Eye of the Beholder

McDERMOTT LIFTS HIS HEAD off his hand after Paul Riley finishes his story. Stoletti, next to him, is writing down an occasional note, but McDermott likes to observe. When you’re writing, you’re not watching.

Stoletti is taking the lead among the two of them, though if anyone is in the lead here, it’s probably Riley. Stoletti wanted to do the questioning. She has a real thing with Riley.

Way she explained it to McDermott earlier today, a few years back, Riley defended a guy accused of murder, up in the northern suburbs, which fell into the multijurisdictional Major Crimes Unit, where Stoletti worked at the time. Seems Riley took a pretty good piece out of the arresting officer, a guy named Cummings, during the trial. Took him apart like a cheap model airplane, was how Stoletti put it. Cummings took a Level One-a single-grade demotion-when Riley’s client was acquitted and someone had to be blamed. Seems Cummings was a mentor to Stoletti, and Stoletti is none too friendly nowadays toward Mr. Paul Riley, Esquire.

McDermott thought Stoletti’s hostility to Riley was amusing before, but now it could be a problem. Because now Paul Riley’s fingerprints were found on the tire iron used to bash in the side of Amalia Calderone’s head.

Riley, who is done with his story, looks at the two cops. Stoletti is writing a note. McDermott just wants to think this through a minute.

“You guys should take this show on the road,” Riley says. “Raise your hand-anyone-if you think for one-tenth of one second that I killed this girl.”

Say this for the guy, he doesn’t back down. But McDermott’s seen the bluster before. He’s seen the look of defiance dissolve into a mask of terror in the blink of an eye.

“So Joel Lightner leaves,” McDermott says. “He thinks you’re about to get lucky and he wants to give you some room. You walk out of the bar with this woman. You think you’re walking her home. You turn down an alley and you get one fresh on the back of the skull. You wake up, no ‘Molly,’ no cash.”

Riley nods.

“You don’t report it. You don’t even tell your buddy Lightner because you’re embarrassed about the whole thing.”

“I felt like an asshole.”

“And you’re saying, this guy must have wrapped your hand around the murder weapon to frame you.”

The police found the tire iron-an L-shaped metal rod with a very bloody lug wrench on the bent end, a prying tip on the other-in the trash, along with Amalia Calderone.

“Either that,” Riley says, “or I’m a killer. What do you think?”

Putting the ball in their court. Riley’s good.

“You admit being intoxicated,” says Stoletti.

A fair point. People do dumb things when they’re drunk.

“I could hardly stand,” Riley answers. “And even if I could, I’m not a violent person. Your true personality comes out when you’re drunk. Like you, Ricki. I’ll bet you’re even more of a raging bitch after a couple pops.”

“Oh, keep that attitude up, Riley,” she says.

McDermott suppresses a smile. He’ll have a technician look over the bruise on Riley’s head-the magnitude, the angle-to rule out self-infliction. “What about the hand?” he asks Riley, seeing the bandage near the knuckle.

Riley sighs. “I had to break into my house afterward. He took my keys. I cut my hand on the glass: ”

“You used your hand?”

“I would’ve used the tire iron,” he answers, “but I left it at the crime scene.”

Stoletti doesn’t like the attitude, but McDermott is focusing more on what’s ahead here. This doesn’t work. They have the security tape from Sax’s. Riley was almost stumbling drunk. He was wearing a tuxedo. He had nothing with him. He sure as hell wasn’t walking around with a tire iron. Could be, it was a weapon of opportunity-it was lying in the alley maybe-but it’s hard to imagine anyone in so intoxicated a state pulling it off. And this woman came up to him, not the other way around. Seemed clear from the tape that they were meeting for the first time.

“This woman was a pro, right?” Riley asks them.

Stoletti cocks her head. “Why do you ask?”

Amalia Calderone was a prostitute, the high-class, escort variety. She wouldn’t be the first to be trolling the bar at Sax‘s, late night, which is how she bumped into Riley.

“She seemed like it, in hindsight,” he explains.

“Where’s your tux?” Stoletti asks.

“Dry cleaner’s.” Riley looks at them. “I was lying in a pile of trash, for Christ’s sake. Ask my dry cleaner if there was any blood on it. Other than my own, at least.”

“We will.”

“Good, Ricki. Do that.” Riley stands up. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you take the tire iron and shove it up your ass? I’d be happy to put a fresh pair of fingerprints on there and help you out.”

McDermott raises a hand. “Sit down, Riley. You’re talking pretty good smack for a guy with prints on a murder weapon who was the last person seen with the victim. You know damn well we could arrest you on suspicion right now. Sit,” he repeats, pointing his finger down.

Riley takes a moment, then puts his hands on the table, leaning over toward the detectives. “Same guy,” he says. “Had to be. This isn’t a coincidence. That’s the lead you should be following. Every second you waste trying to make me for this poor woman’s killer is another second he walks around with a straight razor, or a chain saw, or wherever he is in that song.”

McDermott exchanges a look with Stoletti. “Let’s say you’re right,” he says to Riley. “You said it yourself. No razor. No chain saw. No machete. No kitchen knife.” He shrugs. “If this is our offender, why does he deviate from the song?”

Riley shakes his head. He surely doesn’t know, either. “All I can think,” he says, “is this is payback. This guy is taking a personal interest in me. I mean, I’m the damn poster boy for the Terry Burgos prosecution.”

“Yeah,” says McDermott, “but you’re alive.”

Riley doesn’t have an answer for that. But that’s the key problem here. If it’s the same offender, why did he bypass the poster boy, Riley, and kill the woman with him? And then go to the trouble of wrapping his prints all over the murder weapon?

He thinks of Carolyn Pendry and her explanation of why the offender would go after her daughter: There’s no worse way to hurt me. It made sense to McDermott. Hell, the worst way to hurt him would be to hurt Grace, his daughter. Maybe the offender took Amalia Calderone for Riley’s girlfriend, tried to hurt Riley the same way he hurt Carolyn, by going after a loved one.

“He wants me involved,” Riley says. “He’s sending me notes. He kills someone walking next to me. He puts my prints on the weapon. He wants me to be a part of this.”

But why? Why does the offender want Riley in on this?

McDermott nods at Riley. “Let a techie check out the wound on your head,” he says. “The hand, too. We’ve got a CAT unit upstairs.”

Riley straightens, smooths out his suit. “You wanna rule out self- infliction.” He laughs. “Okay, sure. And then when the fun and games are over, maybe you guys could solve a crime or two.”