Harrington wants, anyway, an excuse to roust him. Johnny steps in and says, “Boone, it’s better you come to the house so we can record the interview.”
“What are you talking about?” Boone asks.
“You want to tell us where you were tonight?” Harrington asks.
“Here.”
“You got anyone who can verify that?”
“No.”
Harrington looks at Johnny and smiles. Steve Harrington has a face like razor wire, and the smile doesn’t help. “The neighbors noticed a suspicious vehicle lurking around the neighborhood, and one of them jotted down the plate. Guess who the vehicle belongs to, surf bum? I almost thought it was my birthday.”
“What neighbors? What are you yapping about?”
“Do you know a Philip Schering?” Johnny asks Boone.
Boone doesn’t say anything.
“S’what I thought,” Harrington says. “Can we just take him in now?”
“Take me in for what?”
“You’re a person of interest,” Johnny says.
“In what?”
“In Schering’s murder,” says Johnny.
This is macking messed up, Boone thinks.
Dan Nichols used me to bird-dog his wife’s lover.
Then he killed him.
83
The interview room is small.
It was designed that way so the suspect feels tight, trapped, suffocated—the detective can get right in his face without necessarily being accused of deliberately trying to intimidate him, which, of course, he is.
Puke-green walls, a metal table, two chairs. A video camera bolted into a corner on the ceiling. The classic one-way mirror on one wall, which everybody and his dog knows from television is a window onto the facing observation room.
Johnny sits across the table from Boone. Harrington leans against the wall in the corner, his entire purpose apparently to keep a smirk trained on Boone like a gun.
“You were at the scene,” Johnny says. “The neighbor wrote down your plate and described your van accurately.”
“Not tonight.”
“So do you want to tell me what you were doing there?” Johnny asks. “On
night?”
“No.”
Not now, anyway, Boone thinks.
He’s not going to cover for Dan Nichols indefinitely. If he did this, screw him, but he wants a chance to talk to him first. He looks up as Harrington gives out a disgusted little snort of laughter—like, of course he doesn’t want to tell you what he was doing there, he was there killing Philip Schering.
“If it’s professional,” Johnny says, “I’ll get it anyway. I’ll pull your phone records, e-mail, billing records. I’ll bring in Ben Carruthers if I have to.”
“Leave Cheerful out of it,” Boone says.
“Up to you, not me,” Johnny says. “If you were there on a job related to your activities as a private investigator, just tell me. I understand that you might think you have a client’s interests to protect, but I’m sure you’re also aware that it’s not a privileged relationship.”
Boone nods. There’s no “PI-client” privilege, as there is between a lawyer and his client. The only time the attorney-client privilege would apply to Boone is when he’s working directly for a law firm, in which case his communications to the lawyer would be protected. But in this case he was working directly for Dan Nichols, so he’s . . . fucked.
“What was your relationship to Philip Schering?” Johnny asks.
“There was no relationship.”
“He wasn’t your client,” Johnny says.
“No.”
Johnny asks, “Was he the target of an investigation?”
Fucking Johnny Banzai, Boone thinks. Don’t ever play chess with him. Or poker. At least not for money. He interrogates like he surfs—finds a clean, direct line down the wave and never gets off it. My man can read a wave —and he can read me.
“I think I’m done here,” Boone says.
“Please,” Harrington breaks in. He steps up to the table, sets his hands on it, and leans across at Boone. “Please keep stonewalling, Daniels. I’m begging you. Keep it up. We’ve put you at the scene, and we’ll put you in the house. We have ‘opportunity’ and we’ll have ‘means.’ That just leaves ‘motive,’ and we’ll get that, too. So you just keep your mouth shut all the way through the trial and really piss the jury off.
”
Just like Harrington, Boone thinks, to way overplay his hand. He might have “opportunity”—he can put Boone at Schering’s place. But “means,” no. He doesn’t have a murder weapon, and even if he does, he can’t possibly tie it to me. As for “motive,” there is no motive, so he can kiss that good-bye, too. No, Harrington really jumped the gun, and Boone can read annoyance even on Johnny B’s poker face. They’re nowhere near having me as a suspect, and they know it.
Johnny plays the best card he has.
“If you’re covering for somebody,” he says, “you’re impeding a homicide investigation, which will at least get your PI card pulled even if it doesn’t result in a felony charge. Keep it up, Boone, and you’re edging toward ‘accessory.’”
“Accessory, my ass,” Harrington says.
“If you have enough to hold me,” Boone replies, “hold me. In that case, I want a lawyer. If not, I’m leaving now.”
Johnny shakes his head.
“Late,” Boone says.
84
Boone walks out into the street, then over to the U. S. Grant Hotel to get a taxi.
Boone gets in, leans his head back, and takes a deep breath. It was one thing to eavesdrop and tape people having sex, that was bad enough, but to set someone up for murder? Completely different deal, something he never thought he’d be involved with. It makes him sad and furious at the same time.
It only takes him a few minutes to drive to Nichols’s house that time of night. Boone pays the driver, gets out, and rings the doorbell. Dan comes to the door looking sleepy in a T-shirt and sweatpants.
“Boone, it’s a little—”
Boone grabs him by the front of the shirt and pushes him inside, kicking the door shut behind him. He backs Dan into the huge living room, pushes him over the arm of a sofa, and asks, “Where were you tonight, Dan?”
“What the—”
