“We didn’t have much to say.” She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, and I got up and handed her a box of Kleenex from the bedside table.
“Are you going to be all right, Miss Stiller?” She blew her nose and nodded. “There’ll be a policeman who will come to visit you soon, and he’ll probably ask you many of the same questions I just have. His name is Willy Kunkle.”
“I met him last night, but they gave me something that made me too sleepy.” Her voice was stronger.
“Well, he’ll be back. Is that all right?”
“Yes. I feel better now. Thank you.”
I rose and headed for the door. “There is one last thing.”
“Yes?”
“We are going to pick up Manny Rodriguez, but until we get his side of the story, none of us is absolutely positive he was the man who assaulted you.”
“It was his tattoo.”
She said this in the same flat voice. I returned to her and crouched by her chair. “I realize that, but it may not have been his hand. I know that sounds crazy, but just lately we’ve had a couple of things like this, where someone pretends to be someone else. All I’m saying is that Rodriguez may be innocent.”
She looked confused. “All right.”
“The reason I bring it up is that the newspaper is always hot to follow up a story like this one. They’ll try to find out and interview you. So if you mention Rodriguez’s name and he turns out to be innocent, he’ll have a tough time with it. You will, too, of course. We’ll do our damnedest to keep what happened to you private, but secrets are hard to keep unless everyone cooperates.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
I squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”
I sent a nurse in to check on her and called Murphy from a pay phone. I told him Wendy Stiller’s story. “I know Willy’s got his problems, but there’s no way I’m going to sit around waiting for him to waltz in and do what I’ve just done before rounding up Rodriguez. The guy might have one foot on the bus right now, if he’s still in town.”
Murphy spared me the problem. “I called Kunkle and told him that she’d asked to make a statement and you were hanging around with nothing to do. He didn’t like it, but he swallowed it. I’ll send him to pick up Rodriguez and you file a report to back me up. Once we’ve got the guy downstairs, I’ll make sure you get a crack at him.”
“Tell Kunkle to be quiet about it, okay? I think I got Stiller to clam up with the news boys. The less they get, the better.”
“Amen.”
I hung up. A friend of mine-a former cop-once told me I’d get a lot more money and a lot less grief if I went into the security business as he had done. I’d answered I could live without the corporate politics. He’d laughed.
Rodriguez hadn’t left town. Kunkle found him at work, contentedly etching frost curlicues on a custom mirror. On first mention of Wendy Stiller’s name, he didn’t even know who she was. He’d been reminded dramatically by the time I got to see him in one of the basement holding cells.
That part of the building isn’t designed to boost morale anyway. The cells line one wall of a low-ceilinged beige room lit with bare bulbs and spotlights. They’re fancy kennels, really, with one steel fold-away cot and a porcelain toilet per cell. Surveillance cameras are mounted on the opposite wall.
Rodriguez was our only tenant. He was sitting on the cot with his hands between his knees when I walked in. He sprang to his feet as soon as he saw me. “You’ve got to get me out of here. This is a mistake. I haven’t done anything.” His voice was high-pitched and tinged with hysteria.
“Relax. It feels worse than it is.”
“But I’m in jail.” He grabbed the bars and shook them to demonstrate his point.
“Not for long. Sit down and calm yourself. Come on. Sit.”
He sat reluctantly. He was about thirty years old, good-looking, with a full head of dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He was wearing denim work clothes, also neat and clean.
“Good. Now hold out your hands, palms down.”
He looked at me as if I’d lost my marbles, but he did it. There was a wicked triple scratch running across the center of the eagle tattoo on his right hand. It looked infected and painful.
“How did you get the scratch?”
He looked at it as if for the first time, thrown further off balance. His words came out more slowly now. “My cat. I threw him out of the house a couple of days ago and he clawed me. We don’t like each other-he belongs to my kids.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll send someone down to look at it.” I turned to go.
He leaped to his feet, revved up again. “Wait. Don’t leave me. I don’t want a Band-Aid. I want to get out of here. I don’t belong here. I’m innocent. I didn’t rape anybody.”
“The police report says you got a call last night that sent you on a wild goose chase. Is that right?”
“Yes, I swear. I had some tools stolen a few days ago. The man on the phone said he’d found them; that his brother had stolen them, and that he felt bad about it and wanted to return them. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.”
I paused at the bottom of the steps. “Mr. Rodriguez, I’m sure it is true. We picked you up on the available evidence, that’s all. I’ve just got to make a couple of calls to clear this up, and I’m pretty sure we can get you out within the hour. By the way, what color are your eyes?”
“Brown. What about a police record?”
“No record. We’ll clea S We abr it up with your boss, too. If it all works out, the only thing you’ll have to worry about is keeping your mouth shut. If you go to the press, or talk to them if they come to you, you’re the one who’s going to get the bad publicity. Fair or not, that’s how it works. Ask any celebrity.”
I went upstairs and knocked on Murphy’s door. I was sorry to see Kunkle sitting in his guest chair. “I’ll talk to you later, Frank.”
Kunkle got up before I could leave. “Did you see Rodriguez?” As usual, he was abrupt and hostile-a man on perpetual simmer.
“Yeah. I just talked to him.”
“Why?”
“Maxine told me about the scratch on his hand.”
“What about it?”
“Wendy Stiller didn’t mention it.”
“So?”
“So I thought I might ask her if she’d seen it.”
Kunkle gave me a hard stare. I decided I’d better not leave it there. I asked Murphy if I could use his phone. He pushed it across his desk to me, and I dialed the hospital and asked for Stiller’s room.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Miss Stiller. This is the man who spoke to you this morning about the attack.”
“Oh, hi.”
“When you saw that tattoo, was there a scratch running across it? maybe a Band-Aid or some makeup or something?”
“No, it looked like it did at the trial.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Thank you. One last thing: do you remember the man’s eye color?”
“They were blue-pale blue.” The answer was immediate. I didn’t question how she could be so positive.
I thanked her again and hung up. “We’ve got the wrong man. The scratch wasn’t on the attacker’s hand, and his eyes were blue.”
Kunkle snorted and looked at the ceiling. “Jesus, that’s pretty slim. I mean, the man lathered her up and
