'You hurt him too, honey.'
'He's the one that left.'
'You didn't give him much of a choice, working eighty-hour weeks, never taking a vacation.'
I poured more coffee.
'You were a cop, Mom. You know how it is.'
'And I regret it. All of those long hours. Working Christmas. I should have been spending more time with you. You practically raised yourself.'
My veneer cracked.
'Mom, you were my hero. I never resented your job. You were out there doing good.'
'I should have been at home doing good. Instead, I screwed you up, made you think nothing should stand in the way of your career.'
'I'm not screwed up. I'm one of the highest ranking female cops in Chicago.'
'And I'm the only woman in my bingo group that doesn't have grandchildren.'
Mom saw my reaction, and immediately backpedaled.
'Jacqueline, I didn't mean that. It just came out.'
'I'll be home late.' I walked past her.
'Honey, I'm sorry.'
I ignored her, grabbed my coat, and closed the door a bit louder than necessary.
If the anger didn't wake me up, the weather did. Cold, with stinging, freezing drizzle that attacked like biting flies.
I left the window cracked on the drive to Cook County Jail, letting the wind numb my face. The cell phone rang, but I ignored it.
Fuller's polygraph test was set for twenty minutes from now, and I needed to mentally prepare for seeing him again.
Chapter 30
Fuller works the staple under the nail of his big toe, digging it in deep.
There's very little blood, but the pain is electric.
With a quarter inch of metal left protruding, he puts on his sock and shoe.
It's lying time.
The guards come to get him, go through the ritual of putting on the restraints. Fuller's head hurts, but he doesn't ask for aspirin. A pain reliever wouldn't be in his best interests at this time.
They march him past other cells. Some cajole him, call out insults. He ignores them, staying focused on the task ahead.
The room is the same as before. Steel doors. Two chairs. A table, with the lie detector machine on it. Fuller is put in the chair, facing away from the machine.
Two of his doctors come into the room: shrinks, in suits. His lawyer, Eric Garcia, a Hollywood hotshot who seeks out high-profile cases so he can show off his five-thousand-dollar suits on television. The assistant DA, Libby something, who looks particularly tasty today in a pale pink jacket and matching skirt. The examiner, a different guy than before, round and soft and wearing a freaking white lab coat, for god's sake.
There's also a pleasant surprise: Jack Daniels and her fat partner, Herb Benedict, who doesn't seem as fat as he had a few months ago.
'Looking good, Detective Benedict. Diet seems to be working well.'
'Please, Barry, no talking to them.' Garcia pats Fuller on the shoulder.
The polygraph examiner rolls up Fuller's sleeve, attaches the blood pressure cuff. He puts sticky probes on Fuller's fingers to measure changes in electrical resistance resulting from sweat, and three elastic bands around his chest to record breathing.
'Ready to begin when you are, Barry,' the examiner says, standing in front of him.
Barry smiles. 'Let her rip.'
'We're going to start by calibrating the machine. I'd like you to pick a card from this deck, and look at it, but don't tell me what it is. Then I'm going to ask you questions about the card, and I want you to answer no to all of my questions, even if it is a lie.'
He holds out a deck. Barry picks a card, looks at it. A Queen of Diamonds. He smiles again, knowing that the deck is rigged; they're all Queens of Diamonds. This is to make him believe the machine is infallible, to make him even more nervous.
'Is the card black?'
'No.'
'Is the card red?'
'No.'
'Is the card a face card?'
'No.'
