'I told them I was calling my lawyer so they'd put me on a line in the interview room. So we're good.'
'Oh.' A note of surprise.
'Are you at Beeman's?'
'No, we left. No one was home. We'll go back in a few--'
'Forget it. Listen--Elisabeta? She's an actress. She's in a Fiberestore commercial, the older woman sitting on a white couch. Find her. She was a hire, so you can bet Beeman was, too.'
'Wait a minute. They hired actors--'
'To manipulate me. Yes. I don't have much time, so I'm gonna talk fast. Gable pulled some incriminating documents off my computer at work.'
'I heard about them,' Sally said.
'I think they were installed like a virus when I opened the e-mails.'
'Why do you think that?'
'Because I was careful not to open any of their e-mails at home, and according to Gable the forensics guys didn't get anything off my own computer.'
'Which is where the guys framing you would most logically want to have the stuff found.'
'Right. They knew when I logged in to retrieve e-mails, but I don't think they knew where I was logging in from.'
'Okay . . . so?'
'I also opened e-mails at Kinko's and an Internet cafe'--I gave her both locations--'so will you check those and see if any documents about Conner were installed on the computers I used there?'
'What would that give us?'
'Some of those fabricated documents--the e-mails--are time-stamped and backdated. If any like them were installed on those computers, they're gonna show times and dates when I wasn't there renting computer time.'
Sally sounded excited, or at least her version of it. 'Kinko's and Internet joints keep time logs for usage. Even have sign-in codes to track users. You pay with a credit card?'
'Yes.'
'Better still.'
I could hear her pen scribbling. She said, 'Even if this does pan out, I'll need anything else you got to reapproach the DA.'
'I went through everything, inch by inch, like you said, and came up with another piece you can use. The night of February fifteenth. Nine P.M.?'
'When Keith's house was vandalized. Yes.'
'I was driving out to Elisabeta's. Indio. They sent me that far to make sure I was well out of the picture. But my gas gauge is broken.'
'And?'
'It looks like I have a full tank, even when I don't. They probably checked it to make sure I wouldn't have to stop for gas, so no one could alibi me.'
'But you did. Stop for gas.'
'Yes. Check my credit-card records to find which gas station I used.'
'You could've sent someone else to gas up there with your card. Not all stations have security cameras outside at the pumps.'
'I went into the mart to buy a pack of gum. They always have surveillance inside. I bet you'll be able to pull footage of me there at about the same time that someone else in a Red Sox hat was leaving a dead rat on Keith's windshield. That gives you a second suspect and supports me on the frame argument. Might even be enough to keep me out of jail while they shore up probable cause.'
'Maybe you're not just a second-rate screenwriter.'
'Yeah, I'm a second-rate suspect, too.' A banging on the metal door. I lowered my voice. 'He's coming back in, so one more thing. They didn't book me. I don't think I've actually been arrested.'
Gable shoved the door open. 'Chat time's over, Davis. Time to move.'
Sally said, 'What do you mean? They printed you and read you your rights?'
I eyed Gable. 'Just the former.'
A brief silence. 'So they probably asked if they could print you, making it consensual even though you thought you didn't have a choice.'
'Exactly.'
'You can be held for questioning--for a reasonable time--without being arrested.'
Gable said, 'Did I just talk to you?'
'Yes,' I said to him, 'I'm wrapping it up.'
'If they haven't booked you yet,' Sally said, 'then the DA's skittish about charging you.'
I asked, 'Why?'
'It's a weird fucking case, to say the least, and she has--had--me and Valentine pressing an alternate scenario. Her office can't afford another embarrassment, which means moving slow and right. You can be charged whenever--she's not gonna want to jump in on day one unless she's positive everything is lined out and she's got the case together. They waited a year to charge Robert Blake, and look how that turned out.'
'Get off the phone,' Gable said.
I fisted the receiver. 'But the latest stuff--'
'I know,' Sally said. 'I'm not gonna lie to you. The e-mails, fabricated or not, are damning. The DA's deciding whether to charge you right now, and her moving the case to Robbery-Homicide is a pretty good indication of which way she's leaning.'
Gable blew out a sigh and started toward me.
I said, 'Listen, Frank, I gotta go. Can you--'
'Call the DA with the new leads you gave me? If they yield, yes. Evidence like that could be the deciding factor--push her to play it conservatively and hold off on the arrest.'
I thought of the hulking inmate in the hall, how he'd lunged at me. If things went badly, by tonight I'd be sharing a cage with men like him. 'How long will it take you?'
'Give us two hours, then force their hand.'
I did my best to keep desperation from my voice. 'How am I even supposed to know how to . . . ?'
Sally said, 'They'll have to formally charge you or let you go.'
I said, 'But I don't want to push it if--' Gable was staring at me, so I stopped.
'It's your only play,' she said. 'Two hours. By then either we'll have gotten something to the DA or your leads are a bust.'
Gable reached for the phone impatiently, but I turned away. My hand was squeezing the receiver so tightly that my fingers ached. 'How will I know which?'
'You won't.'
Gable put his thumb down on the telephone base, severing the connection.
An hour and fifty-seven minutes in the hard wooden chair of the interrogation room left me sore, my lower back cramped. Working in shifts, Gable and his partner had hammered me on every aspect of my life, and I'd answered honestly and consistently, all the while tamping down my panic and racking my brain for how to play it when the time came. Up until now, Gable had been careful to phrase everything as a question--'Step into this room for me?' As long as I complied, there was no need to arrest me, and I didn't let on that I was aware of my options. Until now.
Gable paced in front of me, his watch flashing again into view. I'd bought Sally and Valentine their two hours to look for conflicting evidence and talk to the DA. It was time to force the issue and see whether I wound up free or in a cell.
'Am I under arrest?'
Gable stopped. Grimaced. Then, carefully: 'I never said that.'
'Pretty heavily implied.'
'At the crime scene, you said you were willing to go with Detectives Richards and Valentine to cooperate. You gave your full consent to go to the station with them. All we did was transfer you. We asked you to come with
