wondered what she was thinking.
'I want to talk with him alone, without the muscle,' she said.
'If you're brave enough,' Renz said. He unlocked the door and held it open for her, kept it open after she went inside, and motioned for Shavers to come out.
They watched Pareta sit across from her client, and the two of them talked for a few minutes with their heads close together, as if worried that the bug in the room might be activated. They were right, of course, but as every criminal attorney knew, the system wasn't sensitive enough to eavesdrop on attorney-client whispered conversation.
After about five minutes, Pareta sat back and motioned for her unseen audience to come into the room.
Quinn, Pearl, and Fedderman went in. Renz stayed outside and listened.
Fedderman remained standing and let Quinn and Pearl take the other two chairs. Pareta had moved around to sit alongside her client. Pearl was in the chair farthest away from him.
'My client says he has alibis for the times of some of the Butcher murders,' Pareta said.
'Some of them?' Quinn said. 'It only takes one murder charge to convict.'
'If you're not interested in convicting the right man.'
Quinn looked dead-eyed at Sherman Kraft as he spoke. 'Your fingerprints are being matched with the killer's right now. You left a bloody print in your victim's apartment, which means we have your DNA. It will be matched with the DNA on the swab we took when you were brought in.'
That wasn't exactly true, of course, as the blood might be the victim's.
Kraft looked at Pearl as if in appeal. 'I've killed no one.'
'And your name isn't Sherman Kraft,' she said bitterly.
'It isn't,' said the suspect.
'Then you've got no worries,' Fedderman said. He smiled. 'My name isn't Sherman Kraft and I got no worries. I'm not even lawyered up.'
'It's a wonderful world,' Pareta said, 'where no one is named Sherman Kraft or has worries. We should all go out for egg creams.'
'How about going for murder one instead?' Quinn said. He focused more intently on the suspect, who now didn't seem able to look away from him.
Quinn explained how they'd learned his identity, from the time Sherman had been found wandering the swamp road in Florida to when he disappeared from his last job after leaving Princeton.
'Your client's a smart one,' Fedderman said to Pareta. He'd noticed her perk up at the mention of Princeton.
'Not so smart we don't have him cold,' Quinn said.
Pareta sneered. 'Like you'd have a ham sandwich if you had some bread and mustard, if you had some ham.' She glanced at Pearl. 'You don't have much to say.'
'I'm a good listener,' Pearl said.
Pareta blatantly took her measure, smiled faintly, and turned her attention back to Quinn. 'I reviewed the evidence. You think a photo taken at college when he was nineteen years old is going to convict my client? You coulda fooled me into thinking it's a photo of my nephew Homer.'
'If Homer's fingerprint and DNA are at the crime scene, like your client's, he's in some kinda trouble.'
Pareta dug into her briefcase and came up with a copy of the Princeton photo from the file on Sherman Kraft that had been faxed over to the prosecutor's office. She peered at the photo, then at Sherman. 'Doesn't look like the same guy to me.'
Quinn pretended to yawn. 'Like you said, he was nineteen when it was taken.'
'I didn't go to Princeton,' the suspect said. 'Went to Yale.'
'Is that where you learned to be a journalist?' Pearl asked. Her voice was weary but level. She had herself in check and knew she could handle this now.
'I'm not a journalist,' the suspect said.
'Then you were lying.'
Pareta laid her hand gently on her client's arm. 'There's no need to say anything at this point. You're better off maintaining silence until we know more.'
'It doesn't matter,' the suspect said.
'Maybe he doesn't remember committing those murders,' Fedderman said.
Pareta looked thoughtful. 'It's happened before.'
The interrogation room door opened and Renz stuck his head in. 'Talk to you for a minute, Quinn?'
Quinn noticed that Renz was sweating. Pushing back his chair, he said, 'I'll be right back.' To the suspect: 'Don't go anywhere.'
'Aren't one of you people supposed to be the good cop?' Sherman asked, playing the smart-ass now as Quinn was leaving. He must be pretty confident, or was running one helluva bluff.
Quinn had to credit him with balls, even though he felt like grabbing him by the throat and taking the quick route to justice. (But was he thinking of the murders, or of Pearl?)
When he went outside and closed the interrogation room door behind him, he saw Renz standing down the hall by the water fountain. He was splashing cool water on his face, not seeming to mind that he was messing up his shirt and tie.
He straightened up when Quinn approached. Quinn didn't like the expression on his face that was still beaded with water.
'Prints came back,' Renz said. 'They don't match.'
Quinn was astonished. 'They must!'
'Must but don't.'
'Sweet Jesus!'
'Not only that,' Renz said in a choked voice. 'It's too early for DNA analysis, but the lab says they got some blood off the swab used to extract a culture from the suspect's gums. It's type O. The blood on the fingerprint is type A, same as the victim's.'
'Meaning it's not from the killer and the DNA isn't going to match, either.'
'Right. Just like the prints don't match.'
Quinn felt himself getting light-headed, short of breath. He understood now why Renz was splashing cold water on his face. Though it hadn't seemed possible until a few minutes ago, they had the wrong man.
He went to the water fountain and got a drink, trying to slow down his thoughts so he could consider each separately and somehow fit them together to form a reasonable whole.
'He has to be our man,' he said, straightening up and wiping his lips with the back of his thumb. 'He's tricking us somehow.'
'I don't see how,' Renz said hopelessly. 'Nobody's that smart.'
'He's pretty goddamned smart.'
Renz looked at him and said seriously, 'So are you, Quinn.'
Quinn felt the slow anger in him quickening, building in heat and strength. He charged up the hall and yanked open the interrogation room door. Burst inside. Behind him he heard Renz yell, 'Quinn!'
Without remembering crossing the room Quinn was standing over the suspect, his huge right fist balled and ready to strike. He was aware of Pearl staring wide-eyed up at him.
Pareta jumped up, looking indignant and terrified. 'Detective! Think what you're doing! Damn it, think!' She'd seen plenty of hard-ass acts in interrogation rooms, and knew this was real.
Quinn hadn't touched the suspect yet, knowing if he did touch him the game would change, his world would change. The system protected scum like this one, who was gazing up at him unafraid, confident.
The system that failed again and again.
'Who the hell are you?' Quinn demanded in a soft voice that made the flesh on the back of Pearl's neck crawl. She knew Quinn. She knew what the gentle tone and stillness could portend.
'I'm not Sherman Kraft,' the suspect said calmly. Fear didn't seem to be one of his emotions.
'I didn't ask who you weren't.'
'This has gone far enough!' Pareta said. She darted a glance at the one-way window, knowing Renz, somebody, should be out there somewhere and might stop this.
