by Carrie Smith
“It wasn’t murder. It was an accident. I’ve never had a gun in my hand before. She rushed at me. The gun went off. Your own detective can confirm that.”
“What were you doing with a gun in your hand in the first place?”
“It belonged to Jancek. Look, it’s a long story.”
“I don’t like long stories. Just get to the point. If you had nothing to do with the murders of Sanchez and Reyes, why were you in Dana Drew’s apartment?”
Perspiration glistened in the hairline of Dressler’s tight, black curls as he reached for the water bottle in front of him. He took a sip, set it back down, and let out a deep breath. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth this afternoon,” he conceded.
“No shit!” said Haggerty. “You lied in a sworn statement.”
“Look, I panicked, all right? I have a family. I have a career. I’m on the brink of a big sale. I was afraid to jeopardize all that. But I’ll tell you everything now. I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You’ll see I’m not a murderer.”
Haggerty crossed his arms. Dressler was sweating up his expensive dress shirt. He unbuttoned his left cuff to roll it up, and Haggerty noticed it was monogrammed. Who wore monogrammed shirts these days, he wondered, except filthy rich Wall Street types and insecure people trying to look like Wall Street types? “Start talking,” said Haggerty. “Unless you want me to draw my own conclusions.”
Dressler pressed his palms into the table as if it were a Ouija board and the words he needed would flow up from the wood, through his fingertips, and into his brain. “This afternoon, you asked me if I took a photo of Sanchez, and I said no, and that’s true. I didn’t take it, but I knew about it. I knew Jancek had taken it. Donohue told me about it. She said if I showed him the photo, he’d have to get behind iAchieve. I didn’t want to use it. I didn’t want to stoop to threats. But after Monday morning, well, I had second thoughts.”
“What happened Monday morning?”
“He hijacked my presentation at Barton’s office. The lying son of a bitch stood up and told a room full of principals if they adopted iAchieve, the only winner would be McFlieger-Walsh. He claimed the program wasn’t thoroughly tested, which is total bullshit. He looked at every face in that room and said they shouldn’t spend millions of dollars to be guinea pigs.”
“And you saw your sale going down the tubes.”
“The sale I’ve been working on nonstop for more than a year.”
More than a year of fucking Margery Barton, Haggerty thought. “So you decided a little blackmail might be in order after all?”
“Call it whatever you want.” Dressler rolled up his other monogrammed sleeve. “He was spreading lies about iAchieve. It was time to confront him on his own stinking lies. But Jancek had the photo, and he wouldn’t give it to me unless he came with me. He had his own bones to pick with Sanchez. I said no way, but then he said he’d go there with or without me, so I had no choice.”
Haggerty pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket. “People always have a choice.” He stared into Dressler’s eyes. Dressler looked away first. He picked a loose fiber off his pant leg. Was it a fiber from the twine he had used to tie up Drew? Haggerty wondered. “So you and the janitor went to see him. And how did that go?”
Dressler was biting the inside of his mouth now. “I thought when he saw the photo, he’d be scared shitless.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“He’d already seen it. He told me I was pathetic, and he was going to make sure my iAchieve campaign failed. And then he turned on Jancek. ‘What are you?’ he said. ‘His bodyguard?’ and he laughed really hard. He laughed for a long time, and then he got very close to Jancek, and his smile turned to a cold glare. He raised his index finger to Jancek’s face and said, ‘If I see you bring one more fucking cup of Dunkin’ Donuts to my AP, I’m going to pour it down your throat.’ And then Jancek jumped on him like a wild animal. It was over almost before it began. He murdered the guy in cold blood. It was terrible.”
Chapter 61
“I never meant to do it. I wasn’t myself. I felt so much rage. I was insane. I only felt that way one other time in my life.” Jancek held his hands in front of his face palms up and stared at them as if they didn’t belong to him. The hands were large and calloused, the fingers unattractively thick. Codella remembered Margery Barton’s perfectly manicured nails shellacked with high-gloss polish. There were always fingers, someone’s fingers, at the root of a murder. Jancek’s fingers were quivering. “Before I knew what I was doing,” he admitted now in a soft, disconsolate voice, “I got behind him and snapped his neck so hard it made a loud noise, like a tree branch, and he crumpled in my arms.”
Codella watched tears well up in the custodian’s eyes. One of them rolled lackadaisically down his coarse, angular cheek. The tear looked grossly out of place on that face, and she wondered if his display of emotion was an act—a confessed killer’s tears often were—but she dismissed the suspicion almost immediately. At his core, she judged, Jancek did not have the equal measures of moral lassitude, cunning, and theatricality required to summon tears at will. He sounded miserable and ashamed of himself as he told her, “I enjoyed it. Just for that one instant. I was glad. I had him in my arms, and he couldn’t get away—he had to feel my power for a change. I’m not sorry. Not really. I had to do it. For Marva. I did it for her, and I’m glad. Because he had crushed her spirit every day since he took over, and she is too good to be treated that way.”
“You were there on Monday morning when he returned from the principal’s meeting and took her into his office and screamed at her.”
“It wasn’t the first time he had disrespected her. I wanted to barge in there and tear his limbs apart.”
“But you couldn’t, could you? You couldn’t help Marva any more than you could help your niece when she was being raped.” She spoke in a calm, soothing tone like the hospital chaplain who’d sat at her bedside during her chemotherapies and tried to coax her feelings about cancer out of her.
“Marva needed a protector. I only wanted to be her protector.”
“What happened then, Milosz?” She reeled him in from his grandiose thoughts. “What did you do after Sanchez crumpled in your arms?”
“I put him on the floor. He was still alive. He was staring up at me. He was gasping for breath. I will see his terrified eyes in my mind till the day I die. I never killed anyone else in my life. I was out of my mind. I started weeping. I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t think. I started looking for a phone to call nine-one-one. I said, ‘Oh my God. We have to do something. We have to help him.’”
“But you didn’t help him. You took his crumpled body and turned him into a savior.”
Chapter 62
“I have to use the bathroom,” said Dressler. “You can’t keep me locked in this little room. You can’t keep me from making a phone call.”
“Go ahead.” Haggerty gestured toward the door. “Walk out of here. Make your fucking phone call. There’s a pay phone down on the first floor. Nobody’s stopping you. And then we’ll get the official wheels in motion. Let me lay it out for you. We read you your rights. We arrest you for murder, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly weapon. We take you down to central in handcuffs, and they put you in a nice cozy cell with a couple of bunkmates who haven’t seen a lot of black guys in monogrammed shirts like you, and you get to see what life is like outside the corporate bubble. I wonder if Margery Barton will come visit you.” He grinned. “What’s your guess?”
Dressler flashed a look of contempt. “I didn’t kill or assault anyone. You got that? Now I want to take a leak.”
Haggerty rapped on the table between them. “Somebody show this senior vice president of sales where the men’s room is.”
Seconds later, the door opened and Muñoz signaled for Dressler to follow. When Dressler returned, Haggerty said, “So you want to keep going, or you want to make that phone call and get the wheels turning?”
“What can you do for me?”
Haggerty wanted to say, I don’t make deals. I’m not a sleazy salesman like you. Instead he said, “Maybe I can keep you from getting fucked up on your very first night in central holding. I can tell a prosecutor you were cooperative. As it stands, I bet we’ve got enough to put you in a cell at Sing Sing for a nice long stay. Now I need the facts. I need the whole story. Otherwise, I’m out of here.”
Dressler nodded grudgingly.
“What happened after Jancek killed Sanchez?”
Dressler shrugged. “I told him, ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’ but he didn’t even seem to hear me. So I told him, ‘This is on you, not me.’ And then I walked. I got the hell out of there as fast as I could.”
Chapter 63
“I didn’t turn him into a savior. I didn’t do anything,” Jancek insisted. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I just stood there. Sanchez was moaning. It was loud, so loud. I couldn’t stand it. He had tears in his eyes. I had to look away. Dressler told him to shut up, but he didn’t. I said, ‘We have to call for help,’ and Dressler said, ‘Shut up, you fucking moron.’ Then he left the room. He went in the kitchen. I heard him opening and shutting cupboards and drawers. When he came back, he was wearing gloves—the kind you wear to wash the dishes—and he was holding a dishrag. He stuffed the rag in Sanchez’s mouth. That made the moaning a little quieter. And then he dragged the body into the middle of the living room floor. He said, ‘Grab his leg and help me!’ but I didn’t. I didn’t go near him. I couldn’t believe what I had done. I couldn’t believe . . .” He shook his head.
In her mind, Codella visualized the three men in Sanchez’s apartment: the temporarily deranged custodian; the quick-witted sales executive; and the once-arrogant, now-paralyzed principal. Was Jancek fabricating, or was he reporting events as they had truly occurred?
“What happened after Dressler dragged Sanchez to the center of the room?” she asked.
“He pulled off his shoes, socks, and jeans. He pulled his shirt over his head. He asked me to help again, but I didn’t. He stripped him down to his shorts. And then he stretched his arms out to the sides. He positioned his legs and feet one over the other.”
“What about Sanchez? Was he still awake? Was he still alive?”
“He had stopped making noise. He was having trouble breathing. His eyes were starting to roll back in his head. Dressler folded his clothes and took them to his bedroom. He removed the towel from his mouth. He went onto Sanchez’s laptop, too. I don’t know what he was doing. Looking for something, I guess. And then we left.”
She noted the time and paused the recorder. “We’ll take a break there,” she said and stepped out of the room.
Chapter 64
“He claims he did nothing,” Haggerty told her. “Says Jancek had a fit and broke Sanchez’s neck, and he got out as fast as he could. Didn’t want to take the heat.”
Codella shook her head. “If he’d left in a hurry like that, we would have found his prints on the inside doorknob. There were no prints on that knob. It was wiped clean, according to Banks. I think he’s lying.”
“What did Jancek say?” Haggerty stared at the swollen red bump on her forehead. He didn’t like the look of that bump.
“He confessed to the murder. Says he went crazy when Sanchez laughed and told him to stay away from Marva Thomas.”
“So we’ve got our man.”
“We’ve got Sanchez’s killer. But that doesn’t mean he murdered Sofia Reyes, too. He says after he broke Sanchez’s neck, he stood there in shock while Dressler arranged the whole crucifixion scene. And if that’s true, then maybe Dressler killed Reyes, too.”
“You believe him?”
“My gut says he’s telling the truth, but it’s Dressler’s word against his. He described the whole scene, Dressler screaming at him and then taking control of things, figuring out how to erase the evidence. Everything he said aligns with the facts.”
“For instance?”
“Dressler put on plastic dishwashing gloves. That explains the lack of prints. He stuffed a dishtowel in Sanchez’s mouth, which explains the fibers Gambarin found. He went onto Sanchez’s laptop, which explains the website he was looking at.”
“Jancek could have done all those things himself.”
“True,” conceded Codella. “That’s true. It’s his word against Dressler’s.”
“Did he mention Sofia Reyes?”
“Not once. How about Dressler?”
“No. But I imagine right now they’re in there concocting their stories.”
She leaned against the wall. She looked tired, he thought. “At least one of them is,” she said.
Haggerty stared into her blue eyes. Her pupils were large, black circles. “How do you feel?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“Are you still dizzy? You were out for about a minute after we got there. You could have a bad concussion, you know.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He remembered holding her in his arms on the street hours ago. Something about sitting in that small room with the slippery sales executive made him want to embrace her again now, tenderly, to embrace a different part of himself. “I’m driving you to the hospital as soon as we get done in there.”
“Whatever,” she said and turned.
Chapter 65
The bright lights of the interview room made her squint as she reentered the small windowless space. She did feel dizzy, and a little nauseous, too. She returned to her chair, determined to get the facts and get them quickly. “Look, Mr. Jancek, I want to help you, but there’s something about your story that just doesn’t make sense. If you felt guilt and remorse about killing Hector Sanchez, if you were so ready to phone nine-one-one the second after you snapped his neck, then why didn’t you make the call? Why didn’t you turn yourself in? You’ve had three days to come forward.”
She watched him carefully. What explanation would he give to make his actions—and inaction—seem reasonable, justifiable?
Jancek sighed as if to acknowledge the truth in her unspoken thoughts. “Marva,” he whispered. “Marva.”
“Marva? How does Marva explain anything?”
“I didn’t want Marva to know.”
“Or is it that you didn’t want anyone to know, Mr. Jancek—because you’re lying? Because you never intended to call nine-one-one?” The words echoed in her brain as she said them. Someone was yelling the words. And then she realized she was yelling, and her hearing was defective and her head was pulsing like a ventricle expanding and contracting. Suddenly, she wanted to lie down on a bed, on a couch, on this floor, anywhere, and close her eyes to stop the pulsing. You could have a bad concussion, she heard Haggerty’s voice in her head. “Quit wasting my time, Mr. Jancek,” she said. “Why didn’t you make that call? Why didn’t you turn yourself in?”
“When I picked up the phone to dial the police, he yanked it out of my hands.”
“Dressler?”
“‘Don’t be an even bigger fool,’ he said. ‘If you make that call, you’ll end up in a prison cell for a long, long time. Do you want that?’ and I didn’t want that. I wanted to be with Marva. I want to marry Marva. I want to protect Marva forever. And he said no one had to know we’d been there if we just wiped our prints clean and got out without being seen.”
Codella pictured Marva Thomas seated in her closet-sized office at PS 777 drinking the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee Jancek had faithfully brought her each day. She remembered the Ephesians quote taped to Marva Thomas’s computer monitor. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. How far would Thomas’s forgiveness extend? Could she rationalize Jancek’s act because he had done it for her? Was her Christian moral compass susceptible to the shifting magnetic fields of love and retribution? Would she visit Jancek in prison, where he would most certainly end up? “Tell me what happened next,” Codella demanded. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“He went around the apartment, wiping off fingerprints, I guess, while the dog kept nudging Sanchez.” Jancek crossed one leg over the other and folded his big hands in his lap. “And then we left.”
Now Codella pounded her fist against the table. “No! You’re lying, Mr. Jancek. You didn’t just walk out of there and go home. Sofia Reyes was dead within two hours of Sanchez, and you and I both know that one of you went to her house and killed her. I know about the Skype call, Mr. Jancek. I know Reyes saw you and Dressler come in, and when you killed Sanchez, her fate was sealed. She was a witness. You couldn’t let her live.”
Jancek didn’t move or speak.
“So one of you killed her, and you had the obvious motive. You snapped his neck. You had the most to lose. Did you kill Reyes too? Did you cover one murder with another, Mr. Jancek, to keep Marva Thomas and the rest of the world from knowing the truth about you?”
“No!” He rocketed out of his chair so violently that it tipped and crashed against the cinderblock wall below the one-way mirror. Codella stood too. They were faced off now, with just the table between them, and he was almost a foot taller than her. She imagined Portino, Reilly, and Muñoz on their feet now, too, behind that mirror, prepared to rush in and restrain him if he reached out to snap her neck. But he didn’t reach out. He gripped his head with both hands as if he intended to crush his own skull. “I didn’t kill her. I swear to you. I killed one person in my life. I killed Sanchez. I didn’t kill the woman.” And then he wept.
“Sit down, Mr. Jancek,” she ordered, and he lowered himself like a docile child. “You owe it to everyone to tell me what happened.”
He sniffed. He wiped his eyes. She waited. “He wanted me to go and kill her.” He rubbed his temples with the heels of his palms. “I told him no. No. I wouldn’t do it. He kept at me. ‘You want to go to jail? Don’t be a fucking moron. If she lives, both of our lives are ruined. You’re not ruining my life.’ He kept at me. It seemed like forever. And then he gave up. He finally gave up. He could tell I just didn’t care what happened. He stuffed the dishrag and plastic gloves in his coat pocket before we went downstairs. When we were outside, he made me swear to say nothing. If I talked, he’d talk too, he said, and he was a better liar than me, and that’s how we left it. I went one way and he went another. I’ve told you everything now.”