'Un huh.'
Miller got up and went to the sink and rinsed the towel and wrung it out and reapplied it. Then he came back and sat down. He wasn't moving very briskly.
'I know you had Parisi send out some bone breakers to run me off the Ellis Alves case,' I said.
'Yeah?' Miller said.
'And I know that Alves didn't do that coed in Pemberton.'
'You do, huh?'
'I do, and I'm pretty sure your days of giving lawful orders are over.'
'You think so,' Miller said.
But there wasn't much force in his voice.
'The question is whether Healy fires you and lets it go at that, or whether you do jail time.'
Miller had restabilized enough to show some alarm.
'You talked with Healy already?' he said.
'Not yet.'
'You think you can prove any of this?'
'I can prove it to Healy,' I said.
'Parisi won't testify,' he said.
'You think so?' I said. 'You think if he's squeezed he won't talk? You think all four of the jackasses he sent to scare me won't testify if they're looking at jail time?'
Miller thought about it. He started to nod and stopped as if it hurt.
'Whaddya want,' he said, his voice muffled by the towel.
'Tell me why you framed Alves.'
'What makes you think it was me?'
'It's something a cop would know how to do. Especially a cop who was in charge of the investigation.'
'That's just speculation.'
'You came up with Ellis Alves,' I said. 'How? Did you investigate another case where Ellis was involved? Did you request and get a printout on known sex offenders, and pick him off that? You think when Healy starts looking he won't find a connection between you and Alves?'
I was guessing, but it was a plausible guess, and I must have been right. Miller took the towel away from his nose and looked at it. His bleeding had slowed down to a trickle. I got a box of Kleenex from my desk drawer and handed it to him. He carefully tore it into small pieces and wadded them and packed them into each nostril. It made him look funny but it stopped the trickle.
'You got a drink?' he said.
His voice was thick like a man with a bad cold.
I took a bottle of Scotch from the drawer and went to the sink and got a water glass. I poured a couple of inches into the glass.
'You want water?' I said.
He shook his head very gently and pointed at the glass. I handed it to him and he took half of it in a swallow.
'You got your theories,' he said in a thick voice. 'And you can't prove them. And I ain't going to help you prove them. But I will tell you one thing, and you listen, you'll thank me. Leave this alone.'
'Why?'
'You don't know what you're into,' he said.
'What am I into?'
'Something too big for you.'
'What?'
Miller started to shake his head, but that made his nose hurt, and he stopped in mid shake.
'Too big,' he said.
'Tell me about the Gray Man,' I said.
'Who?'
'Tall guy, gray hair, pale skin, looks kind of gray, when I saw him he was dressed all in gray.'
'Don't know any guy like that,' Miller said.
He sounded like he meant it. I had listened to a lot of lies and a little truth in my life, and I thought I had gotten pretty good by now at telling which was which. I didn't depend on the skill. I had been wrong often enough to make me uneasy, but Miller didn't sound like he was lying about the Gray Man.
'You got anybody else out there trying to chase me off this case?' I said.
