by Blake Banner
TWENTY
At 9 AM, Akachukwu was brought into interrogation room three and manacled to the table again.
I asked him, “Do you wish to have an attorney present?”
He shook his head. “Not right now, no. If I change my mind, I will let you know.”
“Mr. Oni, I have to inform you that we are charging you with the murder of Mr. Jack O’Brien, as well as the assault on Angela Rojas, the attempted murder of Moses Johnson and Luis Irizarry, and the murder of Sebastian Acosta. Do you still say you do not want to have an attorney present?”
He smiled. “It seems I have been a busy man. I will hear what you have to say, and then I will decide whether I want an attorney or not.”
I shrugged. I was about to speak but Dehan interrupted me. “Excuse me, Detective Stone, just a quick question. Mr. Oni, have you lent any of your clothing to anybody in the last few days?”
He laughed and shook his head. “No, Detective, I have not. But let me assure you that it is not difficult to find a black sweater and a ski mask in New York!”
She smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Oni, that’s good to know.”
I smiled, too. “How about size thirteen boots?”
“They are also readily available, Detective, if you are that well endowed.”
Dehan smiled. “You don’t know anybody that well endowed?”
“I do not. Do you?”
“So you haven’t lent your boots to anyone.”
He laughed. “I don’t know anybody whose… feet are that big.”
I gave him a moment, then said, “Mr. Oni, we have given you three opportunities to deny it, but it is clear that you have not lent your boots to anybody in the last few days.” Now he frowned, but I went on. “Your boots were used yesterday in the murder of Jack O’Brien at his home in Hunt Avenue, and also in the theft of at least twelve cannabis plants from the same address. The unique tread of those boots was found at his home, and his blood was also found in those prints and in the boots themselves. What have you to say to that, Mr. Oni?”
His eyes remained dead and unexpressive. “I have no comment to make at this time.”
I nodded. “We also have testimony from Moses Johnson that you threatened to kill him because he struck you in self defense when he found you selling drugs in his neighborhood. You were at the time being driven by two associates in a black BMW. What do you say to that, Mr. Oni?”
He shook his head. “I have no comment to make at this time.”
“Very well. Mr. Johnson also states that a few days later you came to his house and threatened him with a gun. He knocked you down the stairs and you fired two .45 caliber bullets through his door. One struck the wall and the other struck him in the leg. Both of these bullets have been recovered. Have you any comment to make about that?”
“Like I said, I have no comment to make at this time.”
“It is our belief, that you later returned to Angela Rojas’ house and assaulted her in an attempt to find out where Moses Johnson was, because you intended to kill him. Have you any comment to make about that?”
He shook his head. “No comment.”
Dehan slammed her open hand down on the table. It made a loud noise that echoed in the small room. “Seriously? Is that all you’ve got? No comment? How about this, Akachukwu? Moses, who is a real man, who incidentally also has big feet, humiliated you in front of your goons and in front of the whole damn street! Your little ego is so fragile that you could not take that humiliation, and all you could think to do, in your ignorant little mind, was to kill him! Because anybody who stands up to pathetic, little Ak Oni must be destroyed! In case they reveal sad, pathetic, little Ak Oni for what he really is: an ignorant, stupid, impotent little coward!”
She stood up and leaned across the table at him. His eyes were hooded and you could see death in them. Dehan didn’t seem to notice. Or if she did, she didn’t care.
“So you went after him, not with your hands, not in an equal, man to man fight. Because you’re not a man! Because you are too damn chicken-shit to face him man to man! You went after him with a gun. And even with a gun in your hand, he still knocked you down!”
She walked around the table and stood behind him. His face was impassive, but I could see his breathing had got faster and shallower. She kept on, relentless and mocking.
“So what did the big, dangerous, scary, terrifying, Ak Oni do then? Because he was too damned chicken-shit to go after Moses, he went after his girlfriend.” She laughed out loud. “But even she made you run!” He opened his mouth, but then shut it again. “You weren’t even man enough to make her talk. She screamed and fought back like a wildcat, and you ran.”
She came around the table and stood looking down at his face. It was expressionless, but it radiated contempt. He watched her with half-closed eyes. She pushed some more.
“I guess you lost a lot of sleep over how small, how weak and pathetic they both made you look, huh, Akachukwu? Till one night you couldn’t handle it anymore and you went over there. You told your girlfriends to start without you. Got them to lie for you. I guess you get that a lot, huh? Girls lying for you, so you can save face. ‘Oh, you’re amazing, Ak. Oh you’re a real man, Ak! Oh, Ak, you’re such an animal!’” She snorted. “You waited outside Angela’s house, trying to build up enough courage to go in and face her again. Then the car pulled up, and like the coward that you are, you got out, went over, and shot through the window, without even checking to see who it was inside.”
There was a long moment of heavy silence while he gazed at his manacles. Finally, he shook his head and smiled. It was a thin, sickly smile, with something oddly terrifying about it. “That is a fascinating story, Detective Dehan.” He raised his eyes to look at her. “Carmen, in spite of all the insults and the abuse, and the attempts to intimidate me and force a false confession out of me. But I can tell you that it is all a fabrication, an intellectual construct of your own, and none of it is true. On that night that you are alluding to, I was in bed with my three favorite girlfriends, and they will corroborate that in court, as you well know.”
He turned his eyes on me. “I may have been at the house on Hunt Avenue, I do not remember very clearly, and I may have gone to visit Angela, in the spirit of a good neighbor, to see if she was OK, but I did not kill Jack O’Brien. I cannot explain how that blood got on my boots. And I was not at Angela’s house on the night that those boys were so tragically killed.” He shrugged again and smiled. “My house was full of people. I am a very generous friend and neighbor, I can produce many witnesses if necessary, to vouch for my whereabouts on that night.”
I nodded. “No doubt, Mr. Oni, but your boots place you firmly at Jack O’Brien’s house, killing him and stealing his cannabis. Tell me something, did you use a samurai sword or a machete?”
“I have no comment to make on that score at the present time.”
I studied his face carefully. “I have acquired a search warrant for your house and there is a CSI team on their way there now. What do you think they’ll find?”
His eyes glazed and his lids lowered.
I went on. “Will they find the cannabis plants, with Jack O’Brien’s prints on the pots? Will they find a machete?” I gave a small laugh. “You didn’t reckon on the boot prints, did you? You didn’t realize they could be as distinctive as fingerprints.”
“I have cooperated with you, Detectives, and all I have got in return is abuse and insults, and your latent racial denigration. I will cooperate no more. I think it is time for me to have my attorney now.”
I nodded and stood. “I think you are probably right, Mr. Oni. You’d better give him a call.”
Dehan stood, too, and leaned across the table at him again. “And my advice, Ak, start thinking about really cooperating, for real, because the jury is not going to like you. I can guarantee that.”
We stepped out of the room and told the uniforms outside to take him back to his cell. As we watched him led away, Dehan cussed under h
er breath. “He’s as cool as he is stupid.”
I smiled and nodded. “Fortunately for us, Little Grasshopper, he is one of those people who thinks the more elaborately they talk, the more their IQ score goes up. He really believes he’s smart.” I glanced at her. She looked the way I felt, a little pasty and green around the edges. “How are you holding up?”
“OK. I could use some more coffee.”
I nodded. Coffee sounded good, but before I could suggest it, my phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket.
“Yeah, Stone.”
“Detective Stone, this is Dr. Delgado at the Jacobi. Luis Irizarry has regained consciousness. He is able to talk to you for a short while, but I must insist that you do not tax him or upset him. He is still very weak.”
“You got it, Doc. We’re on our way.” I hung up.
Dehan shrugged and made a question with her face.
I said, “Luis. He’s conscious. Let’s go!”
* * *
He was sitting up. His skin was sallow and his eyes were yellow where they should have been white. He was connected to a drip, and a heart monitor was bleeping quietly in the background. Mary was sitting on the far side of the bed in an armchair, holding his hand, gazing at him. Ed was on a straight-backed chair next to her, scowling at me and Dehan.
The door swung closed behind us. Ed stood. The last time I’d seen him he’d been trembling. He was still trembling now. I wondered absently if he’d been trembling the whole time in between.
“What are you doing here?”
“The doctor called us. We’d like to ask Luis a couple of questions. We’ll keep it short and sweet.”
“Out of the question! How dare you…!”
Mary and Luis spoke almost in unison. “Dad…”
“Eduardo…”
He looked at them both in turn. Luis said, “Can you please just not…?”
He glared at me. “Very well, but the minute you upset him, you are out of here.”
I didn’t answer. I pulled up a straight-backed chair and sat by his side. Dehan sat on the foot of the bed and smiled at him. He smiled back.
“My name is John Stone. This here is Carmen Dehan. We’re detectives with the 43rd precinct.” I smiled. “Welcome back.”
He gave a lopsided grin. “Yeah, thanks. I still feel pretty weak.”
“I bet you do, but before long, you’ll be back on your feet again. Luis, we’d like to catch whoever did this to you.”
He gave a small laugh. “Yeah, me too.”
Dehan grinned. “That’s the spirit. But listen, if it’s hard or upsetting, we can come back some other time.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m OK. The fact is I don’t remember much.” His eyes drifted just past Dehan’s right shoulder, like he could see there the events of that night playing themselves out again. He took a deep breath. “We went in Angela’s car to get some beer. We stopped at the ATM, then we went to the 24/7 store. We got some cans. I remember I wanted to get a bottle of vodka, but Seb said no, Angela wouldn’t like that. Then we came back…” He looked at me and frowned. “We’d parked out front of the house. Seb killed the engine and the lights. But there was a car ahead of us. He had his lights on high beam. It was blinding. I remember a figure. It was hard to make out because he was kind of back-lit, you know what I mean?” I nodded. He went on, “He was standing with the headlamps behind him, so he was sort of like a hazy silhouette. I remember Seb said, ‘What the hell does this joker want?’ Then he came up to Seb’s window…” He shook his head. “And that’s all I remember.”
I heard Dehan repress a sigh. “You didn’t see his face?”
He shook his head.
I said, “You’re doing great, Luis, and we are nearly done. You said that the image was like a hazy silhouette. Could you make out what sort of size he was?” I grinned. “Assuming he was more than five foot and less than seven, where would you place him in between?”
He thought about it. In the background I heard the rate of the heart monitor accelerate slightly. Finally, he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful, Detective. I’d say he was more than average. But aside from that, I don’t seem to have retained any more details.”
I shook my head. “Not at all, Luis, you’ve been very helpful. Maybe when you’re stronger we can have another try.”
I saw his eyes shift to look past me at the door. I heard it open and Dehan and I both turned to look. I heard Ed splutter, “What the hell is this?”
Moses and Angela were standing in the doorway, and behind them was Sue.
Ed took a step toward them and snarled, “What do you mean by coming here to my son’s room?”
Luis sighed and looked away, closing his eyes. Mary rose and placed a hand on Ed’s sleeve. He yanked his arm away, ignoring her, speaking to Angela and Sue. “Get out of here…!”
I stood and Dehan stood with me. I said, “Mr. Irizarry, could I have a word with you outside?”
Then several things happened all at once: Mary hurried around him, saying, “Sue! Angela! It is so nice of you to have come!” Sue and Mary embraced and Angela moved toward the bed, holding out her hands to Luis.
Luis reached out for her, “Angie, I am so sorry!”
Ed was looking this way and that, like a man losing control, his face flushed with anger. I stepped over close to him and spoke quietly. “Let’s try to do this without upsetting your son. Step outside with me or I will cuff you right here.”
He stared into my face like he wanted to shoot me where I stood, there and then. Dehan came up close by his side and we moved to the door as Mary, Sue, and Moses moved toward the bed. Out in the corridor, Ed started in on me. “What is the meaning of this? How dare you come to…”
I cut him short. “Can it. We got the results on your DNA from the mug. Ed Irizarry, I am putting you under arrest for the rape and murder of Rosario Rojas.”
TWENTY-ONE
He buried his face in his hands and turned away from me, saying, “No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong. This can’t be happening…!” He looked strangely infantile, but at the same time it seemed fitting in a man who had lived his life as a series of childish tantrums.
“It’s happening, Ed. And you know yourself that the best thing you can do now is cooperate with us and tell us the truth.”
He turned fiercely to face me. “What is wrong with you? I did not kill her! Why would I kill her? Are you insane?”
An orderly walked past and glanced at us, but kept going on her way. Protocol said I should cuff him and take him in. My gut said I should keep him talking. My gut wins every time. I said, “Because you raped her. And if you’d let her live, she would have reported you to the cops and that would have been the end of your career as the great man of the people.”
He spat savagely, “You’re out of your mind! You don’t know anything!”
Dehan must have had the same feeling as me, because she said, “Fine. Why don’t you enlighten us?”
“I was in love with Rosario! Why would I kill her? I adored her! It almost destroyed me when she was murdered! It almost finished me, my career, everything!”
I sighed and shook my head. “Save it for the jury, Ed. That’s horseshit and you know it.”
“It is not! She was the only woman I ever truly loved! How dare you use that language about her! She was smart, elegant, intelligent, sensitive! She was a real woman!” His eyes flashed over at the door behind me in a silent comparison with his wife, who sat beyond it. “God is my witness, I was not worthy of her…” There was no mistaking his sincerity, and another piece in the puzzle slotted into place in my mind.
“You really were, weren’t you…”
“Yes… I was, and I still am. I always will be.”
Dehan’s eyes were narrowed. Two and two were making five for her and she didn’t like it. She said, “If you were so in love with her, why did you rape Susanna Mackenzie?”
He sneered at her. “You stupid woman!”
I snapped, “Watch your mouth, counselor!”
“As if I would waste my time on that pretentious, middle-class, bleeding heart pseudo-socialist inverted snob!”
“Wow…” He turned to stare at me, like I’d said something important. I went on, “That’s some put down. A lot of contempt.”
He curled his lip. “It’s what she is.”
I nodded. “It’s interesting. You must have read this yourself, Ed, that rape is not a sexual crime. Because the motivation is to humiliate, to humble somebody. Is that how you feel about Sue Mackenzie?”
“Don’t be absurd! I don’t feel anything for that woman. She is a non-entity, a hanger-on, a groupie. Why Mateo ever married her is beyond me.”
Dehan said, “She is prepared to swear in court that you raped her. With the DNA evidence that you raped Rosario, that is going to be pretty compelling for a jury.”
He stared at her like he wanted to slap her. Suddenly he advanced on her, poking with his index finger, then on me, then on Dehan again, like he couldn’t make up his mind which of us to tackle. “Just think! Let me ask you something. You think you’re so damned smart, well just think! If I killed Rosario so she wouldn’t report me to the damned cops, why the hell did I not kill Susanne? You don’t make any sense!”
He had a point and it was something I had been asking myself for a while. It was one of the things that had driven me to the conclusion I had reached. Now my gut told me I was close to getting some hard evidence.
“OK, Ed, I’ll tell you what we are going to do. We’re going to go and get a coffee, and you are going to tell us the whole story, everything! Start bullshitting me and I will take you in and put you on trial. You understand me?”
He scowled at me resentfully. “Of course I understand you. I am not a moron.”
Five minutes later, we sat around a table in the café. Dehan and I waited while he stirred two packs of sugar into a double espresso. When he was done, he made an ugly face and shrugged.