keep this up, you’ll end up going back to your old ways.”
I didn’t tell her how far down that path I’d already gone. Did I really slap that kid last night? “It’ll be okay,” I said, “I’ve got it all under control.”
She looked doubtful. “But-”
I interrupted her, “I have to do this, Niki. I have to see this one through.”
Niki looked into my eyes. “Why?”
“Paul needs me.”
“Forget what Paul needs for a minute and think about what you need.”
“What I need is your support.”
The door to the interrogation room opened, and Maggie poked her head out. “We got him. Pedro picked him out.” Her head disappeared back behind the door.
Niki was still looking at the floor. Her expression was unreadable.
“I have to go,” I said.
“I know.”
We both stood. I leaned over to kiss my wife, and when I did, she moved in for a hug that I felt I didn’t deserve. I returned the hug halfheartedly. I was eager to get back into the interrogation room. When Niki didn’t let go, I felt myself succumbing to the full force of the hug. I held Niki’s head to my chest. We stayed like that for while, long enough that I stopped thinking about the case and started thinking about Niki and me, and how comfortable it felt to hold her, and how that had to mean that we still had something. Then Niki suddenly let go and walked out without another word.
I entered the interrogation room. Pedro and Maggie were seated at the table. Four soda bottles were lined up, mold already forming on their insides.
“I found him!” Pedro said excitedly.
“That’s great, Pedro. You did a great job.” Poor kid must have been attention-deprived if he wanted approval from me. It wasn’t that long ago that I’d threatened him with gang rape.
I strode up to the killer’s hologram and walked around it. “He has a harelip,” I said.
“See, I told you his face was messed up.”
“You were right, Pedro.”
Maggie had already pulled his record. “Ali Zorno, age twenty-nine. He was arrested once for burglary. He served three years and was released three weeks ago.”
“Who was the arresting officer?”
“B. Redfoot. You know him?”
“Yeah. Brenda Redfoot; she retired last year. Let’s call her.”
“It’s still early, Juno.”
I called anyway. Brenda answered. “Hello?” Her hologram looked good; she was made up nice, far nicer than I ever saw her in person.
“Sorry it’s so early, Brenda, but I need to talk to you about a guy you sent up.”
“No problem, Juno. I’ve been up for a while. I don’t sleep as good as I used to. Who do you want to know about?”
“Ali Zorno. He has a harelip. You put him away on a burglary.”
“What happened; did he kill somebody?”
“We think so. What can you tell us about him?”
“I arrested him when I was off duty. He broke into an apartment in our building. You ever heard this story?”
“I think you told it to me once, but I don’t remember too well.”
“My husband heard something in the middle of the night. He woke up and saw this asshole outside our window. He was on the fire escape, fiddling with the window, trying to get it open. We keep the windows locked, so he couldn’t get in-not without breaking the window, anyway. You do police work for twenty years and you learn not to trust anybody, am I right? By the time my husband woke me up and I found my piece, he was gone. So I went to the window and opened it as quiet as I could. I looked down to see if he was still out there, then I heard him up above me. I looked up just in time to see him go in the window of the apartment above ours-the Benzels’ place. They were the family that was living there at the time.
“I trailed him up the fire escape, real slow so he wouldn’t hear me. I didn’t know if he was armed or not, and I didn’t want him to find me before I found him. I reached the window, and I saw him come out of the kitchen with a butcher knife.”
“Butcher knife,” I said.
“Yeah. One of those big long ones.” Brenda asked, “Is that how he killed your victim?”
“Yeah, mutilated him pretty bad.”
“Mutilated him how?”
“Cut the guy’s lips off.”
“Shit, Juno. I knew he was a sick bastard. I interviewed his family. They said that when he was a kid, he got picked on something awful with that face of his. I wanted him put away on attempted murder, but the damn judge wouldn’t believe me.”
“What judge?”
“Judge Heifetz, he was the one that sentenced him. Here, let me back up a minute. I was looking through the window, and he went down the hall to one of the bedrooms, carrying the knife. I climbed in the window and snuck up behind him. He was in the doorway of the kids’ bedroom. He had turned the light on, and he was just standing there with that creepy smile of his. He had the knife in his hand.”
“Do you remember which hand he held the knife in?”
“Yes. It was his right.”
Right-handed, butcher knife, witness testimony-the evidence list was piling up on Ali Zorno. “Then what happened, Brenda?”
“So then I came up on him and yelled, ‘FREEZE!’ He dropped the knife and didn’t resist. I guess I should be thankful that he didn’t. I was worried he was going to try to grab one of the kids, you know, as a hostage. If he took one step into that room, I would have fried him right then. But he just gave up and stood there with that freaky grin.”
“You did well, Brenda. It must have been tough to keep your head like that when you’d just woken up.”
“Not really, Juno. When you wake up with somebody trying to break in to your place, you wake up fast.”
“What about this judge?”
“Oh yeah. Zorno’s case got assigned to Heifetz’s court. You know how thick-headed that guy is. Zorno’s lawyer pleaded him guilty to a charge of burglary. You believe that? This guy had murder in his eyes. He wasn’t there to steal anything. The judge bought it, sent him up for three years.”
“What about the knife? The judge had to see he was up to no good.”
“Get this; Zorno claimed he took it to defend himself. He said he heard me coming up after him, and he saw me come in the window with my weapon. He said he was afraid for his life-thought I would shoot him, so he snatched a knife from the kitchen in self-defense. I was floored. I couldn’t believe he was trying to get away with a story like that. Meanwhile Judge Heifetz was eating this bullshit up. Since when does a judge trust a criminal’s word over a cop’s? I’m glad I’m not police anymore. Who needs it? You’re getting up there in years, Juno. When are you going to call it quits?”
I chose not to answer. “Is there anything else you can tell us about Zorno?”
“Not much, just dead ends. When it started looking like the judge was going to let him slide on the attempted murder charges, we starting thinking maybe this wasn’t the first time he killed somebody, so we started checking around. He comes from a stand-up family. They own a souvenir shop a block off the Old Town Square, and they live upstairs. He’d hang around the shop all the time when he was little. The neighbors said he was a real mama’s boy. He’d run to mommy all the time when kids would pick on him. Have you seen his picture?”
“Yeah. I’m looking at his mug right now.” His dark and misshapen maw resembled an ink blot. Vacant eyes stared out from under a loose mop of hair. I anchored onto the humanity of his nose, which rose from his face like the only island in an abnormal ocean.
“They used to call him Fishhook. They’d put their fingers in their mouths and pull like they were hooked.
