Felix furrowed his brow. “I didn’t do it,” he answered.
“Then why did you try to run away when the police officer stopped you?”
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what? That you’d be arrested for attacking that young woman?”
“No,” Felix answered.
“Then what were you afraid of, Felix?”
Felix thought back to the moment he decided to run and pictured his angry father coming at him with a raised fist. “That the policeman would find the stolen ring and tell my dad.”
“The stolen ring,” Brock replied, “the ring we found in your wallet? The ring you told Officer Givens was in your wallet?”
“Yes.” Felix nodded eagerly.
“Where’d you get the ring? Did you steal it?”
Felix shook his head. “No. I bought it from Al at the park.”
“You bought it from Al at the park,” Brock repeated.
“Yes, from Al. He gave me a good price because we’re friends.”
“Then how do you know it was stolen?” the detective asked.
“My friend Alejandro told me it was.”
“Alejandro told you the ring you bought from Al at the park was stolen?”
“Yes.”
“I see, and that’s why you ran from the police officer?”
“Yes.”
Brock quickly changed the subject. “Where’d you get that shiner?”
“Shiner?”
“The black eye,” Brock said, pointing to Felix’s face. “Looks like someone belted you pretty good. Did the young woman this morning hit you with her elbow?”
Felix didn’t know what to say. If he told the detective that his dad hit him and it got Eduardo in trouble, there’d be a beating later. “I ran into a door,” he said.
“A door?” the detective scoffed. He stared at Felix until the young man began to squirm in his seat. “You know what? I think someone hit you. I think maybe it was that young woman. In fact, maybe that’s what made you mad. Maybe that’s why you tried to pull her into the park. Maybe you were going to cut her with your knife. Is that it, Felix, she pissed you off so you were going to rape her and cut her with a knife?”
Felix started to panic. Brock’s tone had changed. Now the detective was saying that he had tried to cut a woman and rape her. But the detective was asking so many questions along with the accusations; Felix thought he better answer the questions that seemed the most important. “No. The young woman didn’t hit me. I wasn’t mad at her.”
“She didn’t hit you, so you weren’t mad at her,” Brock said. “Maybe you just wanted to rob her?”
This wasn’t going well. The detective couldn’t seem to understand him. “I didn’t want to rob her.”
“Rape her then? Did you want to rape her?”
“No, I didn’t want to rape her.”
“Then who hit you, Felix? That doesn’t look like you ran into a door.”
Felix’s shoulders sagged. “My dad.”
“Your dad hit you in the face?”
Felix nodded. “Yes. He thought I drank his beer.”
“I see,” the detective said in such a way that Felix knew he didn’t believe him.
Brock appeared to be getting ready to ask him another question when there was a knock at the door. The detective walked over to the door, which opened to reveal a uniformed police officer. The two had a quick conversation and then the detective turned back to Felix.
“I’m going to ask you to go with Officer Krysnowski here,” he said.
“Where am I going?” Felix replied, frightened. He’d hoped that the interruption meant he could now go home, but apparently they weren’t through with him.
“We’re just taking you to another room where there’ll be some other men,” Brock said. “You’re going to stand in line and then do what Officer Krysnowski asks you to do. It’s really very easy. You okay with that?”
Felix didn’t think that sounded too bad, especially if it got him away from Brock. “Sure, okay,” he said, standing. “Can I go home after that?”
The detective exchanged glances with the officer. “We’ll see. I may have some more questions.”
Felix sighed. “Okay, but if I don’t get home soon, I’m going to be in trouble.”
Officer Krysnowski led Felix from the room and put him in a line with four other men. They were then led into another room by the officer and told to stand along a wall and face another large mirror.
On the other side of the one-way glass, Marianne Tate stood with Detective Brock, as well as another detective, Scott McCullough, and Jon Marks, the sergeant of the detective squad.
“Do you recognize any of these men as the one who attacked you this morning?” Brock asked.
Tate studied the men one by one. “I didn’t get a real good look,” she said. “He was across the street when I first saw him and after that it was mostly out of the corner of my eye.”
“So none of these men look like your guy?” the sergeant asked.
Catching an irritated tone, Tate looked again. “Well, the guy on the end, number five, and number three look kind of like I remember. But I’m just not sure. Could you ask them to speak?”
The detective nodded. “Sure. Anything in particular?”
Tate’s eyes grew angry. “Yes. I want them to say, ‘Don’t scream, sooka, or I’ll cut your fucking head off.’ And then, ‘Now you and I are going to get busy.’”
Brock pushed the intercom button again. “Number five, I’d like you to repeat after me. ‘Don’t scream, sooka, or I’ll cut your fucking head off. Now you and I are going to get busy.’”
Number five, another detective in the Four-Eight detective squad who was working undercover, said, “Don’t scream or I’m going to cut your fucking head off… Uh, now let’s get busy.”
“That wasn’t quite right,” Tate said.
“You want him to repeat it again?” Brock asked.
Tate bit her lip and shook her head. “Ask the other guy first.”
The detective pressed the button. “Number three, repeat after me, ‘Don’t scream, sooka, or I’ll cut your fucking head off. Now you and I are going to get busy.’”
“Don’t scream, sooka, or I’ll cut your fucking head off,” Felix said awkwardly, “now you and I are going to get busy.”
“That’s him,” Tate declared. “He said it perfectly. And now that I’ve seen him a little longer, I think he looks more like the guy.”
“You’re sure?” Brock asked.
Tate nodded. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Thank you, Ms. Tate,” Marks said. “You’ve really done well. Can I ask you to step outside for a moment while I talk to my detectives?”
Tate glanced one last time at the lineup. A look of concern passed over her face, but she answered, “Of course,” and left the room.
“What do you think?” Brock asked.
The sergeant pursed his lips and then shook his head. “I think it’s pretty good,” he said. “It’s a positive ID, but a defense attorney is going to make hay with her hesitation. I sure would like a confession just to nail it down. And if he’s good for the Atkins murder, we’re going to need him to talk.”
Brock looked back at the lineup. The men were being led out of the room; Felix was filing out with a smile on his face. “I don’t know if he’s good for Atkins,” he said.
“Why not?” Marks said with a shrug. “This assault on Tate would match up pretty well-sudden blitz attack on a young woman, using a knife, during daylight hours.”
“You’re right there, Jon,” Brock agreed. “But the guy who did Atkins… he was a pretty smooth operator. He gets into the apartment with no sign of a break-in, murders Atkins, cleans himself up, and then leaves-all without
