I was still sitting up on the examining table. My legs hung off. They were starting to go to sleep from the angle. I hopped down.
"Where do you think you're going?" the cop asked.
"I want to see Katy."
"I don't think so." The cop twitched the mustache. "Her parents are with her right now."
He studied my face for a reaction. I tried not to give him one.
The mustache twitched. "Her father has some pretty strong opinions about you," he said.
"I bet he does."
"He thinks you did this."
"For what purpose?"
"You mean what motive?"
"No, I mean purpose, intent. Do you think I was trying to kill her?"
He crossed his arms and shrugged. "Sounds reasonable to me."
"Then why did I call you while she was still alive?" I asked. "I went through this big ruse, right? So why didn't I finish her off?"
"Strangling someone isn't that easy," he said. "Maybe you thought she was dead."
"You realize, of course, how idiotic that sounds."
The door behind him opened, and Pistillo entered. He gave me a look as heavy as the ages. I closed my eyes and massaged the bridge of my nose with my forefinger and thumb. Pistillo was with one of the cops who had questioned me earlier. The cop signaled to his mustached compadre.
The mustached cop looked annoyed by the interruption, but he followed the other one out the door. I was alone now with Pistillo.
He did not say anything at first. Pistillo circled the room, studying the glass jar of cotton balls, the tongue depressors, the hazardous-waste disposal can. Hospital rooms normally smell of antiseptic, but this one reeked of male-flight-attendant cologne. I did not know if it was from a doctor or cop, but I could see Pistillo's nose twitch in disgust. I was already used to it.
"Tell me what happened," he said.
"Didn't your friends with the NYPD fill you in?"
"I told them I wanted to hear it from you," Pistillo said. "Before they throw your ass in jail."
"I want to know how Katy is."
He weighed my request for a second or two. "Her neck and vocal cords will be sore, but she'll be fine."
I closed my eyes and let the relief flow over me.
"Start talking," Pistillo said.
I told him what happened. He stayed quiet until I got to the part about her shouting out the name "John."
"Any idea who John is?" he asked.
"Maybe."
"I'm listening."
"A guy I knew when I was growing up. His name is John Asselta."
Pistillo's face dropped.
"You know him?" I asked.
He ignored my question. "What makes you think she was talking about Asselta?"
"He's the one who broke my nose."
I filled him in on the Ghost's break-in and assault. Pis-tillo did not look happy.
"Asselta was looking for your brother?"
"That's what he said."
His face reddened. "Why the hell didn't you tell me this before?"
"Yeah, it's weird," I said. "You've always been the guy I could turn to, the friend I could trust with anything."
He stayed angry. "Do you know anything about John Asselta?"
"We grew up in the same town. We used to call him the Ghost."
"He's one of the most dangerous wackos out there," Pistillo said. He stopped, shook his head. "It couldn't have been him."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because you're both alive."
Silence.
"He's a stone-cold killer."
"So why isn't he in jail?" I asked.
"Don't be naive. He's good at what he does."
"Killing people?"
"Yes. He lives overseas, no one knows where exactly. He's worked for government death squads in Central America. He helped despots in Africa." Pistillo shook his head. "No, if Asselta wanted her dead, we'd be tying a toe tag on her right about now."
"Maybe she meant another John," I said. "Or maybe I just heard wrong."
"Maybe." He thought about that. "One other thing I don't get. If the Ghost or anyone else wanted to kill Katy Miller, why not just do it?
Why go to the trouble of cuffing you down?"
That had troubled me too, but I had come up with one possibility.
"Maybe it was a setup."
He frowned. "How do you figure?"
"The killer cuffs me to the bed. He chokes Katy to death. Then" I could feel a tingle on my scalp "maybe he'd set it up to make it look like I did it." I looked up at him.
Pistillo frowned. "You're not going to say "Like my brother," are you?"
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I think I am."
"That's horse shit."
"Think about it, Pistillo. One thing you guys could never explain: Why was my brother's blood at the scene?"
"Julie Miller fought him off."
"You know better. There was too much blood for that." I moved closer to him. "Ken was framed eleven years ago, and maybe tonight someone wanted history to repeat itself."
He scoffed. "Don't be melodramatic. And let me tell you something.
The cops aren't buying your Houdini-cuff-escape story. They think you tried to kill her."
"What do you think?" I asked him.
"Katy's father is here. He's riled up as all hell."
"That's hardly surprising."
"It makes you wonder, though."
"You know I didn't do it, Pistillo. And despite your theatrics yesterday, you know I didn't kill Julie."
"I warned you to stay away."
"And I chose not to heed your warning."
Pistillo let loose a long breath and nodded. "Exactly, tough guy, so here's how we're going to play it." He stepped closer and tried to stare me down. I did not blink. "You're going to jail."
I sighed. "I think I've already surpassed my minimum daily requirement of threats today."
"No threat, Will. You're going to be shipped off to jail this very night."
"Fine, I want a lawyer."
He looked at his watch. "Too late for that. You'll spend the night in lockup. Tomorrow you'll get arraigned. The charges will be attempted murder and assault two. The D. A."s office will claim that you're a flight risk case in point: your brother and they'll ask for the judge to deny bail. My guess is, the judge will grant it."
I started to speak but he held up a hand. "Save your breath because and you're not going to like this I don't care if you did it or not.
I'm going to find enough evidence to convict you. And if I can
't find it, I'll create it. Go ahead, tell your lawyer about this chat. I'll just deny it. You're a murder suspect who's helped hide his killer-brother for eleven years. I'm one of the country's most respected law enforcement agents. Who do you think they'll believe?"
I looked at him. "Why are you doing this?"
"I told you to stay away."
"What would you have done if you were in my place? If it was your brother?"
"That's not the point. You didn't listen. And now your girlfriend is dead and Katy Miller just barely escaped with her life."
"I never hurt either one of them."
"Yeah, you did. You caused it. If you'd listened to me, you think they'd be where they are now?"
His words hit home, but I pushed on. "And what about you, Pistillo?
What about your burying Laura Emerson's connection "
"Hey, I'm not here to play point-counterpoint with you. You're going to jail tonight. And make no mistake, I'll get you convicted."
He headed for the door.
"Pistillo?" When he turned around, I said, "What are you really after here?"
He stopped and leaned so that his lips were only inches from my ear. He whispered, "Ask your brother," and then he was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Eight.
I spent the night in the precinct holding pen at Midtown South on West 35th Street. The cell reeked of urine and vomit and that sour-vodka smell when a drunk sweats. It was still a step up from the aroma of flight-attendant cologne. I had two cellmates. One was a cross-dressing hooker who cried a lot and seemed confused about sitting or standing when using the metal toilet. My other cellmate was a black man who slept the whole time. I have no jail stories about being beaten or robbed or raped. The night was totally uneventful.
Whoever was working the night shift spun a CD of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." Talk about comfort food. Like every good Jersey boy, I had the lyrics memorized. This may sound strange, but I always thought of Ken when I listened to the Boss's power ballads. We were not blue collar or suffering hard times, and neither of us had been into fast cars or hanging out on the shore (in Jersey, it's always "the shore," never "the beach") then again, judging by what I've seen at recent E Street Band concerts, that was probably true of most of his listeners but there was something in the stories of struggle, the spirit of a man in chains trying to break free, of wanting something more and finding the courage to run away, that not only resonated with me but made me think of my brother, even before the murder.
But tonight, when Bruce sang that she was so pretty he got lost in the stars, I thought about Sheila. And I ached all over again.
My one call had been to Squares. I woke him up. When I told him what happened, he said, "Bummer." Then he promised to find me a good lawyer and see what he could learn about Katy's condition.
"Oh, the security tapes from that Quick Go Squares said.
"What about them?"
"Your idea worked. We'll be able to see them tomorrow."
"If they let me out of here."
"Yeah, I guess," Squares said. Then he added, "If they don't give you bail, man, that would suck."
In the morning, the cops escorted me down to central booking at 100
Centre Street. The corrections department took over from there. I was held in a pen located in the basement. If you no longer believe that America is a melting pot, you should spend some time with the potpourri of (inhumanity that inhabits this mini-United Nations. I heard at least ten different languages. There were shades of skin color that could inspire the people at Crayola. There were baseball caps and turbans and toupees and even a fez. Everyone talked at the same time.
And when I could understand them hey, even when I couldn't they were all claiming innocence.
Squares was there when I stood before the judge. So was my new attorney, a woman named Hester Crimstein. I recognized her from some famous case, but I could not put my finger on which one. She introduced herself to me and never looked my way again. She turned and stared at the young D. A. as though he were a bleeding boar and she was a panther with an industrial-sized case of piles.
"We request that Mr. Klein be held over without bail," the young D. A. said. "We believe that he is a very serious flight risk."
"Why's that?" the judge, who seemed to be perspiring boredom from every pore, asked.
"His brother, a murder suspect, has been on the run for the past eleven years. Not only that, your honor, but his brother's victim was this victim's sister."
That got the judge's attention. "Come again?"
"The defendant, Mr. Klein, is accused of trying to murder one Katherine Miller. Mr. Klein's brother, Kenneth, is a suspect in the eleven-year-old murder of Julie Miller, the victim's older sister."
The judge, who'd been rubbing his face, stopped abruptly. "Oh, wait, I remember the case."
The young D. A. smiled as if he'd been given a gold star.
The judge turned to Hester Crimstein. "Ms. Crim-stein?"
"Your honor, we believe that all charges against Mr. Klein should be dropped immediately," she said.
The judge started rubbing his face again. "Label me shocked, Ms.
Crimstein."
"Short of that, we believe that Mr. Klein should be released on his own recognizance. Mr. Klein has no criminal record at all. He has a job working with the poor in this city. He has roots in the community.
As for that ridiculous comparison to his brother, that's guilt by association at its worst."
"You don't think the people have a valid concern, Ms. Crimstein?"
"Not at all, your honor. I understand that Mr. Klein's sister recently got her hair permed. Does that make it more likely that he will do the same?"
There was laughter.
The young D. A. was feeling his oats. "Your honor, with all due deference to my colleague's silly analogy "
"What's silly about it?" Crimstein snapped.
"Our point is that Mr. Klein certainly has the resources to flee."
"That's ludicrous. He has no more means than anyone else. The reason they're making this claim is because they believe his brother fled and no one is even sure about that. He may be dead. But either way, your honor, the assistant district attorney is leaving out one crucial element in all this."
Hester Crimstein turned to the young D. A. and smiled.
"Mr. Thomson?" the judge said.
Thomson, the young D. A." kept his head down.
Hester Crimstein waited another beat and then dove in. "The victim of this heinous crime, one Katherine Miller, claimed this morning that Mr.
Klein was innocent."
The judge did not like that. "Mr. Thomson?"
"That's not exactly true, your honor."
"Not exactly?"
"Ms. Miller claimed that she did not see her assailant. It was dark.
He wore a mask."
"And," Hester Crimstein finished for him, "she said that it wasn't my client."
"She said she did not believe it was Mr. Klein," Thomson countered.
"But, your honor, she's injured and confused. She didn't see the attacker, so she really couldn't rule him out "
"We're not trying the case here, counselor," the judge interrupted.
"But your request for no bail is denied. Bail is set at thirty thousand dollars."
The judge banged the gavel. And I was free.
Chapter Thirty-Nine.
I wanted to head up to the hospital and see Katy. Squares shook his head and told me that would be a bad idea. Her father was there. He refused to leave her side. He had hired an armed guard to stand outside her door. I understood. Mr. Miller had failed to protect one daughter. He would never let himself do that again.
I called the hospital on Squares's cell phone, but the switchboard operator said that no calls were allowed. I dialed a local florist and sent her a get-well bouquet. It seemed pretty simplistic and dumb Katy gets nearly strangled to death in my apartment and I send a basket with flowers, a teddy bear, and a
mini-Mylar balloon on a stick but it was the only way I could come up with to let her know that I was thinking of her.
Squares drove his own car, a 1968 venetian-blue Coupe de Ville that was about as inconspicuous as our cross-dressing friend Raquel/Roscoe at a Daughters of the American Revolution gathering, through the Lincoln Tunnel. Tough going, the tunnel, as always. People claimed that the traffic was getting worse. I'm not so sure. As a kid, our family car in those days, one of those paneled station wagons used to creep through that tunnel every other Sunday. I remember how sluggish that trek would be, in the dark, those stupid yellow warning lights hanging batlike from the tunnel's ceiling as if we really needed to be told to go slow, that little glass booth with the worker in it, the soot painting the tunnel tiles a urine-hued ivory, all of us peering anxiously ahead for the breaking light of day, and then, finally, with those metal looking rubber dividers rising in greeting, we would ascend into the world of high-rises, an alternate reality, as if we'd traveled through a transporter. We'd go to the Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey circus and twirl those little lights on a string, or maybe Radio City Music Hall for some show that dazzled for about ten minutes and then bored, or stand in line for half-priced tickets at the TKTS booth, or browse the books at the big Barnes & Noble (I think there was only one back then), or hit the Museum of Natural History, or a street fair my mom's favorite was September's New York Is Book Country on Fifth Avenue.
My father would grumble about the traffic and the parking and the all-purpose "filth," but my mother loved New York. She longed for the theater, the arts, the razz and jangle of the city. Sunny had managed to shrink herself enough to fit into the suburban world of car pools and tennis sneakers, but her dreams, those long-ago suppressed longings, were right there, right beneath the surface. She loved us, I know that, but sometimes, when I sat behind her in that station wagon and watched her looking out the car window, I wondered if she would have been happier without us.
"Smart thinking," Squares said.
"What?"
"Remembering that Sonay was a devout practitioner of Yoga Squared."