sixty-five
In about fifteen minutes Mike had cooled off and returned to being the professional cop. He had Boudreau back in the chair at the table and appeared to accept the man’s mumbled apology to April. It was clear he was not going to leave Boudreau alone to think about what he’d done. He was going to go on with the interview as if nothing had happened, calm and cool.
April did not calm down, however. It was not unusual for suspects who hadn’t been touched at all to demand lawyers, then claim they’d been beaten and tortured. Mike had almost killed this guy. If Boudreau asked for a lawyer and complained soon enough, there might be bruises on his neck to prove Mike had lost it. She was nervous and unsure of what she should do.
Healy was down at the courts waiting for a warrant to search Boudreau’s apartment. Aspirante was searching the basement of the Stone Pavilion. Their investigation was moving along. There was no way to change the configuration of who was doing what without Sergeant Joyce’s intervention. April had no doubt Joyce would take them both off the case if she knew what had just happened.
Mike’s sweat dried. He’d calmed down, but the threat of violence lingered. April did not consider the problem resolved when Bobbie did not immediately ask for a lawyer, or when both men pretended nothing had happened. Or even when Mike got a uniform to bring in more food at twelve-thirty and Bobbie ate it. This was bad news, an unstable and potentially dangerous situation. She debated calling in another detective. But there were problems with that. All the detectives were out in the field. And even if everyone were in, she was not in a position to take any independent action. Mike was in charge. He was the supervisor of the squad and he had not adequately supervised himself. All she could do was stay in the room as long as Mike was with the suspect.
April was deeply disturbed. She had worked with Sanchez over a year and had no idea he was capable of nearly killing an unarmed man in his custody with his bare hands. She could not take over the interview because the suspect hated Asians. But she could not leave, either. She was pinned to her chair for hours in the airless interview room as Mike tried to make the crucial bridge between Boudreau and the murder of Harold Dickey.
She would not leave him. The balance had shifted and things had changed between them. It wasn’t simple anymore. When he’d shoved his own body between her and a raging fire months ago, Mike had viewed protection of her as his duty. He’d have done the same for a man, for anybody. Some cops saved the other fellow first no matter who the other fellow was. This defense of her
April sat uncharacteristically mute. Over the hours, as Mike questioned Bobbie, she remembered all the times she and Mike had been alone together in tight places, in dangerous places, in boredom—in the maelstrom of other people’s violence. In extreme situations he would punch somebody once, jerk someone’s arm behind his back. But his way was to subdue quickly and efficiently. He wouldn’t use force unless he had to, and never extended it beyond what was necessary to get the job done. He had a reputation for being laid-back, almost too laid-back.
Now she knew Mike’s self-control was new, learned relatively recently. The going-over-the-edge was an old thing. And now he wouldn’t look at her. He was ashamed, like a reformed alcoholic who’d fallen off the wagon. That was how she guessed he’d been in the gangs when he was a kid, was no stranger to violence.
She was stunned. She had thought she knew him. She thought she knew herself. Right and wrong always seemed so black and white to her—what you were supposed to do and what you weren’t. It was clear. It was written down. April always felt she would hold to the side of right no matter what happened or who was involved. She didn’t like violent people. Didn’t respect cops who went around bashing people who taunted them. But she still respected Mike, even after what he had just done. She knew that when she hadn’t stopped him, she herself had gone over the edge. And now they were both out there.
But there was no time to talk about it. At three-thirty Daveys charged into the supervisor’s office, where the four detectives were reviewing their day.
“Where is he?” he demanded.
“Ah, Daveys,” Mike piped up from behind the supervisor’s desk; “we were just talking about you. Where’ve you been all day?”
“Where’s the suspect? This is the second fucking time you’ve done this to me.”
“What? Done what?” Mike protested. Aspirante and Healy shifted around in their chairs. April sat on the windowsill, probably for the very last time. The ivy was dead.
“You’re supposed to cooperate. You kids aren’t cooperating.”
“We worked according to plan today. You knew exactly what we were going to do. We did it. If you got a better offer today, that’s not my problem.”
“All right, all right. Let me see the video.”
Healy scraped his chair on the floor. Aspirante coughed. Daveys glared at them. “What’s your problem?”
“This isn’t L.A., Daveys. We don’t have a video.”
“No video?” Daveys was impatient and aggrieved. “Well, you got a confession, right?”
Mike’s face was impassive. He glanced at April. It was maybe the third time he’d looked at her all day. He didn’t get a reading, so he turned back to Daveys. “We can link him with the Treadwell incidents. There were newspaper articles about Treadwell and her condom campaign taped to the wall in the basement room at the hospital, where he hung out. Also packages of condoms, scissors, paste, several fake IDs, different uniforms. Metal toolbox. Guy didn’t have any trouble getting around.”
“What about Dickey?”
Mike shook his head.
Daveys made a face. “What’s the matter with you kids? Don’t you know how to do an interview?”
“He said he didn’t do Dickey.”
“Oh, yeah, then what was he doing there when Dickey was brought in to ER? What about the fucking scotch bottle?”
“It’s at the lab, being tested.” Healy had found the Johnnie Walker bottle in Boudreau’s apartment, right in plain sight, just where Daveys had said it would be.
“It’s a smoking gun,” Daveys said with satisfaction.
Mike glanced at April.
“What?” Daveys demanded.
“Nothing.”
“What, for Christ’s sake? Don’t hold back on me.”
“Boudreau says he took the bottle out of Dickey’s office because Treadwell was setting him up with it.”
“Treadwell was setting Boudreau up,” Daveys said with heavy sarcasm. “They were that close?”
“Boudreau says Treadwell knew he was harassing her, so she decided to get rid of him.”
“By murdering one of her oldest friends?”
“Well, it’s complicated, Daveys. Dickey was Treadwell’s lover years ago. They were being named in a lawsuit over a patient who’d suicided.” Mike chewed his mustache thoughtfully.
Daveys closed his eyes, then opened them. “You’re fucking up here. The guy had the
“Treadwell was with Dickey when he died.” April spoke up for the first time.
Daveys rolled his eyes at her. “Ah, another country heard from. So, little girl, Treadwell was in the office. Boudreau was down on the street. So what?”
“So there are two threads leading to the truth here,” Mike said. His eyes blazed at the FBI agent’s insult to April. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be interested in the truth? I thought I heard somewhere that the FBI was dedicated to uncovering the truth.”
Healy guffawed.
“What a bunch of fuckups. Where is he? You still got him here, don’t you?” Daveys demanded. His stony face was getting red.
“Yeah, we got him,” Mike said.
“Okay, give me a few minutes with him.” Daveys shook his head. “Do I have to do everything for you kids? Bring him out, I’ll show you how to get a confession.”
“Fine.” Mike glanced at April again. This time her eyes flickered. She pushed off the sill and went to the bathroom.
